[Completed] Corvin/Mordred/Kasper Adventure 1: Battleaxe Gang

[archolewa]

Astrid shrinks against the wall. Her left fingers twitch, as if she tries to hide the symbol seared onto her palm.

"It is alright Miss," says Sebastian in a soothing voice. "We druids are not so concerned with good and evil as some clerics are. Only with helping us all live in harmony with the Great Mother. You have nothing to fear from me."

"I, I know," says Astrid, relaxing a little bit. "We never really belonged to the Seer's Church. Felt more comfortable with dirt between our fingers than singing in a pew, it's just..."

"I understand. Here let me...Corvin, Modred give me your packs. I'm going to stack them on top of each other, see if I can help Astrid here balance on them. That will take some of the weight off her wrists. Not much else I can do, until we can get her free and out of this fetid pit."

Mordred gives Sebastian his pack, before nodding to Corvin, and readying his sword.

[shaidar]

Corvin

Corvin hands over his pack, then looks at Mordred "Shall we try the other door?"

[archolewa]

The two leave the cell, and check the other door. It is unlocked, and comes open with a slight, silent push. It is small, with a wooden bed frame, straw matress and some blankets. A dull red and lavender cloak hangs on the wall, and there is another wooden door on the far wall. The room is brightly lit, and Corvin and Mordred squint a moment as their eyes adjust. The light is coming from a bronze lamp sitting on the bedside table. The light is a steady off-white, and Mordred recognizes it immediately as a Continual Light spell cast on the lamp. Pretty common in the Magic-User academy. Sitting on the bed is a bracelet embedded with moonstones, likely worth at least fifteen gold, and a ring of keys.

Corvin snatches up the keys, and hurries back to the prison hope you don't mind the assumption. One of them fits, and the manacles come free. He also quickly slices the strings tying her left hand to to the chains with his dagger. Astrid sags, and almost collapses, were it not for Sebastian and Mordred there to catch her.

Mordred holds her steady, while Sebastian takes out the last of his bandages, and wraps them around her lacerated wrists. "I'll need to clean them when we get out of here, and that won't be pleasant Miss Astrid, but this will do for now."

Astrid just closes her eyes and nods, taking long, slow, deep breaths. She cradles her left hand against her chest.

[shaidar]

Corvin

"Astrid, why don't you sit down on the bed while Sebastian tends to you, and we can give this room a proper search?"

He tucks the necklace away for safe-keeping then sets about searching the room and examining the door.

It sounds like there isn't much to search in this room, but under the bed and potentially hidden compartments in the stonework?

Also, does he remember seeing that mark on either of the priestesses hands?

[archolewa]

Astrid nods, closing her eyes and wincing as Corvin leads her into the Priestess' chamber, and helps her sit on the bed. She pulls her knees up to her chest, and sits rocking gently back and forth, her left hand pulled tight against her chest while Sebastian studies her more thoroughly.

As Corvin searches the room, he notes once again the door against the far wall. As he pokes and prods the stonework, looking for any secret compartments, one section of the wall does wiggle a little bit. A bit of vain pushing, some help from Mordred, and then a bit of pulling finally swings open a secret door. Behind the door is small closet containing ceremonial robes, boxes of black candles, some incense, an altar cloth, even a few extra holy symbols are hanging on the far wall, along with another ring of keys. A chest sits on the floor of the closet.

[shaidar]

Corvin

Corvin picks up the keys, but avoids touching the other items.

He then examines the chest, looking for signs of traps. If he finds none (and assuming there is no lock) and if nobody has any objections he will open the lid of the chest.

[archolewa]

Protection from Evil has expired. 45 minutes left on torch.

Corvin finds no evidence of traps, and unlocks the chest with one of the keys on the keyring. Inside he finds a sack, and a purse. The sack contains 6 gold pieces and 44 copper pieces (10 copper pieces in one silver piece). The purse contains 6 silver pieces, and 6 copper pieces. There is also a ceramic flask corked and sealed in wax.

[shaidar]

Corvin

Corvin passes the sack and purse back to Mordred. He examines the flask and its seal for any writing or symbols before also passing that to Mordred to get his opinion. He then checks for hidden compartments in the chest.

[archolewa]

Unfortunately, the flask contains no markings or other hints as to what it might be. The seal will have to be broken to determine the contents.

Corvin finds no signs of secret compartments in or on the chest.

[shaidar]

Corvin

Corvin looks at Mordred "Well, it was worth a try. Let's check out that door."

Corvin turns his attention to the door, checking it over and if it looks safe he will listen at it.

[archolewa]

As Corvin studies the door, he spies several glyphs on the door and jam so that they will break if the door is opened. 1d20+14+1(magical engineering) = 23 > 20 Mordred confirms that the glyphs are some kind of warding glyph, often put on doors or chests to protect against intruders. Normally, they are keyed to a specific person, and if anyone else breaks the rune, the perpetrator will be assaulted by the glyph in some way. Some might explode, some cause permanent blindness, some might even turn the perpetrator to stone, though Mordred doubts the priestess was *that* good.

Remove Traps: 1d20+4 = 23 After careful study, Corvin realizes that the runes are painted on the door, not engraved. Using some melting wax from the candles, plus his dagger, he is able to basically glue the part of the glyph on the door to the door jam, and then lift the paint off the door with his dagger. He gingerly pushes the door open, and the glyph remains where it is, swaying a bit but unbroken.

Inside is clearly the priestess' inner sanctum. Bright light spills into the room, another Continual Light spell that leaves everyone blinking. The eastern side of the circular room contains a sturdy wooden table covered in alchemical glassware. Suspended from the ceiling on the east wall is a human skeleton. Built into the east wall around the skeleton are shelves containing more alchemical equipment and sealed jars. The stuff in here would be extremely valuable, possibly worth as much as 100 gp, but Mordred warns it is also *very* fragile. Alchemy puts a lot of strain on the equipment, and the reagants they use are easily disturbed.

