The Unbeating Heart - Chapter 9

Karyna drew her long sword and made sure she had plenty of darts at hand, just in case.
"I think we should start with the doors on the side. I'd hate to go past them, then be caught between them, you know?"
Karyna looks at the wolf, hoping she could get a sign from him that something was amiss behind any of the doors. "Anything, pal?" she asked hopefully.

The wolf is listening, his hackles raised. Something is bothering him...

"Something is really wrong here. Softpaw can hear something," Karyna informs the group softly.

The paladin brandishes his sword and makes way into the room. He scans about the room and tightens the grip on his shield as the others stand at the door.

Nkosi peers over his shoulder.
"Hold the flame a little closer ... but keep your distance. In the past, I have seen markings that can be dangerous when read."

Karyna and Softpaw stay back, having also encountered markings that could be dangerous when read.
She carefully watches the other doors, weapon ready.

The palladin carefully moves deeper into the foyer, such that he stands in the middle, where he can watch all three exists.
"If you want to explore, do it quickly. I don't think we will be alone for long."
Thurgood keeps his eyes on the doors.

Karyna moves quickly, searching the room and listening at the three doors.

Syn watches Thurgood and decides to also keep an eye open for anything out of the ordinary.
"Slim, do you have any idea what the layout of this place is? Or where any rooms, like the chapel or entrance to the basement might be?"

"The Chapel should be ahead past the court yard., Beyond that I don't know."
A clater sounds in the room past the left door.

The palladin readies his sword, motioning people to step away from the door. He positions moves slowly towards the door, ready to strike should an undead horror step through. He stops when he is at about ten feet distance to the door, then he listens again.

Karyna readies her weapon as the wolf snarls softly. He moves off to the side to crouch behind some broken and rotting furniture, prepared to spring at Karyna's command.

"Hello? Is someone there? Please help me."

Karyna looked at the paladin on the other side of the door, then slowly turned the knob and pushed it open, peering into the darkness.

A large, heavy man rushes into your arms as you open the door, "You must help me"

Karyna supressed a scream and managed to catch Softpaw as he lunged toward the man, thinking he was attacking Karyna. She juggled both man and wolf while trying to look over the man's shoulder to see what - if anything - was chasing him.

"Oh thank you! I locked myself in there, hoping that they woulddn't get me."

Thyrgood steps back, holding his sword arm just in time to prevent chopping the man in two.
He casts a look into the door, then, rather unceremoniously, pushes the man toward the middle of the room, hoping to get him into the light.
"No offence, but this place may well be crawling with undead and I need to be sure. Who are you?"

Karyna shoots Thurgood a grateful look as he pulls the large man off of her, then turns to listen to what he has to say.

"My name is Anton Richter, A traveler. My caravan was attacked by the walking dead and I had to flee for my safety. Seeing this monastary I sought the protection of holy ground. Only when I got here I discovered more of the beasts, so I locked myself in and hid."

"You got lucky, then, I guess."
Thurgood casts a look at the door, trying to judge how easy it would be to breach it.

The door is sturdy oak banded with steel.

Nkosi, also feeling suspicious, remains tense and he looks to see the wolf's reaction to Anton's presence.
He then asks Anton, "Did any others from your caravan survive?"

"None that I know of, gods willing they did!"

Karyna checks this side of the door. The nightmarish creatures that had attacked her were flesh eaters. And from what little she could remember from her catechism classes about flesh eaters, they had a great sense of smell.
She looks the door over for any sign the creatures tried to get through it.

Karyna notices that the man is keeping both you and the wolf at length across the paladin.

Karyna purposefully moves past toward the door. She doesn't think the man is telling the complete truth.

She has entered the room, It appears to be a storage closet of some sort. The room is about 3 paces across, and is filled with secretarial goods, mostly blank books, paper, ink, etc.

Stephan watches the goings-on of the group and the man from near the entrance they came through. His eyes are peeled for the first sign of trouble, as his rod is in his hand and ready to spring to action.

"Well, Anton, I don't know what to do with you.", Thurgood says, as he moves towards the other doors.
"We can't send you outside, but at least I am not leaving until I have cleared this monestary of this insult to Kelemvor."
At the last words, his grip around his sword tightens. He faces the doors, deciding which one to open.

Karyna checks through the goods quickly, taking two of the blank books, if they are in good condition. Then moves out and closes the door. She turns toward the door Thurgood is heading toward, her sword drawn.

The two step into a dark dirt court yard. Across the court yard you see a cluster of buildings.

s they step through, she comments to the whole group, "This is all wrong. We have a run down, abandoned monestary on the outside, yet in the closet we have brand new paper, books, and writing supplies. That just doesn't make sense. Ghoul's don't keep journals."
Softpaw run on ahead, sniffing for any sign of danger.

"Until recently there was a group of monks here," Slim comments.

Stephan smirks at this last comment, somehow sardonically amused.
"TIME is a fickle mistress. Then again," he looks at Anton, "so is life...isn't it?"
He waits for a response as he toys with his rod.

"Life?" He asks quizikly.
From the look on his face you can tell that he is trying to decide whether it would have been safer to stay in the closet.

