HYPERBOREA / The Scorched Sanctuary

**Posted by achiriaco** 1/08/2019 3:09 pm

I retrieve the knife, daggers and neck arrow.
I also try to extract the chest arrow.
Dex roll 7

**Posted by fireinthedust** 1/08/2019 3:12 pm

Emral looks at the parchment after wiping the blood off his hands.

What is written on it? Another map? A bounty on the two adventurers? Secret instructions?!

“Let’s get the gold before the board breaks.”

**Posted by Iron Ranger** 1/08/2019 3:15 pm

achiriaco wrote:
I retrieve the knife, daggers and neck arrow.
I also try to extract the chest arrow.
Dex roll 7

The Knife is masterfully crafted, double edged. There is a strange mark on the hilt.
Your daggers feel cumbersome and ineffectual after handling the knife.
The arrow shaft snaps in half as you pull, the head remaining in the chest.
The dead huntsman's commanding stare follows him in death, his dark eyes cast downward to his clenched fist.

**Posted by Iron Ranger** 1/08/2019 3:25 pm

fireinthedust wrote:
Emral looks at the parchment after wiping the blood off his hands.

What is written on it? Another map? A bounty on the two adventurers? Secret instructions?!

“Let’s get the gold before the board breaks.”

The parchment is overhandled. The creases in tatters. Emral carefully peels it open.
It is a letter in beautiful hand, a gifted scribe in the Common. Though much is rubbed away and stained with tears.

A free flowing line, more illustration than prose, begins: "Dearest Rannar my love..."

Last edited by Iron Ranger (1/08/2019 3:25 pm)

**Posted by fireinthedust** 1/08/2019 4:54 pm

Emral gets up, grabs the nearest board from the pews, and props the wall of the hole so it doesn’t bury the coins and treasure.

After that is done, he returns to the letter and
reads the whole thing. If Rannar is the huntsman, he thinks, he should have been more willing to avoid death if he truly cared for the letter writer...

“Is that a rune on your dagger? I’m something of an expert in sigils and runes. The dagger could be enchanted.”

**Posted by Iron Ranger** 1/08/2019 5:19 pm

fireinthedust wrote:
Emral gets up, grabs the nearest board from the pews, and props the wall of the hole so it doesn’t bury the coins and treasure.

After that is done, he returns to the letter and
reads the whole thing. If Rannar is the huntsman, he thinks, he should have been more willing to avoid death if he truly cared for the letter writer...

“Is that a rune on your dagger? I’m something of an expert in sigils and runes. The dagger could be enchanted.”

The trap door in the pool is solidly built. And the board in the room below you've set holds for now.

The letter continues:
"Dearest Rannar my love,
As feared by us all that remain with this plague - our children have gone too to the strange woman priest that takes up abode in the church. I know you darling Rannar and I sense your blood boils over at these words but do no rashness, for it is surely for the best.
I would not want ours to befall the fate of so many in the village. I know you make your return at my last post which carried my own fateful disclosure but I implore you do not. Keep my love as it was - in your heart.
I now grow to weak to write much more so please my love - stay away from Shankshill my dearest hunter for as long as you can for you would only contract it with us.
Know that the children are safe with the cleric woman inside the church and away from this vile disease that has spread to us all...
Yours in everafter,
Kammellia"

Last edited by Iron Ranger (1/08/2019 5:20 pm)

**Posted by fireinthedust** 1/08/2019 5:42 pm

ooc: Can Emral have read that aloud to Malak? I'd have done so at the table, bc reading letters like that is good fun. Also I read to my family, sure, but I've also read HP Lovecraft and REH to people at bonfires and cookouts, and once while driving an ambulance (former gig).

Emral folds up the letter carefully, placing it in the fallen huntsman's hand. "Your blood boiled, Rannar, and you killed yourself attacking us when we tried to settle this with words. We would have stood with you to end this curse. Now we continue on our own to understand it and end it. Make your journey through the afterlife knowing your beloved village shall be avenged, if by our hands it can be done."

Emral takes two coins (for preference copper) and places them over the huntsman's eyes after the pair take whatever gear will aide their quest. "The followers of Apollo lay coins over the eyes of their dead, to pay a ferryman to take them across the river of the dead. Let us hope he can find his rest, but we cannot break the frozen ground with no shovels or picks."

"So we know that the plague ravaged the village, but the priestess kept the children here and could protect them *from* the plague. But the villagers still revolted against her, boarded their own children up with her, and burned them all in the village's sacred space. I suspect this was more than superstition. The skeletons animated as undead, the mutations on the wolves, and now rats in the (supposedly blocked off) treasure room below. And let's remember the stamped sheet of metal isn't the first, meaning there are more beyond the gold that wasn't melted down here. I suspect evil magic of some sort, a plan to destroy the priestess and all living things. I'm also thinking some kind of... plot to steal the town's gold? Maybe connected, or maybe one took advantage of the other to profit from the chaos. Either way, we'll need to heal if we're to continue. Rannar had no healing potions, and I'm on my last legs!"

Emral carries the body to where the harp was. He then finds Olo's remains and carries them over, too, laying them beside the huntsman. He picks up whatever children's bones he can find and lays them next to the huntsman on the other side from Olo; the skulls together, and the other bones below them.

"A grim harvest gathered by this curse. Which reminds me: Malak, may I see that rabbits foot and that dagger?"

1) For the dagger, he translates the symbol on it for his archer friend.
2) For the rabbit's foot he studies it for a moment and then, bringing it to the body of Olo, lays it on the boy's chest.

