Kull's 5th Report - Part 3
Getting the mindless creatures across the chasm proved something of a task, of course: they were too stupid by far to don the boots, nor would I wish to have their feet within my own belongings. In the end, we tied a rope around the chest of each, just under the armpits, then hauled them across like so much cargo, which proved an effective technique. The creatures did suffer some damage from banging into the walls of the chasm, but they were still able to shamble along, once untied.
I led the way back to the room with the skeletons and statue, and directed one of the zombies to enter, then had it move back and forth around the room, waiting to see if it would trigger any traps.
It did indeed: the door suddenly swung shut, and there was a grinding of stone on stone from within the room. The mindless undead, of course, was unperturbed by this development, and probably continued its vacant meanderings until the descending ceiling crushed it to the bloody pulp we found when we were at last able to open the door again. In the mean time, we returned briefly to the surface to advise the druid that he could depart, as the remaining zombie would now stand guard over the goblin prisoners.
Returning to find that we could open the door once more, and knowing that I would eventually need to enter the room myself, I told Brodnak to hold the stone door upright while I attacked the hinges with my flail, shattering them. I had no wish to have it close in my face should the trap be triggered. Needing somewhere to place the door, I manhandled it just inside the room, so that it would serve to slow - or even jam - the ceiling if it descended again.
This done, I instructed Brodnak to check the room. Despite his recent failure in battle, the barbarian was easily the swiftest of us all, capable of covering ground very quickly when he needed to do so. In the circumstances, he was the best choice for the task.
Brodnak prowled around the chamber, peering and prodding at the stone walls, for several moments before there was a mechanical noise, and a grinding sound from the ceiling. The door blocked it from descending, however, and - after exiting with a remarkable turn of speed - the warrior re-entered the room to continue searching, while I kept an eye on the door to warn him if the pressure from the ceiling seemed to be damaging it.
Eventually, he grunted in satisfaction and wrenched on the shield arm of the statue. The arm swung down, and a door opened in the wall of the niche in which the statue stood. This caused another noise from the ceiling, which rose up and settled back into its proper place.
I sent each of the others hurrying across the room in turn, giving the previous person plenty of time to squeeze past the statue and out of the danger area, then joined them in the corridor that lay beyond the secret door.
Within this unlit corridor were a series of tombs, each set into the wall at about chest height, and just large enough to contain a single coffin. Each tomb bore a small plaque, naming the person who had been interred within. Suspecting that these might contain undead, and seeing no reason to leave the stolen treasures of these cultists to moulder in their unhallowed graves, I smashed each open in turn.
My expectations were met: one of the graves contained a foul-smelling ghast, which fell quickly to the blows of my flail, and almost all contained precious trinkets of one kind or another. One was even buried with two healing potions, of all things. What need have the dead for healing?
Beyond the tombs lay another secret door, and then a third. What foolishness is it to hide a chamber behind three secret portals, but then give intruders a clear view of it from another room that they can easily find? These cultists were as misguided in their architecture as they were in their faith.
Eventually, the secret tunnels led to the chamber I had previously seen from the zombies' room. This proved to contain embalming equipment, used in the preparation of corpses for burial. It also contained a sarcophagus, sealed with wires and festooned with meaningless leaden glyphs, no doubt designed to fool those without knowledge of the magical arts into believing the tomb was trapped.
Telling the others to stand ready with weapons and spells, I used my dagger to cut the wires, then pushed the lid of the sarcophagus aside.
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