The girl, hoping the exercises might not be in the plan if they were going to travel today, groans at the tell-tale sound of Dohrlok's rising. She mutters, "Knew it. That's why I woke up, same time as always. Time to get to it."
Her regimen is different, having been designed for her build and fighting style, but not much less rigorous. She makes liberal use of the water in the washbasin when it's done.
To herself, "Kinda enjoy it. Don't let him know, though."
Once the conference is done, Adovan quietly leaves the group. He returns in the morning ready to depart, with his gear.
It takes another quarter hour or so to climb down into the shadowed ravine, sheltered from the sun by the lee of a tall, craggy hill. The base of the ravine is littered with sharp rocks, fallen boulders, stunted trees, thorny bushes and the bleached bones of long dead goats. After several minutes, a search of the area reveals a portal some twenty feet wide, flanked by ancient looking monoliths, built into the hillside and partially obscured by underbrush and fallen boulders. This entry portal is partially clogged by the debris of ages, leaving a clear entrance less than ten feet wide.
The light that does filter down into the ravine dimly illuminates a long hallway beyond the portal, extending north into darkness. A faint breeze brings with it sibilant whispers reminiscent of sighing breath. It may be a trick of the wind, but the effect is quite lifelike.
"No wonder no one has found this place."
Adovan picks up a stick and mutters, and suddenly it begins to glow. "May help as we get inside."
Dohrlok gazes for a moment into the opening. Then he says to Ellantera, "We are ready."
Stanley nods respectfully at Adoven's move, and does the same, except touching the head of his quarterstaff. He moves to cast again, this time drawing on the arcane energies to allow him to view them. "It would be best that we establish standards, like a marching order."
"Good point, a light at each end of the line unless someone wants to scout ahead of it?"
The sunlight filtering in from the outside, even with the addition of the two light spells, illuminates no more than the first forty feet of the tunnel which, apart from the dirt, fallen rocks and plant debris near the entry, appears quite empty and runs straight until the way is lost to darkness. The stones at the entry form an archway about ten feet high, but beyond this the passage opens up to about twenty feet high.
Stanley looks over the group, assessing each one in turn before suggesting, "With no real knowledge of anyone's skill set, beyond Verrik, I would offer the following. Verrik and Dohrlok at the fore, Adoven and Dohrlok's young ward Ellantera to follow, and lastly Tyvall and myself at the rear." He nods in agreement with himself, looking to the others to confirm his thoughts.
Dohrlok nods. "Sensible." He looks at Verrik to join him in the lead.
"That suits me."
"Beyond tunnel, bigger room."
Then he says to Ellantera, "We are ready."
There is the slightest hesitation and doubt in her eyes as she nods. "Of course. Ready to go." She hefts the big hammer, gaining some solace from its comfortable weight in her hands.
She lines up behind and to the side of her mentor, putting her behind Verrick, so she can better see any signals he might give her. She considers the lantern hanging on her pack, but decides that the magelights are probably sufficient for the moment.
The light that does filter down into the ravine dimly illuminates a long hallway beyond the portal, extending north into darkness. A faint breeze brings with it sibilant whispers reminiscent of sighing breath. It may be a trick of the wind, but the effect is quite lifelike.
"Don't worry too much about the whispering - it's just the wind." I think. Verrik gets his blade out, holding his rapier in his right hand and a torch in his left.
"I'm a decent trap and lock man," he mutters to Dohrlok. "See anything, let me know."
Dohrlok nods gravely.
The group moves forward into the tunnel, Verrik and Dohrlok leading the way.
The walls bear horizontal bands of deceptively simple geometric patterns at waist level. In places the bands reveal startling detail, but in others the walls look as though they have been hacked apart with weapons or eroded by the rigors of time. Flakes of ancient paint, brilliant purple and a dull mustard hue, still cling to the walls in places, hinting at what must once have been a riot of colour. A thin coat of dust and dirt coats the floor.
