Vapourware [Play-by-post] Lamentations in Averoigne

[AdamReith]

Grima starts investigating the door learning further South.

Spoiler

Please let me know when the fancy armour spell expires as it will impact Grima's decision making.

 

[nikolokolus]

Aside from the bones, there is nothing else of value in or interest in the room. There is a stout wooden door in the southeast corner of the room along the south wall. There is a slide bolt on this side of the door that is in the locked position.

 

[Grimgravy]

"As I recall, there are more urns in one of the other rooms."

 

[AdamReith]

Grima inspects the sliding lock mechanism on the Southern door.

"Seems a manageable obstacle, even for the likes of us. What do we think?"

Grima listens at the door.

 

[nikolokolus]

Grima listens intently, but hears nothing.

 

[AdamReith]

Grima slides the lock open and peaks through the door with his lantern.

Spoiler

Grima has a fully charged Wizard Lock so tenses, preparing slam the door shut if something horrible leaps at him.

Though I guess he could use the Regular Joe Lock for that either.

 

[nikolokolus]

Satisfied that nothing waits on the other side of the door waiting to pounce and eat him, Grima slides the bolt and opens the door. His lantern barely illuminates a large unfurnished, and unadorned room of dressed flag stone and dark masonry blocks. The ceiling here is vaulted and at least fifteen feet tall. To the east a passage stretches away into the black, and there are two stone doors in this room. One on the eastern wall in the southeast corner of the room, and another on a diagonally oriented wall in the southwest corner of the room. There doesn't appear to be anything in here but some odd bits of detritus: a couple of rat skeletons, thick cobwebs overhead, and a rusted torch bracket that has fallen from the wall.

 

[SoupNazi]

Finn boldly approaches the eastern wall's door in the southeast corner once he's confident the room was thoroughly checked, presses his ear to it (though he'd prefer not to spend an entire 10 minutes trying to listen; a few seconds at most). Whatever he hears or doesn't hear, he motions then explains to the party what to expect:

"I will do as I did before. Please cover my back."

The youth then walks to the opposite side of the room, readies his shield in a defensive stance, and unless anyone openly objects, Finn rushes against the door like a bull, hoping there's not Mithras beyond the door to slay him...

 

[Grimgravy]

Spoiler

Getting my holy symbol ready cause we're not worrying about traps now.

 

[nikolokolus]

As soon as Finn pulls the door open there is a groaning noise from beyond the archway. In a smallish 20'x10' room you see for stone coffins in the each of the corners. The lids slide off and badly decomposed corpses rise and start to move in a shambling, herky-jerky fashion toward you.

COMBAT BEGINS! (FYI, you have the initiative)

 

[L'ennui]

Assuming the party stands and fights, Guillemin will use his spear to strike from the second rank.

 

[nikolokolus]

Finn attempts to boldly banish the unquiet dead back to whatever hell they rose from, but to no avail; they don't flee, but with his crucifix held aloft and boldly presented they don't advance either. Meanwhile, Marcus utters an incantation, that (somehow) Ganelon, Grima, Finn recognize as Persian. Suddenly the 4 corpses are struck by some unseen force and they immediately turn and flee for the farthest corner of the small tomb, where a stone door bars their path in the northeast corner of the chamber. Undaunted and wanting to go where these animated corpses are, Finn, Requin, Grima and Guillemin attacking from a back rank with his spear rush toward them and begin hacking, stabbling and clubbing them to pieces. One of the foul things grazes Requin, but none of the other company are so much as touched and the tomb falls silent again.

XP!

For your mighty deeds of arms, everyone in the party gets 12XP!

Grima looks down and notes that one of the decrepit and mutilated bodies is dressed in ancient and rotting finery. Around its neck is a beautiful necklace of white-gold -- little discs of pressed metal, with intricate spiral patterns imprinted on each piece -- He quickly pockets it as Finn nudges the door open.

The tomb beyond is of a similar dimension to this one (10' wide and 20' long) but there are no coffins or burial alcoves in here. Instead you see a marble pedestal in each of the four corners of the unadorned room. Each pedestal is about waist high, and atop each one is a black, stone box with a black stone lid. There is a thick layer of dust in here and cobwebs choke the chamber; it doesn't appear to have been disturbed in some time.

