Chapter 2: The path to enlightenment is blood

Daniel strikes down the wicked creature that was clawing at his legs but the creature on his back is still scraping away.

Despite Daniel's worsening condition, Lavender can't help but scream as two grimalkin swipe and gnash at him, one giving him a nasty gash across his side. "YEEEAAARRRGH!! Ahh, hehehe. A little help here fellas?!" He stabs wildly at the one that connected with him.

He makes contact and tries to retreat, but can't seem to get away without opening himself up to another pair of claws or jaws...

The burning of the statue continues. The grimalkin continue their onslaught but all for naught. Daniel finally shakes the grimalkin off his back. One of the grimalkin attacking Lavender jumps to attack Murt but misses its claws unable to enter her space without being skewered. The last grimalkin attacks ineffectually Lavender. A small piece of the idol pops, as if the heat is too much for the stone. As it breaks the grimalkin stop. They then slump to the ground and curl into balls of emaciated flesh. Slowly their flesh breaks into chunks and ash leaving only a black stain on the ground.

The pieces of the statue fall to the ground. All goes silent.

Stearval speaks darkly. "I believe Mortoch will be pleased. Flesh will be ripe for eating once more."

Lavender winces as he gingerly touches the claw wounds across his side, his padded armor and tunic shredded a bit. "Well... that was a hoot, eh?" Then, looking further down the tunnel, "I s'pose we oughtta head further in t' confirm we got 'em all? After a second he enthusiastically adds, "Unless y'all think we can jes call it good? A job well done, yea? Yep, one-hundred percent complete and no need t' investigate the matter further!"

Daniel nods and begins to take a step forward, but then groans, "I might need a minute to catch my breath," he says to his companions, trying to hide the seriousness of his wounds.

Moving slowly due to your wounds you begin your further exploration of the tunnel. The shadows continue to flicker on the walls but it seems there is nothing more than shadow. Eventually the tunnel gets smaller then opens up into a largish cave that seems to be the end of the tunnel. the ground is strewn with left over bits of armor, clothing and odds and ends. It looks like besides the goblins there are items from perhaps travelers.

Upon entering the chamber, Lavender lets loose a deep sigh of relief. "Phew! Guess we really *did* take care o' the problem completely. I knew it, of course. Now... les see if there's anything worth th' trouble in this pile o' garbage..."Favoring his side, Lavender will begin kicking over items in the large cave to see if there is anything worth taking.

Being familiar with rooting around in heaps of rubbish, as well as the unflinching rules of "Finders - Keepers", Murt leaps about sifting through the debris to find something worth her effort of murdering a series of hapless goblins who fell victim to the dark chaos magic that consumed the village.

Daniel doesn't seem super interested in looting, though he does move through and kick some things aside to see if anything interesting is within. He pays more attention to any sort of threat that may materialize.

Murt starts rummaging through the detritus. Her heart pounds as she hears clinking. She puts her hand into a pile of moth eaten clothes and pulls out a leather coin pouch. Quickly counting she finds 30 silver shekels and 3 Anthat gold chips. The gold chips have the alchemical symbol of fire molded onto the front and a figure of the Azure river dragon on the other. She continues to root around and finds two more pouches. One has a bag full of Seafran half coppers. Murt remembers the first time she saw the half coppers from the far away kingdom. Murt and her fellow scoundrels surrounded one of the fat Seafran merchants, with his flowing purple silk robe with white flower embroidery. He still had the smell of the Salty Sea on him. Daniel's foot hits a few rusty swords and a shield of decent size and make. It has the symbol of a Pheonix on it. He recognizes it as the symbol of a caravan guard company. He remembers the Phoenix were a decent company. Looks like they didn't protect well against these monsters. He then looks and listens for any danger. All is quiet. While looking for danger he sees one part of the cave has a shallow cubby-hole. There might be danger hiding in there! He carefully looks in and he sees a bunch of pieces of pottery sherds pile about ankle high. On the sherds there seems to be some very strange writing, or are they runes?

Lavender finds a small coin purse, also with Sefran half coppers. He continues looking and sees what looks like a knights helmet with a strange visor. As he touches it the visor glows red. Strangely he doesn't see the armor of the body anywhere. The disembodied head makes a hollow tin sound. "The misss...ssss...ssssion..."

As the trio quietly searches the cave, the only sounds are the occasional kicking over of detritus and shuffling through debris. After a few minutes a familiar shriek rings out, "SHIIIIITE!" as Lavender punts the helmet further into a corner. Wincing and holding his side from the sudden muscle movement of wounded tissue, he takes a step or two towards the helmet, now lying several yards away, and tries to peer at it without getting close. "D'you fellas hear that? Damn ghostly helmet began t' glow n' muttered sumthin' 'bout "the misssssion..."" He waggles his fingers and draws out the words, making light of the situation despite his genuine fear. After a moment he draws closer again. Crouching down and holding his dagger out, he pokes at the helmet and watches it for any more of the aforementioned spookiness.

Daniel picks up a few shards of pottery as well as the shield, and sticks them in his bag, "Nah, I didn't hear anything."

Lavender closes in on the helmet. The visor is dark. Then it glows once more. But dimmer, as if being kicked wasn't a good thing. A disembodied voice from within speaks weaker this time, " The gate on the... the... the... mount...n must be op...ened. The master must com...com...com...plete the weapon to.... this realm... the voice fades shortly. "Only the master can save... from the gods..." The visor's voice dies. The glowing red dims to black.

As the visor speaks, Lavender finds himself unconsciously moving closer and closer, until his face is almost right in front of it at the end. "What? Who's the master? Why'd we need saving from the gods?!" He picks up the helmet and stands up, turning to the others and holding it out. "Danny, Murty, Stearvy, take a look at this old hunk-a-junk. Where d'you think all this old stuff came from? Who would've come down here?"

The helmet stays quiet.

The visor glows slightly after a long long pause. "Mmmm...mmm...master...err...err...err is master. Must follow... coor...di...nates... to gate.". The visor dims once again. Then it begins to make a strange bell sound. Beep pause Beep pause Beep.

Daniel moves over and picks up the helmet, "Can you hear me?" he asks, looking directly into its 'eyes'

Beep pause Beep pause Beep pause
...
"Yes"