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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Xardion" data-source="post: 7821657" data-attributes="member: 6744">After getting dressed and re-arming themselves, the intrepid explorers descended into the rank and odorous dark of the bathhouse dungeon. They were fairly dismayed at the amount of stagnant, putrid water waiting for them at the bottom (poor Eldon was up to his chest in it), and after disturbing the "sediment" at the bottom, they soon deduced the source of this effluence.  "Displeased" is a rather poor word to describe their reaction, but being strong of stomach, they pushed on.They fairly quickly discovered a hidden door in the large alcove in the southwest corner of the flooded entrance, made their way past an altar to Bhaal covered with hideous offering of entrails, and found themselves curiously examining the depiction of murder on a tapestry hanging in the flooded corridor south of Bhaal's altar.  Tenshi was just about to grab it to tear it off the wall, when Eldon stopped her, pointing out the yellow mold creeping around the edges of the fabric.  They burned it instead, and continued up the steps to the east as quickly as possible to get out of the disgusting water.Just east of the steps they found an octagonal room, and on the north, east, and south walls were doors, each with a depiction of one of the Dead Three.  They first chose to explore the door to the north, listening carefully at the door bearing Bhaal's muscular form before opening it. Entering the corridor beyond and proceeding down it for a short distance, they turned back after realizing it led back to the entrance.  Their second choice was the door to the south, with its carving of Myrkul.They noticed a faint flickering of light under the door, so Tenshi opened it as quietly as possible.  Lying on the floor in a triangular pattern were three figures in black robes, and a torch laid between them, the source of the flickering light. Several members of the party noticed the robed figures breathing, so they decided to jump in the room and spring the poorly-laid trap.  The outcome was predictably short. Two of them were brought low before they even had a chance to fully rise, their rallying cries cut short, becoming gurgling death rattles.  The third, Tenshi intentionally knocked unconscious, wanting to question him.  Tying him to his dead comrades, they proceeded to search the attached crypt, and quickly found the hidden spellbooks, which they handed over to Eldon as he was the only one interested in them.After waking the unconscious man, Tenshi and Voragine began questioning him.  At first he refused to answer any questions, making various threats against the party and proclaiming that he had no fear of death.  Voragine made it clear that death wasn't what should concern him, and proceeded to snap the finger, hand, and arm bones of his dead companions like spun sugar.  Under threat of pain, he did reveal that there were around a dozen followers of the Dead Three in the dungeon, and that Mortlock was also lurking somewhere within, though he didn't know where exactly.  He then returned to making various threats, making sure they knew that he'd eventually get out of his bonds and hunt them down, with help.  So Tenshi unceremoniously stabbed him with her daggers, quickly ending him.  "He said he didn't fear death." was all she said.Heading back out to the octagonal room, the group proceeded through the Bane-carved door to the east, trying to be quiet, but the clinking of Ronus' chain mail was making this more-or-less impossible.  As they reached the mid-point of the corridor, on a small landing before more steps that lead into the odious drainage, they heard a muffled cry from somewhere around the corner at the end of the corridor, followed by hushed voices.  Tenshi scouted ahead, with the rest of the group close behind, and peeked around the corner.  On the west end of the flooded room, she saw wide steps leading out of the water, up to an altar flanked by a pair of torches.  A helmet-less suit of armor stood in an alcove to the north of the altar, and a man in very poor condition was shackled to the west wall, clad only in a loincloth and a burlap sack on his head.  Two burly humans stood at the top of the steps, a large woman wielding a longbow and an even larger man wearing a bucket helm and gripping a spear.  Both were clad in chain mail, and were obviously trying to make out any movement from the group's position, which was difficult given the dim light from the torches.  Tenshi backed away, and gathered a large handful of the wretched sediment from the floor under the water.  She signaled to the group, and deftly hurled the blob of filth at the helmeted man, scoring a direct hit on his eye slit, blinding him as the party charged the stairs as best they could given the depth of the water.The tactic worked amazingly well. The woman was distracted by her companion's flailing, and she had just enough time to drop her bow and pull out her mace and shield as Ronus charged like an enraged bull and Tenshi adroitly tumbled off of the wall and onto the steps.  