The stairs down were anxiety inducing, for possibly the stupidest reason. I was acutely aware of the fact that I was essentially carrying a stick that was on fire, and that me holding it was the only way most of the party could see. It was a weird thing to be anxious about, after having a fight with actual undead, but in other ways it was nice to be concerned with stupid shite like 'Am I holding this at the right height' or 'Am I about to burn some of my hair off' as opposed to everything else I'd been thinking about over the last day or so.
Fuck me, it'd been less than a day. Maybe. I wasn't entirely sure what time I'd turned up in that forest, but I thought it'd been about noon, which means that in (just) less than a day I'd gone from being lost in a forest to being in some kind of underground crypt, with a bunch of adventurers, hunting undead. It was probably the most I'd ever done in 24 hours, and all it took was being dumped somewhere where I had no idea what was going on with none of my normal distractions and I think I just realised why I was getting things done. Huh, who knew.
At the bottom of the (surprisingly long) flight of stairs, another small room awaited us. The same brown floor and cracked stucco on the walls was there, but more worrying was the drag mark carved out in the dust. Wide enough for a humanoid body, it started at the bottom of the stairs and went right up to the door on the opposite side of the room.
"Well that's comforting." I broke the silence. "Given that we haven't seen the body of the person you said died here, I think I can guess what's happened to them." Well, as far as being dragged through the door. The actual final fate of their body was still very much up in the air.
Julie started to stride forwards towards the door, before being stopped by an outstretched arm from Lidda.
"I appreciate the enthusiasm, boss lady, but maybe you should let me check it for traps first?" A wry smile crossed the halfling's face as she looked up at the fighter.
"Is that likely?" Julie half-turned, posing the question to both Lidda and Sabrina.
"Hmmm, traps are not unlikely in ancient Sennian crypt complexes such as this, but as a general rule they tend to be found around the entrance to the more impressive areas, such as the resting places of individuals of note." Nodding to herself, Sabrina returned to closely examining the stucco on the walls, carefully peeling off a small piece and bringing it right up to her face.
Lidda wasn't satisfied with that answer. "And could this be an entrance to one of those areas?"
Tilting her head to one side, Sabrina nodded. "Depends on the size of this crypt, I would assume. Certainly, it's possible."
Putting her bow down and reaching into her pockets, Lidda pulled out what looked like several bent pieces of metal and some thin wire. "Better that I check it than you get killed by a trap. No one's going to be impressed by your adventuring if you get your head chopped off on the first door."
"Actually, research would suggest that the preferred trap styles..."
"Yes, yes, they prefer blunt force, I remember your lecture." The jocular tone and accompanying smile helped Lidda soften the words she threw at Sabrina. "Seriously though, Julie, checking it won't take long, and then you can go through first. I certainly don't want the first thing whatever is on the other side to see being my face."
Turning back towards the door, Lidda inspected the floor in front of the door first, before starting to do what, if I hadn't known it was completely non-magical, I would have assumed was some form of arcane ritual involving her tools and the door. There was an amount of waving, prodding, careful tapping, and gentle inserting of slim metal in various gaps.
Taking a step back from the door, she turned to us. "Looks safe, and I don't think it's locked. It uses a pivot hinge, from the looks of things, so just shove it and it'll open. Now, if you'll excuse me." Finishing her sentence with a grin, she scurried to the back of the party, grabbing her bow on the way and readying another arrow.
Waiting a second for Lidda to get into position, Julie resumed confidently striding towards the door, pushing it open with her shield when she reached it. This was immediately followed by loud swearing and a step backwards, as the half-dozen undead in the room on the other side turned towards the newly opened door and started moving towards us.
Zahri charged towards the door, shield prominently forwards as closed towards the trio of skeletons clambering over each other into the room.
"In the name of Pelor, and the light of the sun, be dust!" Huh, I wonder if that's the longest sentence I've heard her say. Certainly the most powerful, as the skeletons quite obediently obliged and collapsed into a pile of bone dust on the floor.
