Following is Chapter 6 of the long-awaited sequel to the Skirmisher Publishing LLC fantasy novel Swords of Kos: Necropolis! Herein our four companions camp in the vault of the Anemoi, contemplate who could have absconded with their hoard of treasure and how, and formulate a plan for salvaging the ill-fated expedition to the greatest extent possible ... Join alchemical rogue Paros, wizard Pumayo, Elven barbarian Parthenia, and moon priestess Selene in their Return to the Necropolis! 

Read "Return to the Necropolis: Chapter 5"

All four of the companions were angry, baffled, and a bit despondent at the discovery that their hoard of treasure was gone and had apparently been swapped out for a collection of potentially deadly crossbow traps. An examination of these weapons indicated they were of Dwarven manufacture, more evidence that a rapacious band of such folk had been wreaking havoc throughout the catacombs.

"How did they even get in here?" Paros asked indignantly. "The door is sealed with an exceedingly complex lock." He knew, however, that the lock was not really "exceedingly" complex, just moderately so, and that if he could open it then others could as well. And if whoever had rigged those crossbows was as adept at lockpicking as they were at trapmaking then it would not be too surprising that they could have breached the portal.

"Sorcery could have accomplished this as well," Pumayo said, raising an alternative possibility. "I myself can employ magic sufficient to open this door ... ." Hearing this did not please Paros much but he did silently resolve to test the wizard's assertion next time he himself was not able to successfully open something.

"What I'm more interested is how someone knew to loot this tomb!" Parthenia asked heatedly.

"Probably just dumb luck ..." Paros said, recalling silently that he had, in fact, made reference to "the Four Winds" any number of times when he regaled listeners with the tale of the party's battle with the armored skeletons in this room. "Probably no way we will ever know."

"Dwarves have many means for disclosing the location of treasure," Pumayo said, glancing at his friend and recalling the details in the some of those stories himself. "It is one of the things they specialize in. So, it is not surprising that they would be able to locate such a rich hoard, no matter how well hidden it would seem to be to anyone else."

A long and heated discussion ensued as to what the party should do and, as they spoke, the companions began to set up and lounge on their bedrolls, nurse skins of wine, and munch on trail rations.

Parthenia was in favor of hunting down the thieves, wreaking vengeance upon them, and retrieving their treasure. There was pretty much unanimous support for this and the conversation centered on it for awhile, until, upon their attempt to formulate a plan, they realized they had no idea where their nemeses might be or how to find them.

"If what we came for isn't here then why don't we just leave?" Selene asked. The idea of leaving empty-handed made no sense at all to the rest of the party members and they expressed this to the priestess in no uncertain terms, making it clear that their intent was to salvage the situation to the greatest extent possible. Somehow this did not really seem to make sense to the Half-Elf but she nonetheless agreed to go along with whatever the rest of them wanted to do.

Eventually the party members came to the conclusion that the most productive course of action would be to resume their exploration of the catacombs, selecting a few choice-looking tombs that they had not visited previously but also exploring how lucrative it might be to attempt looting the hundreds or thousands of individual vaults that lined the dozens of secondary hallways. While the larger tombs tended to have respectable amounts of loot in them, they also tended to be well protected by traps, magical wards, and monsters of various sorts, and this seemed less likely to be an issue with the smaller vaults. These, indeed, seemed to have been a target of the party that had preceded them into the catacombs, and they appeared to have gotten a decent payoff from the limited number of burial niches they had broken into. Those adventurers had, of course, apparently all been slain, but that did not seem to be in any way connected with the specific places they had pillaged within the necropolis.

Then, once the companions had accumulated as much as they could reasonably carry, they would return to Kos City and liquidate their haul — after which, barring unforeseen circumstances, they could repeat the process as many times as they wished. They only had a few days worth of food on them but if they needed to stretch it out by a day or two they could collect pomegranates and asphodel from the great sinkhole cavern where these grew, the long-term detrimental effects associated with eating them being less of a concern if they did not remain in the place overly long or once again become trapped in it. Parthenia also said that she could take half a day to hunt and forage in the rich environment of the overgrown cemetery above, as she had previously, and in that way further provide for their needs.

A plan agreed upon, the companions set a schedule for keeping watch and then all turned to sleep or individual activities. Pumayo settled down in one corner of the octagonal chamber to study his spellbook for a short time in order to retrieve the handful of spells he had cast that day, his cobra coiled and upraised in a way beside him that created the illusion that it was reading the grimoire as well. Selene focused on her silver quarter-moon holy symbol and prayed to her celestial deity. Paros placed the two potsherds he had taken from the embalming lab into one of the four corner niches and designated it a latrine, setting near them the linen strips and a sack of white powder he had compounded; he then proceeded to tell the other party member which pot was to be used for what and to explain the importance of sprinkling the powder upon their contents. Parthenia drank wine and inspected her weapons and equipment.

Now that they had resolved upon a plan the adventurers felt somewhat better. It still seemed like a poor substitute, however, for simply loading their packs up with loot and heading straight back home and, as each prepared for the next day, they were irritated to varying degrees by this.

"Pumayo, you need me to light another candle for you?" Paros asked as he lay on his bedroll and felt his eyes grow heavy. The taper was sputtering and would go out soon, plunging the chamber into a stygian darkness that would preclude the wizard from continuing to study his spellbook or effectively keeping watch.

"No, thanks, I'll be fine," Pumayo replied. ""I'll light another one when I wake Parthenia for her watch."

"What, you can see in the dark now?" Paros asked with an incredulous chuckle.

"Yes, that would appear to be the case," the wizard said. "A benefit, it would seem, of my devotions before the idol of Lady Hecate."

Paros nodded. He, too, had felt as if some tangible blessing had been bestowed upon him when he made offering to Hermes Psychopompos in the temple above and, as the candle went out and he drifted off to sleep, he wondered how it would manifest itself. 

Read "Return to the Necropolis Chapter 7"