Dusklord realizes that the item is part of an acrimony veil, rare ancient magic devices created by Alaznist, the Runelord of Wrath. They are normally composed of several pieces of interconnected metal and human bones.
As you slowly open the door to the southern room, you see a gruesome statue of a man at its southeastern corner. He is bare chested: scars, brands, and seeping wounds cover his exposed flesh. He stands with arms crossed, hands gripped tightly like a penitent. Blood oozes from his lacerations and he grits his teeth as though in excruciating pain, though the corners of his mouth turn up slightly, suggesting he derives some wicked pleasure from this perversion of his flesh. A strange mask made of iron covers the statue's face, the metal etched with complicated sigils. A broad belt made of leather and adorned with copper disks girds the statue's waist.
The statue seems like a statue to Feybella, although the mask and the belt it wears seem unusual.
Hastard does not notice anything else, while Nord does not smell anything unusual.
Nothing else happens while you're there, so unless you want to do anything else in the room you can leave it and continue exploring.
Dusklord's inspection reveals little more than the creature is a man. He also notices that the mask on the man's face is similar to the acrimony veil, or rather that the piece the party recovered earlier is part of the larger mask.
In the meanwhile, Feybella's spell reveals that the belt is indeed magical (but Cody finds no trace of poison on the statue or belt). As soon as she reaches to unfast the belt, the teeth of the statue shatter and a could of superheated air blasts forth, burning everyone in the room.
Once the air cools down a bit, you identify the belt as a belt of giant strength +2.
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Using a charge from his wand, Cody heals most of his burns, "The statue maker has real talent."
Cody makes sure Panda has the darkvision, bat animal focus and renews his light spell on his shield, before looking at the hole again. He drops a copper into the darkness trying to determine how deep the well goes.
The shaft seems deep at first, but turns out to be less deep that you'd originally feared, maybe 30 ft in total. A series of iron rungs on its southwest wall provide an easy means to descend, and you need to drop the last ten feet or so as you emerge from the ceiling of a room in the floor below.
As you are waiting for everyone to join in, you notice that the walls of the new chamber are covered with fading frescoes depicting a parade of cultists engaged in grisly acts of self-mutilation that involve knives, scourges, and more bizzare implements. The depiction of the ground beneath the repugnant pageant seems to be composed of thick, snake-like tentacles whose appendages and tooth-filled orifices lick greedily at the blood cascading down from the cult figures. To the east, debris from a smashed wall is scattered, spilling into the hall. This is the only other exit from the room so you eventually take a look - a N-S corrdor about 10 ft wide leads south into the darkness, and north for about 30 feet until it curves to the left (West) out of sight.
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With some miracles of engineering, some curse words and flailing wolf feet. Fey manages to get herself and Wolfie down in the shaft.
Take the wide open invitation?" Fey asks as she looks at the smashed wall. Or the more subtle approach?" she waves a the hallway. "I vote for the hallway. To the north just to see whats around the corner."
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"Well...that seemed unpleasant. Glad I stayed here and you all lived." remarks the gnome, patting his stead. Hearing the news of the belt, he smiles beneath his helm. "Uh...don't suppose any of you have a need for that thing? If not, I would graciously accept it. You know...just to keep it safe for now..."
Watching with amazement as Fey and Wolfie make their way down the shaft, he hops off Nord and frowns at the creatures hooves. "Don't suppose you could be as graceful as the other beasts?"
With a lot of coaxing and some heartbreak, he manages to convince the boar to give it a try after securing a rope to the beasts waste. Each rung the pair pause as Hastard unties the rope and resecures it to the next rung. Finally, with a graceful belly flop, the beast reaches the bottom.
Glancing around as he releases the bindings, Hastard remarks. "I suppose either is as good as the other. I'm inclined to try the hall first as it was made with purpose. The hole there seems to be done with reckless abandon." He then proceeds to slip back into the saddle on his companion's back.
