Ezmelda’s first ray flashes past the edge of the brown growth and bursts against the pillar in a spray of white frost. Her second is true. The pale beam strikes the mold squarely. The effect is immediate. The thick brown growth contracts as though recoiling from the cold, its surface bleaching from muddy brown to lifeless gray. It cracks, crumbles, and collapses into brittle flakes across the floor.
The oppressive chill vanishes with it. Frost melts from the surrounding stone. The air remains cool, but no longer bites at exposed skin or draws warmth from the body. The route around the western face of the pillar—and to the orange-filled basin—is now clear.
On the opposite side of the central pillar, Yukio studies a tall recess extending from floor to ceiling. Unlike the western niche, this one is almost entirely filled by a massive, smooth stone column fitted tightly into the opening. Following the seams with her eyes, Yukio notices a small concealed catch worked into the short wall immediately north of the column. It is deliberately hidden within the stonework, but accessible without approaching the orange basin.
The southern face of the pillar also comes into view as the group spreads out. There, a dry stone basin sits beneath a wall spout roughly eight feet above the floor, resembling an ancient communal shower or washing station. Whatever once supplied it with water has long since failed.
You identify the mold as Brown Mold
Creatures within 5 feet of the mold take 3d6 nonlethal cold damage.
Fire brought within 5 feet causes the patch to instantly double in size.
Exposing the mold to cold damage instantly destroys it.
Ragnar advances much more cautiously. He studies each section of floor before shifting his weight onto it, testing loose stone and watching for seams, wires, or depressions. The immediate route into the chamber appears sound. He finds no pressure plate or mechanical trigger along the approach.
The cold, however, has a clear source. A dull brown growth clings to the floor and lower stonework around the western face of the central pillar. It resembles thick mold or lichen, but the air directly above it shimmers faintly with unnatural cold. Dust near its edge has gathered into tiny frost-rimed clumps.
Ragnar stops before reaching it. Beyond the growth, recessed into the pillar about four feet above the ground, rests the stone basin. It is filled with a thick orange paste, smooth in some places and hardened into crusts around the lip. The substance is completely still. Whatever it is, it appears to have been produced by the pillar itself rather than poured into an ordinary bowl.
Ragnar sees no obvious mechanical trap upon the basin from where he stands, though the brown growth surrounding it makes approaching closely difficult.
The remainder of the chamber becomes clearer from the threshold. The dull gray pillar dominates its center, wide enough to block sight through the entire room. Open halls extend east and west around it. The western route passes nearest the cold growth and orange-filled basin. The eastern route appears clear from here, though a tall recess can be glimpsed along that side of the pillar. What lies beyond either hall remains hidden by the central stonework.
Ragnar’s caution breaks beneath the flash of the creature’s eye. With a shout, the dwarf surges down the passage, boots pounding against ancient stone. The lurking strangler twists sharply in the air, its corded body coiling as both eyes swivel toward the charging miner.
It is not fast enough. Ragnar’s pick catches the aberration with a wet, crushing impact. Muscle tears beneath the point, and one of its staring eyes collapses inward. The blow hurls the creature against the wall of the alcove before it drops to the floor in a twitching heap. Its remaining eye stares upward for a moment. Then it clouds over.
The party’s arrows, stones, spells, and blades remain poised, but there is no living target left to receive them.
Silence returns to the corridor, disturbed only by the faint breeze curling around the statues’ cupped hands. Small fragments of dust and stone continue to hover above several of the empty palms, held aloft by steady cushions of air. Beyond the dead strangler lies the third and final pair of alcoves. The unnatural cold is strongest there, radiating from farther ahead rather than from the corpse. A dull brown growth can be seen clinging to portions of the stone near the corridor’s end. Past it, the narrow passage opens into a much larger chamber.
A broad pillar of dull gray stone rises from floor to ceiling near the center, obstructing a clear view of the room beyond. Open ways branch around it to the left and right, each apparently leading into a separate chamber. Another route seems to continue behind the pillar, though its destination cannot be seen from the corridor.
Set into one side of the central pillar is a deep recess ending in a raised stone basin. Even at this distance, something thick and orange can be seen resting within it.
For the moment, nothing else moves.
Ragnar hits for 9 damage, killing the lurking strangler.
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The remaining posted attacks are not required or expended, as the creature is already dead. Combat is over.
The party opens fire before the aberration can close the distance. Aja’s sling stone skips from the edge of the alcove, missing the twisting creature. Yukio’s arrows hiss past it in quick succession, one striking stone and the other vanishing into the darkness beyond. Grulf’s splash of acid passes beneath the floating strand as it folds sharply upward.
Ezmelda’s frost finds its mark. The pale ray strikes the creature across its corded body, coating a section of exposed muscle in white rime. The strangler contracts violently, its two eyes jerking in opposite directions as it releases a thin, wet hiss.
It does not retreat. The aberration darts from the alcove, twisting through the air like a strip of muscle caught in a violent current. Ragnar remains planted at the head of the group, pick held ready and his stance guarded. One of the creature’s eyes fixes upon him.
Ranged Touch Attack:1d20 + 7 ⇒ (3) + 7 = 10
A murky beam flashes toward the dwarf’s face—but Ragnar turns his head and brings his weapon up at the last instant. The ray passes close enough to leave his vision swimming for a heartbeat, then splashes harmlessly against the carved stone behind him.
The second eye swivels across the rest of the party.
Party attacks:
Ezmelda: Hit for 3 cold damage
Aja: Miss
Grulf: Miss
Yukio: Both attacks miss
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The strangler targets Ragnar with its eye ray and misses
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Everyone is up for the next round.
This is a lurking strangler, a rare and unpleasant aberration. It is not undead, not a construct, and not some kind of ghostly remnant of the cairn. It is a living aberrant creature: a floating cord of muscle attached to two staring eyes. Lurking stranglers are small, stealthy predators that prefer ambush, darkness, and isolated victims.
Knowledge Dungeoneering DC 17:
A lurking strangler’s eyes are dangerous. Each eye can project a different magical ray. One can overwhelm a victim with supernatural fear, while the other can put a target to sleep. It is at its most dangerous if it can disable someone first rather than simply lash at an armed foe.
Knowledge Dungeoneering DC 22:
Despite its strange body, a lurking strangler can fly with eerie, natural buoyancy. It also sees in all directions at once. Flanking one is difficult to impossible, and it is very hard to catch unaware. It is physically weak, but quick and hard to pin down.
Knowledge Dungeoneering DC 27:
The creature’s name is literal. If a lurking strangler gets at a helpless victim, especially one dropped by its sleep ray, it can wrap itself around the victim’s throat and begin suffocating them. The danger escalates quickly once it has someone helpless. Do not leave a sleeping or helpless ally beside it.
Only 1 roll is needed. You can see everything from the highest tier DC and below
Ragnar takes point, and the group presses deeper into the passage. The corridor beyond the trapped slab is narrow compared to the great lantern chamber above, but finely worked. Carvings of wind, storm, and curling air flow along the walls in graceful lines, worn by age but still visible beneath the dust. Small alcoves flank the passage at regular intervals, each holding one of the tall, androgynous stone figures with cupped hands extended before it.
The breeze is stronger here. It does not seem to come from ahead or behind, but from the alcoves themselves. Dust motes drift and turn in strange little spirals over the statues’ open palms, and here and there a pebble or flake of old stone hovers just above those cupped hands, held aloft by some delicate current of air.
