Aspiring Heroes of Faerûn

"Lumen? What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Lumen looks at Kess. "I thought... for a minute... no it's not Krackle, but I guess it could be kobolds. Had no idea I remembered his smell so well. See any sign of kobolds living here?"

Head tilting at the mention of their druidic former companion, Nym then stares at the idol and freezes upon realization. "Don't....don't most kobolds usually worship or follow dragons? Or is that just a myth?" Not having really encountered any besides Krackle. Glancing between the other Pie Pals she reasoned, "They could be following Duskbringer and have settled or at least passed through these ruins after her." 

Having encountered more than a few kobolds in the Underdark, and having enough familiarity with the general pantheon of religious deities, Nym easily recognizes the carved idol as depicting Kurtulmak, the Paton deity of the Kobolds. She knows that he's the one who gave them life and taught them the skills of thieving and pillaging. And yes, she knows that being distant relations to dragons, kobolds were often known for serving them as minions and worshiping them as gods. 

Now peering around in paranoia, Nym urged, "We shouldn't linger. A single kobold is one thing but a whole group possibly? The last thing we need is to be ambushed. It's possible they're lingering in other parts of the ruin or are off hunting. But just as likely that they're closer by where Duskbringer is. Not sure that they would have left their idol of Kurtulmak behind though." Gesturing to the carved Kobold figure. Backing away towards the door of the mausoleum, the drow tries to look about the area to see if she can get a feel of how long ago it's been since the kobolds were here and possibly how many.

Survival: 23  
Guidance: 1

"If there be kobolds here, we gotta watch out fer traps," Chrys warns.  "I had a hard time trustin' Krackle at the start 'cause we'd run into them from time to time in the guard, in packs.  They were never quite as nice as our lil' friend, but they were just as clever.  An' they used it to evil ends, at least 'gainst our town."

Looking around the floor, walls, and ceiling, Chrys tries to spot any kobold-made traps waiting for them.  (Investigation: 14)

"Agreed, we should be on our guard... unlike Krackle, I suspect his kinfolk would have little qualms slitting our throats as we sleep."

Kess listens carefully (Perception): 22

As Kess listens outside the building, she doesn't hear or see any signs of kobolds in the area. In fact, she see no signs of life, except for normal small forest creatures, insects and butterflies. This entire place are eerily silent, which reminds you of just how deep you are inside a very remote area of the High Forest. 

Meanwhile, Chrys carefully searches the inside of the mausoleum. Fortunately, she doesn't find any traps or anything that might have been rigged up by a gang of kobolds. The most dangerous thing she finds are a few tiny spots of green slime on the floor over by the door, and she sees more small discarded bones scattered about inside the mausoleum, probably from birds or small mammals. 

Chrys also finds a jeweled scroll case tucked behind the alter where the small idol of Kurtulmak sits. 

Lumen quietly agrees with staying on guard, and then looks around outside the mausoleum door to see what's outside, as the others search inside. Does it seem like anything's on top of the building? And what's close by?

"Oi," Chrys calls out to the others, waving them over.  "There's a scroll case here.  If there's an actual scroll inside, maybe one o' you magic-usin' types might be able to get somethin' outta this," she says, reaching down to pick it up and hand it over to one of the interested parties.

At Chrys' call about a possible scroll, Nym warned, "Careful it's not cursed or something. Not sure these Kobolds would know how to do that but I wouldn't put it past them to worship something cursed by a dragon." As Chrys passed it over, her hand immediately reached out for it despite her previous cautions, curiosity glittering in her lavender eyes. "One has to wonder why they left this behind....and their idol now that I think about it." 

Seeing Kess' look of intense concentration she asks quietly, "Anything?" Still on guard for potential threats but not seeing or hearing any sign of any herself...yet. While waiting for the other elf to reply, Nym would look over the jeweled scroll case and try to see if it was locked by mundane or magical means but wouldn't try to take the scroll out just yet. 

((Not sure what kid of roll(s) would be needed besides Arcana))

As Nym carefully inspects the bronze scroll case, she sees that aside from the ornate carvings and the inset jewels, which are sardonyx stones (essentially onyx with reddish-brown bands alternating with white), there are no symbols or glyphs or any kind on the outside. It's also a bit larger in diameter than some spell scrolls that's she's seen, and it has a cap at one end that's secured with a simple strip of leather. It doesn't appear to be locked or secured in any other way.

Meeting eyes with Chrysoberyl, Nym states, "It doesn't seem trapped or cursed...so far." Her curiosity winning out, the drow then takes time to walk further into the mausoleum away from everyone else by at least ten feet or more but still within eyeline before casting Dancing Lights up on the ceiling, casting a pale lilac light down on the group. "Dark Maiden protect your devoted follower from evil's touch." She prays before opening the scroll case and unravelling it to look over, assuming no one stops her from doing so.

Arcana: 24
Guidance: 2

Nym opens the end of the scroll case and carefully pulls out the pages of parchment. She finds that there are quite a few sheets rolled tightly together in a bundle. Unfurling them, she can see that they're all covered in flowing script, and all of them are written in the common tongue. 

Reading the scrolls, Nym realizes that this continuous text was written by two different people, named Valarken and Ikhal. Much of it details the history of these two individuals, as well as the history of Velharr itself. It's quite a long read, but plodding through the entire text, this is what she learns:

Does the writing itself seem very recent? (I'd assume so!) So pages from a diary, or drafts of a memoir?

It’s hard to tell how recent the writing is, but the scroll definitely has the feel and style of being a memoir. The text here is essentially paraphrasing what you learned from reading it. 

"What's it say?" asks Chrys curiously.

(Did we just stumble across a plot to overrun Baldur's Gate with a diseased dragon?  XD )

Nym was quiet for a while as she began reading before she realized that it wasn't inherently magical and explained, "It's writing. I mean, well of course it's writing. I mean it's not a magic scroll, it's seems to be a journal of a sort." And then she began to read aloud the pages for the group to hear. After pausing a moment to fully digest the information, the drow theorized, "I think that's what the little ball of light, the spirit with Duskbringer is. This Valarken. This....got a whole lot more complicated than just one dragon. There's a whole army of kobolds and I assume orcs as well, lead by some undead spirit and black dragon." Meeting the eyes of the rest of the Pie Pals, Nym looks a bit unsteady at this new information before swallowing thickly. "I-....I think that the priority should still be safely rescuing Lia's two children, Faen and Syllin." She tries to read the rest of the group's expression's to get their opinions.

History: 4

Although she has spent very little time on the surface, Nym has interacted with enough people and traders underground who regularly travel between the Underdark and the world above ground. She has indeed heard of Baldur's Gate and knows that it is one of the grand cities of the Sword Coast. She has no knowledge of Valarken or Ikhal, or of the Grand Duke Portyr, but she has heard the name of the Flaming Fist, even though she doesn't have any knowledge about who they are or what they do.

"Well... if that ball o' light is some grand duke gone undead an' hauntin' a dragon now, seems like his plan ain't workin' like he thought it might.  Still, if he's buildin' an army usin' that dragon ta do it... well, yer right.  We get those kids out o' the dragon's lair, an' we find out what exactly he an' Duskbringer been up to all this time," Chrys agrees.  "I gotta say, this don't seem like somethin' recent to me, even if that's the same dragon the scroll's talkin' bout.  More like someone's maniacal plan gone wrong an' backfirin' on everybody."