Chapter 2: Ambush

After the voice spoke, nothing else happened. I presumed it to be a simple warning trap, but Eshim appeared to actually be frightened from what happened and nothing we said could dispel his fear. I suggested we head back and check the rooms we skipped earlier for more clues, but before we could head back we discovered tracks of dried mud that were several days old. The tracks led directly to where Beatrice was standing and after trying to be funny, she stepped aside to let Kanna open the trap door that the tracks led into.
 
As everyone else seemed to prefer going down, the other rooms would have to wait. I tried to reassure Eshim that Keretos would protect him, but that only seemed to have the opposite effect. How ironic. As if any other god would have more authority of who dies than the god of death?
 
We moved down the stairwell and came into a small room that looked like it was used as living quarters and we were immediately attacked by some of the inhabitants, a group of 3 thugs. One with a longbow that opened fire on Tomos who had taken point and two with scimitars that slowly approached us. I immediately ran up to the nearest one and sliced him open with my scythe, though not wounding him fatally. This was the first opportunity I've had go to wild since I had woken up, so how could I not take it? The others also moved in and attacked without much result while Eshim, having heard noise above us and shouting "AMBUSH", tried to keep the trapdoor shut.
 
I jumped up on the nearby table to get a clean cut on the man's neck, but an arrow from the archer made my swing go wide. I plucked it out of my arm and paid no further attention to my injury. Keretos will protect me after all. My allies had more luck, with both Kanna and Beatrice downing one of the scimitar wielding thugs.
 
Eshim at this point could no longer hold the trapdoor shut and we were at a risk of being attacked from multiple sides, so I moved in to eliminate the archer from the fight by removing his arm and Kanna quickly followed up with a rapier stab to the head of the man. I noticed a door with 'DANGER' written on it in chalk at this point and only barely resisted the temptation to open it up and see what was inside.
 
After a few failed attempts, Eshim who had managed to retreat successfully fired a crossbow bolt into a thug's eye while Beatrice had climbed out of the trapdoor and decapitated another one. The last remaining enemy tried to flee, but I'm a hunter. Prey like that will not escape me. Beatrice followed after me as well, though at a much slower pace and it only took me several seconds to catch up with the runner. With his back turned towards me, I cleanly removed his head with a single swing. Beatrice seemed to object to me killing the man, instead talking about justice and interrogation. Maybe she should have thought about that during all the killing she did herself back in the previous room? I chanted a small prayer for the man's soul - even trash like him doesn't deserve to have their souls tampered with after all, and then moved back downstairs again together with Beatrice.
 
Upon returning there, I repeated the prayer for all the dead men and women that laid in the room. Tomos seems to disapprove of me, but what honestly what else can you expect from a cleric of Giamae? The people we killed are obviously not undead, nor are they necromancers so we began to wonder whether there truly were any spirits here or if it was simply a ruse to keep people away. Still, I sensed something earlier and found a note mentioning undead.
 
Before continuing on, we searched the room and looted the dead bodies as well as the lockboxes they kept in the room. We discovered nothing about who they were or why they were here, but we did pick up some coins. We also managed to find a secret door and the party consensus was that we should see where that leads first. I suggested we move a bit more stealthily from this point on. We had no way of knowing what would be down here, Eshim made a passing comment that the underground tunnel we were heading into was only dug less than 30 years ago, much more recent than the mansion we were just in.
 
With Kanna taking the lead due to her keen senses, we headed into the tunnels.