Farther ahead, the passage grows colder. Not merely cool, but unnaturally chill, as if winter has found a crack in the earth and begun to seep through.
Then Ragnar sees it. In one of the shadowed alcoves ahead, something moves where no statue should. At first it looks like a hanging strip of raw muscle, a pale, corded thing dangling in the gloom. Then two small eyes open along its length, wet and unblinking. The thing twists in the air without wings or limbs, floating silently between the statue and the wall. For one breath, it seems to realize it has been seen. Then it lashes forward.
Ragnar’s Perception is high enough to spot the hidden creature before it can ambush the party. No surprise round. The creature is floating in one of the alcoves ahead in the wind-carved corridor. The passage also grows noticeably colder farther ahead.
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Map updated. Please position yourself in the blue rectangle before taking your turn. Players are up.
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I apologize for the delay. Last week was my birthday and work has been stressful as its looking like the government is taking over our work and will make us reapply for our current jobs.
The next several minutes are slow, awkward, and utterly undignified.
Xarafine’s armor, weapons, and pack are passed through first, with Aja and Grulf waiting below to catch each piece before it can clatter down the far side of the slab. Soap helps where dignity does not. Stone scrapes cloth, leather, and the occasional elbow, but one by one the party works out a method.
Gear goes first.
Person follows.
Gear gets handed down.
Then the next.
With Ragnar keeping the process orderly and Ezmelda helping pass bags and loose equipment up the slab, each of you eventually squeezes through the cramped gap above the trapped block without disturbing the slab itself.
No hidden vents hiss.
No stone shifts.
No ancient mechanism punishes the indignity of the climb.
Soon enough, the party is together again on the far side, in the narrow passage beyond the blocked arch. Behind you, the massive slab remains sealed in place, the yellow elevator chamber now cut off from sight except through the tight gap overhead. Ahead, the corridor stretches into darkness. The walls are carved with curling lines of wind, storm, and stylized air, their patterns worn but still graceful beneath the dust. Small alcoves flank the passage at intervals, each holding a tall, androgynous stone figure with cupped hands extended before it as if waiting to receive an offering. The faint breeze Aja noticed still stirs here, cool and directionless, slipping across faces and exposed skin like breath from somewhere deeper in the cairn.
Xarafine is the first to try the gap. With her pack removed, she climbs well enough to reach the top of the slab, but the opening above it is even less forgiving than it looked from below. Armor scrapes against stone. A shoulder catches. For a few awkward moments it seems she might force her way through by sheer determination, but the angle is wrong and the space too tight. After some unpleasant effort, she is forced to pull back.
Aja has better luck. With her cane pushed ahead and her satchel left behind to be handed through after her, the oracle twists sideways, flattens herself against the stone, and slowly eels through the cramped opening. The passage claws at leather, cloth, and skin, but she makes it over the lip and down onto the far side of the slab without disturbing the great block below.
Nothing hisses from the carved mouths. Nothing shifts beneath the slab. The trap, if that is what it is, remains patient and untriggered. Beyond the obstruction, Aja finds herself in the mouth of a ten-foot-wide corridor. Her limited sight catches only the nearer stretch clearly, but what she sees matches her earlier glimpse: carvings of stylized wind, storm, and curling air cover the stone walls. Small alcoves flank the hall at intervals, each holding an androgynous figure with cupped hands extended as if waiting to receive something. A faint breeze stirs through the corridor, cool against her face.
Grulf follows after, and the gap is less kind to him. He makes it up onto the slab and starts to push through, only for his broader frame and gear to catch almost immediately. For a few uncomfortable moments, it looks as though he may be stuck fast. Stone scrapes leather. His staff has to be angled through separately. More than once, the old passage seems determined to keep him.
But with a few muttered curses, a hard shove, and some undignified wriggling, he finally forces himself through and drops down on the far side near Aja. His detect magic finds no aura in the slab, the visible vents, the narrow gap, or the nearby stretch of corridor beyond.
Ragnar’s earlier read remains the same: the slab itself is deliberately placed, and moving or toppling it still seems likely to disturb the mechanism below. But simply climbing and squeezing over the top has not triggered anything so far.
Xarafine: Your Escape Artist check is not enough to squeeze through while keeping armor/weapons on. You can try again, remove more gear, or take another approach.
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Aja: You successfully squeeze through and are now on the far side of the slab. Your satchel can be passed through after you.
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Grulf: It is awkward and uncomfortable, but you manage to squeeze through and are now on the far side of the slab with Aja.
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Grulf’s detect magic finds no aura in the slab/gap/immediate passage.
The slab has not moved and the suspected gas trap has not triggered. .
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Sorry for the delay. Every time I tried to post, I couldn't get in.
The yellow carriage does its strange work again. With Aja’s soap-scrawled message left plainly on the floor, the mechanism provides enough reassurance for the others to follow. One cycle at a time, the old cylinder carries the party down into the lower chamber, the doors opening each time with that same soft metallic rasp. Soon enough, the group is together again beneath the Lantern Room.
The chamber feels no less strange with more bodies in it. The damaged bas-reliefs still look on in silent adoration, their carved hands extended, their smooth faces worn or mutilated by old violence. The stone button remains set into the wall near the elevator shaft. To the south, the carved arch and its blocking stone slab wait like a sealed throat.
Aja begins the climb first, finding purchase in the carvings and uneven stone. The first attempt sends a small scatter of dust and grit down the face of the slab, but with Xarafine’s rope and grappling hook set in place, the second effort goes far better. Soon she has a perch near the top of the block, high enough to peer over and beyond.
Past the slab, a ten-foot-wide passage continues into darkness. Curious carvings cover the walls, their lines suggesting wind, storm, or some stylized tempest. At regular intervals, small alcoves flank the hall, each holding an androgynous stone figure with cupped hands extended before it. A faint breeze plays through the passage, though from this angle it is impossible to tell where it comes from.
Getting a look is one thing. Getting through is another. The stone slab fills nearly the entire archway. There is a narrow gap between the top of the slab and the upper curve of the arch, but it is cramped, awkward, and unforgiving. Crawling onto the slab is manageable with the rope. Squeezing through that gap with gear, weapons, and armor is another matter entirely.
Meanwhile, Ragnar studies the block itself.
Ragnar:
This is not a natural collapse.
The stone slab is deliberately cut, and it fits the recess in the ceiling above almost too well. It looks like the block either descended from that niche or was meant to return to it. The floor beneath it is not simple flagstone, either. There is a subtle pressure seam around the slab’s base, easy to miss beneath the dust but unmistakable once your eye catches it.
The block’s weight is resting on something.
Worse, the carved mouths of several nearby bas-reliefs have tiny recessed openings hidden within them. Vents, perhaps.
Your best read: moving or toppling the slab may release something into this room. Gas is a strong possibility.
For now, the slab remains where it is. The passage beyond is visible from above, but not easily reached.
Aja can climb onto/perch near the top of the slab with the rope’s help and can see the passage beyond. However, passing through the narrow gap between the slab and arch is not a simple Climb check; it would require squeezing through a very tight space.
We have apparently lost Ragnar and Yukio. They were the two more martially focused characters. I am happy to continue running this with just the 4 of you or I can open up recruitment again. What would you all prefer?
Aja’s inspection of the returned cylinder finds no fresh blood, no strange chemical stink, and no obvious sign that violence occurred inside. The wolf carcass is still just that: a dead wolf, slumped awkwardly where it had been left. Whatever happened to Xarafine and Ezmelda, it did not happen in the carriage.
