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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Capellan" data-source="post: 667578" data-attributes="member: 6294">"Hooberan's Stockade" by Wicht  - Part 12Entering the shrine, the group quickly sees that it has been left rather the worse for wear by the recent zombie inhabitation.  The altar has been overturned, as have the simple wooden benches that used to provide seating for the congregation.  Two bronze candelabras have been knocked over: one with such violence that the shaft has been sharply bent."Tough crowd." Twinkle quips, "Maybe we should get Macwood to play here."The joke falls flat, however, as the others are too busy picking through the refuse to pay attention.At first, it appears as if nothing of interest has survived the zombie's attention, but then Stormstrider and Elspeth manage to right the heavy wooden altar, revealing a number of items that were concealed beneath it.The first of these is a large, leather-bound book with thick, brownish pages.  The Padre picks it up and flips through the sepia-inked pages."The Leaves of Life." He reads the title page aloud.  "It's the holy book for a god called Obad-Hai.  Like I said earlier, he's some kind of nature god."Stormstrider merely grunts at the information, apparently unimpressed with the human modification of his own druidic faith."Forget the book.  There's a lockbox here." Mantreus has his priorities clearly defined.  With a soft grunt of effort, he lifts the foot-long wooden box onto the altar, and inspects the lid.  "Not trapped, as far as I can see. Still, you might want to stand back."The others have no hesitation in complying, and the human rogue soon has the box unlocked and opened, without any dangerous surprises."Money." He reports gleefully, sifting through the coins that fill the box. "Mainly small change, unfortunately, but it should add up to something worthwhile."Nobody evidences any reluctance to plunder the shrine's donations, so Mantreus hands the box to Stormstrider for safekeeping, and the group moves on to check the next building - the burned house they saw when they first entered the village.The ruins don't look completely safe; several partially-remaining walls appear on the verge of collapse; and the middle of the night is hardly the most opportune moment to go searching, but the group nonetheless set themselves to just that task.Having first checked that the ashes are cool, and that there is little risk of banked fires still burning under the rubble, they jam three poles into the ground and hang lanterns from each of them, providing strong illumination on the area.  As the poles are spaces evenly around the ruin, there is light from multiple angles, reducing the problem of the adventurers' own shadows adding to the darkness.There is nothing they can do about the clouds of ash that rise into the air every time they disturb any part of the ruins, however, and soon their hands and faces are black with the stuff.  The Padre's mask idea makes a temporary comeback, as they all seek to avoid breathing in too much of the fine, sooty powder."Hey, I've found something!" Mantreus digs a large hunk of fused metal out of the ashes.  The fist-sized lump appears to be an agglomeration of silver and gold coins, which have melted together from intense heat: presumably due to the fire that destroyed the building."There's something else here, too." Twinkle has continued looking through the ashes where Mantreus found the melted coins, and now adds a deformed iron symbol to their find."Looks like it is supposed to depict a skull and a scythe." The Padre examines the icon distastefully. "It's obviously a symbol of one of the death cults, though I don't know which one.""It doesn't really matter which of them it is." Sirdros says grimly, "They're all bad news.""Still, it helps to tell us what happened here." Elspeth offers, by way of small consolation.  The Padre concurs,"Yes, I think it seems likely that a priest of the death cults came here, and decided the place was ripe for his attentions.  Maybe he infected the townsfolk with the disease, maybe they were already suffering.  In either case, I think he raised those zombies to act as his muscle.  But the townsfolk found out about him, trapped him in here and killed him.""Unfortunately, it looks like it was already too late for them by the time they did." Mantreus nods his agreement."So do we leave now?" Stormstrider asks. "Seems like we know what happened.""We should check the rest of the houses." The Padre's Plan won't die. "There may be something of value in them.  Once we're done, we should burn this place.  Make sure whatever this cultist did, dies here, just like them."</blockquote>

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