Rokan is quiet a moment, then begins a tale. ”The elders tell stories of these Thassilons of old.” He goes on to give what he remembers of his people’s oral history regarding the ancient wizard-kings. Finally, he stops, frowning, ”But I cannot imagine what they would have to do with goblins, an angry half-elf and his half-demon lover.”
At the rhyme about quasits, Rokan nods, ”That will be very helpful, I think.” After so much talking, he lapses back into silence, giving his team mates a moment to ask their own questions.
Seraka shifts about as the scholar expounds at length upon seemingly every tangent and parenthetical addition and footnote he can to, what she thought, was a simple enough question.
"I'm with you on this one, Feathers. I don't see what the big deal is about these--what was the word? pissant?--Thassilonican guys. They couldn't have been that smart, if they aren't still around."
She forces a grin and waves goodbye at Quink.
"Anyways, appreciate the advice, Brody." She turns towards her comrades. "I don't think you need me here for the rest of this. I'm gonna go check in with my girl, see if there's anything she can spare for a treck into goblin land. Y'all are welcome to join me."
She continues on out, wanting to escape before she finds herself getting taught something else. She mutters something as she leaves.
"Gorum's shiny metal ass, why do booky people have to make things so complicated."
E turns a surprised look at Rokan as he shares his peoples oral history. "I had no idea you were a scholar! Great lesson!"
Rokan is caught off-guard by the compliment. ”I am no scholar. I just try to listen. Hopefully it will help us.” He shrugs, though, seeming to be similarly reluctant to Seraka’s view on the matter.
He turns back to Quink, ”Thank you for your time and answers, Master Quink. If we find anything interesting, I’m sure we could try to get you a look at it … if it’s safe enough.”
He gives a moment to make sure there’s not more useful information forthcoming, then he excuses himself, going to catch up to Seraka.
Sonya listens intently with a scowl at the poem describing the demonic familiar. "Perhaps the orchestrator of all of this is less connected than we fear - she was trying to recruit the quasit in the catacombs. If we can find it before her, maybe that will help protect Sandpoint from whatever they are planning."
Sonya shakes Quink's hand with both of hers, a slight bow to her head.
"Thank you, Brodert. You've been more help than you know."
|
"This opportunity is amazing!" E exclaims. "I mean, after the town is secured, think of what we can find!"
"Many thanks Quink, I'll be sure to include you in any documentation that will be created after our excavation."
E finishes his drink and clips his mug onto his belt. With a lightning fast bow, he half-runs-half-skips out the door.
"Hmm? Oh yes, be my guest," Quink says absently, letting E page through the book of monsters and other fell beasts.
He smiles earnestly at Sonya and the others. "Best of luck. Gods go with you! Thank you, young man, that will be very exciting..."
Seraka makes her way to a more practical sort of shop: Savah's armory. Savah looks up when you enter, and flashes a grin. "It's the trouble-makers! Trouble finders, I should say. Thought you might be in after the gossip I heard this morning."
Savah vaults the counter with an impish grin and sashays up to Seraka, poking her playfully in one bicep with a fingertip. "Armin' and armoring, eh?"
On hearing of the desire for cold iron weaponry, the arms merchant's smirk turns into something more serious. "Wot, demons? Or fairies? Well, neither mind, I have gear for sale sure enough. Cold iron arrows a-plenty, and you said you want a flail, Valdemar? I can set you up with that, aye..."
Savah quirks a brow at Rokan as she sits on the edge of her shop's counter, swinging her feet. "You've still got that discount here, wrestler. In case ya forgot."
When the would-be delvers are ready to depart, Savah catches Seraka's eye. "Hey, don't rush off, Green... the rest of you can go though. Shoo."
With the others out the door, Savah tilts her head at Seraka. "You be careful down there, yeh? I had a good time drinking with you the other night. Don't run into too many ladies around can hold their liquor, ha." She clears her throat self-consciously. "Hang on a second though, have somethin' I'm not likely to have any need for and you might."
Savah rummages behind the counter and comes up with a small sloshing bottle that she tosses to Seraka. "It's grasshopper juice. 'Least that's what the guy who made it called it. Sometimes you gotta jump a chasm or whatever. I dunno, maybe it's handy," she shrugs.
"...so... be careful out there. Guess I said that already, huh?"
****
Father Zantus is at the inn bright and early. He solemnly takes the bow that Rokan presents, splintered and cracked as the wood is, and takes it outside to let the dawn's first rays spill over it. The ocean breeze ruffles clothes and hair as Zantus prays to Desna, invoking her safeguarding spirit and her blessings to restore the shattered wood.
