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"Care not from whence these sinful creatures came -
Care only that they're few, and we are more," Zache begins, moving into melee with a chiding grin.
"Somewhere down here." Kaede volunteers softly as she moves into a position to assault the one that Zache and Salomae aren't fighting. "This place has been sealed away... remember the rock wall that we passed? The answer is down here.." As Zache begins singing, Kaede begins to dance with her glaive. After a couple probing jabs, she slashes at the sinspawn.
Orin wastes no time stepping up to the nearest one and striking out,
"Give me some space", Kaelaah's fire rages and he pours it - a gout of red and amber - at the closest of the sinspawn.
Orin's attack glances off of the tough skin of the wrathspawn that's quickly getting surrounded, but Kaelaah's blast of flame scorches it. Kaede, meanwhile, opens up a gash across the other beast's chest.
The one Kaede cuts lashes out at here with a flurry of tooth and claw...
,
,
,
The blistered and outnumbered wrathspawn focuses in on Orin, the only person to physically attack it...
,
,
,
,
Smarting from the gash in his arm, Orin steels his resolve and attempts to strike back.
For
For an additional
Tera, unnerved by the appearance of the creatures, is slower to act than her friends. She moves to get a clearer shot at the creatures and goes for the one Kaede was fighting, hoping to keep it distracted enough to not harm her friend any further.
Well, at least that time the release was better, Tera thinks as her arrow doesn't veer off course.
Tera's arrow sinks into the creature's arm, earning her an angry snarl from it. Orin recovers from the deep gash in his arm and retaliates by opening a mortal wound across the abdomen of the sinspawn before him.
Kaede hisses in pain as the beast steps in and slashes her twice. Almost instinctively, she backs up to swing again at it as she reaches for the power that she recently learned to tap into.
Kaelaah's mind is full of questions, What exactly are these things? And how long have they been down here... beneath our feet?
...but he doesn't let those questions distract him, he steps to one side and - pulling the fire from deep within - throws an inferno at the nearest of the sinspawn.
With a thrust of Sal's rapier and a blast of flame from Kaelaah, the remaining wrathspawn falls. Like the first one, these creatures seem completely bereft of any physical possessions.
After looking over his arm to be sure it will still bear his shield, Orin turns to the others,
"Lady Amsel, are you all right?"
"I think we should be asking you that, Orin. That looks rather nasty," Tera says after she's sure the fight is over. The mage looks ashen and there's a tremble in her limbs that wasn't there before the fight.
"Kaede, are you alright? It looked like one of these... these things got you pretty good," she asks, trying not to look at the sinspawn too closely.
"I am fine, thank you." Orin says, sounding less sure than he would like. "My shield arm is strong. I've had worse sparring."
As they check on each other's injuries, the adventurers finally properly take in their surroundings. The chamber is roughly twenty feet by sixty feet. There are twenty prison cells lining the walls, more than half of which house humanoid skeletal remains. Near where they stand a wooden staircase leads up ten feet to a fifteen foot square platform with a matching staircase down on the opposite side, a raised, wooden walkway leading to a passage out the far side of the room, and a door that seems like it leads back towards the areas they've already passed...
Kaede stretches a little, testing to see how the already half-healed wounds are going to limit her. "The goblins hit harder... by a long shot," she finally responds, comfortable that she won't be hampered.
"So long as there isn't a tribe of those monsters down here, I should be fine. Now then.... What's around... here..." Kaede's comments all but fall out of her mouth when she realizes what type of room they're in.
"An ancient prison? How old are these ruins?"
There isn't much of anything in this room to provide any clues about its creators. Some experts could likely determine it by the make of the hinges, or the dimensions of the bricks, but such determinations are beyond any of you. Perhaps the statue you passed earlier could provide some insight?
"Thank you for your concern, Lady Amsel." Orin replies to the offer, "Every scar is a lesson, I'll keep this one for a bit." he adds, as if quoting someone he remembers less than fondly.
