Lost Trails: The Harrowdale Horror: Part 7

[kintire]

Kat emerges quickly from the prison, but relaxes a little once she gets away from the fire. She winces slightly as Benn open the trapdoor.

"Let me go first. If there are any surprises below, I should be able to spot them..."

She will not force the issue though

[ewancummins]

Katrin goes first, scouting.
The others follow...


The dingy landing of the stairway opens onto a low hallway with a couple of open doorways set on either side and a warped, splintered door standing ajar at the far end.
At first glance, the cellar appears deserted. There's not much in the side rooms: heaps of dirt, a shovel lying on the floor in one room, drag marks in the dust, suggest recent excavation work…

In the big room at the end of the hallway, the adventurers find furniture, mundane supplies, moldy tapestries, and a small table set with the remains of a meal.

In a smaller, dustier room connected to the semi-furnished chamber by a curtain-hung corridor, the explorers find a chest.
With her burglar’s tools, Katrin tries to open the lock, but it’s stuck fast.

Footprints in the dust lead past the chest and into a shadowy alcove in the back wall, coming to a dead end.
The alcove appears empty apart from a green glass bottle and a golden coin. The bottle appears empty, although a lead plug seals the mouth. The coin matches the ones in the nearby chest.

Chalk has been rubbed over the upper quarter of the rear wall of the alcove, making plain an old bas-relief of the hand-that-feeds with a row of tiny figures entering its maw. Three lines of strange angular script run below this picture.

Examining the chiseled writing, Benn and Klokulf determine that it’s written in a foreign language akin to both Old High Mordentish and Archaic Vaasi. They puzzle out a translation:

THE WAY BENEATH THE DARK-BRINGER’S HOLY HILL
ANY WHO WOULD ENTER MUST
MAKE AN OFFERING OF CORRUPT FLESH

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

"I daresay we left plenty of corrupt flesh above ground," suggests Klokulf.

Turning his attention to the bottle, he mutters a prayer of divination.

[ewancummins]

"I daresay we left plenty of corrupt flesh above ground," suggests Klokulf.

Turning his attention to the bottle, he mutters a prayer of divination.

The bottle

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carries a potent aura of necromancy and abjuration magic.

The archway/alcove radiates even stronger conjuration magic.

His companions carry magic items of varying power, including some enchanted weapons.


Katrin carries something with a complex, multihued aura even more powerful than that of the alcove.
What it is, he cannot see, as its aura shines through her clothing, but he can guess it is rather small and in one of her pockets or her bag.

[Adam]

Bennedict nods. "Clive, perhaps you could go fetch one of those dead creatures from above?"

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

Sweeping the rest of the area, Klokulf pauses momentarily as his spell passes over his companions, and confusion tweaks his eyes.

Turning back, he scoops up the bottle and deposits it in the main compartment of his pack. "I doubt this should be left laying around, whatever it is," he mutters.

[alhoon]

"Can I have a look at this?" Raen says about the bottle.

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

Klokulf reaches back into his pack, and without any sort of rummaging reproduces the bottle.

"There is substantial magic of death and protection about it, though I am short of fathoming its exact nature," he says as he hands it over.

[alhoon]

Raen seems perplexed as he examines the potion. "I thinks I saw a cobweb inside the bottle, but for a fraction of a second. Then it disappeared. A few possibilities come to mind, but they don't rhyme well with necromancy or protection magic. Bennedict? Do you have any idea?"

[kintire]

Kat steps deftly away from the bottle on learning its magic, and stands watch while the others consider, eyes flicking over all surfaces as well as the tunnels, keeping an eye out for secret entrances in walls, floor and ceiling.

[ewancummins]

later

With the offering of corrupt flesh heaped at the base of the alcove, Benn tries various arcane phrases and gestures...

Flies suddenly burst from the sacrifice, buzz up about Benn's head in a cloud, and then fall to the floor dead.

The pile of necromancy-tainted flesh and bone shifts. The stench of it intensifies.
The mound collapses, spilling detached finger joints, loose teeth, and a mushy eyeball across the floor.

In less than a minute, all of it has decayed into slime.
The sticky, disgusting mess flows into the alcove and up the vertical rear surface under the archway. The stuff oozes into the fine joints in the stonework.

The masonry rumbles. Stones around the alcove's archway shift, creating the impression of five huge fingers pressing against the wall from the far side. The alcove's inner surface splits like a mouth opening, revealing a dark tunnel. Thin streams of greenish mist seep out. Any of the party could pass through, though even Katrin would have to dip her head and Sir Clive would need to crouch low.

Peering in with a lantern, the explorers see a rusty grate and beyond that a dank stone-walled passageway with a hazy green light coming from the left. A black thing as long as a man's foot scurries by on the far wall.

[ewancummins]

Kat steps deftly away from the bottle on learning its magic, and stands watch while the others consider, eyes flicking over all surfaces as well as the tunnels, keeping an eye out for secret entrances in walls, floor and ceiling.

Katrin

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did not spot a secret or concealed door in the alcove. Whatever she just witnessed opening after Benn's weird little ritual, she had no prior indication of any hidden hinge, panel, lock, hollow space beyond the rear wall, etc.

[alhoon]

Raen was trying to keep his lunch inside his stomach.
"I am sure there is a nice welcome party awaiting us" he said sarcastically after the disgusting display. "Anyone has any protective magic left? "

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

"Anyone has any protective magic left?"

"A little remains for myself," replies Klokulf, "and a surprise for the next thing to grab me. I hope my other preparations come to good use."

[Adam]

Raen was trying to keep his lunch inside his stomach.
"I am sure there is a nice welcome party awaiting us" he said sarcastically after the disgusting display. "Anyone has any protective magic left? "

Benn's face is a battlefield where surprise and horror are struggling for control as he nods. "Quite so," he mutters in agreement.

"I can create an area to ward evil centered upon one of us that should last for about an hour. When we come to blows with our enemy, I have a shorter term enchantment that will help guide our strikes."