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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 7192423" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 69The skeletons were too close for Quellan to evade their rush, even if he hadn’t been up to his chest in water.  His companions above reached for their weapons, though they were too far away to immediately intervene.The half-orc let his mace go and grasped hold of his holy symbol.  As he presented it toward the undead creatures it began to glow with a soft white light.  “By the Light… I compel thee!” Quellan cried, and for a moment the light intensified until it was twice as strong as a torch.The skeletons quailed before that radiance.  Two of them immediately recoiled and fled, heading for the edges of the pool.  The last one hesitated, and for a moment an echoing pulse of reddish light shone within the empty interior of its skull.  Whatever dark necromancy had animated it allowed it to resist the cleric’s divine magic, and it lunged forward again, a claw sweeping around toward his face.But before it could strike a dark form hurtled down on it from above.  Kosk held his staff pointed down like a spear, and the weighted end drove down into its skull like a sledgehammer.  The dwarf himself followed a moment later, smashing through the skeleton’s body and launching a spray of shattered bones across the surface of the pool.  For a moment Kosk went under, but then he burst up again, sputtering.  “Bloody blasted cultists!” he cursed.Quellan grabbed hold of his friend and guided them toward the narrow belt of ground on the edge of the pool.  The skeletons had gravitated that way, and as they approached they again tried to flee past them, heading toward the opening in the back wall.  The two adventurers intercepted them, Kosk shattering one’s leg with a blow from his staff while Quellan knocked the second back with his mace.  The damaged skeleton turned back toward the pool, but before it could reenter the water it was blasted with a fire bolt from Xeeta.  The flames didn’t have much effect against the undead thing’s soaked bones, but the impact of it knocked its spine just a bit off-kilter.  The skeleton took a few creaking steps forward and then toppled forward, coming apart even as it hit the water.Glori had her bow out, but there weren’t any more targets.  “You okay?” she called down.  Bredan likewise had drawn his sword, but on seeing that the dwarf and half-orc had things under control he’d passed on duplicating Kosk’s risky leap.“Just peachy,” Kosk said.“Hold on, we’ll come on down,” Glori said, tucking her arrow back into her quiver before slinging her bow across her back.“Go ahead and secure the rope first,” Quellan said.  “It’ll help when we come back this way.”Bredan took out his tools and hammered in two spikes, one on their side of the rushing waterfall and the second above the uneven wall that Kosk had indicated as a possible route down.  They all ended up getting wet, but without further threats appearing it was just a question of taking the time and care needed to negotiate the hazard safely.Once they party had reunited on the shore of the pool, they investigated the opening in the wall.  Kosk had confirmed that it led to a narrow passage that appeared empty, but he’d held off exploring further until they were all together.  Alert to any further traps or guardians, they made their way deeper into the complex.  Quellan respelled Bredan’s scabbard, shifting the light back to him to carry.  The young warrior held the weapon aloft so the light clearly illuminated the stone of the corridor.It was obvious that this part of the complex had been deliberately worked.  At first the passage was rough-hewn from the stone of the bluff, but as they made their way forward it transitioned to smooth stone blocks that fitted together with barely a gap between them despite the lack of mortar.  The passage ended about twenty feet from the cavern with the pool, with an archway that led into a vaulted chamber.After tapping the stones of the arch a few times with his staff, Kosk led the way into the room.  The place looked ancient, with a generous layer of dust covering the floor.  Thick stone buttresses built into the walls arced up to support the ceiling twelve feet above.  The ground was packed dirt rather than stone, and gave slightly as they stepped on it.  The air was unsurprisingly damp, and lichens clung to the narrow gaps in the stone blocks of the chamber.“It looks like maybe somebody already looted this place,” Glori said.  She pointed to a series of niches in the walls, each a few feet deep with a shelf that could have held a small statue or other similar object.  As Bredan came into the room his light revealed that all of them were empty.“Tread carefully,” Quellan said.  “There may still be active traps.”  He turned to the left, where another archway was completely filled with a collapse that had sprayed rubble into the vault.  He bent and picked up a rock the size of his head.  “This place could be unstable.”“Another way out over here,” Kosk said.  They all came over to join the dwarf, who indicated an exit partially concealed behind one of the buttresses.  It led to a passage much like the first, narrow but wide enough for all of them, even Quellan, to negotiate without difficulty.“That was impressive, what you did with those skeletons,” Glori said to Quellan as Kosk did his usual check before starting into the new corridor.  “I’ve heard about the power of priests to turn undead, of course, but I’ve never actually seen it done in person.”“It is a potent gift from the gods,” Quellan said.  “Unfortunately I cannot channel that power again until I have rested.”“Maybe you won’t have to use it again, if you pay attention to what you’re doing,” Kosk grumbled from the passage.  “There’s another room up here.”After sharing a look Quellan and Glori followed him into the passage, followed by Bredan with Xeeta again bringing up the rear.  The tiefling gave the arch a wary look, as if expecting a deadly trap to be triggered at any moment.With his shield held tightly to his body to keep its iron rim from scraping on the walls, Quellan shuffled forward to where Kosk was kneeling at the end of the passage.  Once more there was another arch, and a chamber that from their vantage looked similar to the one that they’d just left.  The dwarf glanced up as the half-orc came forward, but didn’t move forward.“What’s the matter?” Quellan asked.Kosk shook his head.  “I don’t know.  Something’s not right.”“Maybe we can have Glori scout it out using her dancing lights,” Quellan suggested, but Kosk was already leaning forward through the arch, carefully looking left and right to see if there was something waiting in ambush.  The room was clear, but as he shifted his weight the stone block he’d stepped on settled with a soft and ominous click.Kosk barely had time to register the sound before a massive stone block plummeted down from the ceiling, directly toward his exposed and unprotected head.</blockquote>

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