When Aja steps inside, Grulf follows close behind. The thin metal doors shut once more with a sharp clang. The yellow cylinder drops.
For those still above, the mechanism vanishes just as before, sinking into the floor beneath the yellow lantern and leaving the stone cap flush behind it. Below, the descent is swift and stomach-lurching, but controlled. A few heartbeats later, the cylinder settles with a heavy mechanical pause, and the doors slide open.
Xarafine and Ezmelda stand in the chamber beyond, alive and apparently unstabbed, undrowned, uncrushed, and uneaten. The lower room is just as they found it: old, dusty, and lined with damaged bas-reliefs of tall, hairless, androgynous figures. The carvings bear no clear sign of any familiar god or modern faith. To Xarafine, they look less like religious icons and more like figures shown in reverence, service, or formal procession. Ezmelda’s closer look suggests the gestures are deliberate, but not pointed toward the Lantern Room above. If anything, the figures seem arranged around the chamber itself and the blocked southern arch.
That southern arch remains mostly sealed by a massive stone slab. A matching recess waits in the ceiling above it. Near the elevator shaft, set into the wall at about hand height, is the small stone button Ezmelda and Xarafine noticed before. The elevator doors remain open.
I just want to be clear. The passage ahead of you is partially blocked by a stone block. There is an archway that a simple climb check can get you over
Sorry for the delay, Work got busy last week and then was busy with family over the weekend. We should be back to our regular scheduled program now.
For several long breaths, the chamber remains silent after the yellow cylinder vanishes. No screams rise from below. No splash of water. No sound of blades, teeth, or crushing stone. Only the distant grinding of old machinery somewhere beneath the floor.
Aja’s ears catch it first: the mechanism has not gone still. Something below shifts, settles, and then begins to move again. A moment later, the stone beneath the yellow lantern trembles. With a deep, grinding rasp, the circular cap sinks out of sight and the yellow cylinder rises back into place. The thin metal doors slide open.
Inside is the dead wolf. Nothing else. No Xarafine. No Ezmelda. No Pryze. Just the carcass, slumped awkwardly against the back of the small chamber, its dead eyes staring at nothing.
At the sarcophagus, Aja’s attempt to move the dais by herself earns only the smallest scrape of stone against stone. It does not rotate further under her strength alone.
The Lantern Room remains otherwise unchanged: green light flickering from its alcove, the blue shaft yawning into darkness, the red and indigo chains still empty, and the arrow-shaped sarcophagus platform still pointed toward the yellow lantern.
The yellow elevator has returned to the Lantern Room. Xarafine and Ezmelda are not inside it; only the wolf carcass remains.
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Aja hears no sounds of immediate violence from below before the elevator returns.
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Aja’s Strength check is not enough to rotate the sarcophagus platform by herself.
Xarafine and Ezmelda:
It was too chaotic with PMs and multiple people so lets just move back to here. You two were a little fast so lets move back to just after you both stepped off the elevator
Xarafine steps out first, trusting her hunch. The stone floor beyond the cylinder is cold beneath her boots, thick with old dust that puffs softly around each step. Nothing leaps from the shadows. No hidden blade falls. No sudden curse answers her trespass. Ezmelda follows a moment later, Pryze close at her heels, her fresh spell-light spilling across the lower chamber. The moment both women are clear of the cylinder, the mechanism moves again.
Behind you, the thin metal doors slide shut with a soft clang. The wolf carcass remains inside. Then the cylinder rises, swift and smooth, vanishing upward into the shaft and leaving only the open space where it had stood.
You are alone below.
The chamber around you is old, still, and dust-choked. Along the walls, bas-relief figures stand in worn procession: tall, hairless, and androgynous, much like the figure carved on the sarcophagus above. Nearly a dozen are shown in poses of deference, hands extended as if in worship, welcome, or offering.
Many have been damaged. Some are missing hands. Some arms. Some heads. Some have been hacked at by tools or blades long after this place was first made.
A short distance south, an elaborately carved arch opens into another passage, but that way is almost entirely blocked by a massive stone slab. A matching recess looms in the ceiling above it, as though the block once descended from there—or is meant to rise back into it.
Near the elevator shaft, set into the wall at about hand height, is a small stone button.
Ezmelda’s detect magic finds no immediate aura from the bas-reliefs, the damaged carvings, or the stone button.
You have stepped out of the yellow elevator. It has risen back up, leaving you in the lower chamber.
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Visible features:
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damaged bas-reliefs of tall, hairless, androgynous figures
a southern arch mostly blocked by a massive stone slab
a matching recess in the ceiling above the slab
a small stone button near the elevator shaft
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Detect magic does not reveal an immediate aura from the visible carvings or button.
The moment Xarafine and Ezmelda step fully into the yellow cylinder, the mechanism answers. The thin metal doors snap shut with a sudden, breath-stealing clang, sealing both women and the dead wolf inside before anyone outside can do more than reach toward them.
Then the whole chamber drops. A swift descent as the cylinder sinks through the floor. The sound of moving stone and old metal grinds through the Lantern Room for several heartbeats before fading below. Then the circular stone cap slides back into place, flush with the floor beneath the yellow lantern. For those left above, the yellow alcove is suddenly empty again.
No doors.
No cylinder.
No Xarafine.
No Ezmelda.
Only the chain and yellow lantern hanging over smooth stone.
At the blue alcove, Ragnar’s darkvision cuts farther down than the party’s carried lights. High within the shadowed alcove above the blue lantern, he can make out the shape of an opening or passageway, though the angle and distance make details difficult from where he stands.
Sorry if my last post confused Ranger. There is no pit. The floor of the blue alcove looks the same as the others minus some scattered bones that appear broken as if by a fall.
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New post incoming
Grulf and Xarafine return a few moments later with one of the dead wolves dragged between them, leaving a dark smear across the old stone behind it. The carcass is hauled into the open yellow cylinder with a wet, awkward thump.
Nothing happens.
The thin metal doors remain open. The cylinder does not descend. The lantern above does not flare. No hidden blades, crushing ceiling, or sudden burst of ancient sorcery answers the offering of dead wolf.
For now, the yellow chamber simply waits.
Meanwhile, Aja’s careful search of the blue alcove reveals no matching floor-door beneath the blue lantern. No circular seam. No hidden lift. No sign that the floor here is meant to move at all. But the space is not without its own oddities. The shaft above the blue lantern rises higher than the others, disappearing into shadow beyond the reach of ordinary light. At the base of the alcove lies a heap of old bones, dry and dusty with age. Many are broken in ways that suggest a terrible fall from above rather than the gnawing attention of wolves.
The chamber remains silent around you.
The yellow cylinder stands open with the wolf carcass inside.
The green lantern burns with its steady magical flame.
The blue alcove rises into darkness above broken bones.
The red and indigo chains still hang empty.
And the sarcophagus platform waits at its new position, arrow pointed toward yellow.
The wolf carcass does not trigger the yellow cylinder by weight alone.
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Aja: You find no floor seam beneath the blue lantern, but the shaft above rises higher than the others and there are old broken bones at the base, likely from a fall.
The raised cylinder beneath the yellow lantern remains open and waiting.
Seen up close, the chamber inside is narrow—large enough for one person comfortably, perhaps two if they are willing to crowd together, but certainly not the whole group. There are no obvious controls inside that anyone can see from outside, no lever, crank, rope, or handle. The thin metal doors remain slid open into the sides of the cylinder, and the whole thing gives off the unsettling impression of a mechanism waiting for the next instruction rather than a normal room.