Kaede looks at the room with curiosity at the this chamber. "I'm sorry but I'm not that trained in building things...."She asks as Salomae starts to put weight on the stairs. "Is this wooden walk safe for our weight?"
"I'm not so sure about that Sal," Tera says as she moves to the door. "Perhaps we should check it first."
Despite the air of ancientness to the place, the wood proves solid and sturdy. Once up on the platform, Sal checks the strength of the walkway while Tera peers through the door. The walkway seems in just as good a condition as the platform. Tera sees a well-crafted hallway that, in the dim light at the edge of what she can see, opens into a chamber with a statue (or unmoving figure) in the center.
"Er, actually, it looks like it loops back to that room with the statue," Tera says as she opens the door the rest of the way.
Running a thumb across the flat of his blade, Zache waits for movement.
With flames feathering his arms - a soft amber light flickering in the room - Kaelaah nods to Sister Amsel.
How long has Sandpoint been here, unaware of what lies beneath its streets and houses? And why now? Why has it been discovered now?
Tera nods as she summons the humanoid-shaped light again and falls in line.
"Same formation," Zache murmurs, nodding as he falls into line, knives in hand.
Kaede nods in agreement. "Yes, and let's hurry before an alarm is sounded. 3 of those spawn already is worrisome," she adds, falling in step near the rear.
The raised wooden walkway is replaced by a proper hallway as it exits through the eastern wall of the prison room. This hallway extends a mere twenty feet before opening into a fifteen foot by twenty foot chamber. This room contains several ancient relics of what appear to be torture implements, although their function and style seem strange and archaic. In one corner sits a spherical cage with spikes protruding inward from its iron bars. In another stands what appears to be a star-shaped wooden frame, its surface studded with hooks. And in the center of the room is a long table covered with leather straps and a number of cranks that seem designed to rotate and swivel.
There are two doors leading out of the room- one on the south wall and another continuing east...
Tera is completely silent as she enters the room and her face pales at the sight of the instruments of torture. Her hands tighten on her bow and her shoulders tremble as she moves to check the doors.
After a good search of the room, Orin offers to be forts on the door the other choose.
The southern door seems not to have been used in a while, but neither shows any sign of being trapped. The eastern door opens on to a shallow staircase that descends as it continues east. The southern door proves to be the entrance to a smaller chamber where it appears some creature, or creatures, have created quite a mess... there are two completely smashed bookshelves, the torn and tattered remains of countless books, and a large cushioned chair that has been stabbed repeatedly and had the back broken off. On the southern wall there are three matching doors, each adorned with a seven-pointed star.
"Someone was very angry," Kaede says offhandedly when she sees the southern room. "Destruction like this is rarely done for any other reason." She looks through the scraps to see if anyone of interest can be deciphered from them.
"Agreed, but after," Tera begins before her voice catches and she has to swallow, "after fighting those monsters and seeing this... this place, I'm afraid of what else we'll find." The young mage puts her bow aide for the moment and begins sifting through the ruined books and parchments to see if there was anything, anything at all that might help shed light on what this place was for.
"I will keep watch over the eastern door while you search the room" Orin says, taking up a post at the top of the stairway.
"Maybe, but I was looking for a journal or ledger or anything really among what's here," Tera says as she looks up to where Sal is pointing before turning to Orin, "and thank you, Orin, for doing that. This place... I feel unsettled by this place. knowing someone is watching my back helps, so thank you."
Kaelaah, taken aback at the ruined room stands guard with Orin... the flickering light of his fire giving enough illumination to ensure that nothing will sneak up the stairs unseen...
A quick search of the mess does not turn up anything of note. Tera has a vague sense that the stars on the doors should maybe seem familiar, but she's so far from placing them that she's not even sure what subject she might have been studying when she came across something related.
Behind the doors are three small cells. Each contains a single humanoid skeleton. The first has a large, misshapen skull. The second has a bizarrely bifurcated shoulder on its left side, and a third arm. The final skeleton has a ribcage that continues all the way down to its pelvis and stumpy, stunted legs.