Fifth Expedition

[Raven Crowking]

Nah, I told you the duration so you could roll.

Daryll finds the stench offensive, and will need a Will save (DC 10) to do anything more here than quickly pass through the room (if that is what you decide to do). More importantly, I suppose, is that Gunnar's stomach is like cast iron, and he can sniff for gold and silver despite the vomit-inducing stench.

The room beyond the door is 30 feet wide by 40 feet deep, with a short section of hall (10') before you enter the room proper. There is a door near the middle of the left-hand wall, closer to you than to the far wall. Along the left and right walls are square burial alcoves filled with funerary urns. But they are not what is giving off the stench - two adventurers are impaled on the far wall with spears. Their guts have been ripped open and partially fed upon, and the foul reek certainly comes from their rotting remains. So, too, does the smell of silver and gold.

[beermotor]

Do the spears look like they were triggered by a trap or something? Or these guys were killed, impaled, and placed there? Do we recognize them as coming from the prior expeditions (well, I guess just the Third was the only one where we bailed without carrying out the dead...)?

"Hold on a sec," Gunnar says, sniffing long, and then spitting. "Yech. Well, there's gold and silver in there. Coming from them, sadly. But this looks dangerous..."

[Raven Crowking]

The bodies are currently quite far away; tough to tell without moving up and examining them.

[beermotor]

Cisneros volunteers to hold the 10' pole and walk behind Gunnar and Milner as they walk into the room, probing the floor in front of them for pits, plates, etc.

"Let's get a closer look, shall we?" Gunnar says. And unless Milner objects, in we go...

[Raven Crowking]

With a closer look, you can see that both were human. They appear to have been slain by slashing weapons (swords, probably) and then pinned to the wall with spears. From the shape of their bodies, this was perhaps two weeks ago. Whoever did it was strong to drive the spears as far as they did, even through the crumbled masonry. While most of what the poor souls are wearing is in tatters, one has a backpack that appears to be mostly intact....and it is from this that Gunnar can smell silver and a bit of gold.

[beermotor]

But nobody we recognize, I take it? What about Milner, does he recognize them?

"Well, tough break, chums." Gunnar takes the backpack and carefully opens it.

[Raven Crowking]

You do not recognize them, no.

Getting into the backpack requires another DC 10 Fortitude save, as shifting the body sends forth an even more potent gagging stench....

Within the backpack, you find a bit of thin rope or cord, about 10 feet you would estimate if uncoiled, six iron spikes, a small hammer, a chisel, and a burlap sack. Everything is coated with a thin mauve slime that appears fungal in nature.

[Dogma]

Willem fort [1d20+1] = 12+1 = 13, duration [1d4+1] = 4+1 = 5

Jonas Fort [1d20+2] = 19+2 = 21, duration [1d4+1] = 3+1 = 4

no lost lunch here.

They will stand guard as Gunnar searches the backpack.

[beermotor]

Saves in room:

Gunnar: 14 + 1 = 15.
Cisneros: 2 + 1 = 3. He yacks all over the place as Gunnar disturbs the slimy fungus spores. Duration: 3 + 1 = 4 rounds. Pretty sure he's dry heaving by that point,

The burlap sack contains the gold, I presume? Gunnar grabs it and peeks inside. Assuming coins are within, he'll go ahead and count them out.

[Raven Crowking]

Your supposition is correct - the slimy bag contains 200 sp and 30 gp.

[Dogma]

"How yer nose can be smellin' that thar gold over the stink o' those bodies be beyond me. " says Willem. ''Course I don' really ken how ye can be smellin' gold and silver and such ta begin with."

[beermotor]

Gunnar stows the bag in his pack, though he first tries to get the weird fungal slime off. Actually, he thinks better of it, and just dumps the coins themselves into his pack, then tosses the burlap sack. "Yuck."

"Right, lads. Shall we check the east door?"

Daryll's still outside puking.

[caveman]

Milner rolls 18. Tough enough.

Seems like something big n strong did this. Milner has not encountered anything quite like that in this Barrow.

[beermotor]

Gunnar will go sniff by the eastern door.

[caveman]

Milner will poke around at the "funerary" urns. Full? Ceramic? Shine a torch around the alcoves also.

[Raven Crowking]

Gunnar's sniffing by the eastern door produces nothing distinct....if there is something precious beyond, he cannot smell it. The awful rot of the dead, though, he can smell quite easily.

Looking in the funeral urns, in their square-shaped burial alcoves, Milner discovers that each seems to contain the bones of a skeleton, now brown with age and covered with dust. He estimates that there are about 150 urns in the room.

Remember the assumption that a character can roughly search 10 alcoves per minute. If you want to search all of the alcoves in a general way, it will take a minimum of 15 minutes if only one character is searching. Closer examination takes longer.

[beermotor]

Can the door be barred?

"Let's take these poor souls down from their spears," Gunnar says. "We shouldn't leave them here to rot with the rest of the unclean dead. And we can maybe use the spears to bar the door, while we search the alcoves thoroughly."

When he's done puking, Cisneros will help.

HP will start looking closely at the alcoves. Daryll waits by the door with Fang.

[caveman]

Milner helps take down the bodies and lay them in an alcove. He says a short prayer for the dead. He isn't concerned with searching every urn.

Where exactly are we on the map? North east corner?

[Raven Crowking]

Taking the bodies down will require a DC 15 Strength check - the spears are driven that deeply into the wall!

Which door did you hope to bar? I assume you mean the eastern door, not the one you came through.

If Milner doesn't want to search every urn (or every alcove with urns in them), give me some rough idea of how much time he wants to spend, and I can adjudicate from there.

[beermotor]

Neither Gunnar (2+2) nor Cisneros (10) are able to dislodge the spears. "By the gods. Damn things are in there fast." Gunnar wonders if Milner will try.

Yes the idea was to bar the eastern door while we search. HP will be methodical in his search of the alcoves. "We may ffind clues among the dead... we should at least check."