Bancroft
The first blow that day came with the ordinary violence of the barrowmaze—bloody, sudden, and oddly intimate. Bancroft planted his feet, cursing his missing shield, and brought his sword down across a shambling zombie’s shoulder. The thing snarled with a voice like dry leaves and spun, its filthy claws raking the cleric’s forearm.
“By Sylvanus,” Bancroft gasped, tasting iron, but he kept his footing. Irulan stepped forward without hesitation, her blade ringing true as it bit into rotten tendon. Riyou’s arrow sang from the shadows and struck the creature between its shoulder and chest, driving it to its knees.
That same zombie, stubborn as barnacles, lashed out again and caught Bancroft across the ribs. He stumbled, breath short, then answered with a final, furious swing that dropped the corpse for good. When the water in the chamber stilled, the party rummaged through the tattered remains and found, tucked into a chest cavity, a small jade-and-gold scarab that flashed like a promise—ten golden coins to split between them.
They spent the next hours poking through the central room with the patience of grave-robbers and the reverent messiness of clergy. Bancroft, finding his torch dull against the gloom, muttered an incantation and cast Light so the party could see the ancient dust motes dance. For nearly two hours the search turned up only cobwebs and echoes, until Irulan’s watchful eye caught a shadow beyond the western portcullis.
Two sarcophagi lay within, lids still sealed. The wind from the open maze made the seals sigh. Irulan wrapped Bancroft’s cloak over her gloved hands to muffle the sound and, with a grunt, lifted the heavy iron. The others slipped beneath like thieves at a funeral.
Anticipating the usual undead ambush, Bancroft raised his holy symbol and tried to bolster them with Shield of Faith before bracing himself to Turn Undead. The spell left him trembling, but the ancient bodies did not stir; whatever sleep they kept was not cowed by a farmer’s prayers.
As Riyou and Irulan searched, the clink of metal and whispered steps told them they were not alone. Another group of delvers had come down the same throat of earth. Voices—rough and suspicious—rose in the corridor. The two groups huddled behind the portcullis and haggled with the guarded politeness of people who know blades can be the final arbiter.
They opted for a quiet compromise: share the corridor, share the suspicion. Bancroft, whose smile had the weary warmth of a man used to bargaining for kindness, kept his hand around a sealed scrollcase he had found in an alcove. With a glance matching Irulan’s, he hid the case beneath his cloak; discretion, after all, had bought them many lives.
They left the barrow that evening with faces streaked in sweat and dust, claiming to have found nothing, and the ruse held as they stepped out into Helix’s thin air. Mazzah, the tower-bound wizard, sniffed at the sealed scroll the cleric offered and waved them off with a grunt—arcana for coin, but not every curiosity pleases a curmudgeon.
It was the priests of Ygg who leaned in. When Bancroft brushed the wax seal and pointed out the symbol of Zuul, their fingers went white with tension. In the temple’s hush the seal was broken and a scroll of Protection from Fire Elementals unfurled between reverent hands. The priests’ eyes lit up with fervor; they offered to clear the debt Bancroft and Irulan owed for a Cure Disease after the giant-rat fiasco—and to top it with sixteen gold pieces each besides.
Relief has a taste, and that night the small circle of friends ate as if they could savor it. Bancroft sold the battered chest and lock he’d once used to prop a portcullis; the money bought a stout shield that caught the light like a promise. Then, at dawn, he found a hollow under an old oak and buried a few coins for Sylvanus with a farmer’s reverence—small rites that mended a soul as much as a purse.
They celebrated in Helix the way a band of survivors should: with loud stories and louder drinking. The tavern echoed their laughter until the roof threatened to listen in. Riyou woke the next morning with two entire sleeves of tattoos—skeletal vines curling around both arms and the group’s name, “The Dimly Lit,” inked across her chest. She swore she remembered fragments of the night; everyone else remembered different fragments for her.
Bancroft, overcome by a fit of ridiculous courage or holy mischief, organized a footrace through the market—naked, as tales go. He ran like a spring wind and crossed the line first; the prize was small—five gold—but the grin he wore afterward was wide enough to buy another story.
Irulan woke with a pounding head and a peculiar case of party envy, nursing both with a cup of bitter tea and a scowl that said she would never admit to jealousy. The next morning they set out again for the barrowmaze, pockets heavier and tempers lighter.
On the road they met the Norsemen—a hard-handed mercenary crew—who traded gossip for coin and sold Irulan a small carved statue they claimed to have pulled from a tomb. It looked promising and odd in equal measure.
