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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Carnifex" data-source="post: 716502" data-attributes="member: 227">Groans, shifting weight, bleeding wounds, and whispers of encouragement were all the sounds Cord expected to hear in the underground chamber. The voices of children, accompanied by releasing manacles, were not a part of that list. He remained with Ebri as Wyshira rose to care for the children. He knew, much by experience, that they would not welcome an old blind dwarf. Perhaps later, but his sympathy would not help them from this dark prison. Wyshira, the embodiment of cool water and refreshing life, would prove far more effective. He sat by Ebri's side, nursing her back to consciousness with the smooth, comforting sound of his deep voice. She had taken quite a battering, and Cord was reminded of how close he had come only moments before. He shivered, his hand hesitating, with the memory. Long ago, he had denied the reliance on weaponry, just as he had denied his handicap. To use the instruments given to him was his place. But to be so close, with so little between him and the enemy, between his bare skin and certain death . . . Cord began to understand why many men embraced themselves in layers of iron and hide.* * *The clean-up operation worked at a fairly efficient rate, considering that most of the band were either in a state of faint shock or injured. Wolf managed to persuade the children to venture out of their cell once he retrieved the key from the torched corpse of Garus; four, all under sixteen and thin with bad nutrition. He sat them down and tried to find out more from them as others around him ransakced the devastated slaver base. Melisande soon had the chapel torched, the pile of tapestries and pews crackling merrily with warm light. Burl's magical spells and Kale's skills at searching gathered them up fairly soon a small pile of goods, the necromancer indicating which were magical. The slavers seemed to have gathered up a fair amoutn of money and goods; and a number of the crates contained strange, exotic goods, styled in a manner the band had never encountered before. From Cancer's body they retrieved his wand, an elaborate ivory piece that glimmered magically under Burl's witch-sight spell. He had a potion on him too, unfortunately unmarked as to what it did, as well as a small pouch of money. From the body of the tattooed monk they found another potion, this time clearly marked as a potent curative, as well as the ornate but non-magical silver bracers he wore and his money pouch. But then Burl noticed the straps he wore over his hands emanated strong magic too, and these were added to the growing pile of gear acquired. The two dragonkin proved to yield objects as well, each carrying a curative potion. The hefty mace of one of them was of a strange and exotic make, inlaid with gold and lapis lazuil and ingraved with odd patterns - it radiated magic. An earring off one of them radiated magic as well, as did a normal ring from the other. Both had a fair amount of more mundane jewellry as well, gleaming rings and earrings and studs. Nothing of use was recovered from Garus's corpse except the slave pen key; a potion he had been carrying had shattered when he fell with the burning platform. The red gem that hung on a necklace around Kaelos's neck strongly radiated magic though. From the other slavers some money was recovered, as well as a pistol; the bowmans pulverised body was found to bear a number of magical arrows in its quiver, thin and slender yew arrows tipped with lapis lazuli. In a pile of mundane weapons in the corner they found too a weapon of an odd black steel, a longsword of fine balance and edge though it was not magical to Burl's sight. Breaking open the locked chests revealed small heaps of gleaming coin; a mixture of gold and silver and copper. Meanwhile, the crates yielded up strange things; more of the lapis lazuli tipped arrows, oddly decorated pottery (engraved with hieroglyphics and images of scarabs and geometric patterns) and small amounts of precious stones, and a vial of some brown-black powder that radiated magic. Another crate held a quiver of javelins carved entirely out of crystal, that caught the light with their odd facets and multicoloured refractions. Up in Cancer's study, Burl's ransacking revealed first a trap that Kale had failed to find; a tiny, poison-slicked dart on the desk that shot out to get tangled in the necromancer's roebs and miss his skin by a tiny measure of distance. Within lay two magical scrolls and two potions, as well as a vial of some noxious but non-magical substance; yet the wizard's spellbook was nowhere to be seen. Okay Spike, where did he hide his spellbook. I looked everywhere in the library. I even checked for false fronts in the books. A mage of his caliber has to have a book, but where could it be. This is frustrating. A small box of gems lay in another of the drawers. The sesk was covered in papers and letters; he was about to have a good look at these doubtless important documents when distracted by a strange occurance in the main chamber. Kale had just broken open another crate to find a large pot within, sealed with wax. Down its sides, lines of hieroglyphics interwove with odd scenes of scarabs and people and strange jackal-headed beings. He was about to take it out and set it doen, and then just leave it to move onto the next box, when it spoke. "Um, this is going to sound very strange, I know, but you couldn't let me out, could you?" The voice reverberated from within the pot, deep and rich and slightly embarrassed.</blockquote>

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