It seems to Lynore that the group might be able to placate the guardians of this place if she can only find the right way to do it. They are fighting to protect the sanctity of this mass grave. Perhaps some kind of offering would help?
"We need to try and make these ghosts happy, any ideas, I am not the best smooth talker."
"What do you want?"
Thom studies the ghosts, sifting through his vast arcane knowledge he has picked up.
"Tavar, you must know something about rituals concerning the dead. Can you come up with something?" Arishat mutters an aside to Tavar, before attempting to address the spirits herself. "Our quarrel is with one who disturbs the dead far more than we could. Let us pass, and we shall keep this place safe."
The eloquence and knowledge of the group serve them well as the spirits heed Arishat and Lynore. Thom senses that the magic binding these spirits may be undone somewhere else, releasing them to the Shadowfell. Deeply repulsed by the affront to his deity, Tavar seeks guidance and finds it.
Twisting silently and communing with each other, the spirits fall back into the charnal pit. You sense that you may cross in peace.
Arisaht follows Lynore across the bridge.
And Barel.
Scarcely believing their luck, the companions cross the horrible bridge and work their way through yet another maze of passages. The seeping walls continue to ooze, debilitating you all by there mere presence.
At length, the passages end in a carefully hewn chamber adorned only with a series of vaults. Tavar looks extremely doubtful.
Arishat moves cautiously into the room towards the nearest vault. She looks around the room.
Fragments of bone and shards of gems litter the vaults and the floor. Lynore realises these are worthless at the same time as noting the there appear to be no traps in front of her.
Barel will ease into the room , and look around as well, although he doubts he will see more than Lynore's trained eye.
Additionally, he will use his knowledge of stonework and buildng to add to his insight to figure out any other information regarding the vaults origins or (ex?)inhabitants.
Barel is right when he suspects that he will learn nothing more about any potential traps, but his dwarven heritage gives him a hint that the vaults are not occupied and never have been. They are merely a distraction.
Thom stays put, and extends his arcane senses into the vault area.
Thom detects no aura of magic whatever.
Barel wonders what we are waiting for...no magic, no traps, lets get on with it! He takes a few small steps forward.
Arishat steps up alongside Barel . "I can't see any exit. I wonder if it's hidden inside one of the vaults. Want to give me a hand getting this one open?"
Time to wreck the place. Arishat opens the lid of the crypt. If there are obvious steps in the bottom, great. If not, prod it with her spear to see if it sounds hollow. Move on if not.
With a rumble, the sarcophagus falls into a pit. Arishat sees nothing of interest at the bottom. Merely a treacherous hole in the ground.
"All right. I didn't expect it to be as easy as the first one." Arishat methodically starts working her way around the room, sliding the lid of the sarcophagi and checking inside as she goes. Having been very slightly horrified at her own destructiveness, she tries not to do any more damage.
Arishat moves around the room removing sarcophagus lids and peering into the tauntingly empty interiors. As she heads up the passageway, the ground beneath her feet gives way, plunging her into a 30 foot pit.
"Hey, look what I found!"
"Wow, see anything at the bottom? Should we tip over more. Maybe with a rope attached to you."
Arishat teeters on the brink, but keeps her footing.
Arishat sees nothing but innocuous stonework. No exits down here.
"We can worry about what's beyond the pit later. I'll check the other crypts." Arishat looks contemplative for a moment. "More and more this reminds me of my family crypt. We just need my little sister to shut in one of these and it would be complete."
The rhytmic thud of falling masonry echoes around the vault as Arishat discovers more and more empty pits. However hard she looks down, there no exit to be seen anywhere.
"Remind me to ask you about your family, when we get out of here, Arishat. As far as I can tell, the crypts blocked off by the pit are the only ones left. We should check it out."
"Yes, I know. 'Ooh, her family has it's own graveyard, she must be rich'." Arishat sounds mildly irritated as she moves over and looks in the pit. "We were, but not any more. Not in a real sense. Now we've got a run-down old fortress, a few villages that expect us to protect them, and not much money to do it. And some rather unpleasant neighbours." She backs off, and takes a running jump over the pit. "Anyway, it didn't make her any madder than she started out."
Leaping nimbly over the pit, Arishat sends two more lids crashing to reveal two more pits containing nothing at all.
"Well that's just great." Arishat leaps back over the pit . "So, where could an exit be." Now that I've totally failed to find it.
"Could be a dead end. Or maybe we can crawl down into some of these pits and explore up close."
Arishat looks disconsolately downwards into the pits.
Thom steps inside and looks around the vault, analyzing the features for any hidden purposes.
Thom's knowledge of stonework leads his gaze upwards. 20 feet up on the ceiling above the trapped section of floor, he sees it at last. An exit.
Lynore fires the flying hook up into the exit and hands the rope to Arishat because of all of her hard work she deserves the first look.
"Up. Not down. OK." Arishat shins up the rope as well as she can , and climbs over the lip of the exit.
Arishat finds herself in a crawlspace leading due west. It is large enough to fit one person at a time, and ahead she can see a slight glow.
I wave to Lynore to come up. "I think it might be best for someone stealthier and more observant than me to investigate that light."
Lynore fades from view and reappears next to Arishat, whispers "Do not forget to retract the hook before moving on," to Arishat and slinks towards the light.
Barel will hold the rope steady and climb up after everyone else has gotten up.
Lynore crawls ahead and finds herself looking at a hexagonal chamber. The floor is adorned with the same arrangement of trapdoors and faces that the group discovered at the bottom of the black well.
Lynore comes back to the room looking dejected. "More of those faces up ahead."