A short distance inside the darkened tomb, the hallway branches into shallow alcoves to the east and west – the widening in the passage that Dohrlok noticed. Here the walls bear the most significant damage. Dozens of clumsy etchings mar the beautiful ancient masonry like graffiti on a city wall. A clump of soiled cloth about the size of a halfling rests in the rounded terminus of the western alcove.
Outside, the wind picks up, and a chorus of almost human sounds rises from the darkened hall.
"What's that?" says Dohrlok, looking suspiciously at the pile of cloth.
The passageway is lined – walls, floor and ceiling – with worked stone blocks which appear to Dohrlok’s eye to be dacite, likely native to the region. The stonework has generally been polished to a smooth finish, and the individual blocks fit together precisely, with near invisible joints. Dohrlok notices numerous tiny holes bored into the stone hidden amongst the decorative horizontal bands running along the walls.
An examination of the cloth pile reveals it to be the mouldy remains of an old bedroll, hardened and brittle with age. Dohrlok notices something else nearby, what he at first takes to be a long strip of fine material, until he realises it is actually the shed skin of a rather large snake. The back part of the alcove is strewn with small, jumbled bones.
Examining the stonework within the alcove, Dohrlok spots a circular depression in the floor, about two feet in diameter and an inch deep. Spaced at equal intervals towards the edge of this depression are four deep holes less than an inch in diameter.
Stanley's attentions are a bit focused to one particular spot in one of the nearby alcoves, looking for something that maybe only Verrick and Vesnik would know what. A look of distant memories cross his face. Vesnik, however, doesn't share his concerns, and takes in the room in an appropriately bird-like way, cocking his head this way and that dartingly.
Stanley seems lost in the past, but he does notice that Vesnik appears to be somewhat agitated. The tiny bird’s head darts about, this way and that, and Stanley senses his familiar’s unease and a sense of warning through the empathic link.
Returning his thoughts to the present, Stanley whips into activity, stopping abruptly to once more initiate a casting of his ability to recognize magical auras.
"Just a bedroll? Good, good." Verrik seems oddly relieved.
Examining the stonework within the alcove, Dohrlok spots a circular depression in the floor, about two feet in diameter and an inch deep. Spaced at equal intervals towards the edge of this depression are four deep holes less than an inch in diameter.
"Now this, on the other hand, seems rather suspicious. Let me take a look..."
The girl positions herself about ten feet from her mentor, watching the approaches while his attention is on what he's found. He will tell her if she needs to know. She is tense, the voices in wind stirring up vague memories of superstitions learned around the campfire.
Returning his thoughts to the present, Stanley whips into activity, stopping abruptly to once more initiate a casting of his ability to recognize magical auras.
Stanley detects no magic within the arc of his spell.
One thing that Verrik and Ellanterra notice as they make their way up the passageway is that there appear to be numerous animal prints and spoor on the floor.
Verrik moves forward to carefully examine the depression and holes in the floor. He can’t find any sign of moving parts, pressure plates, mechanism – no sign that this is part of a trap or secret way. As far as he can tell, some object may have once been placed here, screwed down into the floor, and since removed. There are some tiny fragments of what might be the rusted remains of thin metal strips near the holes, as if screws had been stripped.
As Ellanterra stands watch near the junction of the alcoves, she notices a faint flicker of green light from somewhere ahead in the darkness – to the north, down the main passageway. She also hears, amongst the faint whispering noises, something that might be a growl.
Adovan draws his sword with his free hand, and keeps back while those better suited check the area is safe.
In a quiet voice for Dohrlok and those near the two of them, Ellantera says, "Animal tracks on the floor. May have heard a growl among the wind-voices. This might be a creature's den now. But I think I saw a flash of green light down that passage. That doesn't sound like something an animal would have. Be ready."
She tightens her grip on the big hammer and adjusts her stance to be prepared for something coming from the passage with the green light.
Dohrlok nods. "Good."
He peers up the passageway. Walk to T17 and peer in that direction.
Stepping forward and looking into the darkness with his dwarven sight, Dohrlok can see that the main passage continues straight until at least the limit of his darkvision, but there appears to be another junction (or more deep alcoves to the east and west) a short distance ahead.