As the three zombies left in the other room started slowly shambling towards us, I raced towards them, dancing around Julie and dropping low to slide under the cleric's raised shield, planting one hand on the floor to push myself forwards. The moment I was in front of the party, I let the fire out, breathing a plume of beautiful flickering red-orange heat that washed over the walking corpses, crisping their skins but not taking them down.
Their slow response was something I was able to mostly avoid, juking slightly to one side to dodge the obvious overhand arm slams of two of them. The third one was slower than the other two, meaning that they caught me just as I stopped moving, their arm slamming into my side. The force of the blow rocked me backwards slightly, but a complete lack of pain brought a grin to my face. I wasn't sure if that was the natural armour or the damage reduction, but being able to just ignore an attack like that was a heady feeling. Yesterday that would have broken a rib, I'm pretty sure, and today I can literally laugh it off.
The others piled into the room as I stood next to a bunch of moving corpses, giggling to myself slightly. The next ten seconds or so were fairly easy for a fight against the living dead, with some quick sword work from Julie, and me hitting a pair of zombies with a line of flame, polishing them off in pretty short order.
The leg jiggle was back, I noted, as we stopped for a breather once we made sure none of the bodies were moving any more. No amount of caffeine could wake me up quite as much as this amount of adrenaline. I felt alive in a way I wasn't sure I'd ever felt before, the usual depression-induced numbness replaced with a sense of glee at proving myself triumphant. I wasn't sure where the feeling was coming from. I'd enjoyed larp fighting, and sparring back when I'd done martial arts as a kid, but this was that amped up to 11. I couldn't find it in myself to complain, though. My grin spread wider over my face as a revelled in the genuine enjoyment I felt. Oh serotonin, how I've missed you.
I was getting funny looks from the other four, I was pretty sure, but I couldn't find it in myself to care. Julie in particular was staring at me, fingers tapping on her sword hilt in a staccato rhythm. Zahri was the first to break the silence, though.
"Reckless."
"Maybe, but it worked, and it was awesome. You were amazing, though, charging in as well and doing that whole 'In the name of Pelor!' thing and the skeletons went 'poof!'. How'd you do it?" The chastisement slipped straight off of me. Sure, I wasn't actually a melee fighter, but if they could run straight towards the enemy, so could I.
A slight blush flooded across Zahri's cheeks at the praise. "Clerics can repel the unliving. Pelor's light can destroy them. He sometimes blesses my turning."
Huh, neat. I nodded. "That's pretty sweet!" Watching things turn to dust in front of me had felt like impressive CGI, made all the more impressive by the fact it'd actually happened. It wasn't quite as cool as breathing fire, but it was still a hell of a thing to watch.
The rapping of Julie's fingers on her sword hilt had sped up, although it still wasn't as fast as the rhythm my foot was beating out on the floor. "How's your side?" Her voice wasn't loud, but it was forceful, cutting through the conversation.
I slapped my hand against my side, the sound carrying around the room. "All good, barely touched me."
She frowned at me, and her posture changed, trying to become more authoritative. "I saw that thing slam into you. There's no need to try and tough it out to show that you're 'one of the girls', if that's what you're doing."
Snorting, I shook my head. "I mean, go girl power, but no, I'm actually fine. You've seen me stab myself, that was hardly worse. If I wasn't wearing armour, I'd pull my shirt up and show you, it's all good."
"That's not what I meant at all! You don't need to... I didn't... It's fine!" Julie panickedly exclaimed, taking a step backwards, wiggling her sword and shield around in front of her.
It's official, I had no idea what was up with her. "O...kay?" My confusion leaked through, and she shot some kind of look at the others.
"Don't worry, if you're that desperate to show your chest off, I'm sure I can take a look at it later for you." Lidda spoke up in an overly exaggerated tone, and prompted a scandalised "Lids!" from Julie.
