Digging is boring. As a dwarf, I know that in my blood. I know that in my bones. I do it anyway because I’m a dwarf. And I stick to it even when other people wander off. When my group of would be adventurers started to dig open a Barrow they thought looked more likely than others to hold treasure. I kept at it. Before long. The halfling, Vinrin. Wandered off to look into an open doorway. Bancroft, the farmer, followed him. Am already wondering if all I will ever see them again. The barometer is known for swallowing people without a trace.
A few hours later, the halfling Brak Odo and a few others wandered off to the north, figuring they take a peek inside the central barrow since digging is boring. I could have told them that, but they didn’t ask and they didn’t even have to dig. We only had three shovels between a group of six. They could have done something useful and stood guard. Instead, they wandered off. Within an hour, they were back. Mostly. Or not mostly. Brak was dead, killed by a skeleton. Some sort of gem in its forehead. So was Cronuk. So was Jiib. Almost everyone who left to go take a peek into that damned barrow is dead, killed by that one skeleton. I’m still here digging.
Only the half or Cami made it out alive, and she kept babbling something about not being the one who killed Brak. The story she told made it clear the skeleton was still alive too. Or still undead, or however the heck that works. Some were on the surface, wandering around now. Apparently it climbed up a rope they let down into the barrowmaze.
Once I got the whole story, I went back to get some of the gear the idiots just left there. We don’t have much and we can’t afford to waste anything. I found the bodies and took everything Brak had. Which wasn’t much. That fancy cloak of his might be worth something. Someone left a rope with a grappling hook. Dangling down into the maze. The very same one they told me a skeleton had climbed up and killed most of the group. Did they think more wouldn’t find it and climb up on their own? I collected that too and beat a hasty retreat back to the dig site.
We did see a pair of strange figures bent over the bodies before we collected their equipment. They seemed wary, but not hostile. One of them took the wig that jig had been wearing. I didn’t know it was a wig until I saw him take it off. There must be a whole economy underground here, thriving off of looting the bodies of dead adventurers trying to loot the bodies of previous dead adventurers.
But I’ve got to make the funds to get out of town somehow, and this is all the opportunity this pathetic town has.