 

[SoupNazi]

Finn, still reeling from the adrenaline fueled success of the last fight, simply goes in and opens the black boxes one by one (I mean, unless one of them kills him, then obviously he's not gonna open the next...), examining their contents.

 

[Grimgravy]

Ganelon waits outside the room with the boxes for Finn to get the adrenaline out of his system.

 

[nikolokolus]

Throwing caution to the wind, Finn trusts to Lady Fortuna and pries the lids off of each box, and . . . nothing happens! Inside he sees a curious sight. It looks as though a complete skeleton has been neatly arranged and stacked inside each box. A skull sits atop the pile and draped over each skull is white leather glove fitted for a right hand. When you lift the gloves to inspect them, they have a wicked looking demonic mouth and eyes embroidered in black thread on the back, so that a pair of leering eyes is on the knuckles and a gaping, ravenous, fanged maw is on the back of the hand.

 

[nikolokolus]

The stone boxes are fully 2 inches thick and probably weigh hundreds of pounds each; when they are tested with pushing or pulling the don't budge even a little bit.

 

[Grimgravy]

"Marcus, do these gloves or the symbol on them have any connection to the cult your legate was hunting?"

 

[nikolokolus]

Marcus takes one of them in hand and turns it over a few times, "I've never seen its like . . ." He hands it back wordlessly.

 

[SoupNazi]

Can Finn try to pick up the bones with one hand gloved (with the demonic glove) and one hand ungloved? Any difference in weight, feeling? Reaction to being gloved?

What if we take all the bones out? Anything else in the box? Is it literally a full human skeleton?

Are they totally normal human bones, or something wacky like the hoof-legged, crab-handed, horned demon remains we found before?

How are the boxes attached to the pedestals? I can't imagine them being so heavy that they can't even be budged without being like, glued to it or something. Based on the description, it feels like they might be difficult to lift, but to not even budge if we try to slide them? Finn examines the bottom of the boxes to look for wax, like in that other room... and also for any mechanisms on the pedestal, especially the underside of it.

Spoiler

Couldn't fall asleep before I asked these questions

 

[nikolokolus]

Finn puts one of the gloves on and tests various things like weight, feel, of the bones, etc. and then without. There is nothing perceptibly different between the two. However when Fomm removes all of the bones, Grima's keen eye notices that there is an almost invisible seamline in the bottom of the box along the edge where the bottom and sides meet. Curious, he pours out a bit of water in the joint and you can hear and see water trickling through the barely visible cracks. The joint is close enough to the edges, and the gap so narrow, that it is all but impossible to get a prybar into the gap. Tests on the other four stone boxes yield identical results. Looking outside the boxes shows that no water is leaking out of the bottom onto the pedestals. In fact, running a knife along the outside edge of the box and its pedestal reveals that the boxes sit down in a very shallow recess. Pulling the boxes up proves fruitless and without hammering your prybar into the gap, the joint is too fine get it to bite.

 

[L'ennui]

"Très intéressant..." Guillemin takes out his toolkit to probe the fine seam at the bottom of the boxes. If nothing untoward interrupts him, he will attempt to use his crowbar to lift the panel at the bottom of one of the boxes.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

"Très intéressant..." Guillemin takes out his toolkit to probe the fine seam at the bottom of the boxes. If nothing untoward interrupts him, he will attempt to use his crowbar to lift the panel at the bottom of one of the boxes.

If your toolkit can provide the right gap for a crowbar, Requin can apply better leverage to it.

 

[nikolokolus]

Using a pick and a file from his "toolkit" Guillemin is able to slide a thin wedge into the gap and in the process of trying to wriggle it free, actually pulls the panel up a few inches. It appears to be hinged just off center of it's balance point. He pushed down on the "short" end, and the panel flips up and Guillemin is able to see that the panel's axis of rotation is on a bronze rod on the underside. There's are two grooves that this rod fits into, allowing it to be lifted and slid back into an upright position up against one side of the box.

Underneath the panel Guillemin sees a hollow cavity, with a black stone lever, that looks like it can be pulled upward.

 

[Grimgravy]

"Well done sir! Might I suggest checking the other boxes before we pull any levers."

 

[L'ennui]

Guillemin nods and does so.