Return to the Necropolis: Chapter 17 (Day 5)
Following is Chapter 17 of the sequel to the Skirmisher Publishing LLC fantasy novel Swords of Kos: Necropolis!
Herein our heroes make good their escape from a watery deathtrap, learn some things about how wealthy seagoing people honor their dead, and amass a collection of colorful treasure ...
Join alchemical rogue Paros, Elven barbarian Parthenia, transmuting wizard Pumayo, and moon priestess Selene in their Return to the Necropolis!
Read "Return to the Necropolis: Chapter 16"
Once he was through the doorway, Paros could see by the light of his flickering sunrod that the submerged passageway proceeded about ten feet and then turned into a stairway that led upward. He pushed through the water the stairs and then began to slowly tramp up them, not waiting for another gulp of air from the bottle, his heart slamming in his chest and the blood banging through his head, hopeful, step after step that deliverance was at hand — and was relieved when he breached the surface of the water some ten feet up the stairs!
Paros gulped and gasped air into his strained lungs but kept stumbling up the stairway, not wanting to impede the others from coming up into the open themselves, but he reached a small landing right after and sat down, spent. Soon after, first Selene, then Parthenia, and finally fish-Pumayo and Kidna straggled up through the water and collapsed onto the stairs below him.
Once they had caught their breaths and rested a couple of minutes, the party members stood and continued up the stairs, which turned to the left and went westward after the landing. The party ascended an additional ten feet or so and came to another small landing, at the end of which was a heavy-looking padlocked wooden door in a style that seemed somehow incongruous with the rest of the surroundings. Paros searched it, declared it free of traps, and then without too much effort removed the padlock and opened it.
Before the companions stretched a long chamber that appeared to be widest at the end they were at and gradually grew narrower toward its far end, some forty feet away. The floor was covered in wooden planking and the walls were similarly paneled, and a dozen large chests were lined up along the walls, six on either side of the chamber with space for several more. At the center of the wall opposite the door, where the room was only about ten feet wide as opposed to the twenty or so at their end, the party could see what appeared to be an altar and, standing upon it, a colorful, life-sized stone statue of a naked, bearded man holding a trident in one hand and a conch shell in the other.
"It looks like the hold of a ship!" Pumayo said. This would not have been so immediately obvious to the others as it was to this scion of a maritime people but the wizard's companions could clearly see that he was right. And the dozen objects that appeared to be ornately crafted sea chests were undoubtedly, Paros thought, in actuality coffins.
None of them wanted to do anything for awhile, and Paros, Selene, and Parthenia stripped off their armor and down to their undergarments so that they could at least air dry a little; they would have very much liked to have just wrapped themselves in their bedrolls and maybe even slept for awhile but all of their things were completely soaked. Paros started to spread his things out so that they could dry a bit as well and saw Parthenia smirking at him.
"You know all that's going to get wet again on the way out of here, right?" the barbarian asked.
"Damn it!" Paros said. "Well, we'll probably end up camping here before we try to go back through all of that; I'm not up for dealing with it again right away." He looked over at Parthenia and smiled; she looked almost civilized in the heavy armor she had taken to wearing and he liked to be reminded of the barbaric splendor revealed by her tribal tattoos, lean bronzed muscles, and dreadlocked blonde hair.
Pumayo was the only one who was not fretting with his gear and, in fact, did not seem to have any.
"Pumayo, is your stuff still all down in the water?" Paros asked, regarding his friend's unfamiliarly amphibious form. In response, the wizard looked like he was starting to shake his head but then started to quiver all over, all of a sudden doing this so quickly that his form blurred. When he ceased moving, he had returned to his accustomed form, sans webbed fingers or gills, and complete with intact turban, dry robes, cloak, and pouches, packs, and other gear. He smiled at the reaction of the others and their envious looks at his dry clothing.
"It's good to be a wizard," he said smugly with his characteristically unattractive, fleshy smile. No one presumed to squabble over this, however, especially as Pumayo had certainly played a critical role in helping save the party from a watery doom — and as he then magnanimously took off his cloak and handed it to Paros and carried his dry sleeping roll over to the women so that they could huddle under it in their shifts.
"That was an amazing transformation," Paros said admiringly to the wizard, his penchant for alchemy adding to his appreciation for the deed. "But something is unclear to me. I get the webbed fingers and feet and the gills, but what's the deal with the horns? How did they help you underwater?"
"Oh, um, they did not help me there at all," the wizard said, flushing a little. "No, uh, when I cast a spell like that I must visualize the characteristics I wish to adopt, and then take the form of a creature that has them, even if it is a being with which I am unfamiliar and has features that might be extraneous. That could have been the form of anything, even a being from some nameless netherworld or a sea of Tartarus, and horns might simply have been one of its traits."
"Huh. Alright," said Paros noncommittally. "What about Kidna?"
"Oh, she is my familiar, so any spells I cast upon myself can benefit her as well," the wizard replied.
"Yes ... " Paros said, looking over at the dark serpent with its little horns and black iridescent scales arranged in alien patterns. "She certainly looks — looked! — like something from some aquatic netherworld." He and the wizard both chuckled uneasily a little and then mutually changed the topic of conversation.
