The Forgotten City VIII
General Summary
Knowing that there was activity on the other side of the door, Alex, Kegho and Riven crept back down the hallway and onto the beach where they girded their loins for potential battle and told the rest of the group what they had found. They formed up behind Kegho and Asbjørn but just before kicking down the door, Kegho thought to check it to see if it was open. The door opened on a dimly lit room filled with lice-ridden furs and the stench of old urine. Several bearmen looked up from what they were doing and both the party and the bearmen were at a loss for how to proceed. Alex from the back yelled something about Kharoun and Theo did wave the bronze heart-guards of the bearmen they had encountered previously and honeyed his words to have peace with them. The guard was annoyed by the bronze guards and said that the humans should have gold ones not the bronze of bearmen. Kegho insinuated that they were new and confused and eventually they were allowed to pass deeper into the structure and told good luck.
Alex noted the hypocrisy of an organization touting the equality in pestilence line color coding by species and wondered if the bearmen realized that they were being dealt a bad hand and whether strife could be sown amongst them.
They passed through the guard station and into a long hallway. Another long hall turned left and ended in a door. Alex moved just behind Kegho who had crept forward in near darkness and held up his lantern glowing a low dusky red. They passed the hallway and turned right at a corner and right again. As they turned the next corner they found that it was a dead end. Something prickled Alex's memory of falling stones and hidden passageways and Alex and Riven searched for traps and hoped to find a secret passage as a long hallway to nothing seemed rather obtuse, but the barbarians and Theo became restless at the waiting and they returned up the hallway. Alex frustrated and knowing that something had been missed.
At the northern doorway Alex and Kegho listened but could not hear a sound through the solid stone. Kegho pushed it and it opened easily, a testament to the Rusati and their humans' craftsmanship. The room was empty but for straw mats on a stone floor. Looking up they saw an old stone done and most puzzling a chest resting comfortably on the ceiling. Across the ceiling were metal rungs running lengthwise along the room a few feet apart and past the chest. The barbarians became most distressed by the sorcery at play. Alex began attempting to loft his grappling hook in one of the nearer rungs, while Riven fletched a mount for hers to a crossbow. Asbjørn decided to try his hand at after Alex had given up to look at the lock and found that he could easily get up to the rung but some look rock dust fell as the rung was disturbed. As he climbed the stones shifted under his weight but he did not notice. He found he could not reach the chest when he got to the top, but noted a substantial padlock and easily climbed back down.
Alex found that the lock had no mechanism to pick and returned to climb the rope. Riven fored her grapple gun and caught another rung and Alex climbed up in naught but his loin cloth, with his pics tucked in it and a rope tied around his waist. He looped the rope a few times in the opposite run, freed the a grapple and tossed it, but as it passed near the chest it suddenly changed course and fell to the ceiling. Alex tugged on the grapple and it felt about as heavy as it would if he tugged it on the floor. He yelled for Keg to spot him and performed an inverted Jurkowska-Kowalska dismount from the rung onto the ceiling. As he passed near the chest he felt his substantial nethers float into his abdomen for a second but stuck the landing. Euphoric in his success he fumbled the lock and a purple mist hissed out of the it. Alex felt terror wash over him as he caught his breath and ran, screaming choice Oameni profanities, across the ceiling. When he exited the effect of whatever sorcery held the chest in place, his feet lost purchase on the ceiling and he began falling head first toward the stone floor. Kegho moved to catch him the terrified halfling was twisting like a thrown cat and Kegho more broke his fall than caught him.
Asbjørn seeing that the ceiling would pull him toward it climbed the rope once more and lunged at the chest feeling part of his body pull earthward and part of it skyward. Finally righted himself and crouched entirely near the chest before pushing it across the ceiling to where it lost it's grip on the ceiling and clattered to the floor, the lock meaning very little to the shattered wood. The chest had gold and silver coin and a large jade key. "That would've been useful a few months ago." Teleptyon drawled wryly, "what with your butt possession" he said explaining the joke before anyone had a chance to process his meaning.
Rewards Granted
- A jade key
- Gold and silver
