The company go back the stairs the way they came some, before turning off in a different direction as to explore the tomb more. As they make their way down the twisting tunnels of the tomb, they come across a crossroads.
Athlenah looks down both directions and sees just tunnels, one leading down, one staying the same level. Caithryth, however, sees something glinting on the passage going down, reflecting the light from her lamp. Caithryth points to the left passage snaking down. "There. I'm sure."
Athlenah mutters, 'I swear if this lead to the main chamber...'
Caithryth stops at the top stair and raises the lantern. Caithryth says, 'Look around a bit.' Athlenah looks at the roots on the ceiling, "Watch out here, the roof is unstable." Caithryth kneels down and runs her fingers a bit through the dirt on the raised ground. "I wonder if that's just a big grave or it was an altar of sorts. The dirt looks placed, not fallen."
Gaeded would shrug, "Who knows. This place is ancient. Whatever purpose it had is lost to time now."
Athlenah says, 'It still serves as a tomb.'
Caithryth gives Athlenah a look, 'Well. Yeah.' Caithryth strides over to the wall alcoves and proceeds to search through them. Athlenah looks at the grave. Caithryth looks about on the body in the alcove, but all she can find is tattered cloth that were one clothes and rusted armour that would serve no use now. Athlenah however, finds an urn at the bottom of the grave she looks in. It's closed and she cannot see what is inside. Caithryth asks, 'Any luck?' Athlenah picks up the urn, shakes it gently and inspects it to find a way to open it. Caithryth walks over to Athlenah to give her some better light. Athlenah says, 'Found an urn. Don't know what's inside.'
Caithryth says, 'If it's tightly sealed, maybe keep it locked until we're out.'
The urn is quite heavy and when Athlenah shakes it, the lid falls off and smashes on the floor, the clay it's made of shattering. Inside the urn, is a lot of dust.. ashes.. but in it she sees some coins too. Gold coins. Athlenah gently digs around in the ashes and fishes out the gold coins. Athlenah says, 'Well, that was easy to open.' Byrhtnoth jumps at the shattering of the lid and looks over to the three, raising a brow a moment before continuing to search the place. Caithryth grins. "Sometimes there's some luck in shattered things." Caithryth points to the other alcoves. "Let's keep searching." And she walks over to the next one, going through it as well. Athlenah carefully places the looted urn down. Gaeded would have a look in a grave also, now that they have begun to find things of real value.
Caithryth, once again, doesn't have much luck. There is no urns or anything that could contain anything of value where she looks. Athlenah sees something in the dirt, an antler it seems. If she takes a look, she can see it has carving on it. Gaeded seems to perk up and pulls away the planks of the grave. She seems to take something from the skeleton and once she steps away it can be seen that she is holding a golden belt buckle carved with knot work. Caithryth looks up at the glinting. "Nice catch!" Byrhtnoth has finished searching the other side of the room and is slipping some gold, shiny things into his bag as well. Caithryth says, 'We're getting somewhere.' Gaeded would look at the belt buckle, "Yea. We could get some good coin for this."
Caithryth says, 'And so far, this is way easier work than mercenary work!' She grins, her eyes glinting in the dim light of the lantern.
Gaeded asks, 'Are there many tombs like this in Gondor?' Athlenah looks down and brush away some dirt and picks it up and cleans it off. Caithryth says, 'There's supposedly an entire mountain filled with them, but that's all.'
Caithryth looks around. "Let's move on!"
Gaeded asks, 'Where's this mountain? Perhaps we could do a little more tomb raiding in your lands.'
Caithryth looks around. "Let's move on! I vote going deeper." Caithryth then answers Gaeded's question, 'It's north of Dol Amroth, and supposedly reaches all the way to the other side of the white mountains.' Athlenah inspect her treasure which is still unnamed to her and sees the light walking away from her. "Dammit, Caith! Wait for me!" Byrhtnoth nods to Caithryth and Gaeded just shrugs, "Makes sense." Then she pauses in her speech, "Into the Maerc?"
It is totally dark for Athlenah again. Athlenah moves around to find a wall. Caithryth sighs. "You two wait here, I'll fetch the careless one." Gaeded would look around, sighing. Byrhtnoth looks agitated. Caithryth holds her lantern up, calling out. "Athlenah!" Caithryth stops as she enters the room they pillaged, illuminating enough to see her shape. Athlenah walks to the light. Caithryth just looks at Athlenah and shakes her head, before turning around to walk back to the others. "Don't fall back again."
Athlenah retorts, 'Don't walk away again.'
Byrhtnoth looks impatient and like he was about to walk off again as the two returned. Caithryth looks Athlenah up and down with annoyance, then she looks over at the two rohirrim. "Further down?" Gaeded would sigh, again, looking down the deeper path, "Yea, down we go."
As the company enters this room, they can see many graves. These ones seem a little different than the others - they are more decorated, meaning most like that there will be more treasures to be found in them. It seems they are nearing the end of the tomb also, as it would make sense for the richer people to buried near the back.
Caithryth holds the lantern up high again. "Now that's a hall. And a lot of graves. Let's go the right way and work our way along it." Caithryth points to the right. "Let's start searching!" Caithryth starts searching the urns on display there, shaking them before trying to open the ones being heavier than others.
There is so much to search that it takes the company a while to search the entire room. Overall, Caithryth finds a jar, not unlike the one Athlenah found earlier and a belt with golden decoration and belt buckle. Gaeded finds a decorative helmet made of silver and gold, and a decorated drinking vessel. Athlenah finds a decorative golden dagger, a glass cup with interesting decoration on it and a good amount of gold coins inside as well as a necklace made of carved animal bones it seems.