Meanwhile, Aja examines the green lantern and the alcove beneath it. The lantern itself comes free from its hook easily enough. It is finely made, green glass set in colored metal, and the torch inside continues to burn with its steady magical flame whether the lantern hangs from its chain, rests in Aja’s hands, or is briefly shielded from view. Blocking the light darkens the chamber and stills the emerald reflections across the dome, but no hidden mechanism stirs in response. The chain rattles when tugged, the sound ringing up into the high darkness above, but it does not descend, rise, or pull loose.
Beneath the green lantern, however, Aja notices something familiar: a circular seam cut into the floor, much like the one now raised beneath the yellow lantern. It is subtle beneath dust and age, but clearly deliberate. For now, it remains still.
The green lantern can be replaced on its hook without difficulty, and when it is, the eerie green glow resumes its strange dance across the chamber’s ceiling.
Ezmelda watches the failed efforts for a moment, then circles the dais with a thoughtful frown. The trouble, she realizes, is not that the mechanism is beyond moving. It is that everyone is fighting the weight of the stone directly, rather than helping it along its intended track.
With Grulf adding his shoulder beside Xarafine and Ezmelda providing the proper leverage, the stone finally answers. At first it is only a stubborn scrape. Then a deeper grinding sound rolls through the chamber as the platform begins to rotate clockwise, slow and heavy, but unmistakably moving. Dust sifts from the seam. The sarcophagus shifts with it, the carved arrow turning away from the orange lantern one grudging inch at a time. After several hard moments of effort, the platform reaches the next position.
Click.
The sound is small but distinct, echoing sharply in the silent chamber. The arrow now points toward the yellow lantern. For a breath, everyone waits.
The click fades into the chamber’s strange silence. For a heartbeat, nothing follows. Then the floor begins to tremble. It starts beneath the yellow lantern’s tunnel: a deep, grinding vibration that rolls up through the stone and echoes inside the domed chamber. Dust shakes loose from the walls. The yellow lantern sways gently on its chain, throwing dull golden glimmers over the alcove below. At the end of that tunnel, directly beneath the hanging yellow lantern, a circular section of floor begins to rise.
Slowly at first. Then with a heavy, mechanical certainty, a five-foot-wide stone disk pushes upward from the floor, carried by a metal cylinder that gleams dully beneath layers of age and dust. The whole thing rises perhaps eight feet into the air before coming to a halt.
For another moment, nothing moves. Then two thin doors built into the side of the cylinder slide open with a soft metallic rasp, revealing a cramped, empty chamber within. The air inside is stale, but undisturbed.
No figure waits there.
No treasure gleams inside.
No immediate threat reveals itself.
Only the open mouth of some ancient mechanism, waiting in silence beneath the yellow lantern.
Ragnar’s careful inspection confirms what his first look suggested: the platform is meant to turn. The circular seam is real, the stonework deliberate, and the whole dais appears designed to rotate along its track. But if there is a catch, release, or locking mechanism, it is not obvious.
Xarafine braces herself and pushes. Stone grates softly against stone, but the motion is tiny—more a stubborn shudder than a proper turn.
Aja’s spell is not quick work. The oracle holds the marble finger carefully in place and murmurs the simple working again and again, letting the old stone remember itself. Dust stirs faintly along the carved hand. The broken edges soften, knit, and settle together until the severed finger is once more part of the figure’s palm-up hand.
No thunder answers.
No hidden door grinds open.
No flame leaps to life.
But the gesture is whole now: the hand lies palm-up, thumb turned inward, the restored index finger curled beneath it while the other fingers lie extended and parallel along the arm. Deliberate. Symbolic, perhaps.
A closer look at the colored lanterns confirms that Grulf’s thought is at least practical. The lanterns are sized to hold torches rather than oil, and the green lantern already contains one such torch, though its flame is clearly sustained by magic rather than ordinary fuel. Xarafine’s torches would fit inside the other lanterns if the group chooses to light them.
Grulf’s spell settles over the chamber, and the green light answers. Not the lantern itself, but the flame within it. The torch burning inside the green glass gives off a faint aura of evocation, its guttering light steady despite the still air of the chamber. Whatever else this room may be, that flame is no ordinary torch.
As Aja descends with careful taps of her cane, the steps offer no sudden protest. No click of hidden mechanisms. No shifting stone. Only the quiet sound of her movement in a chamber that remains unnaturally free of the whispering that filled the halls behind you.
Ezmelda’s closer inspection of the items from the wolf den offers a few further details. The indigo lantern is old and finely made, but its greatest significance seems to be here, in this room. It matches the construction and color of the hanging lanterns almost perfectly. The elven armband, by contrast, does not seem to belong to the cairn. Its style is much more recent than the surrounding stonework and bears no resemblance to Azlanti or Vaati design. Whoever owned it likely came here long after this place was built. The marble finger is another matter. Once held near the sarcophagus, there is little doubt: it matches the broken hand of the carved figure on the lid.
At the center of the room, Ragnar and Xarafine study the sarcophagus more closely. There is no written name. No epitaph. No plain inscription explaining who lies within. The figure carved on the lid is tall, hairless, and androgynous, dressed in flowing garments of ancient style. Around its neck rests a scarab-like amulet bearing a delicate glyph. The glyph is written in the same ancient Vaati script Ezmelda identified earlier on the shattered arcane frame near the entrance, though it is not the same symbol. Whatever it means, it appears to be part of the same written tradition.
The right hand of the figure lies palm-up. The thumb is turned inward, with the fingers arranged in a deliberate gesture. One finger is missing—the same finger Aja found in the wolves’ den.
The sarcophagus itself rests on a raised platform carved in the shape of a stylized arrow. Its tip points toward the tunnel with the orange lantern. Ragnar's inspection finds a shallow circular seam in the stone around the base suggests the whole platform may be designed to turn, though not easily. If there is a mechanism involved, it is worked into the stone itself. However, his inspection of the sarcophagus finds no sign of a mundane mechanical trap: no tripwire, no obvious catch, no needle-hole, no false plate beneath his boots. But the stonework here is old, clever, and built by hands with far more patience than most modern engineers.
Looking around the chamber as a whole, the pattern becomes clearer.
Seven tunnels.
Seven chains.
Five lanterns present.
Two missing.
The green lantern burns. The indigo lantern, if Aja chooses to hang it, has seemingly found its way back to the room where it belongs.
The red lantern remains absent.
Grulf: Detect magic identifies the flame inside the green lantern as magical. It gives off faint evocation. You can tell its an everburning torch
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Ezmelda: The indigo lantern matches this room. The elven armband appears much more recent and not part of the cairn’s original design. The marble finger matches the sarcophagus figure.
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Ragnar/Xarafine: The sarcophagus bears no name or epitaph. It has a scarab-like glyph on the amulet which matches the script Ezmelda found earlier, the missing finger matches Aja’s find, and the sarcophagus rests on an arrow-shaped rotating platform currently pointed toward the orange lantern. Ragnar finds no evidence of a trap.
Xarafine’s torch catches the lower strands first. For a moment the cobwebs glow orange from within, each sticky thread burning in a quick, curling line before blackening and falling away. Tiny spiders scatter in every direction, most fleeing harmlessly into cracks in the old stone while a few drift down as little charred flecks. The smell is sharp and unpleasant, but brief. Soon the thick veil of webbing is reduced to ash, dangling black threads, and a few stubborn strands clinging high in the arch. Beyond, a wide stairway descends into a vast domed chamber.
