Beneath the Abandoned Village

Friday, March 22, 2019 AD
Mediadies, Araunum 24, 2204 DE

Rather than carrying the 30 pounds of silver bars discovered in the rats' nest, Neilas tucked them into a crevice in the cave and jammed some loose rocks in to obscure the bars from view as well as make them harder for the surviving rats to retrieve if they chose to do so before the party returned. Sybel treated Stephye's wounds with magical healing and the group then back-tracked to the first natural cavern they had entered. From here they explored the other crack large enough to pass through, which in a short distance entered a field stone dressed room with Stephye in the lead. The wetness prevalent in the caverns, was equally so in this room, but with the smooth, stone floor it was noticeably more slimy and slippery. After the stench of vermin in the rats nest, the smell here was an even worse smell of decay with a tangy overtone.

The room was covered in cobwebs of varying condition and the party became immediately alert for the possibility of large spiders. Sybel came to the front of the group, taking the torch from Sammuel as she passed him and touched the webs with it in a sweeping motion. The webs burned away readily in the immediate ball of the flame, but did not burn away beyond that on their own as the party had hoped. Presently the two large spiders came out of the shadows at the party. Neilas, with arrow notched and ready, was able to loose two arrows into one of the spiders. Sybel, with her sling ready in her dominant hand, slung a stone at another before it closed with Stephye who dispatched it with a single swing of the sword after it failed to bite through his armor.

Once certain no more spiders were hiding in the corners of the room, Sammuel cleared the room of webs using the torch and examined the walls for any carvings or graffiti while Neilas and Stephye searched the 4 cocooned, desiccated, human bodies in the room. From them they recovered a serviceable short bow, 10 arrows, and a short sword as well as nearly a hundred coins in various denominations. It was apparent these men had been trappers based on their clothes and equipment.

As they started to exit the room through the only man-made egress, a short flight of stairs down, a handful of bat-mosquito-like creatures, perhaps a foot long and twice that in wingspan came flying up. Two of them drove their probosces into Sybel, one on her left shoulder and the other her right, upper back. Neilas had hit the one that landed on her back before it struck her and it fell off dead after having stabbed her weakly. The one on her shoulder, however, latched onto her tightly. Sammuel managed to hit one in the air with his torch, the combination of blunt force and fire was sufficient to kill it. Neilas shot another out of the air as it and the one other surviving, not feeding creature, flew for the crack into the natural caverns. Stephye tried to pull the latched stirge off Sybel as she screamed and managed to pull it off and stomp on it herself, spattering her boots with her own blood.

Going down the short flight of stairs and through a short hallway, in which Sybel noted the lack of any air movement, the party entered a long, narrow room in which the stirges' guano pile added to the nasty aroma of the wet, slippery cellar. At the far end of this hall an archway opened on the right and a closed, reinforced door was set in the wall ahead. Examining the door, Neilas determined it was locked, though not apparently trapped. He was able to pick the lock and the groan of the hinges made clear the door hadn't swung in decades.

In contrast to the cellars they left, here was dry and clean with only the faintest odor which the party probably brought in with them. Seeing a hallway with doors on either side stretching ahead of them, the party closed the door behind them and after a brief debate about re-locking the door (by picking the lock again) decided to settle with merely closing it. At each door, Neilas would listen carefully, then test the latch before stepping aside for Stephye to enter first. In each of the first four rooms so explored, two on either side, the party discovered a tidy "dorm room" with bed, chest, desk, and chair. No linens, clothes, candles, or other belongings, just the bare furniture was found in each.

Once at the third door on the right, an archway at the end of the hall could be seen, and the party followed the same procedure at this door. Behind it they found a room, sized similarly to the sleeping cells previously explored, but furnished as a parlor with three rather fine, if dusty, wing chairs and a pair of side tables. On the opposite wall was a closed door, which, once checked, the party passed through. The room, twice the size of the parlor, was furnished as a nice apartment. Not only were there fine furnishings here, but consumables such as ink and vellum, crystalware, linens, even clothing. As the party took this in they heard, before seeing, a sound like scraping stone and fingernails on a chalkboard as the stone statue at the far end of the apartment moved and opened its mouth. The statue-looking thing moved as if alive and had a human-like appearance, but half a man's height, grotesque, and with wings.

Sybel and Sammuel hit it with sling stones and Neilas' arrows missed as the thing spewed a cone of gravel from its mouth at them. Sybel and Sammuel managed to dodge the gravel partially, but Neilas and Stephye took the full force of it. Sammuel turned and ran as Sybel and Neilas got off one more volley before it closed the distance. Neilas' arrows chipped and slowed the creature a little and a hard blow from Stephye sword turned it to rubble, but not before one of its claws tore into Sybel's side. As Sybel bled profusely, the three others tried unsuccessfully to staunch the blood. Miraculously, her bleeding slowed on its own and Sammuel used some of the linens to bandage her while Neilas and Stephye assembled a litter on which to drag her out.

Sammuel collected the ink, parchment, and six books here: Lapides in hominen conicere, Pretiositas humus foras, Quomodo aperti sunt fores, Petra de paene insula thrombus, and Facti sunt in animam viventem petram. They secured the small chest of silverware to the foot of the litter before departing with Stephye pulling Sybel along as gently as possible. Dragging the litter as far as the short stairway, Neilas removed the silverware chest and carried it up separately while Sammuel lifted the head of the litter and Stephye the foot in order to carry Sybel over the stairs. Unfortunately, the slipperiness of the steps proved too much for Stephye and he fell hard doing his best to keep Sybel safe as he went down. The sudden motion and added weight was too much for Sammuel and he too fell. A second, more careful attempt to carry Sybel over stairs was successful, and they made their way out to the open cellar of the ruined house close to the natural cavern to see it was well into the night and a wet snow was falling.

Neilas climbed out and with the help of Allard above and Stephye and Sammuel below, rigged an apparatus to lift Sybel out safely. After a night's rest, at least for Sammuel and Sybel, the party started back to Kuldhek at the reduced pace Sybel could manage. The return journey was mercifully uneventful, though their diet of trail rations with only one hot bowl of rice for week took its toll on both Stephye and Sammuel. The only encounter was with five riders from the Kuldhek patrol led by Lieutenant Migno Beni riding a reciprocal course just a few hours from town.

Upon arrival back in Kuldhek on Profesdies, Araunum 29, the party got Sybel settled into a room at the Blushing Maiden and dined in her room with her, making their plans. A week of bedrest was Sybel's only plan, while Sammuel contemplated showing a couple of the books he had recovered from the abandoned village to Brent.