The jeweled butterfly around Zantus's neck flickers with rainbow lights, and a small, brilliantly blue butterfly descends from nowhere with fluttering wings, to delicately alight on the broken bow. Another flutter of wings, and when the colorful insect is gone, the bow is miraculously whole, as Rokan remembers it from when it sat in his friend's hands.... except for the addition of a tiny stylized butterfly's wings, just above the arrow nock.
"Desna smiles on your task," Zantus says with relief, and surprise for the so-evident mark of the goddess's favor. "I wish you all her luck, friends."
The mayor and Ameiko stand nearby, Ameiko still with a distant, subdued expression, though she musters a smile for you all.
"Yes. Good luck. At this rate I'll have to commission a suite of rooms for you all as a reward," she jokes thinly.
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Klo had been restless for yet another night, the trials of the morning weighing heavily on his mind. As he noted the subtle shift of full dark to the pre-dawn dark grays, he gave up trying to sleep fully, opting instead to take a walk around the quiet, sleeping town to prepare his mind for what was to come.
Finally, he finds himself in front of Father Zantus, and the short Shoanti must work hard to still his nerves as he awaits the results of the man’s attempt to repair his bow. He can’t hide a surprised look at the display, and watches the butterfly closely as it makes its mark upon Markov’s bow.
With reverence, he reaches out to grasp the bow, a range of emotions playing across his usually-reseved features. He holds it up in both hands for a moment, simply wondering at the fact that it looks intact. Then he traces his fingertips along the length of the gracefully-curved ends, ending with a reverent touch to the new, stylize butterfly carving.
”It’s lighter than it was before,” he observes quietly, then he switches it to a firing grip. He grasps the string and pulls it back, gently at first, then to its full draw, sighting down an imaginary arrow.
”This,” he says as he releases the tension and looks up gravely at Zantus, ”is amazing.” His voice is quiet, and heavy with emotion. ”You have given me—“ his voice cracks, and he looks at his feet, recovering his composure before returning his steady gaze—is that a tear?—to meet Zantus’s eyes. ”I cannot express what you have returned to me, Holy Man. I cannot pay this back, and I will not forget it.”
Silence hangs for a moment before he touches his quiver. A half-smile touches his lips. ”Suddenly all my arrows are too small.”
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Sonya picks up the flail in Savah's armory with a jangle of its darkened metal chains and makes a face. "Not exactly my style, but if we're searching for trouble, might as well look the part. From what Quink said, there could be undead too - they don't exactly care about being pricked with a sword."
---
Sonya watches the impromptu Desnan ceremony as she tightens and adjusts her armor, looking armed to the teeth as she ties the scabbards for her two new weapons. The paladin remarks to Seraka, "Fate had an interesting choice in its actors when it put us all together. A man who I've only seen smile once, and the other that I've only seen frown once."
"We'll find out what's going on down there, and we'll be back soon." She says to the Mayor, Zantus, and Ameiko, "Stay safe while we're gone."
Zantus briefly claps Rokan on the shoulder, obviously touched in turn by the normally-reserved Shoanti's expression. "The least I can do," he murmurs.
The mayor nods to Sonya. "We'll do our best. Between keeping the townsfolk from especially baseless rumors and mad panicking, I'd almost rather risk whatever's down there.... almost. But I've no skill at arms. Gods with you, all of you."
***
And so... you descend. The guards at the tunnel mouth look both vigilant to the point of paranoia, but also relieved to see you, snapping off sharp salutes as you approach. "All quiet, sirs, ma'ams!" one rattles off-- the young man who'd been posted to the gate the day of the festival, you remember. In the torchlight the guards have set up, his face looks pale and a little sweaty but determined. "Nothing's stirred on the other side!"
The key is turned in the lock, and the smuggler's door opens, revealing the same tunnel you glanced into once before: sparse sand on the floor, rock and dirt beyond. Occasional beams buttress the tunnel. It's a crude thing, with only rudimentary attempts to have flattened and shaped it. The air smells cold and musty, and the ceiling is low enough that Seraka must duck every ten feet or so to spare her head and her bardiche alike.
It yawns darkly ahead, cramped enough to demand single-file passage. You begin to make your way forward, cautious, the light of your presence piercing the subterranean gloom. At any moment you expect a shrill goblin scream, but ten feet turns into twenty, and then forty, and then a hundred, with no attack.