The first thing you notice is the silence. The whispering that filled the halls behind you does not follow here. It cuts off at the threshold so completely that the faint scrape of boots on stone and the crackle of Xarafine’s torch suddenly seem too loud.
Below, the chamber opens wide and strange. Seven short tunnels branch outward from the room in all directions, each extending some thirty feet before ending in a rounded alcove. At the end of each tunnel, a heavy chain dangles from somewhere high above. Five of those chains bear colored lanterns. Two hang empty. Opposite the entry stairs, a green lantern holds a flickering torch, casting the eerie light that drew you deeper into the cairn. Its glow washes the chamber in murky emerald and dances across countless tiny chips of glass and shiny metal set into the domed ceiling. The reflected light gives the impression of starlight, falling snow, or distant sparks drifting silently overhead.
At the center of the chamber rests a long stone dais bearing a white marble sarcophagus. A milky bas-relief figure lies carved upon the lid: tall, hairless, and difficult to place as either male or female, robed in flowing garments that seem ancient even before you consider the age of the tomb around it. The figure’s hands rest at its sides. One hand is clenched. The other lies palm-up, its fingers arranged in a deliberate gesture. One finger is missing.
You have entered the next chamber. The whispering stops here.
.
Visible features:
.
Seven short tunnels radiate from the chamber.
Five chains hold colored lanterns.
Two chains are empty.
The green lantern is lit and appears to be the source of the green light.
A white marble sarcophagus rests on a central dais.
The figure on the sarcophagus is missing one finger.
.
Yukio/arrow bookkeeping: don’t worry about tracking normal arrows. I’m happy to handwave ordinary ammunition unless something unusual is going on. Special arrows should be tracked separately and are generally considered lost once fired.
.
Please describe what you examine or do next.
Aja’s whispered spell settles over the filthy trophies pulled from the wolves’ den. The indigo lantern, the elven armband, the old backpack, the broken glass vials, the fox skull, and the marble finger all sit beneath her sight for several long breaths.
No aura answers. Whatever value they hold is mundane, historical, sentimental, or strange—but not magical. The lantern is finely made despite its age, crafted from indigo-colored metal with matching panes of indigo glass. The armband is clearly elven work, carved in an elegant leaf pattern, and likely worth good coin to the right buyer. The marble finger remains the oddest piece: too smooth and deliberate to be natural rubble, and too intact to be simple gravel. It plainly broke from some larger statue, relief, or carved figure.
To the west, Yukio steps up onto the broad marble dais.The shadows there give way slowly beneath the party’s light, revealing a faded fresco painted across the south, west, and north walls. From the center of the dais, the image is strangely immersive. It gives the impression of standing inside a vast circular chamber with seven short hallways radiating outward from a central point. At the end of each painted hallway, a chain dangles from the ceiling. And from each chain hangs a lantern.
Red.
Orange.
Yellow.
Green.
Blue.
Indigo.
Violet.
Though faded by age, all seven painted lanterns appear lit. The painted indigo lantern bears a noticeable resemblance in color and style to the real one Aja pulled from the wolves’ den.
The crawl into the wolves’ den is unpleasant from the first breath. The gap forces you down onto hands and knees, stone scraping cloth and leather as you squeeze through the broken rubble. The stink worsens immediately: wet fur, old blood, rot, and the sour musk of animals that have lived too long in a place never meant for living things.
Inside, the den opens slightly, though not enough to stand comfortably. Rubble lies in irregular heaps along the floor, tangled with matted fur, scraps of hide, splintered bone, and the remains of many meals.
Most of the bones are animal: rabbits, foxes, goats, birds, and other small things dragged in from the hills.
But not all. Some are unmistakably humanoid. A forearm here. Part of a rib cage there. A cracked jawbone half-buried beneath loose stones. None are arranged as a full skeleton, and many have been gnawed, scattered, and broken too badly to identify with certainty. From what you can tell, at least some are human or close enough. The marks on them suggest the wolves fed on the remains, but whether the beasts killed these people or merely found what was already dead is harder to say. Time and teeth have done too much work.
Among the refuse, you find several broken glass flasks with blackened necks and crusted residue clinging inside. They are empty now, useless as weapons, but the smell and staining suggest they once held some sort of volatile alchemical fire.
Deeper in the den, half-buried under a pile of humanoid bones, your hand finds old leather. A backpack, cracked with age but still mostly intact. Inside rests an elaborate lantern made of indigo-colored metal, its panes fashioned from matching indigo glass.
A more careful search of the opposite side of the den turns up an intricately carved armband, unmistakably elven in design, worked with a repeating leaf motif.
Finally, wedged into the rubble near the crawlspace, you find something stranger: a marble index finger, cracked off from some larger statue or carved figure. It is too smooth and deliberate to be natural debris.
You find:
several humanoid bones mixed among the animal remains
.
empty/broken flasks that appear to have once held alchemist’s fire
.
an old leather backpack containing an elaborate indigo metal-and-glass lantern
.
an intricately carved elven armband with a leaf motif
.
a cracked marble index finger from some statue or relief
Aja’s attention turns to the eastern rubble. What looked at first like a simple collapse proves to be something else: a low, ragged opening between slabs of fallen stone, just wide enough to pass through with effort. The way beyond slopes into a cramped den fouled by the heavy stink of wet fur, old blood, and rot.
It is possible to enter, though not comfortably. Anyone of human size or larger would need to get down on hands and knees and crawl through the broken gap. Beyond, in the gloom, Aja can make out irregular piles of rubble, matted nests of old fur and scraps, and bones.
Many bones. Most are animal: cracked haunches, small skulls, ribs gnawed clean. But not all. Here and there, half-buried among the refuse, are pieces with a shape too familiar to mistake. Human, or near enough.
A few old glass bottles lie broken among the refuse near one side of the den. Their necks are blackened, and the dry residue inside has the sharp, bitter stink of spent alchemy. No pups answer Xarafine’s concern. No soft whines. No blind, hungry shapes shifting in the dark. If the wolves had young here, they are not visible from the opening.
Meanwhile, Grulf’s magic-seeking gaze turns north. The cobwebs hanging across the broad arch are thick enough to obscure almost everything beyond them. The green light continues to flicker somewhere past that veil, too distant and too blocked by webs for clear sight. His spell detects no immediate aura from the webbing itself, nor from the air just this side of it. Whatever produces the light lies farther beyond, deeper in the next chamber.
The west remains quiet: three short steps rising to the shadowed marble dais, with faded shapes and old color waiting on the walls there.
Aja: The eastern rubble gap is passable, but Medium or larger creatures need to crawl through. From the entrance you can see bones, refuse, and broken old glass bottles with blackened necks and alchemical residue. No visible pups.
.
Grulf: Detect magic finds no aura from the webs or the immediate archway. The green light is still visible beyond, but the webs block clear details and whatever is producing it is farther inside.
.
Visible options:
Crawl into/search the wolf den.
Examine the western dais/frescoes.
Clear or push through the northern webs toward the green light.
The last wolf bolts. Its claws scrape frantically against the stone as it tears back through the chamber and down the entry hall, its panicked yelps fading quickly into the whispering dark. A few heartbeats later, even that sound is gone, swallowed by distance, dust, and the strange breath of the cairn.
