On the way to the wake Mahan starts to chat with Master Grimburrow, and attempts to convince him that we have been sent by Tyrwhitt, the priest of Zalatun at Itea. He is not convinced…

At the wake, Nailen attempts to re-open discussions with Grimburrow, to no avail. We have a brief discussion amongst ourselves and agree to listen in to other conversations to see if we can pick up clues.. We aren’t getting anywhere.

We decide to wait for night fall and attempt to find the false crypt in the cemetery.

Time passes…

Time passes…

Dusk falls. We prepare to advance on the cemetery, as luck would have it, there’s plenty of moonlight. We leave the Halvenstromm house and sneak to the cemetery. He shin over the walls and orient ourselves. As we slowly creep through the cemetery we all get an unnerving feeling of being watched. We get to the junction that Petros mentioned and there is one mausoleum here, the rest are simple graves. The mausoleum has a pair of stone doors fastened with a padlock. Olsen approaches to investigate, and beckons Nailen to accompany him. Mahan and Rufus keep watch for Brookies and Mr Bronson.

Nailen fiddles with the lock and quickly realises that it’s been burnt away with acid and just left to look like it’s locking. It must have been done recently as there is no rust on the padlock. The door swings inwards… The Scooby Doo incidental music starts to play. It smells musty and earthy.

We light the lantern and Rufus, Olsen and Nailen slowly descend.
The steps only descend about four feet into a large room, we judge that it fills the mausoleum. There are around 20 niches around the room – 4 sets of 5. Between the columns of niches are 2 statues of an armoured man. One on each side of the chamber.

The niches appear to be empty. We check them, and they are all empty. The statues are definitely made of a single piece of stone – they don’t look likely to come alive.

We stop to look at the dust on floor and spot some tracks that lead to the back corner – we find a secret door. It opens into a corridor along the back of the mausoleum and there are more steps leading further down. We gird our loins and then descend. These steps open into another chamber, bigger than the previous one. There is a semi-circular dais with a stone sarcophagus on it. Otherwise it is empty.

We enter the chamber, and approach the sarcophagus. There is some engraving on the top, however, we can’t read it. But Rufus thinks it is Old Lordling – he notes it down for later translation.

Nailen and Olsen push on the lid and manage to open it quite easily – metal runnners will do that. Within are several cloth wrapped bundles. We make like Christmas.

The first 4 bundles are similar – 1st one is a quiver of 12 arrows, 2nd is a quiver of 10 arrows with red fletching, 3rd is a quiver of 5 white fletched arrows. 4th is a quiver of 2 black fletched arrows.

The next bundle contains 4 2ft long rods, with gold heels. They all look the same.

The next bundle has 6 crystal flasks with clear, colourless liquid.

The next bundle has 5 flasks – clear pale blue liquid.

The next bundle has 2 flasks – opaque dark blue liquid with a sparkly silver sediment.

The next bundle has a leather cylindrical case – contains several sheets of parchment. Rufus examines them.

Underneath all of the bundles is a mahogany brass bound case. It contains some kind of instrument. On each side are 5 holes, 6 are empty, 4 contain some kind of crystal flask with silver ends. Within the flasks are some kind of silvery vapour.

We shut the sarcophagus and the secret door and return back to Mahan. On the way back into the first chamber, a creature drops onto Rufus and bites him on the neck! He falls to the floor.

Nailen, the bane of centipedes everywhere, kills it. Another appears and leaps at Nailen but he skillfully deflects it with his dagger. Olsen strikes a puny blow on it before Nailen kicks centipede butt! He really is a hero!

Olsen goes to get Mahan and we make our excuses and leave the mausoleum. Nailen attempts to dress the door as it was when we arrived. We get back to Kendra’s house. She makes us some cocoa when we get in.