If everyone is agreement with the action Oios teleports over to the other side of the grate.
For many years I have kept this gift from Makaya a secret he grouses as he grasps the lever and pulls.
With a loud, grinding screech, the portcullis slowly raises itself into the ceiling. Making your way down the gently sloping hallway, you find that after an initial bottleneck the hall opens up to be about ten feet wide. Every few feet, alternating from each side of the wall, a smaller stone wall protrudes, perpendicular, about four feet high and five feet wide, causing you to zig-zag the length of the hall.
The tunnel doubles back on itself, towards the cliffside, more of the same low walls slowing your descent. Another hundred feet and you come to a split. On one side, a carved tunnel slopes slightly up and to the north. To the other side, a tunnel slopes down and to the south.
Drazan moves forward slowly though not without purpose. The weaving through what appears to be a wide hall, makes him uneasy. His experience was often out in the wide spaces, and this felt more like the death trap that he slept in back in the days of his former life as a arena pit fighter.
The winding tunnels were strange to Istiel, so far removed from the mounds of Shadeholme or the forests surrounding it. She is especially confused when the tunnel doubbles back on itself and they are headed towards the clffside again. She missed the elegant, airy houses of Shadeholme.
Her torch illuminates the end of ther current tunnel, shadows from the edges of the walls casting into fork. She halts everyone with a raised hand, sliding up the for and carefully peering around both of the corners.
Thankfully none of them talk much; her hearing is uninterrupted as she checks for threats around each of the corners. "The north passage slopes up. I hear the echoes of clanging. Much clanging." Istiel says as she looks down the mentioned hallway.
Her head swings back to the southern hallway. "The south passage slopes down. I heard a voice. Faintly. Speaking Abyssal. They sound upset." She holds her torch higher, looking down the south passage. "We should go south. I do not want our backs to a potential enemy."
This is not their place. If we can take one alive then we may find out why they are here. Oios nods at Isitel.
The voices hush as you get closer, your footsteps echoing down the south hallway. The tunnel opens up into what was once a barracks, most likely. The room, fifteen feet wide, contains a series of stone bunks, twenty in all, carved in place as the room was created and extending from the walls.
The barracks were likely always spartan in decoration, but whatever was once here has long been removed. The bunks sit bare, as do the carved shelves next to them.
Towards the back of the room, you find four Mountain Men, tied to the beds with thick ropes of chain. They turn their heads as best they can, but only the nearest to you has a full view of his entrance. His eyes widen in shock, before he shoots you a whispered plea.
Another, unable to see your approach, whispers to the first.
Oios calls back softly as he pads into the room with Telowo's staff.
Imix falls back, his mind troubled by what he sees. His instincts take over, and his bulky form moves with eerie quietness in the semi-darkness.
"Enemy of my enemy" he says quietly, his voice eerie through the shifted throat he wears "Perhaps we can be friends with the residents. We should leave them."
The closest Frozen, a lean man with scarred "horns" running across his shaven scalp, blanches in surprise as Oios speaks back, fluent in the Frozen's tongue.
The man nods his head towards the other end of the room, towards the darkened doorway behind him.
As soon as her suspicions of Frozen presence are confirmed, her grip tightens on her torch. She sweeps the room for any loose bodies, but finds only captives.
Moving to stand next to Oios, she stares at the speaking Frozen with a chilling intensity. "Ask them how were they captured. By whom. When."
She glances to Imix, his crocodilian form casting monstrous shadows in the torchlight. "I agree."
Nat lacks any ability with languages or with the intricacies of engineering. She is reminded strongly of her first time in Cornucopia, where she wandered without direction for hours. It was then that she fully understood how very far (geographically, spiritually and morally) the capital was from her homeland.
She shakes her head. Now is not the time to wander down memory lane.
She looks instead to Oios, trusting in his direction, cocking her head to one side, a question: Do you want me to heal them?
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The Mountain Man looks back and forth as you talk amongst yourselves, his mouth moving as he watches you speak. The other man, the one with his back turned, unable to see you, utters a bitter laugh.
The first man, the one with the goat-horn scars, starts babbling, his voice rising in pitch.
"Our laborers, all four of 'em, vanished that night, while on guard duty. I - we - woke to a horrible grinding below, but we didn't leave the tower. The next morning, we tried to set out, but the rock creatures killed more of our survey."
Goat horns' eyes roll wildly in his head, his voice climbing still higher.