No pursuit follows. No hidden packmate leaps from the shadows. No answering whine of pups comes from the rubble. For the moment, the Hall of Honor belongs to you.
The bodies of the fallen wolves lie sprawled across the dusty stone, blood dark beneath them. The rank smell of wet fur and animal spoor still hangs heaviest near the broken eastern rubble, where a low, ragged gap descends into what must have served as the pack’s den. It is not a proper passage, but something scraped, squeezed, and worried open amid the fallen stone.
To the west, three short steps rise to a broad marble dais swallowed in shadow. Faded shapes and old color linger on the walls there, hinting at artwork or inscriptions not yet closely examined.
To the north, the wide arch remains choked with pale cobwebs. Beyond that hanging veil, the strange green light continues to flicker and shift, casting restless shadows over the stone beyond.
Aja’s strange prayer rises over the snarls and echoing whispers, and a soft wash of healing power closes Grulf’s wounds almost as quickly as the wolves had opened them.
Ragnar closes with the scarred wolf and drives his pick into its side. The beast lurches under the blow, blood running dark through its mangy coat, but it refuses to fall. Xarafine is already there a heartbeat later. Her scimitar flashes in Ezmelda’s pale spell-light, carving another savage wound across the scarred wolf’s flank. The beast snarls, stumbles, and nearly goes to one knee, but still it clings to life through sheer animal fury. From farther back, Yukio shifts just enough to find a narrow angle past the melee. Her first arrow hisses wide into the shadows beyond. The second flies true. The shaft buries itself deep in the scarred wolf’s chest. For one taut instant the beast remains upright, legs locked and trembling. Then it collapses heavily onto the dusty stone and does not rise again.
Ezmelda, heart pounding, snaps off another hurried ray toward the last remaining wolf—but the cramped melee and shifting bodies spoil her aim, and the frost strikes stone in a brittle crackle rather than fur. Grulf follows with a two-handed swing of his quarterstaff, but the surviving wolf twists away from the blow at the last instant.
Now alone, wounded, and with the rest of the pack lying dead around it, the final wolf gives a sharp, panicked yelp. Its ears flatten, its hackles sink, and it bolts—scrabbling back the way you came, toward the entrance of the cairn and whatever daylight lies beyond.
Combat Over
Round Results:
Aja Heals Grulf for 9
Ragnar hits the scarred wolf for 9 damage.
Xarafine hits the scarred wolf for 7 damage.
Yukio was botted this round. She fired two arrows at the scarred wolf; the first missed, the second hit for 6 damage and killed it.
Ezmelda’s attack misses the remaining wolf.
Grulf misses.
The last surviving wolf breaks and flees toward the entrance of the cairn. Those of you with melee weapons drawn and threatening it may take an Attack of Opportunity if you wish.
Aja’s voice rises over the snarling and the whispering walls alike, her strange prayer settling over the party like a steadying hand. For a moment, the air around you seems to tighten with purpose.
Ragnar answers first. The wolf that had rushed him barely has time to recoil before the dwarf’s pick comes down in a brutal arc, punching through hide and bone with the same merciless force it was made to turn against stone. The beast collapses without so much as a second yelp, crumpling at his boots in a spreading stain of dark blood.
Xarafine darts forward a heartbeat later, her scimitar flashing in Ezmelda’s pale spell-light. “Get away, gutter dogs!” Her blade cuts deep into the next wolf’s neck and shoulder in one savage sweep. The animal stumbles, gives a strangled cry, and drops twitching among the rubble.
Yukio shifts for another clear angle past the front line, her bowstring snapping twice in quick succession. Both arrows hiss down the hall toward the scarred wolf, but the beast twists and jukes between them, one shaft clattering off stone, the other vanishing into the shadows beyond.
Ezmelda follows with a hurried spell, a shard of winter-white frost streaking from her hand toward the melee. But nerves and movement betray her aim, and the ray smashes harmlessly into the wall in a crackle of ice. “Blast it—sorry, sorry!”
Grulf, already bleeding from the bite in his leg, plants his feet and swings his quarterstaff in a hard two-handed sweep. The blow catches the smaller wolf along the ribs with a solid crack, driving the breath from it and sending it skidding sideways with a sharp yelp.
The two surviving wolves answer at once. The scarred leader lunges again for Grulf, jaws wide—but this time he jerks back just far enough, and the snap of teeth closes on empty air. The wounded smaller wolf follows with a desperate rush of its own, but pain has made it clumsy. It misses badly, claws scrabbling for purchase on dusty stone as it overshoots and stumbles.
The cairn’s whispering rises and falls around the clash, as though the old tomb itself were drawing breath to watch the fight continue.
Round resolved.
Ragnar kills the wolf adjacent to him.
Xarafine kills the gray wolf.
Yukio was botted this round due to no post; based on prior action she fired two arrows at the large scarred wolf, but both missed. (I just realized I forgot the bless on Yukio but they would still miss)
Ezmelda’s ray of frost misses.
Grulf hits the smaller wolf for 5 damage. It is still up.
Enemy turn:
Scarred wolf attacks Grulf and misses.
Wounded small wolf attacks Grulf and misses.
Remaining enemies:
Scarred wolf
One wounded small wolf
Yukio slips forward through the hall’s shadowed edge, seeking a clean line past her companions. In the tight space, there is only time for one shot before the wolves are fully upon you. Her arrow flashes through Ezmelda’s spell-light and strikes the scarred wolf high in the shoulder. The beast flinches and snarls, but the wound only seems to sharpen its fury.
Then the pack surges.
For a heartbeat, Ezmelda’s hastily summoned magic clings to her like a faint shimmering outline, a translucent shell of force that catches the lantern-light in pale blue-white glimmers as the wolves rush past toward the front line.
The scarred wolf lunges straight for Grulf, its jaws snapping low before clamping hard into his leg with a savage shake. Grulf staggers under the force of the impact, but keeps his footing as the beast tries and fails to drag him down.
Beside it, one of the leaner wolves darts in with a quick, hungry snap of its own, but Grulf jerks back just in time and the teeth close on empty air.
Another wolf bounds toward Ragnar, teeth bared, but the dwarf’s stance is solid and the beast’s rush goes wide.
The last of the pack comes on at a dead run, weaving through the rubble and skidding to a halt beside Ragnar, hackles raised and lips curled back in a low growl.
The whispering in the walls seems to swell around the clash of claws, breath, and steel.
Yukio’s action has been adjusted to a single attack after moving to line up a shot.
Yukio hits the large scarred wolf for 2 damage.
Wolf actions:
Scarred wolf moves to Grulf, hits for 5 damage, and fails to trip.
One small wolf moves to Grulf and misses.
One small wolf moves to Ragnar and misses.
One small wolf double moves and ends adjacent to Ragnar.
Grulf is at 7/12 HP.
Current block: PCs are up
For ease of resolution, please list your combat actions in OOC text at the end of your post, something like:
Free: 5-foot step
Move: draw potion
Standard: attack blue wolf
That makes it much easier for me to resolve combat.
Ragnar: when you get a chance, please set up your usual combat/header block on your posts like the others have been doing. It will help me track things during encounters.
Yukio: I saw your post in the other thread about work and fully understand. bite attack large wolf:1d20 + 2 ⇒ (17) + 2 = 19 bite attack blue wolf:1d20 + 2 ⇒ (10) + 2 = 12 bite attack red wolf:1d20 + 2 ⇒ (7) + 2 = 9
The passage opens abruptly into a broad chamber, the whispering in the walls swelling into a soft, sibilant chorus that seems to circle the room from every side.
