OK, I've got Harnry and Aodhán cleaning the altar, Keeland and Houwlou looking about. When you say see what you can scent, are you talking about sifting through the rubble and bodies or looking around for more enemies. If it's the latter, where will you look?
OOC: I was thinking we'd make our way about this level with Keeland's light and see what might be lurking in dark corners and then regroup and explore any other levels we find after a rest.
Houwlou will begin to rummage and look through the rubble, but then, seeing Keeland beginning to wader out of the room, he abandons that search and hurrries to join the bard. "A good ranger can't let a comparative non-combatant like you go traipsing off unescorted through a wild place like this!"
Harnry and Aodhán continue their grueling work as Houwlou noses through the wreckage. Just as the Olcán sees something glimmer under the grim remains of the 'candelabra,' hinting at the potential that other treasures are to be found beneath, Keeland strides past expressing his intention to explore the rest of the ground floor. The doughty Ranger immediately leaves his task and goes to protect his Merc brother.
As he is turning to follow Keeland, Houwlou says to the others, "Keep searching guys, I just saw something shiny and promising." He points to where he saw the "glint."
"Keep searching guys, I just saw something shiny and promising."
With these parting words, Keeland and Houwlou head back out of the chapel and into the nave. Keeland's glowing bow bravely lights the area in their immediate vicinity - full dark has come to the mountains.
(OOC: You haven't explored into the two alcoves just outside the chapel to the north and south, and of course there's that largish blacked out area as well.)
Aodhán and Harnry are making good headway on the altar . . . the parts you've cleaned seem almost to glow. In fact, though you attributed it at first to your hard work Aodhán notices that the altar actually has begun to glow softly, and though the high desert night can become quite chilly the two of you remain quite comfortable as you work.
An arrow at the ready, Keeland leads the way to the northern alcove...
OOC: I'm going to be out of town for fall break, please npc Keeland in my absence. I should be posting again Friday. I'll post if I get a chance, but don't expect to have much time for it.
Keeland and Houwlou cautiously enter the northern alcove just off the Chapel.
This debris-laden chamber has an intact ceiling, helping to preserve a huge bas-relief statue of a muscular humanoid man with a pointy beard gesturing toward a huge mountain in the background, his face a picture of mortal concern.
Houwlou quickly identifies the mountain as Pale Mountain, largest of the Brazen Peaks and figuring in many fell legends and stories. The style looks familiar to Keeland, and he searches his prodigious memory for knowledge. He dredges up a faint recollection of the style in which the Church of Sarenrae depicts its Saints in art, and concludes that this man was a Saint of Sarenrae but not one of the better known ones. He is unable to recall information about this particular holy man.
The elf kicks desultorily through the debris on the floor of the alcove, then holds his light up to the fresco at Houwlou's words. "Could be, I suppose. There's nothing here . . . let's look at the one to the south."
A similar statue adorns the eastern wall of this chamber, in this case with the bearded figure appearing on a hilltop to a group of robed pilgrims. The being holds up his hands, palms out, in a sign of peace. Though many of the faces and limbs on the bas-relief have been worn down or cut away, the expressions of those range from beatific to horrified.
Keeland perks up a bit as the two of you enter the alcove. He looks at one of the walls. "There's something a little odd with the decoration over there."
After waiting a moment for his surly companion to reply, the elf nonchalantly approaches the indicated wall and begins pressing in various places. He exclaims sharply as Houwlou's sensitive ears pick up a faint click, and a section of the wall swings out. The room revealed in the glow of Keeland's bow is irregularly shaped, open to the night sky, and quite overgrown.
Looming walls with no apparent doors other than the secret one through which you are peering enclose this small roofless garden. Monks must once have come here to relax and contemplate the ways of nature, but any order they might have brought to the place all those years ago is almost impossible to notice now, as a wild cacophony of multicolored scrub plants and desert weeds have almost completely overgrown the space.
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