Once an alchemist has set up shop they almost never try to move, for doing so will almost certainly destroy their equipment and render their reagants useless. There is a wooden desk and chair along the western wall with a bookshelf, and a bronze brazier suspended from a tripod. A vented shaft above the ceiling allows the smoke from the tripod to escape. The desk contains several scroll tubes, various inks of different colors, and a quill. None of the scroll tubes hold anything but blank vellum. The bookshelf has 16 books of various magical subjects. Including a full set of the *Ars* books by Claudius Gnaio and three of the eight volumes of Cassius Celso's *Medica* books. Even a few rare (and less than legal) necromantic books by Helitharsis and Pericalcos.

These books would be worth 10gp each to the right buyer (and the illegal books probably worth a lesser but still substantial bounty to the authorities). However, if the (legal at least) books were kept, then with some time and money Mordred should be able to create his own spell scrolls and potions here. He would need to heavily renovate it (a costly endeavor!) to create anything more powerful. If he wished to try to learn new spells without the aid of a teacher, then he could also use the space for spell research, at about 2/3's the cost since he would not need to rent a laboratory.

[shaidar]

Corvin

"That's not quite what I was expecting. It was a joke at the time, but maybe we could make this place a base of operations. If we're happy this place is... cleansed?"

He turns and looks over to Sebastian "How is Astrid? Do you think magic could remove the burn on her hand?"

[archolewa]

Sebastian frowns. "She is not doing good. Too much time in this fetid pit breathing its poisoned air, far from the warmth of the sun, the singing of the birds and the scent of the flowers. Still, I think some time at the local Grove under the caring hands of healers more skilled than I should bring her back to health. As for the burn..."

Sebastian shakes his head, and gently takes Astrid's hand, though Astrid seems reluctant to let him study it. "I don't know. It looks and feels wrong. There should be blisters, but there are none. The burn itself is a dusty charcoal in color, but I would expect healed skin from a burn to be pink. Whatever happened, this was not natural. A cleric's magic may heal it, but not a Druid's."

Astrid pulls her hand away from Sebastian. She gives Corvin a pleading look. "No clerics, please Corvin. They'll take one look at it, and they'll--please! I don't worship Him, I swear I don't!"

Something I forgot to mention even though you asked: No, neither of the priestesses had any such burn on their hands.

[shaidar]

Corvin

Corvin puts his hand on Astrid's shoulder.

"I won't let anyone hurt you, Astrid. I know you're a good person. Did the priestess say anything when she branded you? Was there a ceremony, or a prayer, or some kind of spell?"

[archolewa]

"Uhh, n-no, n-nothing," stammers Astrid, not looking at Corvin, and presses her hand protectively against her chest.

Edit: Forgot to add +2 bonus to a behind-the-scenes insight roll since Corvin knows her. 1d20+13+2 = 20. She's hiding something.

[shaidar]

Corvin

Corvin rests down on his haunches in front of Astrid, takes her hands very gently and looks her in the eye.

"Astrid. You can trust me, you know that. I will never hurt you. You can tell me anything and we will work it out together. But I can't help you unless you tell me the truth. What happened?"

[archolewa]

Astrid's rocking grows more frantic. "I don't know why I went in. I'd walked by that nook so many times. I've sat there on cool days. Nice and warm. But something called to me. Found a hidden door in that nook. Found a--"

Astrid bites down on her knuckle and rocks in silence for a moment, barely keeping her tears at bay. "Found a shrine. To Him. Sitting on a small altar was a symbol. The five pointed Crown. His symbol. I, I don't know why. I picked it up. It burned, oh Corvin it hurt worse than anything I've ever-- I screamed. Dad came running. He saw me in the shrine. Horrified. Then the men came, led by the priestess. The young one. She dead too? I hope so. Mom fought, they killed her. The priestess sang some horrible song, and Dad fell to his knees, frozen with terror. I was barely conscious, my hand hurt so much."

Astrid closes her eyes, and sucks in air around her knuckle. She bites down so fiercely a bit of blood dribbles down the back of her hand. "Brought us here. Fed Mom's body to whatever horrors are in the pit. Bone rending, flesh tearing. Locked us in, in that room. Laughed when saw my hand. Said He'd marked me. I belonged to Him. Called Dad an apostate. Dragged him off first. Heard him pleading with her to spare us. Heard his screams. Nathan sometime later. Brought him back, a hideous monster. Told me I could stop it. I could end his suffering. Just had to swear to Him B-but but..."

Astrid's voice breaks and she clamps down once again on her knuckle, squeezing her eyes shut to keep the tears back.

[shaidar]

Corvin

"The young priestess is dead too, they're gone, Astrid. He can't own you unless you willingly give your soul over to him. Nathan loved you Astrid. When we gave him peace his last act was to show us where you were. He wouldn't have wanted you to give yourself to the dark for him like that."

Corvin has no idea if what he's just said about her soul is true, but it's what Astrid needs to hear. He tries to hide the niggling worries in the back of his mind as he watches Astrid's reaction to his words.

[archolewa]

"I know," says Astrid. "Before they took him, he told me not to listen to her. Lies, lies from a viper's tongue he said. Always had a way with words, Nathan. It was tempting though, Corvin. Just to make the misery end. If you'd taken any longer..."

She shakes her head. "But you didn't. Momma always told me to stop worrying about 'maybes' and focus on the 'is''."

She reached out her left hand. "Can I have my mother's sword?"

[shaidar]

Corvin

"Of course" he carefully removes the sword and scabbard from this belt and passes it to Astrid "Wendy would want it to remain in the family, to continued to be passed down the generations."