By the time something interrupts the narrow smuggling tunnel, you've lost track of the exact number of steps you've taken. Several hundred feet of tunnel lie behind you, though, you're fairly certain. Exact direction is impossible to know for certain-- you think you headed northeast upon descent, but the passage has minor curves back and forth, and there are no points of reference as to whether you're still keeping that bearing. The air is chill and your breaths are close on your face... when you come to a junction.
Your light plays over a dozen scattered bricks on the floor, and the yawning blackness of an interruption. You can see that a short section of the tunnel wall was at one point bricked up; it has been busted open, however, the bricks carelessly left to strew upon the floor. The blackness of another cave proceeds to the left, a larger tunnel, with the faint sounds of dripping water echoing to your ears, and an equally faint draft of air.
The original tunnel proceeds ahead, as far as your eyes can make out.
Rokan—having breathed a heatless, steady flame onto a stud on his belt—initially moves to take the lead, then pauses. ”Seems like walking in front of everyone hasn’t worked out so well in the past.” He nods to Seraka or Sonya, letting them take point. Then he follows along, watching for signs of danger.
When they come to the busted brick wall, he stops, straining to hear or see in either direction.
As he listens, he gestures in the direction of the unexplored main tunnel, ”My guess is this is how the goblins got in. The beach is that way, and that shifty man up in town said goblins come up the beach sometimes.” He motions into the strange busted-open hole in the brick wall. ”No idea on this one.”
He shrugs to his team, ”So maybe we get a guard posted at the ocean end and go see what’s through the brick wall?”
Sonya nods taking the lead in front of Seraka and Rokan, brandishing her rapier in a clenched fist. The ring they had taken from Tsuto reminds her of its presence, a slight unsettling, but not entirely unwelcome, warmth as an invisible field formed around her.
She lets her mind wander a bit in the darkness. She remembers years and years ago, exploring caves and forests whenever she got to get out of Magnimar, and the first time she ever saw fireflies.
Before long, tiny specks of light start to form the in the tunnels, floating around her head. They coagulate into clouds of brightly glowing fireflies that dance and bob ahead of the adventurers, giving off a warm green light.
Sonya nods in agreement with Rokan's idea. "The townsfolk might not have been motivated to patrol down there before, but once they know about this tunnel it probably won't be hard. And I can only assume behind the bricks are 'The quasit and her freaks'. Hopefully they're still there."
Seraka braces herself as the others leave at Savah's request. She knows what's coming, what's always coming.
"It was fun, but nothing more."
"It's not that you are bad, I'm just not in the place for a relationship right now"
"I like you, but I don't really think I like you enough to get around...you know."
She hadn't told Savah yet--she had learned better than that--but part of her couldn't escape this idea that somehow everyone knows. That even now, after all the work she put into transitioning, people would still see her as something she's not.
Seraka listens to Savah's every word, checking it against scripts people have thrown at her before. Then Savah finishes speaking. Seraka blinks, holding the grasshopper juice, not sure what to make of this turn. She finally gets it, what Savah was trying to say without saying. Seraka breaks into grin and embraces Savah in a hearty hug.
"HAH! You bet your ass I'll be okay. I got the God of War looking after me. We'll have drinks again soon enough."
She holds two fingers up to her lips, kisses them, then taps them against Savah's nose.
"For the juice."
Seraka bounds after the others, taking a brief pause to safely secure the grasshopper juice to her bandolier.
As she catches up with the others, she does her best to hide it from the others
...but she trembles at the edge of happy tears as they leave.
Seraka seems atypically cheery as the party ventures down into the tunnels. Not even bumping into the occasionally low-hanging ceiling can touch her mood.
As it becomes clear the passageway is going to continue well past a short job, she begins chatting with Sonya, keeping her voice low.
"Sorry for not being talkative before. Thinking about stuff. Ya know. I certainly agree that we are a weird mixture. Can't complain too much. Even Feathers has his uses. As far as men go, he and E aren't the worst I've seen."
Upon reaching the junction, Seraka takes up position at the entrance to the northern path, standing guard as the others check out the nearby small cave.
Seraka takes up a guard stance at the juncture, while the others start cautiously probing forward...
Everyone hears the faint scratch of something ahead, rasping against the stone.
Seraka is held back by a vision of the encounter to come. She mentally braces herself for an attack while she is unable to act. When she realizes that no attack has happened yet, she rolls her eyes at the rasping. Ambushers are bad enough, but there's something even more offensive about a poorly carried out one. She makes her way past the others and takes up position at the fork.
