Doom of the Savage Kings

[GlassEye]

Luckily for Alois, the squeeze into the mound's chamber is quickly navigated and the whole group stands in the dark room.

Lizt is able to use a chunk of stone to excavate the edges of the metal. It appears to be attached to a larger object and with a bit more work discovers wood made soft by dampness. To her eye it looks like the top of a chest banded in bronze. Fully excavating the chest would take a lot of work and a lot of time but the decayed wood might be able to be broken away much easier than the digging work.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

"I think I got something here!" Lizt stood up and brushed dirt off her hands. Her fingernails were caked black with grime, but the find of the chest was worth it. She pointed to the chest lid, still buried in the cave floor. "Can someone bash it in?" Lizt looked around the cave, first at Alois's polearm, then at Gratien's sword. "Anyone have a maul? Or an axe?" she asked hopefully.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

Gratien took a tour of the cave, looking for tunnels and crannies.

 

[GlassEye]

It is obvious to all, even those that cannot see well in the dimness, that this is part of the burial chamber constructed under the serpent mound. The walls and ceilings are composed of tall stone slabs; beads of condensation form and slide down to the floor. The floor is hard-packed earth, except where the stream has undercut the floor in the northeastern corner softening it and causing the stone to tilt and one to break forming the hole everyone squeezed through. There is no natural light except what little makes it through the hole in the collapsed corner of the room.

During Gratien's tour of the room he is able to figure that the room is roughly 25 feet along each wall and the western wall has a passageway in the center. That passage looks like it goes 25 feet before ending in a T intersection.

Bashing open the chest reveals skulls. A dozen skulls rest on top of a hammered bronze shield embossed with the head of a lion. The bronze of the shield does not exhibit the pitting and corrosion that the bronze swords do.

 

[Scott DeWar]

[I had a post! really!! It was homer helping to clear around the chest. grrrrr]

Homer looks back at the chest when he hears the crashing sound. He gives a sigh and says, "Don't let Franko see those. He is bound to have something corny to say"

Just then Franko slips in the hole and says, "Huh? What??" He looks at the opened chest and says, "Who's the bonehead who put those skulls in there?" He picks up a skull and looks in it eye sockes, "Alas, dear Frederick, I knew thee well."

 

[CanadienneBacon]

Alois belatedly stammered, "Maybe we shouldn't bash open that chest. This is a burial chamber. The dead don't like being disturbed." The big man hedged from one foot to the other, nervous. His eyes flicked to the open tunnel. "Maybe we shouldn't be in here at all."

Lizt huffed. "Don't be a scaredy-cat, Alois. You just don't like the dark. Or tight spaces. Remember that time, in the closet?" Lizt smirked. Twin spots of color grew on Alois's cheeks, but the big man said nothing more for the moment. She picked up the shield. "Hey, this shield is pretty nice. Do any of you fight with a shield?" Lizt looked around the room to see who was interested in the shield.

 

[Scott DeWar]

"Nope" says Homer, then "Nope" says ranko, still looking at the skull, then from hank, still waiting to enter the hole, "Nope".

 

[Deuce Traveler]

"What's done is done. If that shield is as good of quality to last as long as it has in these conditions, one of you should take it along so you can help me create a decent shield wall when trouble comes," Tender suggests.

Kurl takes a look at the skulls and grimaces. "What a waste of perfectly good potential cultists. I mean seriously... who wastes good human resources like that."

Boral answers, "No one who would wish well of us. Maybe we should pick a way from the intersection so we can get our task at hand finished. Isn't there a weapon in here somewhere that was supposed to help us?"

 

[CanadienneBacon]

Lizt handed the shield to Alois. "Well, it would seem you're the only one among us who might have a use for this thing. Here you go."

Alois accepted the shield, more out of surprise than anything. He tested it out, trying to see if he could still jab or swing with his polearm while also wielding the shield. And then he set about admiring the workmanship of the piece, looking for insignia or hints of the shield's history. Was it a might warrior's? What tales could the dead tell? Alois shuddered, uncertain once again about this undertaking.

Gratien grew bored and wandered down the tunnel toward the t-intersection, curious to see what lay beyond the cave.

 

[GlassEye]

Alois tries to manage the shield and the polearm at the same time and quickly discovers it just isn't possible; his weapon requires both hands. It is too dim in the room for him to make out much of the embossing on the shield.

Leaving the room behind, Gratien moves down the hall to the T intersection: to his right (north) the crossing hallway opens up into a room just fifteen feet further. To Gratien's left the hallway continues for thirty feet before opening up into another chamber although there are two passages off the hall before the room at the end is reached.