Xarafine:
The whispering is not just wind.
Most of it slips past you, strange and thin and wrong in your ears, like hearing a hymn from another temple sung in a related tongue. But every so often a word catches hard enough to raise the hair on your arms.
...hopeless...
A moment later, from another wall—
...sacrilege...
Then, sharper, closer, almost accusatory—
...enemies...
You cannot make out full sentences, and you are not sure whether the cairn is warning you away, condemning you, or simply repeating old protections laid down by something ancient and alien.
But this much is clear: the whispers were meant to be understood by someone, and they do not welcome intruders.
Ahead, a wide arch to the north hangs thick with pale cobwebs, and beyond them a strange green light flickers and shifts, throwing restless shadows over old stone. The air here is different from the dusty corridors behind you—damp, rank, and unmistakably foul with animal spoor and wet fur. Ragnar’s warning is no longer just caution. It is confirmation.
To the west, three short steps rise to a broad marble dais swallowed by darkness. To the east, what first looks like a tumbled collapse proves to be no true dead end at all, but a ragged opening amid broken stone and debris. The smell is strongest there.
The shadows in that gap shift.
Then comes the sound—first a low scrape of claw on stone, then a hungry, rumbling growl.
One wolf slips out first, lean and mangy, ribs showing beneath a filthy coat. Two more follow close behind, no healthier, lips peeled back from yellowed teeth. Finally the last emerges, larger than the others and far better fed, its muzzle and brow marred by an old, ugly scar that cuts a hard line down its face.
For one taut heartbeat the pack only stares, ears flat, bodies low, weighing the intruders in their den.
Then the scarred wolf snarls and the whole pack surges forward.
Please see the link at the top for the map. It should allow edits to anyone with the link. I'm using Google Slides as Roll20 and Google Images both work horribly from a phone, and that's how I do postings when I'm at work. If anyone has something they prefer that is mobile-friendly, I'm open to suggestions.
I placed tokens for everyone in roughly the marching order you guys gave, but feel free to start anywhere in the red box. I'm going to do block initiatives, since that has seemed to work well in games I've been in. In the first round, everyone who has an initiative before the monsters can post in any order. I will then do the monsters and resolve everyone's actions the best I can. At that point everyone can post in any order, and I will repeat this until the encounter is over. If you are highlighted down below feel free to post your action
Ragnar’s lantern and Ezmelda’s spell-light spill together across the threshold as the party spreads out through the entry hall.
The cairn’s whispers continue their strange rise and fall through the passage, never quite becoming words, yet never sounding wholly like wind either. In the shifting light, the place feels at once ancient and defaced: graceful stonework and faded painted bands marred by generations of scratched names, crude boasts, and the careless vandalism of later intruders.
The western alcove holds the moldy remains of an old bedroll. Nearby, the western side passage opens onto a low marble platform supporting the shattered remains of some once-delicate frame of dark, glassy substance. To the east, a side passage disappears almost immediately behind a dense choke of fallen stone and rubble.
Nothing moves.
Nothing answers your intrusion.
Only the hush of stale air, old dust, and the whispering breath of the cairn.
Ezmelda:
With a closer look, the broken frame is clearly no mere mirror or decorative object. It was once some sort of magical apparatus, almost certainly a portal or transportation device, though whatever power animated it is long gone now.
The marble platform and surviving decorative elements throughout this section of the cairn show hallmarks of very old Azlanti workmanship—elegant, disciplined, and far more refined than anything built in modern Diamond Lake. Whatever this place is, it was not made by local miners or simple tomb-builders.
More interesting still, one surviving glyph on the frame resolves into a name you can actually read:
Icosiel.
The script is Vaati. You know of the Vaati from your studies: an ancient and now-extinct race of air elemental beings. Their greatest champions and commanders were known as the Wind Dukes. Why a Vaati name appears here in an Azlanti tomb is another matter entirely.
Your detect magic reveals no active aura here. If the portal once held power, it has long since gone dormant or failed entirely.
Yukio:
The shattered black fragments around the platform are cold, smooth, and unnaturally regular in shape, as though once part of a crafted whole rather than mere stone. Whatever stood here was broken violently, not simply worn away by age.
Aja:
Your probing of the eastern side passage suggests the collapse is old, dense, and natural enough in appearance. If anything lies beyond, it is sealed behind a great deal of rubble. This is not the sort of blockage one clears with a few minutes’ effort and a strong back.
Xarafine:
The bedroll is ancient, mold-stiff, and worthless. No personal effects remain nearby—no locket, no knife, no bones, no sign that whoever left it here ever intended to come back.
The graffiti around it looks like exactly what the stories would suggest: nervous bravado from local youths and trespassers wanting to prove they came this far. No single name or carving leaps out as especially significant.
Ragnar:
The office may be empty, but this passage has not stood wholly undisturbed. In the dust and grit you spot tracks—paw prints, and not especially old. Wolves, by the look of them.
Ragnar’s lantern and Ezmelda’s spell-light spill together across the threshold as the party files into the cairn.
Inside, the air turns cool at once. Not the honest coolness of shade on a summer day, but the still, dry chill of a place sealed away from sun and season for ages beyond counting. Your footsteps stir a thin coat of dust from the stone floor, and the sound of boots, staff, and cane seems oddly muffled beneath the constant murmurs of the tomb itself.
The whispers are with you now. Not words—at least not any you can yet make out—but a long, breathy murmur that rises and falls with uncanny rhythm, as though the cairn itself sighs in its sleep.
The entry hall stretches north into shadow, wide and high-ceilinged, its smooth stone walls banded at waist height by deceptively simple geometric patterns. Time has not been kind to them. In places the paint still clings stubbornly—dull mustard and a bruised purple, once surely vivid—but elsewhere the bands have been hacked and scarred by tools, blades, and the casual vandalism of later visitors.
Just within the entrance, shallow alcoves branch east and west.
It is here that the abuse is worst. Dozens of names, initials, crude boasts, and childish challenges have been scratched into the stone over the years, marring what must once have been exquisite workmanship. In the western alcove lies a clump of soiled cloth—a moldy, collapsed bedroll left behind by some long-ago local braggart or frightened child.
A little farther in, the side passages open more fully.
To the west, dim light glints off the curved remains of some shattered arcane apparatus set upon a low marble platform, like the broken frame of a noble’s dressing mirror. Strange dark shards still lie scattered around its base.
To the east, barely fifteen feet in, a dense fall of rubble chokes the passage from floor to ceiling. Whatever lies beyond it is sealed fast.
Grulf’s cantrip washes over the entry in quiet pulses.
Grulf:
No active auras answer your senses.
Ragnar, Ezmelda, Grulf, Yukio:
Farther north, just now and then, as the angle changes and the lights shift, there comes the faintest flicker of green somewhere deeper in the cairn.
Visible points of interest
* the moldy bedroll and graffiti-scratched alcoves near the entrance
* the shattered arcane frame on the marble platform to the west
* the completely collapsed passage to the east
* the main hall continuing north
Feel free to react, investigate, or press onward.
Ragnar - There seems to be some confusion. You are not in the mine. The cairn was located on the land owned by the mine but is about a 10 minute walk from the actual mine itself.
With Ragnar leading and the others falling into the order agreed upon, you leave the old mining office behind and make your way east.