Stephan, obviously pleased by the man's puzzlement, smirks. He then turns to the rest of the group, waiting to see what the plan will be.
"TIME is of the essence. If they know we're here, they're obviously massing their strength, and if they don't, now is the time to strike."
He twists the rod and once again, it is a flail. He waits.

Nkosi asks Anton, "What have you heard while you were hiding? Any comments, whispers ... prayers?"

"Only the horrible moaning of the living dead," he says with a slight whine in his voice. "And of course your arrival."

There are a handfull of miscelaneous buildings scattered about the court yard, as well as the one you have just left. The entire place is surrounded by a low (man high) stone wall. Thus far you see no signs of the living dead in the monastery itself. Thus far.

"Keep those ears perked" Thurgood comments as he scans the courtyard, then steps back into the hall and moves toward the other door.
"And stay back."
As he moves back, he casts a look at the markings Slim pointed out earlier.

Nkosi quietly moves forward. "Please let me examine them..."

The markings seem to be some sort of measurements.

"This is not a language," says Nkosi to the others, in his odd monotone voice, "but a series of measurements."
He tries to compare the numbers to the layout of the area around him, seeing if anything makes sense.

He can not make heads or tails of it. It is definitely not a carpenter's measurements.

Syn wants to take a look at the markings too. She is looks if they remind her of possibly mapping type markings with distances to the nearest structures/towns. Or could they look like something from like a census of either the nearest inhabitants or the people in the monastry.

It looks nothing like anything she has seem before.

Thurgood frowns at the markings, then shrugs and turns to the last door.
He moves next to the door, his sword raised for strike, his arm extended to swing the door open. (he is standing at the side of the door handle).
He looks around to see if anyone follows him.
Seeing that people are busy with the markings, he hesitates.

Karyna and Softpaw are right behind him, on the other side of the door.

Nkosi has been trying, without success, to understand the meaning of the markings on the door.
Shrugging, he turns back to Thurgood: "I suggest you proceed with what you were doing, my friend -- these markings will remain a mystery for the time being."

The measurement marked door seems slightly larger than the others though in truth it is not. The grain and color of the wood both contribute to the illusion of a much wider space.

Thurgood waiths till the 'scholars' have taken a few steps back. Then with him and Karyna at either side of the door, weapons at the ready, he swings it open.

He feels a mild jolt of static electricity as he turns the knob. The door clicks open and swings silently on its hinges. A cool draft blows from behind them, tugging the door open even wider.
Beyond the door is an office. The light from your torches filter through the crack, illuminating the interior and casting shadows along the walls.
Inside sits a desk piled with papers, and other writing supplies, a simple idol acts as a paper weight to keep them from fluttering to the floor in the breeze from the open door. Beyond the desk sits a chair, its occupant facing the window opposite the door.
Little more than a claustrophobic cubicle, the room is made even more narrow by the file cabinets that hug it walls.

Karyna listened hard for the sounds of breathing from the occupant, and glanced at the wolf to see his reaction. She couldn't believe anyone had survived long in his godforsaken place, unless they were already dead. . .
She looked to Thurgood, to see if he intended to enter or speak.

The only sounds they hear are their own hearts beating.

Thurgood sighs, some of the tension that built inside him ebbing away. He shrughs to Karyna, then steps inside and casts a look around to make sure all is safe.

While Thurgood stepped inside the office, Syn decides to give the door one last look.
She wants to spellcraft it.
She also tries to 'block' the door (with her foot if need be), so it can't suddenly close on Thurgood and any others that enter the room.

She detects the lingering effects of unknown magic around the door. It seems as though it was a spell of a protective nature.

Karyna follows Thurgood inside, her weapon at the ready. The occupant of the chair is what most concerns her, though she does take a moment to look around the room, including the corners and the ceiling in her examination.

The room is a cubicle, almost as small as the supply closet across the foyer. Obviously a scribes office, it smells faintly of dust and decay. The Occupant has not moved in all the time (short though it may be) that you have opened the door.

Nkosi silently reflects that if there's one thing he's learned from studying Earth magicks, it's patience.
He stays back just outside the door as the others enters the office, keeping a wary eye on newly discovered "victim" Anton.

Feeling more safe now, Thurgood carefully walks to the chair. His sword at the ready, he reaches out, then swivels the chair around.

The Occupant sits in the chair, hands folded and head bowed in prayer. Long dead, cobwebs cross his body. His robes hang limply on his skeletal frame. Around his neck is a medalion, the symbol of his patron diety. In his lap is a small leather bound book with gold leaf on its pages. The spine is worn and over all it looks well read.

Karyna picked up the book carefully and skims the contents, hoping for a clue of what happened here, and how long ago the man died.

It seems to be a personal journal, but it is in a languege that you do not read.

She removes the journal and leaves the room a moment, "Can any of you read this? It isn't in a language I'm familiar with. Hopefully, it has a clue about what happened here."

Thurgood casts a glare at Karyna, then turns to the dead man. "No respect for the dead", he mutters, "I will have to talk to her soon." He kneels near the man, muttering a short prayer to Kelemvor for the sake of the dead's soul.
Then he examines the symbol at the man's neck.

It seems to be a golden harp, and Syn will recognize it as the symbol of Milil.

"I might be able to read the book. IF it is in a language that I don't understand, It would take me about 10 minutes of studying to memorize a spell that should let me be able to read the book."