Rokan stalks forward, taking up a position behind Seraka as he notes her hesitation and blank look.
"You okay, Seraka?"
Seraka rounds the corner and gets a glimpse of pale flesh, something crouched low, more animal than human-like...
Before she can call out, Rokan hurries past her, the light on his belt spilling over something-- hideous. It is vaguely shaped like a person, but as if some warped god had grabbed hold of the limbs and bent and twisted and stretched or shortened them to suit a deranged whim: the proportions are all... wrong, with thighs more like haunches and the knees bent the wrong way. The thing wears no clothes; ribs jut like prison bars along a gaunt torso, and the visible lines of vertebrae are so pronounced as to be nearly spines. You see no lower jaw at first glance, only a long curling tongue beneath eye sockets that do not reflect your light at all.
Rokan releases an arrow before he even registers the strange thing he looks at, and it buries itself in the albino-white flesh with a satisfying crunch and a snarl. Whatever else, the thing bleeds.
And then it acts: a scuttling step sideways, moving on all fours, and then snapping at Seraka with that deeply wrong mouth, and two swipes of its clawed hands at the archer who marked it.
Through the bloody images, Seraka realizes she can still see the fight at hand, still hear Rokan right next to her.
Seraka does not expect the creature's speed, and her hasty swing fails to find purchase in its flesh.
Seraka pauses for a moment as the bloody vision seeps into her through the creature's bite. There was no mistaking this vision of charnel and rage for her god's boon. She narrows her eye at the creature, her mouth twisting into a disgusted scowl. Nobody messes with her mind and gets away with it.
Seraka wants nothing more than to tear this creature to pieces for daring to violate her thoughts. She sees her orc forebearers in cramped tunnels of geometric stone so rigid that only dwarves could have made them. The dwarves in their armor of stone plates attempt to block up the doorways with their bodies. She sees orc after orc pound against them, ramming them out of the doorways so that their allies can surge through.
Seraka lowers into a grounded stance, then rushes at the creature, attempting to ram it into the wall. As she moves, her muscles swell and her rage overtakes her.
Rokan grunts off the grazing attacks. Then, he acts in tandem with his larger Shoanti friend, stepping back as she drives forward. He takes the moment to size this creature up, trying to get its combat timing down. Finding himself momentarily out of its snapping reach, he draws the bowstring back on Markov’s bow, one of his crackling arrows of thunder coalescing between string and nock. With a thunderclap made defeaning in the tight confines of the cave, the lightning arrow flies point-blank at Rokan’s quarry.
With a growl, Seraka bodily slams the monster forward, resulting in a crunch of bone and flesh meeting. Rokan takes an adjusting step and releases an arrow of thunder and lightning, which finds its target despite Seraka in the way!
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"Wow. That looks... familiar." Okay, past lives, which one of you dealt with this?
E draws his rapier, moving to engage... and then the monster is carried away by the raging half-orc.
He dodges out of Sonya's way, rounding the corner and waiting for an opening.
"I wonder how many goblins you've eaten!"
Sonya takes a half step back as the emaciated looking creature erupts into a flurry of flailing claws and bites in front of her. She rushes in after Rokan and Seraka, drawing her flail and swinging as the creature thuds against the wall.
The hunk of spiked metal embeds itself in the stone near it for a moment before she yanks it back out.
Sonya's flail cracks stone, while E simply find a better position.
Seraka, face-to-face with the ... whatever it is... sees that this close, there are indeed red eyes gleaming in those sunken sockets. And the mouth... the less said the better. The jaw parts in a fashion more insectile than human, beneath that long tongue, and the two split segments end in.... tiny hands? Yes. Tiny hands, grasping up towards her face, her person.
"እኔ የእርስዎን ጥላቻ እፈልጋለሁ," the thing whispers into Seraka's face before tearing into her, ignoring Sonya.
Seraka is prepared as this bite hits her. The sharpened focus from her rage makes it easy to push through the creature's attempts to poison her mind.
She steps backward, using the motion as a counterbalance as she swings her bardiche down on the creature.
Rokan falls into an easy, practiced rhythm. Nock. Draw. Release. Nock. Draw. Release.
Sonya winds up with her flail again, intending to make a mush out of the creature's already ruined face.
Seraka and Rokan have difficulty connecting, but Sonya finds her footing and her target with the flail this time, pulping the creature's hideous skull. Without a further sound, the monstrosity slides to the ground, its limbs continuing to twitch for nearly a minute.