It is not a long walk—ten minutes at most—but the ground is uneven and increasingly overgrown, the sort of neglected stretch that resists easy passage not through any single obstacle, but through a hundred small inconveniences. Thorny scrub catches at cloaks and packs. Loose stones shift underfoot. Boulders half-swallowed by weeds force frequent turns and short climbs.
Then, at last, the hillside opens.
Set into the slope ahead is a wide, ancient portal framed by leaning monoliths and half-obscured by brush, fallen stone, and a choking tumble of old debris. Time and weather have done their best to reclaim the place, but not quite enough. The entrance remains unmistakable once seen—too deliberate, too monumental, too old to be anything but what you came to find.
The Whispering Cairn.
Even before anyone steps inside, the air feels different here.
Cooler.
Still.
And carrying, now and again, the faintest thread of sound from within: a soft, sibilant murmur that might be wind moving through hidden cracks and passages… or might, for one uneasy instant, sound almost like breath.
At the threshold, the sunlight reaches only a little way into the dark. Beyond, a broad stone passage runs north into shadow. The floor within is half-choked by windblown grit and old debris, but the way ahead remains open. Faded traces of paint still cling to the walls in places—bands of dull mustard and deep, bruised purple arranged in simple geometric patterns worn by age and time. Elsewhere, the stone bears rough scars where earlier visitors hacked at it with tools or blades, or simply carved their names to prove they had come this far and no farther.
The whispers seem a little louder here.
Not words.
Not yet.
Just the sighing voice of the cairn welcoming you in.
Ragnar’s hand finds no resistance at the door. With a long, complaining creak, it swings inward, stirring a slow cloud of dust from the warped floor beyond. The old mining office is empty. Not merely vacant, but long abandoned.
The lower floor, though weathered and grimy, still holds together well enough. The stone walls remain sound, and while fallen beams, rubble, and the wreckage of the collapsed upper story litter parts of the interior, nothing suggests the whole place is about to come down on your heads. It could serve well enough as a temporary shelter or base of operations.
Dust lies thick on every surface. Vines have wormed their way in through broken windows and split masonry. A few rotted scraps of timber and rust-streaked fittings hint at desks, shelving, and the practical clutter of a long-dead enterprise, but nothing of value remains. No bedrolls. No fresh ash. No footprints but your own. No sign that any person has lived or lingered here in decades.
Outside, the silence of the hills seems to gather again as you spread out around the office and begin a wider search.
Ragnar:
A short distance away—perhaps ten minutes’ walk from the office, along the base of a stony rise and half-hidden behind a tumble of rock and a choking growth of scrub—your sharp eye catches something the hillside tries hard to conceal: a dark opening at the foot of the slope, too regular in shape to be natural and too deliberately obscured to be chance.
The mining office is empty and appears not to have been used in decades. The lower floor is battered but basically sound enough to use as a temporary base if you choose.
Artemis launched beautifully last night, so I should be back to a regularly scheduled posting cadence. That said, I know it is Easter weekend and Passover has just begun as well, so I fully understand if things need to slow a bit.
You don't recall anything particularly noteworthy about this. It appears to be exactly what Allustan said it was. That's to say a mining site that was abandoned many decades ago
Ezmelda and Grulf:
From what you can tell the upper floor is completely beyond repair. However the walls, structure and ceiling of the lower floor are still sound.
Yukio:
You notice signs that small native rodents (think squirrel, rabbit, etc) frequent area but nothing that makes it seem any person has been here in a long time.
DOES this AP have lots of options for Real Estate? Seems we got more than one with plans *G*
Not really. This was Paizo's second ever AP I believe and was originally published across 12 issues of dungeon magazine. So the AP is actually in 12 smaller parts instead of the usual 6.
The last of the morning’s small talk and practicalities soon give way to motion. With packs settled, weapons checked, and the gray light of dawn slowly strengthening over the hills, you leave Yukio’s cabin behind and set out toward the old abandoned iron mine.
The road, such as it is, does not remain a road for long. At first the path is easy enough: a miner’s track worn by years of boots, cart wheels, and the occasional stubborn mule. The heaps and scars of Diamond Lake’s industry lie all around you, pale in the early light, and now and again the wind carries the sour tang of slag, old smoke, or damp earth. But as the hours pass and the last worked ground falls behind, the signs of recent labor begin to fade.
The path narrows. Cart-ruts become broken tracks. Broken tracks become deer trails and guesswork. The hills rise more sharply, strewn with weathered stone, thorny scrub, and the occasional leaning marker from some long-forgotten claim. Here and there, old cuts in the earth and half-collapsed shafts speak of men who once came this way hoping to pull wealth from the stone. Most found only hard labor and disappointment.
By midday, with the sun overhead, you come at last to the place marked on Allustan’s old map.
A modest dwelling squats atop a low hill, watching the surrounding ground like a forgotten sentinel. The first floor, built of smooth stone blocks, remains mostly intact despite the years, but the upper story has collapsed in on itself long ago. Thick vines creep up the walls, and most of the windows stand broken and empty. A half-height stone wall rings the house and yard, though time has left it in severe disrepair. Rubble and dense weeds choke the enclosed ground within.
The front door hangs open, barely clinging to its hinges beneath a sagging porch that has partially given way, but the old place still stands stubbornly against wind, weather, and neglect.
This, then, must be the abandoned mining office from the old survey. Beyond it, the hills rise in uneven folds of scrub and stone. And somewhere nearby—if the old map was right—lies the Whispering Cairn.
Nothing announces it. No broad stair. No proud monument visible from a distance. No black maw gaping obviously in the hillside. Only old stone, broken ground, and the faint unease that comes from standing somewhere half-lost and long neglected.
I am preparing the next post. For those who haven't, please add a tag line so there is easy reference. I'm not going to enforce a standard but at a minimum please include the following:
HP
AC (Total, Touch, and Flat)
CMB
CMD
Fort
Reflex
Will
Init
Perception
Sense Motive
Just a heads up. I work on Artemis and for those who don't know we are expected to launch Wednesday evening. Things will be very hectic for the next couple days and posts may be sporadic.
Allustan does not strike you as dishonest. He appears to be speaking carefully because he does not yet know enough to say more with confidence.
Allustan listens as the last practical questions are settled, his expression smoothing into something that, on him, passes for approval. “Then we are agreed. Bring back a true account. That matters more to me than treasure.”
With that, the old wizard inclines his head to the room as a whole. “Good night.” The meeting breaks soon after.
The lamps burn low. Chairs scrape softly across the floor. Below, the Emporium’s music and laughter still drift upward in warm, muffled waves, strangely at odds with old cairns, vanished boys, and cold hills under a dark sky.
One by one, you step back out into Diamond Lake’s soot-dim night to gather what you need, settle what little can be settled, and steal what rest you can before morning.
Dawn comes gray and chill over the Cairn Hills. Mist lies low in the hollows beyond Diamond Lake, and the first weak light of morning turns the slag heaps and mine tailings pale as ash. Farther out, where the town’s noise gives way to scrub, stone, and the long patient rise of the hills, Yukio’s cabin stands quiet against the morning.
It is a modest place, weathered by years of hard wind and harder seasons, with just enough room for a careful life and the memory of a larger one. The path leading to it is narrow but well worn.
Here, at least, there are no curious eyes from the Vein. No tavern drunks. No mine foremen. No one to mark the shape of your company but yourselves.
One by one, you arrive.
You may assume you had the night to gather ordinary supplies, rest, and prepare spells or gear as needed.