Everyone did sleep a little then, sitting in the corners of the wood-paneled room or curled up on the planking of the floor. When they awoke, they drank a bit of wine and water and broke their fast with some of the Dwarven rations. Paros then armored up, the clammy leather still damp but not dripping, and started to walk toward the nearest container.
"Wait," Selene said. "Let me see if any undead monsters are lurking in these boxes before we begin opening them." She proceeded to hold up the silver crescent that hung around her neck, invoke the name of her goddess Phoebe, and speak the words of a divine spell. She then carefully scanned the room and, after about a minute, spoke again. "Alright, there are no such beings here."
"You can tell that nothing is in those closed caskets?" Paros asked.
"Yes, as long as they aren't too thick. But even if they were made of stone as thick as that wood probably is I would be able to detect the presence of undead beings through them." Then, as Paros's mouth opened, she anticipated his question and answered before he could pose it. "I didn't have this prayer prepared the other day when we were opening the vaults in that hallway. It was an oversight but I've addressed it."
Paros nodded his understanding and then moved over to the first of the caskets; none looked particularly more valuable than any of the others, and all appeared to be sealed with padlocks, so it did not seem to matter which he started with. Recovered from their rigors but still damp, the others arrayed themselves around the rogue, ready to render whatever assistance might be necessary. The chest did not appear to be trapped and the lock was not overly complex, so in short order Paros had opened the lid and revealed its contents.
What the chest did not contain, however, was the most surprising thing to him. There were, in fact, numerous objects within the box, including an odd-looking set of leather armor, an equally strange crossbow, several items of clothing, and a book that at a glance appeared to be a ship's log. Paros picked up the latter item and flipped through it, discovering it was an extended obituary of sorts, and then went to the end and read the last few pages.
"Lost at sea," he said. "Well, that explains why there is no body here, but apparently his family still wanted a place where they could remember him. He appears to have been a prominent member of the Eptaeinai family and the captain of one of their important trade and exploration vessels."
Paros then turned his attention to the suit of leather armor, which included boots and gloves and was reinforced with metal at key points. It also had a helmet that was considerably more substantial than what he would have thought likely for such a panoply, and this casque was fashioned from oiled leather and brass, had glass disks set in the two round eyeholes, and had a hood that allowed it to be securely attached to the armor. Further examination revealed that all of the seams in the suit were sealed with a gummy substance and that the boots were shod with thick metal plates.
"This armor looks watertight ..." Paros said with some wonder. "All except for this hole in the back of the helmet ..." A short length of tube with a clamp that looked as if it could be used to affix a longer tube projected from the hole and beside it was some sort of metal valve.
An examination of the crossbow revealed that it was apparently very powerful and well oiled and, unlike any other weapon of the sort the companions had ever seen, to be completely devoid of iron components.
"This crossbow looks like it is designed to be used underwater!" Paros exclaimed. "And this armor as well. I have heard of things like this from the old days, lost technology that turns up in bits and pieces in the agora and which artificers try to replicate. I think if we find the right buyer that we may be able to sell these for a few drachmas."
"Or use them to add to the sorts of areas we can explore," Parthenia said, sizing up the armor. "It's not like we never end up in places filled with water ... " Pumayo examined the armor as well, and nodded his agreement.
"Yes, it looks as if fresh air must have somehow been forced into the suit through this tube, probably via some apparatus, and stale air expelled through this valve," the wizard said. "We obviously don't have whatever device was used for these purposes but it might have been something very much like a bellows. And I have some other ideas on the matter ... ."
Paros and his companions moved on to their searches of the other caskets and discovered that nine of them, in fact, had embalmed bodies in them; two more were empty, with indications as with the first that the people associated with them had perished at sea. In short order, the party members had amassed the respectable hoard of wealth they had been hoping to find. It included a number of additional masterwork weapons, including a dagger and a trident; several pieces of fine jewelry, mostly signet rings; a variety of diaries, ship's logs, maritime charts, and other potentially useful or valuable documents; a fine spyglass; several votive statues crafted from coral of various sorts and colors; a jug filled with some sort of liquor; and a collection of excellent pearls, most of them white but a few yellow, blue, or pink (all of which Pumayo summarily claimed on the basis that they were spell components that he would use on behalf of the party). There was also the life-sized statue of Poseidon, crafted from fine coral of various types, and the conch and bronze-headed trident it bore.
A sweep of the contents of the room for magic revealed that the trident in the hands of the statue was enchanted, that the dagger was as well, and that the liquid in the jug was apparently several doses of a potion of some sort. They decided, however, it would be overly impious and perhaps thus even dangerous to pillage the trident from the little chapel area and left it alone.
"Are you going to use those pearls to figure out what that potion does?" Parthenia asked.
"No, not unless I need to," Pumayo responded. "Not for a potion. With Paros's knowledge of alchemy and mine in magic we should be able to figure that out between the two of us." The two of them proceeded to perform some experiments, tasting small portions of the fluid, engaging in various antics, and discussing the effects they experienced. After about ten minutes of this they gave their verdict.
"It would seem," Paros said, "that we have had the good fortune to find a draught of water breathing. There is a lot of it in this jar and we should only need a little of it to get us all through that hallway again. Not having to hold our breaths should make everything easier."
"And I have got some other tricks that we can try as well," Pumayo said enigmatically.
Read "Return to the Necropolis: Chapter 18"
