Dungeon Raiders: The Wolf's Den

[Kobold Stew]

There's still a lot in the room that hasn't been investigated, thinks Bartleby, remembering his initial foray into the room (post 488):

corpse, slab, skeleton, black chain mail, sword, possible shield, wall paintings.

Bartleby muses,"Who wrote the warning note? If we can't detect magic on the place, do we just leave this, or do we investigate? Why were those ones changes (assuming they were), and this corpse was not? These are powerful magics."

Bartleby peers closer at the chain mail, skeleton, slab, sword, and possible shield.

 

[Li Shenron]

Bartleby peers closer at the chain mail, skeleton, slab, sword, and possible shield.

The bones are old and clean, and you can tell they belong to a human male of considerable stature and built. The chain mail is pitch black, perhaps originally dyed or blackened by fire, but otherwise doesn't look particularly valuable, and similarly the sword, still grasped by the skeleton's hands. The shield on the other hand seems different, and you can notice a very faint glistening when looking at it from a very low angle. The slab is cut from solid rock of the same type that these rooms are carved out of, and it doesn't seem to display any remarkable feature, such as marks, engravings or cracks.

 

[Jimmy Disco T]

Tock feels out of his depth with talk of curses, magic, and transformations. Walking slowly around the edge of the room, he starts looking at the images on the walls of the chamber to see if there might be anything of interest.

 

[Shayuri]

Sulannus paces around the body with the parchment, staring down at it.

"Curses end where they begin," she murmurs. "I wonder. The curse is against thieves."

She ducks down low and looks around on the floor, around the slab, looking to see if anything came away from the corpse that hasn't been accounted for.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Bartleby is still curious who might have been responsible for the warning, and is suspicious of the centipedes who have made their way back into the room, but he carefully tries to slide the shield out of the way without disturbing the skeleton.

 

[wedgeski]

Rejik glowers at the party from a safe distance. "This is insane." When no-one pays any further attention to him, he grits his teeth and moves up to help Bartleby with the shield.

 

[Shayuri]

Sulannus hisses between her teeth and shakes her head.

"What are you doing?! Stop that! The curse falls on those who try to steal from this!"

 

[Kobold Stew]

Sulannus hisses between her teeth and shakes her head.

"What are you doing?! Stop that! The curse falls on those who try to steal from this!"

"I am fed up with this. Speak what you know. Keeping things to yourself will get us killed. If you understand what is going on, tell us." Bartleby is tired with waiting. "We are supposed to be working as a team. Something under this shield is glowing, or else the shield itself is. If it is the shield, then either it is protected by the curse, and is ours to liberate, or it is the cause, and moving it will help the humans that have been turned into bugs. Give me a third option, and I'll consider it. If it is not the shield, it may be covering the cause of the curse. In which case, we discover that. Not talking, or thinking one is better than the rest of us? That is what gets us killed."

Bartleby stares at Sulannus, waiting for an answer. "Well?"

 

[Shayuri]

Sulannus stands up and glares at Bartlesby angrily.

"If I KNEW, then we could just end the curse and be done with it and you could just take all this away!" she tells him. "It's not what I KNOW that's at issue here, it's what I DON'T know. And until I know what's safe, and what's not, then we can't just blithely assume 'this thing is shiny, lets take it' unless you want to risk turning into one of them!"

She points at the bugs stuck on the ceiling.

"There isn't a time limit here. There's no NEED to rush and take foolish risks. I have two ideas about how this curse might be ended, so if you want to help, then help look around and see if there's anything that belongs up here with this body that isn't there."

The elf takes a deep breath and combs her fingers through her long, golden hair. "And if not, then we move to the other idea."

"Or, if you want to grab the shield in spite of all wit or prudent caution, please...do as you will. The results will no doubt be useful to me in determining the nature of the curse."

 

[Kobold Stew]

"... so if you want to help, then help look around and see if there's anything that belongs up here with this body that isn't there."

Like looking at the glowing thing under the shield?, thinks Bartleby to himself, rolling his eyes.

The elf takes a deep breath and combs her fingers through her long, golden hair. "And if not, then we move to the other idea."

Bartleby stands back and leaves it to the expert.