Greyhawk 21: Roasted Rats, Skeletal Scribes, Zealous Zombies

From the diary of Garbrulo "Garbles" Bellario:

Amor has another job for us, so me and new member of the guild, Wyn, set out into the Cairn Hills by carriage with some of Amor's disciples, other religious followers of Bleredd. Apparently it had been the base or resting place of some follower of Bleredd some time ago.

Once we arrived, I spotted some rats nesting amongst leaf and wood debris just within the entrance. With our limited numbers, I didn't want to risk getting overwhelmed, so I lit a flask of oil and hucked it in, then Wyn and I fought some flaming rats for a hot minute. The nest burned for a couple of hours, the entry spewing out smoke like a regular smithy. Some of Amor's disciples worried about the books we were looking for being damaged. I calmed them, reminding them that Bleredd is a god of the forge and one should hope his base should be well fireproofed. (I really just forgot we were going after books.) We went in after the fire burnt out. We sifted through the debris, finding a little copper pin with a bull on it. I stuck it in my pocket and we moved on.

The door to the next room was rotted and burned and proved no obstacle for Wyn's strength. Remembering Findere's keeping eyes out for traps, I tread carefully, barely backpedaling as some rocks crumbled beneath my feet. The resulting chasm was easily traversable, though, and I was able to get to the next door. Listening carefully, I could hear some sort of scrabbling or scribbling. Wyn and I stacked up on the door, pulling it open to wait for any enemies.

Inside the room were four skeletons, each with some bones replaced by iron and one hand replaced with a writing device. We dispatched them quite quickly and checked out the next room, the door of which was labeled with "Scriptorium: Do not enter!". It had a few desks, scarred by the endless scribblings of the skeletal scribes. Opposite the door we entered was another door, with a plate upon it, inscribed with the same bull as on the pin. The door was firmly locked. I listened, hearing some unearthly hissing.

Expecting a fight of some kind, Wyn set about creating a little barricade just on our side of the door while I got to work on the lock. Then I tied a rope to the door handle, got behind the overturned desk, readied my crossbow, then pulled open the door. We were greeted by a zombie, who was looking toward something else in the room, who said something like "Kill the intruders!" Another one shambled into view. Wyn took a mighty swing with his glaive, nearly chopping one in half. Their first swings struggled against our defenses, but once they came around the desk-wall, one of them knocked Wyn unconscious. I managed to drop it with a couple cuts of the daggers, leaving me to fight the last zombie alone. I needed to save Wyn, since our Guild's numbers seem to be dwindling, so I put all I had into my last series a dagger strikes against this zombie, stabbing it in the eyes and tearing its rotting skull open.

That done, I scrambled to close the door, just spotting some other undead awfulness escaping with a chest out a secret passage behind a bookshelf. I slammed the door, not wanting it to come back, then attended to Wyn, a healing potion barely stabilizing him. Then I dragged him back through to Amor's disciples, who kinda patched him up before investigating the library. We found a blank scroll, which I thought was odd, so I dripped a bit of holy water that Amor gave us onto the scroll, revealing a map of sorts, not terribly far from this location.

The guild will need to investigate another day, as Wyn needs to rest and I need to do some investigation about it all.