Wherein
an ancient wrong reaches its bony hand out toward the present...
Fearing a
confrontation with scores of skeletons, the group takes an hour break to
strategize. While Dmitri watches the hall leading up to the room, Chonkorchuk
has a vision about whether the chamber contains they seek. He sees a
skull-topped key, and informs his companions that there may be a key in the
room. He then recommends that they return to the surface for sacks to carry the
treasure in, as no one sought to bring any. Lionia, however, opines that there
is no reason to get sacks, as it’s unclear there is any treasure in the room –
the task at hand is dealing with the skeletons. Raskel proposes using a Misty Step spell to enter the room
behind the ranks of skeleton warriors to search for the key. However, this
would leave many skeletons unharmed. Plamen proposes dealing away with many of
them with his thunder magic, but Chonkorchuk fears there are too many. In the
end, it is agreed that Plamen will instead attempt to summon a Flaming Sphere, which persists for a
longer period of time, while the familiars search the room for a key. If the
press of the skeletons proves to be too much, Raskel will play the flute to
immobilize them. In his estimation, that would hold them at bay for an hour.
Finally, with a plan in
place, Dmitri outlines a doorway with Plamenka’s sickle, and Rodion burns the
final sigil on her sash. The outline glows green, and Dmitri, with Plamen’s
help, pulls the portal open. Inside, the chamber is filled with skeletons top
to bottom. There are perhaps a hundred of them or more. A few are dressed as
Kochmak warriors, like the ones they have encountered around the warren
previously. The bulk of them are unarmed, and dressed in rotting rags. While
the warriors immediately begin to harry Dmitri, who is blocking the entrance,
the unarmed ones begin to fling themselves at another doorway on the left-hand
side of the room, apparently trying to destroy it. Another similar doorway
glows on the right wall.
While Dmitri holds the
warriors back, Plamen conjures his flaming sphere in the middle of the room.
Chonkorchuk and Rodion blast magic over Dmitri’s head, to relieve some of the
pressure. Druvvaldis provides support, and bolsters the team’s élan by
summoning a bear spirit. Kutkh, as well as Chonkorchuk’s invisible fefila sneak
past the combatants to survey what’s happening. The room is too packed to see
anything on the floor, and soon, one of the skeletons swipes at the crow,
dispelling it. Dmitri and his supporters succeed in felling some of the warriors,
but in the meantime, the unarmed skeletons smash through the left-hand doorway,
and begin piling out of the chamber. This requires a change of plan, as the skeletons
must be stopped from leaving. Raskel blows upon the flute, and all of the
skeletons stop moving.
The band moves into
the room. There are too many skeletons to find anything on the floor at
present. The fefila darts past the immobile skeleton sitting in the hole
burrowed out of the doorway by its undead fellows. It discovers another chute on
the other side, leading to the surface. It signals to its master that it has a
very bad feeling about where they might be heading.
The fefila returns,
and stepping carefully so as not to provoke any frozen skeletons into action,
the group opens up the third glowing portal on the right-hand side. Beyond it
is yet another corridor. The six treasure hunters follow it behind Druvvaldis’
beetle, and find themselves in the most maze-like part of the warren. Dmitri
suspects that the maze might not actually lead anywhere, and in the end is
proven right – there are multiple dead ends, including one at the very end of
the series of tunnels. A search reveals that there is nothing to find there.
There is concern that the skeletons will reawaken, so the group hurries back.
But near the last dead end, Chonkorchuk does detect necromantic magic behind a
wall. It seems that there are more skeletons, and probably another chamber
(though almost certainly not as many as in the place they just came from).
Unfortunately, the sigils are all used up. Someone must learn the right spell,
and find ingredients to inscribe more sigils on the sash – until then, it seems
that there is no way in.
 |
| A demolition forty years in the making |
The band hurries back
to the skeleton chamber before the enchantment expires. Once there, they begin
smashing the skeletons to smithereens using staves and bones – first the last
of the warriors, then the others. Eventually, they stand in a foot or more of
bone rubble. A search of the floor and what’s left of the bodies reveals a few
peasant-type bundles, and the remains of designs on the linen shirts they were
once wearing. These skeletons are almost certainly the peasants of Trofimovka
that were captured in the raid forty years ago. Are they now heading back
home? Raskel also finds a series of six impressions in the floor underneath the
bones. Five are fully concave, but one is just an outline of a circle. He
wonders if it represents the flute – with one open note, it would match the
final note of the song he played to immobilize the skeletons. Perhaps each room
with skeletons has such a key, he wonders.
But there are more
pressing problems. Raskel, Lionia, and Dmitri want to figure out where the
escaped skeletons went, while the others hold down the fort in the bone room.
There is freshly fallen snow in the meadow, so Dmitri can’t track them, but the
trio head toward Lazarevo, and after coming halfway, hear shouts in the
village. Almost certainly, the skeletons came here. What will happen now? Will
angry villagers head toward the warren? The three return to the bone room, and
then the whole band relocates to Plamenka’s chamber, sets up camp, and ponders
its fate.
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