"I'm hardly desperate," If I actually had pecs and a six pack, rather than being somewhat overweight, maybe the joke would have held some weight, but my chest was not really an impressive sight. "I just think it's pointless to be worried about my health for no reason, is all, and if it stops you worrying needlessly, it's all good."
That sentence provoked some weird looks. Gah, I kept doing this. Were there some kind of cultural taboos I was breaching, or something? There was definitely a subtext to some of this that I was missing. The adrenaline was still going, but without the thrill of the fight, it was just making the anxiety faster. Fuck it, change the topic, focus on something that wasn't me.
Looking around the room, it was somewhat large, but completely empty apart from us and the combination of corpse parts and dust on the floor. Sabrina had moved to the start of the corridor on the other side of the room, and was back to inspecting the stucco on the walls, muttering to herself whilst poking some regularly shaped holes in the surface.
"Anything interesting there, Sabrina?" She looked around as I spoke up, considered for a moment, and then shook her head.
"There's something I've found interesting involving the holes in the stucco, it looks like they were made using a thin, but very strong tool, but nothing useful, if you meant that instead of what you asked."
No, no, please, keep talking about the thing, give me or someone else something to segue off of so that people forget about anything weird I said before. "A thin but strong tool? What, like jamming a spike into it?"
Sabrina visibly brightened. "I'd have thought that originally, but the pattern is inconsistent. It looks like whatever caused the holes had lots of tiny things sticking out of them, that widened the hole when they were pulled out. I'd have almost called the tool hairy. If they were normal steel spikes, it would be a lot smoother of a hole. The holes are obviously not an original part of the design, though. This would imply that either there has been another break-in at some point, or the undead have been doing this for some reason. A break-in in recent memory is implausible, some of these holes are quite old. Certainly none of the undead we've encountered so far had a tool capable of performing such a feat. It's left me quite stumped. Fascinating, no?"
I nodded. "I don't know what might have caused them, but it's worth bearing in mind. A dart trap, maybe?"
Lidda cut in. "Unlikely, unless the undead have been made to pull the darts out of the walls and reset the traps. Could they have been made to do that?" I nodded again. "I'll check for dart traps." Aha, distraction successful, now everyone is too worried about being filled full of holes to think about whatever faux pas I made.
Lidda spent a minute or so poking around while everyone else gave the walls suspicious glances."I can't find any, but I'd recommend being careful where you step anyway. If you hear anything click when you put your foot down, dive for cover." She helpfully informed everyone.
With that scintillating piece of advice, we started to advance down the corridor. Julie once again took the lead, Zahri following just behind her, and the rest of us lagging slightly behind. The corridor wasn't actually that long, and ended in another door on the far side.
Our slow advance was interrupted by a sudden yell from Julie, as the floor gave way underneath her and she disappeared from sight. This was followed by a louder yell, a sudden thudding sound, and a lot of swearing.
"In my defence, the floor didn't click." I don't think that was what we were thinking about, Lidda, but thank you for the clarity.
Moving to the edge of the new pit in the corridor, we looked down at Julie. The pit was a good 6 or 7 meters deep, and Julie had obviously landed awkwardly at the bottom of it, as I was pretty sure that knees were not supposed to bend that way. The four of us just spent a moment staring down at her.
Sabrina spoke up first. "There should be a way for you to lock the floor in place for us to get past, if you can find something like that, Lidda, although we should obviously get Julie out of there first."
The shouted imprecations coming from the pit made it quite clear that Julie viewed getting out as a priority over keeping the floor level.
I focused on the sensible answer. "Does anyone have rope?" The adventurers friend would be quite useful here.
"Yes."
"I have twenty feet, by the looks of it, and Zahri has about the same, so tying them together should reach far enough down, as long as someone holds it up here." Really, Sabrina? You and Zahri have twenty feet of rope each? Fifty feet of rope is the standard, twenty is just kind of weird. Easier to fit in a bag, I suppose.
Looking down at the pit again, I noted a lack of spikes. The floor was quite flat and even, which should make moving Julie easier.