This cavern room appears to be natural, unworked stone, with a few stalactites slowly dripping water. A pole is leaned against the wall where the creature must have been lurking-- on closer inspection, it is not a pole, but a ranseur, the three-point blades dark with rust and discoloration. Beneath those, the weapon seems intact and usable.
The rough stone wall has been scratched at dozens of times, but in no pattern you can detect. Judging by the height of some of the scratches the marks were possibly made by the ranseur.
Rokan gives Sonya and Seraka a nod, "Excellent." His attention, however, is on the creature, then the rusty blade.
He speaks old words of power, and his perception shifts ... seeking out the unnatural aura of magic.
Then he takes a closer look around, looking for any clues.
Seraka spits on the creature, then chops off its head.
"What a little a%~@@%~. Tried to mess with my head when it bit me. Gave me some little vision of me killing a whole lot of people."
She waves a hand over the bite and claw marks from the creature, and the wounds close up in seconds.
"Figure you'd all want to know what it can do in case we run into another one."
Though Rokan calls upon the Shoanti ritual sight, he sees no sign of magics in this chamber, either on the dead monstrosity or on the ranseur. The scratches seem random, though deep.
Moving a little further up the cavern corridor, there is another branching: the main corridor continues on ahead, though Seraka's eyes can juuuust make out that it seems to come to an end about sixty feet up. The sound of water dripping slowly echoes from that distant terminus, and Rokan's light reflects faintly off something ahead. You can make out another branch about forty feet up, but also, one directly to your right, that twists through the natural stone before a jagged rift that seems to lead into a more regular, organized space .
Where to, brave heroes? There is no sound in the tunnels ahead save for your own breathing, the scuff of your feet on the rocks, and that drip, drip, drip.
Seraka points her bardiche to the eastern passageway.
"Should probably be systematic about this. Don't want another one of those a~~+%&*s jumping us."
"Well, if we're looking for ancient ruins, it's probably going to be in there. And if there's monster down here, that's probably where they're coming from."
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""What a little a@#++#%. Tried to mess with my head when it bit me. Gave me some little vision of me killing a whole lot of people.""
"Given your general... demeanor... is that not normal? Since I've met you I've figured that you, well all three of you, are terrors amongst your foes."
E pauses to fill his mug and then redraws his rapier.
Rokan gives a grunting laugh as he falls into the team's marching order. "Not many who see me as a terror. Annoyance or outcast? Yah. But terror ... not so much."
Pressing forward... Sonya discovers that the broken rift will be a tight squeeze, especially for Seraka, but not impassible. Some tool marks can be seen here on the natural stone, suggesting that someone broke through the cave wall into the chamber beyond.
Said chamber is not terribly large-- about ten by twenty feet-- nor particularly opulent or impressive, although the stone floor and walls are very well-made, as finely joined and mortared as any dwarven architecture any of you have ever chanced to see. But despite the nice workmanship, this seems to be a utilitarian chamber: the walls were built with inset shelves, and these alcoves hold a very few intact jars and containers, covered with thick layers of dust. In other alcoves, whatever was there has crumbled to that same dust and can only be guessed at: small shards of brittle pottery, fragments of basket-weave that disintegrate when touched, a glass jar sealed with wax that is somehow intact.... but not magical. Nothing in this detritus seems worth much of anything.
A single door leads north from this chamber. After checking it for trouble, Sonya opens it, and you find yourselves looking into a five-foot wide hallway, leading away to the north. The hall is dark other than your light, but the shine from Rokan's belt plays over smooth stonework with inlaid veins of red marble that form a repeating abstracted motif along the walls. The corridor turns sharply left after ten feet. The door that you have just opened has a plaque on the far side, in a strange script
Sonya makes a cautious way ahead down the corridor, the others close behind, until she comes to a juncture: a hall branches off to the right. Ahead, you can make out that the natural cave seems to rejoin the finished complex in a chamber in which... someone is standing? Oh, never mind-- that tall figure isn't moving. But there does seem to be a statue ahead. It reflects your light in glints of red, though to see more you'd need to get closer.
Rokan gives the plaque a curious look in passing, but—not knowing the language—says nothing as they proceed into the gloom. When Sonya stops, the Shoanti moves forward to see and hear what is ahead.
He points to the hall moving off to their right. "Let us be thorough," he whispers as he retakes his position at the rear of the group.