Caithryth puts the jar on one of the coffins, for later inspection, as she has to investigate the belt and belt buckle first. The leather is on the way out, but the metal pins and symbols glint golden in the light. Quite satisfied with this find, she stashes it in her bag before taking a look at the jar, investigating it between her fingers before trying to open it.
Athlenah picks up the glass cup with the gold coins. Ath put the coins intro her coin purse and inspects the cup "Interesting tea cup." She then takes out a cloth and wraps it intro it for protection and place it intro her bag after several steps Ath will see some interesting shaped bones and picks it up to reveal a necklace decorated with animal bones and place them intro her bag as well. Ath looks around and sees an odd shaped rock and walks to it. the rock turns out to be a remains of somebody. The body is long gone and the armour is damaged to no repair but there is an old weapon holder on what is left over of a belt. Ath easy take it off the remains and grabs the hilt and pulls it out to be faced by a golden dagger. She put the dagger back intro its holder and then places it back into her bag.
Gaeded would look about, quickly spotting a gleaming silver and gold helmet on one of the exposed bodies. She takes it off and stuffs it inside her bag, quite content with that find. After that, she stands and noses about a little more, finding a horn drinking vessel which has figures carved on it. She tucks this away too.
The lid of the jar comes off easily enough, for the jar is made of clay and the lid simply sits on top. As soon as Caithryth takes off the lid, she can smell as sweet smell and inside is something liquid like but still quite thick. Caithryth takes another sniff of the strange substance. "Honey?" She asks no one in particular, looking somewhat puzzled. The substance indeed does smell like honey. Caithryth puts the lid back on. "Someone want some tomb honey?"
Athlenah asks, 'Is it still good?'
Gaeded would look over to Caithryth, "Uh.. Not really. Is it still even edible?"
Caithryth shrugs. "Smells sweet enough. I think I'll refrain from trying."
Athlenah says, 'That would be very wise.'
Byrhtnoth has gotten to the other side of the room, up by the stairs. He waves to the others, "Up here?"
Caithryth points at the eager comrade. "Let's follow." Caithryth leaves the honey jar back. Caithryth calls out to the man. "Looks like there's further down right." Byrhtnoth nods some, "More treasure, maybe." He walks up the stairs and leads the group down the passageway ahead. Caithryth sighs. "I meant the other one, but well."
The company arrives in the round chamber. In the centre of the room is a large tomb, covering in golden carvings. The rest of the room is quite bare, apart from stone carvings in the wall. They seems to depict some sort of battle. Perhaps it is about the person inside the tomb here. Byrhtnoth doesn't seem to care, he looks to the tomb, "Treasure in here, I think." Caithryth looks around at the stone carvings, then at the tomb drawing the attention to the middle of the room. "Looks like it. Let's see what we have here." She walks towards it, eyes wide in a mix of admiration and anticipation. Athlenah walks to the middle of the room as well and looks around.
Both see on the tomb some sort of runic writing, along with pictures of skeletons with swords. Caithryth runs her fingers over the writing. "Foreboding." She looks up at Byrthnoth. "Let's open it." Byrhtnoth nods to Caithryth, moving to get ready to push the lid off with her. Caithryth waits for him to circle around to the other side, then she grips the stone plate, nods at him, counts to three - and tries to push it to the side together. Both Byrhtnoth and Caithryth push together. Caithryth manages to get a better grip on the stone lid than Byrthnoth and is able to push it. Byrthnoth pushes with force, but his hands slip and he has to keep readjusting. Yet, they are able to push the lid open, mostly due to Caithryth. As soon as a small sliver of the inside of the tomb is revealed, a gust of wind seems to blow through the chamber from nowhere.
Byrhtnoth suddenly looks quite scared. He mutters something quickly in Rohirric and edges away from the tomb, making his way towards the doorway. Gaeded would frown at the gust of wind, looking about some to see where it came from down here. She doesn't seem phased too much. Caithryth coughs as some dust gets into her mouth. "Now that's unexpected!" she exclaims somewhat obliviously, and steadies her hands against the stone again. "Now, come on big man, help me out here!" Byrhtnoth looks at Caithryth with concern and shakes his head. He starts quickly walking off down the hallway. Caithryth pushes the stone lid with all her might, determined by the solider's sudden fear somehow. At first, the lid is quite hard to move, but midway through her pushing, it becomes easier to push the stone. That is when both Caithryth and Athlenah notice a bone hand on the edge of the lid, reaching up from inside the tomb, seemingly helping Caithryth push.
Athlenah shouts, 'Caith stop! Its still alive!'
Caithryth chuckles and shakes her head. "Bullshit, it's just stuck to something on the lid. Keep pushing!"
Athlenah walks to Caith and tries to stop her, "No, really, its still alive. Stop pushing it, so that it won't get free!"
The lid, by Caithryth's and maybe the skeleton's arm's strength, slides off. The arm lands limply against the side of the tomb for some moment after that. Caithryth reaches for the limp arm and gives it a shake, as if to wave to Athlenah with it. "See?" Athlenah steps back, looking ver concerned, "Please don't do that."
Caithryth is able to grab the hand and wave it about for a few moments. The fingerbones, however, seem quite stiff when she waves the arm. There is a clicking sound as Caithryth does this, though it is barely audible to the company. As she waves the arm, Caithryth suddenly feels a tugging and the skeletal arm suddenly pulls down and tries to grab Caithryth's wrist. She is just able to let go of the arm in time and the arm disappears back into the tomb for a few moments. Then, two hands shoot up and grab the edge of the coffin. Raising up from inside, appears a skeleton with a golden helmet, tattered red tunic and golden armour. It cracks its head to look at them. If a skeleton could look pissed off, this skeleton certainly does.