"They came in the middle of the night. Our laborers, like before, but with dead stares, bloodshot eyes. They were never that bright - no Ogre is - but they just said one thing, as they beat us senseless. 'Master wants you.'"
"We've been here ever since, in the dark. How many days, only the Flame knows. Every now and again, one of the laborers comes to grab another of us. More screaming..."
"Let us go! I'd do it for you!"
The man with his back turned laughs his bitter laugh again, and speaks in stilted Tsinyah.
"No make love for you below."
A tale very similar to ours comes from them in what they encountered outside. Oios informs the others For what they encountered inside however. It appears there is some evil below that tortures breathing men and women into undead abominations. Their Ogres are now turned to serve whatever is below.
Oios considers There are many evils that we are now surrounded by. The Flame is but one, but it is still one that we need to fear.
In Abyssal he says to the captives
Istiel crosses her arms as the man with the scarred goat-horns speaks, but says nothing.
Ogres? A small spark of excitement flickers within her, which she rapidly supresses. No, think. You told Domhnall you would think.
After Oios translates, she remarks: "The one below does not sound like a potential ally. A threat to us and the flight."
After Oios has asked his question and potentially recieved an answer, the monk looks back the way they came. "We should investigate the clanging in the northern passage. Then descend. The captives will alert us if the ogres return." Istiel remarks cooly, without concern for the Frozen that appears to have a passing grasp of Tsinyah.
Goat-horns looks to Oios, breathing deeply, calming himself. Though his nostrils still flare a bit as he speaks, the man's voice is more even.
That's not how this works. Drazan grumbles in infernal as he closes distance with the captives. Bane hovering at the ready. Answer the man's questions and earn his trust. Without the investment, you've no reason to delay betraying him as soon as he clears the tower. He is the only way you survive this.
The man cocks his head and looks to Drazan for a long while, before answering He speaks in bursts, changing direction often.
"Regardless, I already gave 'investment.' But, I'll give more, as you wish."
"We were tasked by the Priest and the Crone, months ago, to survey the lower woods of the Valley. We have been doing so for weeks now, for the Crone wishes to know the extent of her holdings. We were to go no further than the cliff, and no farther north than where the Cheya comes down from the mountains, and to stay within the Teeth of the World. Our first priority was to survey the lands west of the Great River, and then, if our numbers and supplies allowed, move beyond the river to the east."
"Our expedition left with 20 souls and 6 laborers. I assume that this is what is left, in this room. Besides our laborers of course, who seem to have betrayed us."
"I know that your people sparsely populate this region, and that the Crone wished to know of its resources; any of your villages, outposts, or Waypoints; and of any threats to our peoples."
"I know that our goals are to take your lands. Your people will be moved north, where to I do not know. Beyond your city Te-Moak. Our people will have a new home."
Drazan speaks quickly, in continued infernal, as he was only waiting for the chaotic man to pause for a breath, I travel with them because the fire burns from within, and not from out. Now answer me. Why should we help you? What's in it for us?
Istiel had been standing with her arms crossed over her chest, staring down the hallway they descended from. Silently she listens to the man with the goat-horn scars.
As "the priest" is mentioned, her grip tightens around her biceps. Fox Priest! Traitor... One day I will avenge all those you slew.
Goat-horns' face grows red, the man visibly refraining from losing his composure.
Oios shakes his head at how completely the Valley had been canvassed before the invaders had struck. Everything the man said had the ring of truth to it. He says
Muttering back in Three People's tongue Drazan takes issue with not so much Oios, but his choice of wording, "Remaining here or coming with us, they are not to be 'freed,' they remain as prisoners. I do not trust them, and do not want to chance them getting word of us back to their leaders."
Oios nods as he responds to Drazan
I know the tongue, but their way of thinking is... foreign to me. I will let you take the lead here Drazan. If taking them as prisoners is what will keep them under control then so be it. But they must understand that the moment they turn, their lives are forfeit.
Istiel turns to Drazen and Oios, arms still crossed. "I agree Drazen should determine their fates. He handled the previous captive in Shadeholme well." The monk doesn't seem to care what happens to the Frozen one way or another. If they become a threat, she is confident she could end them.
She jerks her head towards the way they came. "We should check the other passage before descending."