Sonya's glowing fireflies dance around the plaque, illuminating the unreadable script. "I don't suppose Brodert gave anyone 'Thassilonian for Adventurers', did he?"
She blinks when E casually reads the text. "Where did you ever..?"
Leaving the statue alone for now, the group makes a cautious way down the righthand passage, forced into singlefile still by the narrow hall. The deep gloom of the passage is pierced by your magical lights, Sonya's dancing ahead. As you walk, you begin to hear a faint burble of water, and at the corner of the room ahead, can see the cause:
The tunnel widens here into what appears to have once been a small shrine, for to the northeast, steps lead up to a platform of gray stone. Sitting atop the platform is an ancient altar, little more than a jagged block of black marble with a shallow concavity on top of it. This basin is filled with what appears to be clear water, though it has an unpleasant smell to it that you can't quite place.
A pair of double doors stand closed to the southeast. A large Thassilonian rune sprawls painted across the doors. E knows that is the Thassilonian symbol for... 'wrath.'
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"I am a student of the Twilight Academy, with a focus on history. Knowing the writings of such a powerful ancient civilization seemed like an important duty. Also, I think one of my past lives may have spoken it. I'm not sure."
As he scans the walls ahead. "That says Wrath"
He stops to cast Detect Magic and examine it further.
The smell of the water grinds at Seraka in the quiet. Finally, holding her nose with one hand, her bardiche in the crook of her arm, she casts purify food and drink with her other hand on the water.
"Wrath, huh?" mutters Rokan, his eyes scanning the room warily, "Is that not your thing, Seraka?" He cuts a half-grin at her, "Maybe this place is for you?"
"Unfortunately," he says after a quiet few moments, "I think one of us will have to go in there first." He whispers a few old syllables, the sound quietly reverberating around the room's halls in an unwelcome way, and he holds his hand out towards Sonya and Seraka, "Which one of you wants this?"
Sonya furrows her brow and casts out mentally, reading the auras of the room and the ominous shrine at the center of the room, letting Abadar guide her sight.
She nods approvingly when Seraka takes it on her own initiative to do something about the foul odor, and edges towards the door with her blade drawn.
Sonya: Oh yeah there's somethin' nasty going on with that shrine. It radiates a feeling of wrongness when you look at it through palavision. You get a headache.
Seraka just thinks it smells bad: she mutters some short words on that clear-looking, foul-stinking water... it... doesn't work. Or rather, she feels the stink lessening slightly-- but then returning, stronger than before, like the smell is going to travel with you at the back of your throat.
The door itself is not magical, nor the rune, though E detects that the waters in the fountain are! He doesn't know exactly what they are, though.
Whatever might be beyond the large stone doors, Rokan hears nothing through them.
After a few seconds of preparation, the heroes get ready to open the door!
Sonya gives the door a testing swing, and the stone of the door moves smoothly open despite the size... your light spills into a large, nearly-dark chamber, though at the far end a dim orange light can be seen.
This huge room looks like nothing more than an immense underground cathedral, with an arched ceiling twenty feet above you. Stone doors stand to either side of the main entrance, but beyond this, the walls are carved with strange, spiky run es. In the center of the room is a large pool, with a ring of polished human skulls balanced on stone spikes arranged in a circle around the deeper midsection. At the far end of the room, a pair of stone stairways leads up to a pulpit on which sits a second pool, this one triangular and filled with churning, bubbling water that looks almost like translucent lava-- the source of the orangish glow. Yet while wisps of what look like heat and steam rise from the strange liquid, the room itself is deathly cold.
Two doors to smaller chambers stand closed, left and right of you. You see no creatures ahead, the only movement being the twists of steam from the orange-hued pool.
Rokan stops to take in the ominous room. "This is ... strange."
Then he steps forward, planting himself in front of the door. After renewing his request for the spirits' guidance on Sonya , he whispers to the team. "Esegia, with Sonya. Seraka and I will take this right side."
Once the team moves into the room, Rokan closes the door. Then he nods forward, indicating Seraka should take the lead on their side of the room.
Sonya closes the door behind them. "Remember that there's a quasit somewhere in this dungeon - we might not be able to see them, but we can't let them get out before we figure out what is going on."
"Agreed," mutters Rokan, eyes and ears straining for any clues about their quarry.
Seraka rolls her eyes at the skulls.
"Of course this place had to have been designed by some edgy a&$&&#$."
Seraka sighs and taps herself with some of her God's guidance and ventures farther into the room.