covaithe
Explorer
Up close, the girl proves to be a very attractive human woman, not long into adulthood. Somehow, she manages to appear relatively clean and composed, despite being covered in filth from the pit and no small amount of Grakk's blood, among other liquids of less certain origin. Or perhaps it is because of the liquid mess; her light dress of purple and yellow silks is rather flimsy, and clings to her ample curves in rather closer fashion than its designer ever intended. She even smells nice, at least when compared to Grakk's blood-covered hides and the stench of no-longer-fresh corpses.
She gives Grakk's arm a squeeze as he sets her down on the dry stones. "Yes, I am Porphyria Donnervale. As for how I came to be here... Well, um, we were..."
She gets a reprieve from her stammered explanation when, at that moment, a clatter of booted footsteps echoes down the tomb from behind you. They pause, and there are a few inaudible shouts before one clear one comes through: "Here! In here, milord!" A sleepy-looking guardsman in his nightclothes, carrying a bare sword, emerges from the passage through which you arrived not long ago. He stops and gapes at the situation, but before anyone can say anything, a dozen more men come barging into the room behind them. Notable among these arrivals are the dwarf you interrogated, and whose testimony led you to this tomb, and a tall, well-groomed man in a velvet doublet, hose, and fine suede boots. His clothes are rumpled and slightly soiled at the collar and hem, as though he had been in them all day and had either fallen asleep in them or not yet been to bed.
"Daddy!" Porphyria shouts, and runs to the velvet-clad man, throwing herself into his arms and curling her head beneath his chin. "Oh, Daddy, it's so terrible! Rosaria isn't really a person, she's a terrible monster and she kidnapped me and they tied me to this altar and these horrible undead men came and they smelled really bad and they killed some people and were going to kill me, only these adventurers came and rescued me! They killed the monsters and they even killed Rosaria when she, I mean it, tried to stab them in the back and it was a really close fight and I thought they might lose but then they won and there was this really big ball of fire and the big smelly one kept coming back to life and swinging his big sword and the little one went stabbity-stab-stab and then they won, and now I'm safe, and you're here and... and... Oh, Daddy, I thought I'd never get to see you again! And my best friend is a monster, and now she's dead! And she said she never really liked me anyways!"
If the man is confused or surprised by this sudden torrent of words, he doesn't show it. He hugs the filthy young woman with real affection, while looking around in shock and confusion at the room -- the pool, the dead bodies, the shelves. "What is this place? This wasn't here when we buried your grandmother, Lauto rest her soul. Where did it come from?"
Porphyria doesn't meet her father's eyes. "We, uh, we found it Daddy. Well, I suppose it was Rosaria, really. We used to go into the tombs to, um, study? Where no one could interrupt us, you see."
"Study? the man, who must be Lord Donnervale, says disbelievingly. "Porphyria Edwina Donnervale, were you practicing magic again? I've told you, girl... Ah, but we'll finish that conversation later. Tell me about finding this place."
"It was a loose stone in the walls, and Rosaria leaned on it one day and it fell in, and there was a tunnel behind it, so we pulled down the other stones nearby, and this was here all along! Only this pool was just water then, and there weren't any torches in the sconces, and the bookshelf wasn't here, either. I put in the bookshelf and the torches, but I didn't make the water all icky and evil, Daddy, honest! And then last week, Rosaria started trying to keep me away from here, and she wouldn't say why, just that it was a surprise for me, and then when she brought me here today, they... It was like this. With the monsters and the dead people and the priests locked up in the back and the pool all glowy and evil and..."
"Priests? What priests?" Donnervale interrupts, breaking the flow of sound for a moment.
"Oh! Oh, I'm so silly, how could I forget! There are some priests locked in the back, there, behind that iron grate thingy! They were praying and chanting for a while, but their chanting must have interfered with the ritual, because the nasty dead guy stopped it and went back there and hit them all a lot and had to come start over. He said he was going to kill them next after me and gain even more power and then he would be immortal, but he can't really do that, can he?"
Donnervale gestures during this speech, and several of the guardsmen step forward, excusing themselves past you with polite apologies, and break the lock off of the iron gate at the back. They go inside, out of sight, and emerge later, each carrying a black-robed priest of Lauto, limp and unconscious. "There's three more back there, my lord," one reports, and the rest of the priests are quickly hauled out. There are five in all, all alive but unconscious, with assorted bruises and signs of having gone several days without food. A bit of cold water and judicious application of the healing potions from the corner wakes them up, and they prove to be what remains of High Priest Belingras' investigative team.
[sblock=ooc]There are some minor loose ends to tie up, as well as some well-earned rewards, which I'll get to shortly. For the moment, though, I'd like to introduce my third PC, Porphyria Donnervale. She'll be a sorcerer of some kind; I haven't decided exactly what just yet.
I'm really glad you guys rescued her, though.
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