As he looks ahead, he too sees a brief, faint glimmer of green light, its source somewhere far ahead, beyond the range of his darkvision.
Stanley currently disregards the talk of lights to examine the current alcoves. He skims over the walls, looking for something specific. Glancing to Verrick he asks, "Do you remember where you put yours?"
After looking over the walls, he examines the discarded snake-skin, hoping to get an idea of how old or how big the resultant snake may be.
Stanley carefully scans the walls of the alcoves, pausing for a moment as he looks at the southern wall of the western alcove.
Then he bends to examine the shed snake skin. The snake must have been a true monster, at least ten feet long, probably more. He guesses that it was probably a constrictor of some sort. The skin flakes and falls apart in Stanley’s hands when he moves it; it must have been here for some time, years perhaps.
"Nevermind, I found it..." Stanley returns his attentions to making their way forward, albeit with a sadness etched on his face. His first order of business is sharing what he learned. "There is possibly a very large and very old snake still within these halls. Be aware. I am done with my rudimentary examinations of the area, and ready to move toward investigating the green light." He stands, dusts his hands off, and indicates the way ahead. "Shall we?"
"Green light up ahead. Too far to see clearly."
The group moves forward to the next intersection that Dohrlok has spotted ahead. About twenty feet past the alcoves, the wide central passage once again opens up to alcoves or short passageways to the east and west. As the group approaches this second set of alcoves, several of you notice the eerie flickering green light from somewhere to the north. The sibilant whispers continue, sounding like words or phrases in some unknown language.
At the next junction, the western hall extends perhaps forty feet, ending at a small marble platform raised about six inches off the floor. A strange, shattered arcane apparatus rests upon this platform, its curved ovular frame giving the appearance of a noble’s dressing mirror. Only a third of this frame remains, the top part of broken, leaving two uneven arms of the frame rising up above the platform. An unusual glyph about the size of a man’s head has been delicately carved into the baseplate of the support platform.
Fifteen feet down the east passage, a huge pile of collapsed rubble blocks the alcove from top to bottom, comprised of several massive blocks of stone and mounds of smaller rubble. It looks like it would take weeks to tunnel through the densely packed debris.
"Stanley, Verrik, you want to investigate that dais? Dohrlok, Ellantra, you keep an eye on that Eastern passageway, me and Tyvall will make sure nothing comes up behind us."
Stanley looks slightly confused by the question, but answers it nonetheless, "Of course I do." With that, he moves to the other side of Tyvall to place his back to the wall, before he focuses on any arcane energies coming from either the western alcove or northern passage.
The east passage looks safely blocked, so Dohrlok peers at the stone platform.
Stanley, you detect no magical auras within the area of effect of your cantrip. Your training in the magical arts leads you to believe that the broken frame was once part of some magical device, although it is obviously no longer functioning. The glyph carved into the pedestal is quite complex – it doesn’t appear to be part of any common alphabet, but parts of it are reminiscent of arcane symbols concerned with elemental air. You suspect that this particular glyph may represent a name – perhaps the name of the device, or of its maker?
Dohrlok, the low stone pedestal upon which the broken frame rests is made of a dark marble – a common enough stone, though not native to this area. It appears firmly fixed to the floor. The arms of the broken frame emerging from it appear to be made of some type of metal, though not one that is familiar to you. You notice a few shards of some shiny black material on the stone floor around the pedestal.
Dohrlok whispers, "Something north. Animal, perhaps. Growling."
Not sure why they would want to watch the blocked passage, Ellantera is happy to have a distraction when Dohrlok detects something to the north. She adjusts slightly so she is facing down the as-yet-unexplored passage, hammer at the ready, and waits.
"Got it." Verrik stows away his rapier and unlimbers his shortbow.
A dark coloured, low slung quadruped with a slowly thrashing tale pads into view out of the darkness, its features concealed by the dim light . It opens its mouth in a snarl, its body appearing tensed to spring.