**Posted by Iron Ranger** 1/08/2019 10:47 pm

The symbol on the huntsman's knife is a magical inscription in a pattern not known to you, the only familiar shape is a slight curlicue on the top which translates to the common tongue as "additional".

The foot bares no clue, but upon close study a single stitching at the band crochets into another magical phrase. Again beyond Emral's knowledge, perhaps a magician back home with Identify at hand, but the only recognizable shape among the sewing is "wound".

Last edited by Iron Ranger (1/09/2019 9:07 am)

**Posted by fireinthedust** 1/09/2019 7:54 am

Emral rubs himself with the rabbits foot.

“I suspect it is a healing it.”

**Posted by Iron Ranger** 1/09/2019 11:24 am

fireinthedust wrote:
Emral rubs himself with the rabbits foot.

“I suspect it is a healing it.”

The rip in your hindquarter surrounding the bolt binds around the metal shaft, and the blood flow ceases.
Add 2 HP Emral.

**Posted by fireinthedust** 1/09/2019 1:06 pm

Iron Ranger wrote:
fireinthedust wrote:
Emral rubs himself with the rabbits foot.

“I suspect it is a healing it.”
The rip in your hindquarter surrounding the bolt binds around the metal shaft, and the blood flow ceases.
Add 2 HP Emral.

Wait, can it heal earlier wounds first rather than close around an active wound? That’s easier for the magic, isn’t it? If not, Emral rubs his leg wounds and the diseased rat bite, until he’s strong enough to pull out the bolt (are his other bolts barbed?), and then heal himself from the procedure. 👍

**Posted by Iron Ranger** 1/09/2019 1:56 pm

fireinthedust wrote:
Iron Ranger wrote:
fireinthedust wrote:
Emral rubs himself with the rabbits foot.

“I suspect it is a healing it.”
The rip in your hindquarter surrounding the bolt binds around the metal shaft, and the blood flow ceases.
Add 2 HP Emral.
Wait, can it heal earlier wounds first rather than close around an active wound? That’s easier for the magic, isn’t it? If not, Emral rubs his leg wounds and the diseased rat bite, until he’s strong enough to pull out the bolt (are his other bolts barbed?), and then heal himself from the procedure. 👍

Emral looks at the bite marks, they are closed. As is the deep rusty dagger wound that sealed in #827.

He grasps the bolt and pulls it free, tearing the skin of his rump open in the process.
[Subtract 2 HP Emral.]
Then he passes Olo's foot over the hole. The skin fuses itself together over the renewed leaking blood.
[Add 2 HP Emral.]

**Posted by fireinthedust** 1/09/2019 4:01 pm

Iron Ranger wrote:
fireinthedust wrote:
Iron Ranger wrote:

The rip in your hindquarter surrounding the bolt binds around the metal shaft, and the blood flow ceases.
Add 2 HP Emral.
Wait, can it heal earlier wounds first rather than close around an active wound? That’s easier for the magic, isn’t it? If not, Emral rubs his leg wounds and the diseased rat bite, until he’s strong enough to pull out the bolt (are his other bolts barbed?), and then heal himself from the procedure. 👍
Emral looks at the bite marks, they are closed. As is the deep rusty dagger wound that sealed in #827.

He grasps the bolt and pulls it free, tearing the skin of his rump open in the process.
[Subtract 2 HP Emral.]
Then he passes Olo's foot over the hole. The skin fuses itself together over the renewed leaking blood.
[Add 2 HP Emral.]

Emral rubs the foot on the huntsman, just in case he can save a life.

**Posted by Iron Ranger** 1/09/2019 4:27 pm

fireinthedust wrote:
Iron Ranger wrote:
fireinthedust wrote:

Wait, can it heal earlier wounds first rather than close around an active wound? That’s easier for the magic, isn’t it? If not, Emral rubs his leg wounds and the diseased rat bite, until he’s strong enough to pull out the bolt (are his other bolts barbed?), and then heal himself from the procedure. 👍
Emral looks at the bite marks, they are closed. As is the deep rusty dagger wound that sealed in #827.

He grasps the bolt and pulls it free, tearing the skin of his rump open in the process.
[Subtract 2 HP Emral.]
Then he passes Olo's foot over the hole. The skin fuses itself together over the renewed leaking blood.
[Add 2 HP Emral.]

Emral rubs the foot on the huntsman, just in case he can save a life.

Rannar remains expired.

**Posted by fireinthedust** 1/10/2019 9:25 am

Forum is not accepting my posts via desktop. I was going to try the scroll cases next. I had written some role play in response to not being able to raise rannar. Ah well.

**Posted by Iron Ranger** 1/10/2019 11:42 am

The scroll cases are made of light wood and are sealed by pitch with a thin sheet of paper.

**Posted by fireinthedust** 1/10/2019 12:53 pm

Emral checks the paper and wood for symbols, or even traps, and if all is well he cracks the seal with his falcata blade and opens the cases. Carefully.

**Posted by Iron Ranger** 1/10/2019 12:59 pm

Nothing is marked upon the cases or the seals.

As you slice through the paper seals, please roll a d6, d12, & d4.

**Posted by fireinthedust** 1/10/2019 1:10 pm

D6: 3
D12: 2
D4: 2

I’m hoping that is the number of pyromancer spells I’m about to find. Or ability score boosts?

**Posted by Iron Ranger** 1/10/2019 1:20 pm

Emral opens the first of the 6 scroll cases. Inside is a thin sheet of vellum with some unknown magical symbols written in ink. He believes them to be Clerical in nature.