You follow the corridor to the north then. As you turn around the corner, you see to the north, on a raised platform, a row of leathery brown statues of withered and emaciated humans poised as though attentively observing passersby. The statues have a grim, realistic appearance, and each one is flayed and modified in a unique way.
The corridor continues west, where it opens into a larger hall which is still dark.
Feybella detects no magic on the statues (all the walls, however, radiate a moderate abjuration aura) and finds no traps, but quickly realizes that these "statues" are actually the petrified corpses of sacrificial victims! The uniform color of the corpses and their distorted features makes some of the details difficult to discern, but all of the corpses have their throats and wrists slit, and most of their mouths are sewn shut. Some even have their forearms separated between the ulna and radius, splitting even the fingers of the hands to create additional appendages. Others have portions of their skulls removed and replaced with a different, leathery material. Some have modifications to their torsos, in which the ribs have been split, pried out, and sharpened to points. One figure in the middle of the display sits with its arms raised, palms out. Its teeth have been pulled out, filed to points, and then embedded into its hands.
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Dusklord smirks at Hastard.
"'These people' were indeed known not only for their incomparable magical prowess, but their excess. I am curious to know whether this type of ritual is required to obtain this kind of power," he says, quivering slightly.
"If so, we must ensure that none can utilize it in the same manner, of course. We should study it, but only for precautionary measures...so that we can keep others from doing the same thing."
The wizard looks around and tries to determine whether any of this means anything.
Dusklord finds nothing new as he examines the corpse, and after a few additional deliberations, you continue west along the corridor.
The wall decorations of cultists engaged in horrific rituals reappear in this large chamber. Ages-old blood stains the floor and walls in dusty flakes. A mosaic similar to the one in the temple above covers the floor, partially obscured by dozens of naked corpses scattered across the floor. An eerie silence falls upon the room.
Feybella realizes that the corpses have been magically preserved ever since the ancient magic ritual that ended with their deaths. Dusklord finds no religious significance, but together with Feybella he notices that the corpses are unusually leathery as if they were mummified as well. Many strips of skin were cut from each corpse, again as part of the ritual.
Hastard moves in carefully but sees nothing even though he is clearly too distracted from the ghastly sight in the middle of the room. Nord seems to smell something unusual, which he's never smelled before in the chamber's air.
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Stopping suddenly, Nord raises his head. With a few loud snorts of air, he turns from side to side.
"Well...seems clear to me. Nord has a different opinion though. Could be dragons...mimics...undead...or a good piece of cheese." answers Hastard cheerfully.
Looking from Fey to Nord and back into the room, he shrugs. "Hello! Do you bring cheese? A good pepper-jack really gets the blood pumping."
Just as the group begins to move out of the room, Feybella realizes that the far wall of the room isn't as solid as it seemed at first. In fact, the wall appears to be a makeshift blockade made of wood and stone. It is quite solidly built, but after Hastard bashes at it several times the wall gives way and opens to a cavern. Suspended upside down from above - thin, spiked wire cruelly wrapped around them from ankle to neck - are many brutalized corpses similar to those in the previous chambers. As air eddies out from the cave, carrying with it an unsettling odor of ancient decay, the dangling mummified faces, three feet off the floor, stare back.
There are well over two dozen such bodies, and they are packed together so closely that you must either push them aside or crouch under them to proceed deeper into the cave.
The corpses twist and swing as Hastard plows his way through. Some ancient magic, which Dusklord detects, seems to prevent their body parts from falling. Hastard eventually reaches a ladder made up of iron runs affixed to the rocky face. It descends 15 feet or so onto a platform, which soon narrows eastward to a rocky ledge above a dark pit which seems bottomless from your vantage point. The ledge seems dangerous.
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Trying to figure out how to handle the ledge, he watches as Feybella and Wolfie jump ahead. 'Ah good I can watch a profes...' he considers trailing off as his companion's luck fails.
"NO!" screams the gnome, reaching for the pair helplessly. Frantically, he tries to grab the trailing rope, calling out "Grab me legs! GRAB ME LEGS!"