The clanging continues as you cross up the north tunnel, the tunnel growing less refined as you go. The floor stays relatively level, but is no longer faced with flagstones. Instead, you walk upon dirt and unvarnished rock. The walls grow less smooth, the tunnel obviously roughly cut. You pass through a large room, the walls adorned with simple stone cubbies, long unused. In the corner, one long shaft sinks into the ground - toilet, judging by the lack of smell, also long unused, and a small washbasin, still filled with still water, its surface occasionally marred by a droplet of water falling from the ceiling above.
Beyond that room, the tunnel opens up into multiple tunnels, almost weblike veins, stretching into the darkness, up and down, in all all directions. The clanging comes, rhythmically, from the south and west.
Entering one of the veins, you walk along the rough-hewn floors, apparent from the gouges in the walls, the shifting height of the ceilings, that you are in a large and ancient mine.
Still, on you walk, perhaps a quarter-mile down this vein, the noise growing, echoing around you. CLANG CLANG CLANG
Ahead, ten cloaked figures toil in the darkness. They ignore you, swinging away at the walls, sparks flying where their tools strike a ripple of ore stretching across the mineshaft, glinting in Istiel's torchlight like a fine silvery silken ribbon. A large wheeled cart sits to the side of the workers.
In unison, they stop swinging their tools - flat-headed metal things tapering to a point, finely made, and unrusted - and turn to you. Two of the figures are short and squat, six of them tall and slender, the last two of average size. Hollowed and empty eye sockets stare at you, jaw bones hang limp under their hoods.
Once again turning their backs to you, the dead miners raise their tools once again and start striking the ore, CLANG CLANG CLANG.
Do we have mines? The idea of tunneling into the living earth like this (rather than an open face quarry, which we definitely do have) is an interesting one if we don't have a history of mining.
Also, we decided there were no earth based gods in our pantheon, right?
Conversely; given Imix raised Apchux, we have no particular strictures against the use of undead?
Sorta important for reactions.
TL;DR: No mines as written above, your PCs can probably intuit what the undead are up to here, though.
Longer thoughts: I really wrestled with this as I was writing this post last night, but I was tired, and wanted to get the post out, and ended up not being as creative as I should have. Any mining the Takayah would have would be very primitive, as their metal work largely consists of beaten copper decorations and utensils. More likely than mines, there's probably a many stone quarries, and maybe copper quarries if such a thing is possible. I'm no science guy, so I'm not sure. If it is not, I'd surmise that the copper is brought into the Valley via trade. I need an editor :)
Your PCs likely wouldn't understand exactly that this is a mine, but they would I understand that the undead are pulling something from the earth, or at least concentrating their efforts on the ribbon of metal, rather than fighting a wall or digging another tunnel.
Truthfully, I don't know much about mining and underground ventures; there's a reason why I don't play dwarves - they are utterly foreign to me.
Re: undead:
TL;DR: I'd say the idea of raising the dead for labor would not be accepted.
Longer thoughts: While we haven't addressed this, take into account that there is no use, outside of Imix, of anyone in the Baunti Valley raising anyone, let alone using their dead for laborers and the like. If Imix were to propose such a thing, your average Shadeholmer would probably be horrified.
Also, the one incidence of contact with undead (the alt-bodaks) led to Nat staying behind with the Frozen to ferret any more out. That indicates that undead in general are seen as dire threats, likely by the Takayan gods themselves.
Nat listens to the story as it is translated, taking it in. She already knew that the Flame was disciplined and organised, so she is less shocked than Oios. Her assumption is that the 'priest' referred to is Ashkesh, although Istiel clearly seems to think that it means someone else, judging by her reaction.
She looks at the Frozen, silent for a few moments.
"Oy suggest we untoy them enough that they can walk, and then have them come with us so's we can watch them. If there's a croc in the water, Oy loyk to know where it is."
Nat gazes at the industrious, shambling corpses, her expression flat. "The dead should be buried. Using them loyk that is..." she trails off, unable to find the words.
There is, it seems, no end to the horrors the First Flame is willing to enact.
For the Frozen: Up to Drazan. I think the most reasonable thing is for them to become Rheumy type followers? At least for the time being?
Imix paused as the tunnels commenced. "I've only ever seen something like this once before. The Suriname library was carved out of the living earth with magic, by one of the first Suriname. But this - this seems like the hole plant roots make. Twisting with no purpose. Changing shape. As if the tower had formed around a giant tree from the beginning of time."
A few steps in he paused again "I could hold this passage against an army with a handful of men and a few devices. Be careful."