Qira assailed the the flailing man with arrows, and Eldon seared him with a blast of radiance from the back of the room. As soon as he had managed to remove his helmet and clear the sickening muck from his eyes, Voragine used her bardic magic to inflict him with a fit of uncontrollable giggles. He dropped to the floor in front of Tenshi, who then leapt over him in order to flank him as Voragine quickly took up her position on the steps.  Ronus kept the woman on the defensive, blows from his greataxe knocking her shield aside and winding her with the effort of simply staying alive, though she did score a glancing blow on Ronus.  The large man overcame his giggles and rose from the floor with a great roar, stabbing at Tenshi (who nimbly dodged) while roaring at his companion to kill these intruders.  She rallied, and valiantly attempted to fend Ronus off, but it was too late.  Their assault was too effective: Qira and Eldon relentlessly rained down on their position, and Tenshi and Voragine quickly brought her flanked companion down.  Ronus finished her off with a solid blow from his axe, and the fight was over almost before it began.The captive man, Klim Jhasso, begged to be released, offering rewards and riches if he was returned to his family.  Ronus knew immediately from the name he gave that he was lying, but they released him nonetheless.  Tenshi took the keys from the dead man at her feet, and unlocked the captive's shackles.  Immediately, the gauntlets flew from the suit of armor and began attacking Tenshi, who very capably defended herself.  The rest of the group help beat them away, and Qira ultimately pinned them to the wall with a well-placed arrow.  They gave the man one of the torches and told him how to get out, letting him know the way was clear.  Then they proceeded down the short passage of steps south of the altar, choosing to ignore the door and passageway at the east and southeast portion of the room, having little desire to trudge through the filth again.Quickly heading up the steps to the west, wishing to avoid as much time in the water as possible, they followed the curving passage to a door to the south.  Ronus kept to the rear to keep the noise to a minimum, and Qira listened intently at the door.  She could just barely hear a slight murmuring and faint skittering noises.  Tenshi took a very quick peek, and informed the group of what she saw: a black robed woman, her back turned to them, working on a cadaver laid out on a table in front of her, with a swarm of skeletal rats at her feet.  Realizing they probably wouldn't be able to sneak up on the rats, they used what little surprise they had, and rushed into the room.  Quickly identifying Ronus as the biggest threat, the rats rushed him, while Voragine once again used her magic, this time assaulting the robed figure's mind with a painful, discordant melody.  Buckling from the pain and grasping her ears, the woman fled from the source of the music to the back of the room, and retaliated with magic of her own, sending burning rays of fire at nearly everyone in the room (Ronus was still dealing with the rats, and she didn't want to hit them).  Most of the rays harmlessly scorched the floor or walls, but Voragine took a direct hit.  Eldon retaliated with magic of his own, blasting the woman with a bolt of force that nearly took her off her feet.  Tenshi and Voragine rounded on her, raining down blows, and Qira finished the woman off with an arrow directly between her eyes.  Ronus stomped the rats into the floor mercilessly.Searching the woman for possible clues, they found only her silvered skull flail, her spellbook (a black leather affair with a tiny skull-shaped lock), and the key to the spellbook's lock in her hair.  Again they gave Eldon the spellbook, which he immediately opened with the key.  A wisp of black smoke rose from the pages and coalesced into a small, cackling skull, and then vanished.  Whatever effect it might have had, Eldon seemed to shake it off without effect.  Examining the corpse on the table, they deduced that she was likely trying to raise it from the dead to create a zombie, alerting them to the possibility of such creatures elsewhere in the dungeon.  They also took a bit of a breather, with Qira and Tenshi standing guard while Ronus and Voragine rested, and Eldon helped heal Voragine's burn.Heading back to the curving corridor, they followed it to its conclusion, ignoring a door to the south that had no noises beyond it.  Opening the door to the north, they cautiously followed the now-revealed passageway to the east.  This led to a partially-collapsed room with a dark altar on the south wall, topped with unlit black candles and with humanoid bones strewn about its base.  They wisely chose to disregard the altar, but not after first searching the room for possible clues or hidden doors.  Finding none, they pressed onward down the wide steps to the east, and up the corridor to the north.  They were brought up short at the end of the corridor, by steps leading down once again into the effluence that flooded most of the dungeon, and by an eyebrow-curling stench of rotten eggs.  Simultaneously identifying the cause of the smell, Ronus, Qira and Voragine all suggested not lighting a fire.  