Episode 4 - The Loot Cave!

## **Riggs Journal -**

Pepper had a job for the party, said she has been tracking someone taking random goods into the woods. I guess she thought we could find the persons stash, but we got a bit more than we bargained for. We headed a bit out of town, the Ranger was following some tracks the person we had been looking for left behind, led us to a big stone staircase. The stairs led underground, deep underground. There was a bit of hesitation, but the party eventually all grabbed some form of light source and headed down.

There were two large stone doors in a room at the base of the staircase. The ranger noticed the tracks we had been following went into the door on the right. Pepper opened the door the tracks had led too, it opened into a narrow hallway. The party squeezed through only to have some of our more forward members get attacked by Caltrops! Attacked! Caltrops are not supposed to move! They are there to catch clumsy dwarves, and make people cry, while making everyone else laugh, not JUMP at you! Anyway, pepper gave me a bottle of acid, I threw it into the group, and then Zhong and I went around with our swords scooping all the leftovers into the puddle of green goop! Once the room was clear, we entered another hallway, this time I took the lead, as I came around a corner a spike trap fell from the roof, some sick shit put spikes into a corpse and turned her into a trap. I saw her incoming, and I thought it was just a normal person trying to kill me, naturally I wasn't scared at all, after all people are easy to kill! Lucky enough, the force from my gun stopped her from swinging all the way into me, but after I found out I just shot a dead woman, I felt a little unnerved.

I am used to the sea, and the unspeakable horrors that come with it, but there is just something twisted about using a dead woman as a trap, don't think even I would go that far. The party moved onward, found some wall with a mural on it, the mural was missing some pieces, looked like you were supposed to slot items into the wall. Ki-Ro matched up a paladin in the mural, to a carving on a tomb. Took the whole damn party it open it up! I grabbed one of the missing pieces and shoved it into the wall, pepper noticed a coin fit into the other opening and slotted that in. A wall on the far side of the room opened. As we got closer to the new opening, we found out that a corpse that had been leaning against a wall in the corner, was not as dead at it had looked! It jumped out at Ki-Ro and took a nasty bite out of her. Pepper screamed, a lot, and ran away. Ki-Ro also ran from the fight, and tried to calm poor Pepper down. Zhong, Erdraugwen, and me stabbed and shot the zombie, until it died.

*(Undied? Undead dying? Undead died? Died again? How does any of this work?)*

There were three more doors in this new room behind each one was a large button. Managed to clear a couple out, the party took a few hits trying to fight off the skeletons inside. When we got down to one door left, I was elected to be in front. I saw something inside that looked like a over-sized doll, at first it didn't look like a threat, but I guess I was more nervous than I thought, I don't make a habit of shooting without even looking at what I aim at.

(*I know some people think I am careless, but they are just looking at me, they don't understand what goes through my head, I may look trigger happy, but I know exactly what I am doing, the power behind my guns, I know what happens when I pull the trigger! I just also happen to want a lot of things dead!)*

Continuing! It all happened so fast, I saw a doll, my eyes told me it was a doll, my brain registered that it was a doll. But I heard something in my head, something ungodly, evil even! It chanted "Human Sized, and Standing up!" I shot it! I shot a Besmara damned doll! It was a damn good shot too! Could have killed the damn doll if it was a person, what a waste of a bullet! As the last button pressed in there was a great scraping noise! The party tracked back into the room with the mural to inspect what made the noise, found another wall open!

*(I started to notice a theme in this place)*

We pushed through the last stretch of crypt, lined with strange purple lights, they glowed, but didn't illuminate anything around them. It was a little unnerving. As we walked through the hall a swarm of ghost-looking things appeared from the dark! They flew toward the party, most of the party backed up, but not me! I was rather being brave, or stupid, not sure, but I ended up getting caught in the middle of the swarm. The party killed most of the ghosts as I freed myself, threw up a little bit, and was back to working order!

*(Just like a fun night at a bar!)*

The through the darkness held another, wait for it............... stone door, another, because, doors. The party ventured in to find a large circle on the ground, filled with infernal runes. Along with a blob of flesh, Ki-Ro tried to stab it, damn near lost her sword inside of it. As the bard struggled to pull her sword out of the unwavering blob of ugly, I shot it! I thought maybe it would make a bad, "thwwwp" noise, and my bullet would just sink in, and do almost nothing. Gladly, I was wrong! My round tore through that thing, blew a quarter of the blob into the wall on its way out! The party stabbed at it, me and the ranger shot at it a bit, after a bit, it decided it was going to die. Most things get to that point after a bit, it just took a little longer to understand how dead it was! The party found a chest filled with loot, split it up among us, and we were heading out. We took the corpse that had been turned into a trap with us, so we could try and find her family and put her to rest. As we left, the Crypt had a warm feeling in it, felt peaceful, I liked it. Wonder if that is what it's like to be a "good" person, might have to try it again sometime. I fiddled around crafting ammo as we walked back to the city, Pepper asked me about my sisters ring. Not sure how I felt about talking about it, I told her a bit, there is only one other person I gave the truth to about where the ring came from, but Pepper seemed to understand where I was coming from, I think she had it rough as a kid too, might be good for me to get it all out, I have been holding onto what happened that night for almost ten years now.

*(I have heard a lot of Infernal from keys, and I had to translate some in the crypt, I pick up languages fast, and I am sure I can speak it now if the need arises, I also think I might want to be a bit lighter on my feet in the future to avoid swarms of ghosts!)*