Back underground, Riyou’s picks whispered open a sealed barrow. Beneath, lit by Bancroft’s steady, magically-glowing torch, four pillars rose from the floor, each studded with glittering gemstones that caught the light and threw it back like a dozen tiny suns. Riyou spent a careful half hour probing for snares; then, perched on Irulan’s broad shoulders like some nimble, furious sprite, she pried each gem free and shuttled them into a sack with the greedy tenderness of a cat.
Their hurry became a mistake. As they hurried toward the entrance, two coffer corpses—twisted mockeries of men made to hold treasure—lunged from shadow and seized them with the cold, unyielding fingers of the grave. One found purchase on Irulan’s throat with a grip like iron, the other snapped at Bancroft but missed its mark.
Irulan’s face went white as stone. She clawed and kicked, but the corpse’s hold was a vise. Riyou, true to her halfling instincts, vanished into the melee, then reappeared in the strangest, bravest way: leaping onto the back of the corpse that choked Irulan and stabbing until her arms trembled and the thing’s fingers slackened.
Bancroft, shouting prayers with the desperate gentleness of a shepherd, called on Sylvanus and felt green warmth spread through his hands. The nearer coffer fled with an unholy shriek, dragging Irulan; the other, unnerved, loosened its grasp. With the last of his strength he touched Irulan and felt the bark-strong certainty of life return to her limbs.
They ran, scraped and bloodstreaked, out into the sunlight as the beasts of the barrow shrank back into shadow. When they counted their spoils later, the gemstones were real enough: enough to set each of them up with a hundred gold pieces apiece once trimmed and sold. Joy tasted like dirt and coin.
The little Willendorf statuette Irulan had purchased from the Norsemen, however, proved a lesson in caution—beautiful for what it was, worthless for what it claimed to be. It was a fine fake, and their laughter at being fooled was the sort of levity earned by people who had lost and found worse things in the dark.
Irulan
Pulled a quick card while Bancroft did his thing. Wheel of Fortune, greater forces are at work. Bancroft, Riyou and I whaled on the last zombie and dropped it. We searched the bodies and found a fancy pin on one body. I kept watch while they searched the room, and I heard people talking and metal on stone. We searched the main room. Quietly, because of the noises outside. I lifted the other portcullis and held it while the other two investigated the two sarcophagus. There were two skeletons and lots of paper and garbage floating. As they were searching, I heard people coming down the stairs.
We tried to scare them off, but they saw through it and searched the main room while we searched the little room. Bancroft found a sealed scroll case that wasn’t waterlogged and hid it from the watching adventurer. We left them to finish searching on their own.
Mazzah wasn’t interested in the scroll, which had a Zuul symbol on it. We sold the pin to the jeweler. The St. Ygg priests opened it and said it was a spell of fire elemental protection that anyone could use. They were so happy to have an “evil” thing to destroy, they gave us gold and cleared out the debt Bancroft and I owed them for healing. It was a great deal, unless we find a fire elemental in the barrows.
We spent the night carousing. Nothing eventful happened to me, I just drank and went to bed because I can hold my liquor. In the morning, Riyou was tattooed all over her arms with Nergal symbols, skeleton hands, ivy, and skulls, and on her chest was a tattoo of the group name, the Dimly Lit. Bancroft looked worse for wear, having run a naked race through town after someone dared him, but he won a trophy. We headed out through storms. The Norse Whisperers saluted us as we left.
On the way to an unassuming barrow in the middle, we saw the Norse Whisperers, who wanted to trade a relic for quick money, saying we could sell it for more in town. I wanted to stay on their good side, so I gave them some gold for it. But I really want to know how they beat us in and got so much loot that they were loaded down.
Our chosen barrow had double bronze doors covered in an ivy motif. Riyou unlocked the door to an eerie quiet. There was a big room with pillars with gems embedded in them. Stairs to a door straight ahead. A door to the right. The silence was oppressing. Riyou checked for traps, and said the north door was sketchy. We dug the gems out of the four pillars.
We headed back to town with our haul, and the chilled “nothing” I’d felt the whole time was two ghouls hiding by the entrance. One started choking me in an unbreakable hold. Bancroft tried to turn undead, and the one holding me ran, with me. I tried to hit it, but missed because of the awkward angle I was held at. Riyou hit it with a sneak attack, but did no damage with normal weapons. It did drop me. We ran, but finally lost them.