They examined this room as quickly as possible, disregarding the chamber to the northeast, and headed through the small exit to the east and down the wide flooded passage beyond that lead south, wanting to get away from the wretched smell as rapidly as was prudent, given their situation.The wide passage ended with a small corridor going east, with steps leading out of the water.  The long passage going directly east ended in a door, and was punctuated by a few side doors at regular intervals.  Not wishing to alert anyone within those rooms, the group sent Tenshi ahead to scout.  She heard nothing at the first couple of doors, and realized that what appeared to be a door to the north was actually collapsed.  The third door yielded fruit: the tell-tale moans and shuffling of zombies.  Quietly digging a small hole in the rotted wood of the door with an Emei dagger and daring a quick peek, Tenshi quickly and stealthily rejoined the group, and they formed a plan.  With Ronus in the lead, followed by Tenshi, Voragine, Eldon, and Qira in the rear, they very slowly and carefully reached the end of the corridor without Ronus making much noise.  Tenshi stood directly in front of the short passage to the door, with Ronus and Voragine flanking the corners, preventing any sort of escape.  Tenshi kicked in the door, and leapt back as Voragine dumped a flask of oil on the floor in front of it.  When the first zombie staggered out, Eldon struck it with a divine blast of sacred fire, simultaneously igniting the oil on the floor.What followed was utter brutality, the one-by-one dismemberment and incineration of zombie after zombie. Funneled into the kill zone, the zombies were relentlessly destroyed.  After the fire went out, and the fourth zombie was dispatched, Tenshi tumbled into the room, and Ronus and Voragine rushed in afterwards.  They made short work of the last two, though they were impressively resilient for being so thoroughly out-manned.  Not a one of them managed to land a blow on any one of the crew.Once the zombies were dealt with and the sarcophagus in the room with them fruitlessly searched, the door at the end of the corridor was watched, and a thorough search was performed of the other two rooms.  The first room yielded nothing: the sarcophagus within was partially buried in rubble, and it had obviously been plundered previously.  The second room appeared to have been similarly looted, but Tenshi noticed the sarcophagus had a false bottom.  Breaking it away revealed a mummified human floating in red brine, its eyes replaced with glistening moonstones.  She eagerly took these, once it was apparent that the body was just a corpse and not some undead horror waiting to strangle her.  She also remembered from her studies at the monastery that in some cultures, when the internal organs were removed during mummification, special organs such as the heart were sometimes replaced with something of significance.  Tenshi decided to further violate the corpse by shoving her fist into its chest, and was rewarded with a bag of oddly heavy beans.  Eldon recognized what these were, and warned her not to dump them out, as their magic would be released violently.  He told her they would need to be planted outside and watered, but the results might be... less-than-desirable.  "A risky endeavor, to be sure." he informed her.  The beans were securely put away.After listening intently at the door at the end of the corridor, and hearing nothing, the group decided to proceed.  They simply rushed in, having decided if anyone with hostile intent was inside, they would have already attacked them while they were dealing with the zombies.  Their theory was correct, as inside this blood spattered room was a harrowing sight.  Two people were shackled here and restrained, and in the center of the room sat a well-made chair. Draped over the chair was a bloody whip, and next to it, a half-filled bucket of salt. Shackled to the east wall was a female tiefling, whipped and beaten into unconsciousness, but alive.  The human male on the south wall had been dead for some time, his body cold and stiff with rigor, but not yet decomposed.  He had been similarly whipped and beaten, but much more severely. Tenshi used the keys she had taken from the helmeted warrior earlier to unshackle the woman, and Voragine whispered words of healing, sealing her wounds and immediately waking her.After a few moments of disorientation and being reassured that the party was there to deal with the cultists, the woman, her name Vendetta Kress, told them what she knew. She worked for the Oathoon patriar family distributing wine and spirits, and was knocked unconscious while doing business in the Lower City. She was taken directly here, and they had been interrogating her for information about the Oathoons and their security.  She had watched them similarly interrogate Effinax, the dead man, about the Jhasso family, until he finally succumbed to the torture and died in front of her. The party made ready to continue, asking her to stay here and recuperate, but she stopped them.  Vendetta refused to remain behind, saying that she couldn't stay there after what had happened, insisting that she come with them.  She added that she had often heard the scraping of heavy stone, accompanied by splashing footsteps, beyond the door to the north.  Considering this information, the group debated on how they should proceed.</blockquote>

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