A Bird in the Hand

~~*[This writeup is incomplete because Lina is a lazy bitch. You can help by finishing it or yelling at her to finish it.]*~~ *Finished it because Lina needs her capacities to do more text roleplay.*

The party was camped out beside an abandoned church and graveyard on their way to the dwarven ruins. While Hansel stayed by the campfire preparing a nourishing stew, the others decided to explore the area for treasure.

They began by breaking into a large mausoleum. There wasn't much to be found, as the whole area appeared to have been looted and picked over already. In a side room, they found stairs leading down into darkness, as well as a door to another area. Catching the sound of footsteps, Raef, Larkin, Goro, and Roddy went down the stairs, while Mormiir went through the door next to the stairs. He found a collapsed rubble heap, attempted to crawl through a gap between the heap and the ceiling, and became stuck. After getting Goro to escort him through the darkness, Roddy returned upstairs and tried to pull Mormiir out, but succeeded only in pulling off Mormiir's boots, which he tucked into his gunnysack. Mormiir was displeased, and a scuffle ensued. Various items and curses were thrown around. The whole ordeal was loud enough to attract Hansel's attention. He arrived and forced the two friends to make up.

Fortunately Mormiir's struggles had succeeded in widening the gap under the ceiling enough so they fit through. On the other side they found a small room outfitted as a hideout for two people. After rummaging through it they came up with two notes. One read: "B3". The other was written in thieves' cant.

Downstairs, Raef, Larkin, and Goro discovered a long tunnel. Goro took a peek into a room branching off to the side but decided against going in alone since Raef and Larkin had already gone ahead. They heard footsteps and barely managed to spot someone at the far end of the tunnel, moving away from them.

Mormiir and Roddy eventuall caught up to the rest of the party. They handed the encrypted note over to Larkin who was able to read the code. It turned out to be a conversation between two people, one of which seemed to be her ex partner Finch.

*“Where did you leave the bird’s eye? Stop losing it.” '**“I don’t know, you had it last.” “No I didn’t. What did you do with it?” “I don’t have it. You just blacked out and lost it in the tunnel again.”***

Seeing his handwriting made her rather grouchy and she was reluctant to share the contents with her teammates but eventually did. In part. Moments later, the party encountered two ghouls. They killed one and frightened the other into a retreat.

The tunnel eventually ended in a stairwell leading up and into the church. After Larkin spotted and disarmed a trap, they encountered the frightened ghoul from before, who was no longer frightened, recognized Goro, and thought "Fuck this guy." Goro was attacked and bitten. He fell into shock and was paralyzed. Mormiir slayed the ghoul, and Roddy kindly picked up and carried the incapacitated Goro. It was a truly heartwarming moment to all who witnessed it.

Inside the first floor seemed to be the chapel and it's altar. The hall was empty except for two bright will-o'-the-wisps floating around. Roddy and Raef tried capturing one but it was too fast for them. On the altar the group spotted the symbold of an unfamiliar deity: An eye in a circle. Finding nothing more, they moved further up the stairs.

One flight up, they came to the chapel's gallery where the organ resided. Tucked in between the pipes they found another note. It read:

*"The twins guard the gold"*

There was another flight of stairs. At the foot of it, Larkin found another trap, this one hastily assembled in an amateurish fashion that screamed "Finch". After disarming it, party climbed into the church's bell tower, where the mysterious figure from before awaited them: it was Finch, Larkin's erstwhile partner. Larkin spotted him crouching up in one of the windows. Realizing the group had noticed him, he got up, flipped Larkin off and dropped down the bell tower in a ridiculously dramatic fashion. "I can do that, too!" Roddy yelled after him. After landing lightly at the foot of the tower, Finch ran to the woods, and was met by Hansel's son Jonn.

Up in the tower, Roddy recognized Jonn and waved to him. Looking through the tower for something left behind, Larkin found a bag of thirty gold-wrapped chocolate coins, presumably deposited by Finch. She was neither impressed nor amused.

With nothing else to do up there, the party returned back down. Mormiir, Raef and Larkin took the stairs while Roddy, still carrying Goro, leapt put the window and glided to the ground using his spell Featherfall. The party still wanted to find out about the notes. First, they combed the tunnel for some lost item. They came up with a small amber orb that turned out to be a kind of scrying eye. Next, they deciphered the note found in the organ. They returned to where the will-o'-the-wisps were but found they had floated down into the tunnel and into the room Goro had looked into earlier. Inside, they found an assortment of old, deformed skeletons. One of the floating lights indicated a two-headed one and a closer examination of the wall let the party to think it might be hollow. Mormiir smashed it in with his axe and uncovered a secret treasure room behind.

Lastly, the group turned to the note reading "B3". They assumed it must mean the third building on the church yard, a sealed crypta. They tried getting in but couldn't break open the door nor pick the lock. Goro, conscious again, had an idea and went back into the mausoleum the had first gone into. In one of the stone coffins he found a key. He used it on the crypta lock and, lo and behold, it opened. He returned back to camp where he used the opportunity to have a conversation alone with Hansel.

Inside they found two sarcophagi with images of the inhabitants painted on the walls above and two large chests. One was open and empty but the other one looked locked. Roddy could not wait to see what was in it and, despite Larkin's attempt to stop him, reached for the chest and opened it. A trap activated and fired a bolt at Roddy which he evaded by a hair's breadth. Raef, standing in line with Roddy, leaned aside with ease.

Having so masterfully disarmed the trap, they opened the chest and found a pair of ornate boots inside. Larkin snatched them up before Mormiir could.

Deciding there was nothing else to explore here, most of the party returned back to camp. Roddy took a detour back to the small hideout to play a harmless prank on Jonn and tucked stones in under his sleeping bag. Larkin decided to play a prank on Finch as well and threw in a stick of dynamite. The church collapsed.

Back at the camp, Hansel was having another stern talk with Roddy over the importance of not stealing from team members.