Bern
No one felt quite ready to take on the rag man. After some discussion, we decided to investigate the Abbott’s study. The secret door into his study had been smashed open by the party prior to my arrival. Morin and Pish scouted ahead. The study itself was empty, but Pish heard voices from close by and moved to investigate. She was immediately spotted. As it turns out, the next room had a force of knights standing guard, the ones who had refused to flee after the exit was revealed. They were not at all happy to see Pish or Morin. We managed to talk them out of fighting, and found a small anteroom filled with knights and monks who appeared unwell. u-Heury speculated they had not come all the way back from being resurrected in he pool. The Abbot himself was among the disabled knights, and he essentially threw us out.
After that, we discussed a plan to reach the room of skulls and flesh described by the ghostly monk whose task we completed. In hopes of obtaining some of the skulls and the coins within. We also sought to scout the conditions of the basement to see whether the strange cherub demons were still present.
Scouting ahead once again, Morin and Pish were able to confirm the cherubs remained present. Worse, they had supplemented their forces with what appeared to be zombie monks. Most likely the monks had been resurrected and changed sides; there is definitely a strange symmetry between the resurrection pools to the east and the west that suggests a kind of eternal battle with forces changing sides depending on which pool resurrects them. From our position in the southern staircase, we could see three pairs, one cherub and one monk engaging in mindless patrols.
The plan was simple. u-Heury and I would go down the north staircase to create a distraction, then withdraw upwards and attempt to fight them one by one at the top of the stairs. Pish would remain on call to create another distraction with Ventriloquism if needed. Meanwhile, Morin would descend the southern set of stairs, sneak over to the Room of Flesh and Skulls, and steal as many of the skulls as she possibly could. Hopefully, none of the creatures would be able to pursue us out of the underground area, and we could at least determine if the treasure in the rest of the skulls was worthwhile.
With u-Heury in the lead, I descended the stairs, leaving a lantern with Pish for light. We did run into an unexpected snag. There were more cherubs and zombies on the north side. We counted five pairs, more than the three pairs on the south side. It’s probably not a coincidence that the number of coffins to the north and south match the number of monks and cherubs. Despite that, we managed to attract the attention of the northern group and retreat up the stairs. As we did so, we caught a glimpse of Morin sneaking across the room and into the chamber of Flesh and Skulls. Hopefully she’ll be able to grab the money and run. In the meantime, it’s up to us to handle whatever attention we’ve drawn.