"Is that metal?" Imix asked "Growing in the ground? Is that where it comes from?" he pauses as he sees a king's ransom in metal being used to attack rocks."That's how this was done. Metal to dig the holes to find more metal." he says, as understanding dawns. "Another of the great questions answered."
"Do we stop them?" he asks Oios "An attack would ruin our chance for alliance."
Istiel suddenly stops as the dead miners come into the range of her light. She stares, and though it is hidden behind her mask, her mouth is slightly open.
Whatever it was she was expecting to find, it wasn't this.
"They seem to only labor. They are unnatural. Offensive to life. But they pose no threat to us." Istiel comments on the undead, looking to Imix. "The undead are tools to make metal? This is the cost?"
Her gaze swings to Oios. "I believe we should save our strength for the ogres. But. If you believe Damballah wishes for the destruction of these creatures I will make it so."
Oios holds his staff out in front of him as the group looks at the unnatural abominations attacking the walls with their terrifying implements. He remembers how the staff had lit up when they had struggled against the undead in Shadeholme.
Without a doubt, Damballah wishes them destroyed. And any tool is a weapon if it is ordered to attack as these will be. We cannot tolerate such evil, or make allies of those who would create such monstrosities. If they ignore us then we will use the opportunity to close in and put them to their denied rest.
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Barracks
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Goat-horns sneers, his frustration growing.
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Minecraftshaft
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The living dead fall quickly to your assault. In a matter of seconds they're no more than dusty bones in cloaks, their skeletal hands still clutching their strange metal tools.
Upon further examination, the metal that make their tools seems to be the same kind as the metal that stretches, ribbon-like, along the tunnel walls.
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We continue on. Find who kept these poor souls from their journey to Lebga. Oios says shaking his head and the pitiful piles of bone they had just ripped through like a hurricane. If Damaballah wills it we will be able to give these a proper send off. Perhaps prevent them from being brought back again
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Imix hefts one of the picks, taking an experimental swing at the rock wall. "These are the tools to make metal." he tosses another pick to Istiel "Feel the weight. Like feathers."
just metal? ;P
Hang on, is it really adamantine? Wow - so it'll bit through stone like butter, then. We know copper, gold and silver (at least in trace) and now Adamantine, then?
Imix lost his weapon outside the tower, so he'll use a heavy pick from now on, if that is okay.
A rare smile cracks Imix's monstrous lips as he lifts another pair of picks from their foes "Look - I'm the richest man in the empire." he hands them to Oios "Now Oios is the richest!"
His habitual dour demeanour returns "The noise has stopped. They are warned. Someone will come to investigate."
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Barracks
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Drazan's clenches his jaw at the sound the Goat-horns sharp tongue,
You do not show respect to those that have you at their mercy, call him 'old man,' and then lie about guarantees! There are guarantees in this world. Let me show you. Drazan glances back over his shoulder at his companions, a familiar rage in his eyes, before he lets out a deep angry growl along with a sudden swift swing as Bane goes up and back down ending through Goat-horns neck the sound of his head punctuating the sudden violence.
I am rage, Drazan says stepping up so that he can see the eyes of the next prisoner. Forged in the fire of Peklenc, tempered into a fierce anger, you three will call me Master. You'll choose to be another cinder that fuels my flame in either life or in death. What will it be
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Tunnels
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We became the richest people in the empire when we were able to leave it with freedom and a few wagons of food to sustain us. Oios responds to Imix But you are right Imix. We are barely past the edge of the Valley and we already are faced with evil and treasure beyond measure.
Istiel did not take any joy from destroying the skeletons- they posed no real challenge or threat. Her fist connects with the last undead's skull, and the creature's hood neatly catches the pulverized shards of its head.
With a swift straight kick to its ribcage the decapitated skeleton explodes into bone shards, and the fight was over.
She catches the pickaxe Imix tossed to her, with her free hand, holding it up by the haft. The monk places her torch into a nearby cart full of rocks and holds the pick two-handed, as the skeletons were.
Winding up a mighty overhead swing she brings down the implement into the wall with such force that finger-length stone chips fly off the wall. She draws the pick back and touches the tip; to her amazement it was completely unmarred by the stone. A stone and wood hammer would have been completely obliterated by such a blow.
She reflects for a moment, retrieving her torch. "Could these rock-breakers fell a Nargun?"
"Better than wood." Imix suggested. "And I left my weapon when we ran in."
