#Bern
So we decided to stop sniffing around doors and start opening them.
The ornate snake door led to a staircase leading down. That’s a nope, at least for now. Maybe when we’re done here.
The room without a door led to a small hallway filled with clay snake statues. They all had real metal swords with visible rust, meaning likely they animate if disturbed or somehow activated. We carefully slipped past without touching the statues and checked the far end; nothing noticeable.
One of the cinnamon doors led to an unfinished room with ancient masonry tools. I picked up a few just in case. Not in great shape.
Behind the primitive door was a coffin. I stepped forward and shoved the lid off, hoping for treasure. Instead I got some kind of liquid slime that oozed out of the coffin and swung bulbous arms at me. It got to one of the hires pretty bad, and tagged me, too. I got in a good hit that didn’t seem to do much, so we retreated and slammed the door. Investigating later, it got out and I tracked it to the ceiling?! We’ll have to be careful of ceilings in here. We found five small snake figurines made from clay in the coffin; I smashed one (it had ash or powder of some type) and we took the rest. The same room had a silver figurine of a snake with emeralds and some scrolls, all of which we also took.
We tried the door with a thumping noise. It had a huge snake skeleton with a two handed axe! We slammed that door shut and moved on.
The penultimate door had some simple quarters, perhaps for snake priests, and scrolls in an ancient language mentioning “baltoplat”. Nothing else of interest, but perhaps we can have the scrolls translated somehow and learn more about this tomb.
The last door was one that Les had warned about potential danger from just behind the door. We brought some rocks from the construction room and I rolled them onto the floor just beyond the door. The first one did nothing; the second rolled over some kind of trap and set off a bolt of lightning! I ducked; armax, behind me with the torch, was slower and is now burnt to a crisp.
The other hirelings deserted at that point when Lesley revealed she was out of cash. Good timing; we were about done here and wouldn’t need to pay them for the trip back, if they even brought enough food and water for that. We did explore the room and take the silver plaque where the lightning bolt originated right off the wall.
Our own trip back went smoothly, except for running from a band of giants. Les lost her tent, but I just grabbed my backpack and went. Traveling light has benefits.
I stayed outside while Lesley negotiated sales. Nothing turned out magical, but we got good coin for the silver plaque that nearly killed me and the silver and emerald figurine. We kept the scrolls in case they had useful information.
Lesley did bring out a bedroll, and it helped keep me warmer on the cold nights. It might help a bit in winter and fall. Maybe she’s not all bad. Spent most of the coin from the sales helping out a couple folks who got hurt and couldn’t work, so I worked a but myself doing real basic masonry on farms and such, just building stone walls for fields. Earned back a little coin that way.
I heard the others talking about a kobold pet, so tried to learn a little bit of that language. It didn’t go very well. I think I got a few swear words? Maybe.
It’s been a few seasons, I had better check in with Lesley and see if tree-hugging taught her anything about those scrolls.