"Right, we should..." Wait, hang on. Julie has a broken leg, she's not immobile. I leaned over the edge of the pit. "Hey, Julie, if we throw the end of a rope down to you, will you be able to hold on to it or tie yourself to it or whatever for us to haul you up?"
She pushed herself to a less prone position using her hands. It jostled her leg, judging by the swearing that followed.
"Father-fucking cunt licker!" That's... surprisingly original. "I think so, yeah. Might need to tie it around my waist, though, if I jolt against the wall I'll probably let go." Sensible.
A solid knot was tied to keep the ropes together, Lidda briefly abandoning her search to come and tie a 'proper knot', as she disdainfully referred to the one Zahri tied as 'liable to fall apart at the slightest weight'. Lowering it into the pit, it wasn't long before Zahri, Sabrina and I (although to be fair, Zahri was doing most of the heavy lifting) slowly pulled Julie up, more swearing floating out of the pit whenever the rope lurched.
Finally pulling her over the edge, we took a second to rest. I couldn't help my eyes being drawn to the state of Julie's left leg. After staring at it for a few seconds, I gave my formal diagnosis.
"Welp, that knee is fucked." It looked like she'd just landed directly onto it, and flattened it completely.
Julie answered me through gritted teeth. "Thank you, Mahziron. Your insight is appreciated." Ok, yeah, that probably wasn't the most helpful thing I could have said.
Zahri shook her head. "He is right. I will heal it." Kneeling down next to Julie, she placed her hand on the injured leg. "By the grace of Pelor, be healed." The words were weirdly musical and fluid, and it took me a second to realise that she'd spoken in Celestial, and not Common. It was prettier sounding than I'd expected it to be.
The wound flickered, as bone fragments pushed themselves into their correct places, skin and flesh shifting slightly to accommodate them. Five seconds later, there wasn't any sign that any injury had happened, apart from a faint smell of lavender now filling the air.
"Ok, the stuff you can do is badass. Between the undead and that, I'm starting to feel almost jealous."
"Almost?" She gave me a dry look.
"Well, I can still breathe fire, so almost." I grinned back at her.
Julie pushed herself to her feet, without swearing this time, and tested her range of motion with her leg. "Thank you Zee, I appreciate that. I don't know what I'd do without you."
"Limp." The line was completely deadpan, but I was sure I could make out a hint of a smile on her face.
They then shared what I could only describe as a bro hug, complete with squeezing, back patting, and making sure to not make eye contact during it.
While this was going on, Lidda sidled over. "Turns out it was based on a pivot hinge, much like the doors, although the hinge was much further back, with additional weight on the other side. You stepping on it overbalanced this side, dumping you in. There was a spring mechanism I've used to reset it, and a chuck that slides in to prevent it going any further down. We should be good to cross now."
Looking at the hallway, there was no sign of the pit any more. Flat and even ground met my gaze, but I couldn't quite bring myself to trust it. From the look she was giving it, neither could Julie.
"Is the rest of the hallway, or that door, trapped?"
Lidda just shrugged.
Our journey across the hallway was slower than before, with Lidda checking everything at Julie's behest, but we eventually made it up to the (checked, and proclaimed safe and unlocked) door. The push with the shield was a lot more cautious this time, but when nothing charged out of the room at us, we slowly moved in.
The room was in a state of severe disrepair. Shattered bits of coffin covered in cobwebs were scattered around the room, and as we slowly made our way across to the other side, I tilted my head to one side.
Lidda had done something similar. "Does anyone hear that?" She asked.
"Yeah, it almost sounds like scratching, but it's coming from above... us..."
I looked up.
A sea of compound eyes looked down at me, a small sea of spiders wandering over thick webbing filling the ceiling, ranging from tiny, miniscule ones, to ones the size of my fist, to one that I could only conclude was the matriarch, as, legs outstretched, she was bigger than I was. She chittered, and shifted in place, her thin but strong legs punching holes in the stucco around her. Welp, at least I could guess where that corpse went.
"Well shite."