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Barracks
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The next Mountain Man, a man with a jagged scar running from the tip of his nose across his shaved scalp and down the back of his head and neck, zig-zagged like a lightning bolt, stares up at Drazan with a mixture of awe and terror. Lightning bolt's voice squeaks out of his mouth, high and hushed.
The man with his back turned grunts. "That guy was a#%&!*&, anyways. Never stopped talking."
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Mines
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The rest of the tunnels prove quiet, with no creatures, living or dead to be found within them. As you return back towards the entrance to the veins, Nat stops, and peers at the ceiling line of the tunnel, at a spot where the tunnel bulges, as if it were a full goldstone pouch, rounded at the top. You'd missed it before, but following Nat's pointed finger, you can see it now, there along the ceiling, a fold in the rough wall's seam that is an optical illusion; the wall ceiling appear to meet, but in fact don't.
It is easy enough for Istiel to climb the uneven walls, and within seconds of crawling over the seem and out of view, a rope ladder falls, hitting the floor with a soft fwap.
Above the seam, you duck and laying on your back, pull yourselves into another tunnel, this one also rough-hewn, but even, and stretching into the darkness. You walk for a few hundred feet before the tunnel opens up into a large natural cavern, slick with moisture and glowing with a soft green, light emanating from luminescent moss covering the walls. In the center of the room, a small pool lies, the water within it churning and bubbling, steam rising from the pool's surface. The water within the pool must be very hot for steam to be coming from it, for the cavern itself is uncomfortably so; you begin sweating as soon as you enter. A single rod, made of the same metal on your axes, runs just overhead, from one side of the cavern to another, ramrod straight. Below it, running through loops from the rod, a metal chain, itself in a loop. One metal basket hangs from the chain.
Along the floor, in a spiral pattern, more runes, carved in the same unsteady hand as the writing in the tower above this complex from which you descended. Far above you, a shaft, like a chimney, extends up into the darkness.
Imix breathes deep. "Glorious" he declares, eyes half-closed in pleasure. "But what purpose? Do the runes somehow enchant the pool to such wondrous heat?"
I have no idea if Imix even could make a knowledge roll here. I think that despite his education this is likely to be beyond his knowledge - unless the Suriname might have encountered anything like this before.
Might his linguistics at least get some sort of clue from the Runes? Even if that this is not magic per se?
Istiel is drenched in sweat within minutes of entering the hot chamber. Her robes kept the hot, humid air close to her body, and she had to take a long drink from her waterskin more than once.
Despite the unfortunate conditions, she was mesmerized by the lights on the walls. Their torch had been reduced to a pitiful flicker, so she put it out to both revel in the green glow and reduce the amount of heat near her.
The device above them is curious, and she cannot ascertain its purpose. She grasps her newly found pickaxe by the end of the shaft and reaches up with its hook, trying to catch the basket and pull it down enough so she can see inside of it.
A linguistics check, and appropriate time spent, will translate the runes, which are in Darohm.
I'll update information about the basket later today, and anything else anyone posts about.
The contraptions and the heat are unlike anything that Oios has experienced. The purpose of this place escapes me. he says Perhaps one of our engineers would be able to fathom it. Are there no living beings here? We cannot leave the caravan rudderless for long.
The basket is made from thin metal coils - the same metal as in the tunnels. It is a large basket, large enough to hold a few sizable melons.
Both the top and the bottom of the basket are hinged; a lid is hinged to the top, and the basket's bottom hangs open, whatever contents the basket had once held long gone by now.
Drazan could taste the heat of the room, but was just as comfortable as any place. Fulton might know these letters, but I do not, Drazan announces from the entrance of the room, having not entered fully in order to keep watch over his captives. The Flight will have to endure longer in the future, we should not rush and miss an opportunity if there is one here. Is there a way to bring these back to examine or maybe use later without returning here? Drazan roots through his belongings in hopes of finding a tool that might work, but finds only a lot of weapons.
eventually
"Symbols can be traced." Imix concedes "But the time to do that is considerable. Especially as we do not have good writing tools. The caravan will come here, whether we return or not. We are past the point of having other options."
Nat shivers, clearly uncomfortable in this heat and confinement. "This is not moy place." The Tooyah live on open waters, in houses built on stilts. Not being able to see the sky seems somehow wrong in a way she can't properly explain.
Are there no living beings here? We cannot leave the caravan rudderless for long.
She nods in agreement at Oios' words. "We should return soon. Now we're healed, we can foyt our way past the rest of those things outsoyde."