Aliseya breaks the grasp of the zombie as it attempts to pick her up. As she does so, Zelda impales the undead through the head with her rapier. Naught then emerges from the foyer to bash apart the remaining zombie with her axe. You note that the zombie body parts continue to crawl toward you even after disembodiment.
Outside, the heavy fog limits visibility to just beyond the prison walls. You notice that the air has turned bitter cold and there is several inches of snow on the ground. The surreal landscape is a sharp juxtaposition from the autumn setting of the previous week. From the mists, baleful howls can be heard approaching.
Though tears stream down her cheeks, Aliseya immediately kneels down beside Cell to check her vitals and apply pressure to stop the bleeding.
As you walk back into the foyer you find that both Cellawyn and Ysmerelda are gone. A bloody streak leads through the foyer into the room where the zombies emerged.
Naught worryingly scampers along after the locksmith.
Ali follows after, without any time to wonder if she and her friends will live to see another day alive...
The blood streak leads through the foyer double doors and into the auditorium. From the auditorium it leads through another set of rotting doors into a partially collapsed room. Gray daylight from both the open foyer doors and a collapsed wall in the room ahead provide shadowy light. As you cross through the rotting pews of the auditorium you suddenly feel the temperature begin to drop.
Adjusting to the darkness of the prison's auditorium, Aliseya suddenly feels the shivers and turns to her friends, "It's suddenly freezing in here..." She looks around the auditorium with her self-described auric vision for a possible cause.
Naught and Aliseya are able to detect the precipitous drop in temperature before the area freezes. Zelda is not so quick, but she is able to endure to the cold long enough to step away from the area.
The group continues following the blood streak into the adjoining room. The northeast wall of this room has partially fallen, revealing the dark, murky waters of the pond outside. Moldering training dummies and other similar equipment hint that this room may have once been a training area for the guards. In the northeast part of the room, the floor around a dark, jagged hole is surrounded by black scorch marks. The blood streak leads to the edge of the hole.
Her every step is like a surreal dream... or nightmare. Every fiber of her being is tingling with the urge to run out of this accursed prison and never return. Her fingers grip her staff so tightly, they have turned white.
Yet Aliseya manages to muster just enough courage to continue her trepid walk into another horribly creepy room. Looking at Naught and then Zelda, she turns back to follow the blood trail. Peering all around the sickly room and the dark waters, she makes her way near to the blackened hole in the ground.
Too afraid to move another muscle, she simply peers into that hole...
Gripping her axe tightly in apprehension as to what has become of their friends the Storyteller's knuckles matched the Dancer's as she moved alongside her, ever following the sinister blood trail left by their companions.
Without a light source, Aliseya and Zelda see nothing but darkness when they peer into the hole. Naught, using darkvision, is able to see a cavernous chamber that may once have been an underground cellblock, but has long since collapsed. The crumbled walls are thick with mold and stained with soot, and heaps of fallen stones and charred wooden beams line the area. Water drips and seeps along the walls, collecting in a dark, murky pool in the middle of the room, approximately 20' below you.
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"Do we have any rope?" Naught asks, though steady there was still a tinge of worry to her voice.
Blinking a few times as light fills the room Naught will go about tying the rope off before lowering herself down into the hole.
Silently, Aliseya follows down the rope after Naught.
After anchoring the rope to a wall rail, the trio descends through the hole to the cavern below. As you scale the rope, you note that to the west there is a partially blocked opening that seems to open up after several feet into a dark but stable tunnel. After descending about 20 feet, the group drops down into the shallow pool that fills most of the area.
As soon as Naught touches the cold water, a wight suddenly erupts from the water near her. The undead lunges for the kill with its cruel black talons.
The gypsy is startled for a moment by the sudden attack, stifling a scream. She mutters a brief prayer... which seems to go unanswered. Not letting more than a swift moment pass though, with a grunt she rears her walking stick up, two-handed, and smacks the creature upside its face...
naught swings at the undead but cannot connect with her battle axe. Aliseya attacks and hits with her quarterstaff. The wight ignores Aliseya and begins wrestling Naught below the water .
Swinging wild at the undead when it tries to drag her under she drops the axe and frenziedly swipes at it with her claws.
Ali wastes no time whacking the creature as it latches on to her friend. She casts a glance around with her aura-spotting vision to see if any more of these fell creatures are around.
Your combined assault is able to beat down and shred the wight before it can drag Naught underwater. As the undead beast falls back to the bottom of the shallow pool the cave again returns to a heavy stillness. Aliseya, you seen no further sign of danger under the water.
Zelda's torch reveals that a tunnel heads west from the cavern.
Not long ago, the carefree gypsy girl seemed so light and full of life. With the past few days' events as they've unfolded, the worn-out young woman seems to have matured. Her grave expression at the sight of the sinking rotting corpse is one that has begun to grow accustomed to the dark horrors of this prison.
The gypsy woman silently casts a severe gaze towards the corridor ahead. Spotting solid ground, she looks for fresh blood streaks along the ground.
Kicking the creature the rest of the way off of her with disgust Naught retrieves her axe before helping Aliseya search for their friends again.
Naught, you are able to find where the blood trail emerges from the water and traces its way across the cavern floor to the western tunnel.
"'K," Naught says a little unnerved, "The blood goes thatta way when you're done."
Zelda, you note that there is extensive wreckage covering the cavern floor. The pool and rubble contain a large number of bones mixed with the debris. You find nothing of value.
The tunnel opens into a large dungeon chamber. Four dark hallways exit from the room, each striking out in one of the four directions of the compass, and each decorated with a soot-caked brass nameplate affixed to the ceiling just above the entrance. A rubble-choked stairway leads up in the middle of the room, while eight skeletons dressed in scorched prisoners’ robes lie on the ground.
Across the chamber, on the edge of your light, the bloody trail ends in the prone and crumbled body of Ysmerelda. Standing above the fallen paladin is Cellawyn. She appears to be using a bloody rag to paint letters on the dungeon wall. She turns and regards you with a blank stare, "So we meet again. You won't be so lucky this time."
Around the room the eight skeletons begin to animate and rise.
Exhausted, filthy, and wet, Aliseya looks on at Cellawyn with cold determination in her eyes as her friend speaks... or rather, what was her friend? Her lips begin to quiver, her red and green eyes water... a tear streaks down her already tear-marked cheek. She shakes her head back and forth, in sheer disbelief.
"No. No, NO..."
She readies herself with staff in hand. A steely core rises up her spine once more, cold determination peering at the rising bones...
As the scene unfolds Naught can only let out a whimper that soon turns into a mournful growl as she slumps and rolls her shoulders.
Cellawyn drops the blood rag and draws her rapier. "That whore Vesorianna can't protect you down here. Your souls belong to me!"
"Let her go!" Naught bellows alongside Zelda as she steps up beside the locksmith and begins swiping at an adjacent skeleton.
Ali follows after her friends, calling upon her dreamy goddess for divine favor in the vile speech. Her prayer, however, is not answered, judging by the look of shock upon her face.
She then calls to the Lady of Graves for her aid. As the palm of her hand glows a deep violet with her energy, she transfers it with a touch to Naught upon her shoulder. The storyteller feels a bit uplifted, in spite of the horrific events unfolding.
Naught and Zelda utterly destroy the skeleton to their left. Aliseya casts a spell on Naught.
The skeletons complete their animation and then, to your horror, they begin smoldering and then burst into flames!
Naught keeps attacking.