Party 8

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Tazkul seems steely-eyed and determined to a degree he normally would not be, quarterstaff still out as he moved to the westward. Tazkul always sought the truth behind the veil, and what he felt was just a stronger version of his typical urges.
 
Secondary Sleeping Quarters:

Gathering your bearings and leaving the slain creature where it lay to rot, you continue further into the labyrinth. Past curious worms and roaches you go, down the stone carved steps that seemed to echo with every move you made. After a short passageway you find yourself in a second, larger sleeping area with a stone well built into the middle of the clearing. Alcoves line the walls, with moldering straw mattresses squished inside for some semblance of comfort. At certain angles you can catch a glint of padlocked chests within the makeshift rooms, attempting to stay out of sight but to little avail. Another staircase at the other end of the room leads further in.
 
Spying one of the chests, Cassia grabs her sword. "There may be something relevant inside, as with those deeds upstairs..." With one clean strike, she cleaves off the lock. Opening the chest reveals a gold pouch and some black robes, amongst other knickknacks. Looking at the others, she gives a quizzical look. "Cultist robes...? Should we..." She gestures at the gold.
 
As Cassia shows the group what she has found Gaarek begins to fear that everyone who lived down here were cultists. He walks into the next alcove and with a few loud cracks he manages to break into the chest he finds there. When he returns to the group he is holding another black robe in one hand and three green stones, wrapped in black cloth, in the other.

"I found the same robes. Was everyone here a cultist? And these pretty rocks might they have been used in their rituals?"
 
Tazkul busts open another chest, and he finds no robes; only a silvered shortsword reaching in for it before looking down the unexplored hall. "No robe here...it seems we may have company, however."
 
Cassia's tail twitches as she looks slightly embarassed at the loud clang from her sword bouncing uselessly off the last lock. Well, can finish the job later... She turns towards the direction Tazkul is looking, and rushes over to place herself just askance the entryway, readying her sword to strike if another decayed ghoul comes through.
 
Seeing his companions ready themselves for battle Gaarek will follow suit. He isn't sure what is coming, he couldn't hear it so he decides to play it safe. He moves into position to look down the hall but at the opposite end of the room. He drops his maul beside his feet in favor of a javelin. "Who goes there?" he yells down the hall as he prepares to launch his weapon.
 
Baltair finally manages to get himself together. He followes his friends around and helps out with opening the locks, smashing one open with the pommel of his longsword.
But then he hears the sound of the encroaching creature and so he scurries off out of the way and grabs his longsword with both hands, ready for a fight.
Let's hope it goes better this time, eh?
 
Secondary Sleeping Quarters:

It was hard to hear at first, as the chanting continued to echo unabated throughout the labyrinth, but after a while the sound creeping beneath it was all too apparent. The groaning gets louder and louder with each approaching step; it seems that the noise the group had made from smashing the chests was enough to even wake the dead from their accursed slumber. Just as you get into your positions readying for battle you're met with the ghastly visage of not one, but three more ghouls, just as terrifying as the first one. They stare back with a fierce, raw hunger and charge forward in full force.
 
Tazkul was very much prepared for the insurgence of the undead upon them, although his role was mostly for the more martially-inclined to do most of the work in taking them down. That's not to say a series of magic darts to them and a good thundering crack to one of them wouldn't be a healthy contribution to the battle. Now teeth sinking into his shoulder as a result of being directly in combat without his magic protecting him? That would be a cause for concern. Shame that's exactly what he got, letting out a slight roar of pain and wincing, gripping at his injured shoulder, deciding in the aftermath of this to bring his magic back up to protect him. That was always a weakness the scholar had; as physically strong as he was, he was no Cassia or Gaaruk.
 
Gaarek was prepared to launch his weapon and was still barely able to find his target as it charged at the group so quickly. The javelin he threw pierced the ghoul's chest drawing the ire of the beast. The ghoul weaved its way through the party. Only Tazkul was quick enough to strike at it before it reached Gaarek and sunk its claws into him. As Gaarek tried to retaliate he could feel his limbs and joints freeze up but he shook it off just in time to duck out of the way of the ghoul's lunging bite. He grabbed his maul from the ground and rose to his feet striking upwards at the ghouls extended neck and jaw. With a mighty crack and the crunch of bone the ghoul fell before him and he turned to see Baltair put down the last ghoul in the room. "It is not over yet. I can hear the cultists deeper in, let's go."
 
Cassia's readied swing goes wide as she mis-times when the first ghoul would come by. Sighing, she hikes up her shield, and prepares for a tough fight - three times tougher than the previous, to be precise. She focuses on the one in front of her at first, channeling another divine burst into it when her sword connects. It is weaker this time, though and the ghoul manages to survive. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees one going for Tazkul, and tries to interdict herself, but she's too slow as it injures him. Am i tiring out...? As the last ghoul falls, she looks over at the others' injuries. "One moment, Gaarek." She approaches Baltair and Tazkul, laying hands on them as a wave of warm energy closes up some of their wounds. She then turns towards the exit they haven't been down yet. "Ready now, let's see the end of it."
 
Baltair was ready for battle. However, when one of the creatures rushed past him, he tried to take a swing at it but missed. Cursing under his breath, he was looking around for the easiest targets when another of the creatures bit into him, pretty nastily. He grunted in pain, but circled around the creature, and with a magically enhanced battle shout, he knocks the creature back a few feet. He then runs for cover to be out of the fight for a moment, to catch his breath after that ugly bite he got. After a few seconds, he manages to renew his resolve and charges into battle again, cleaving the last ghoul in two. "Well, that's o'er with! Thank ye, I really needed that healing." He then readjusts his grip on his weapon and gives a grunt of approval to move on.
 
After partly healing Gaarek and Baltair, Cassia leads the group down the southern hallway. Partway through, she pauses as the footprints disappear. She taps the floor with her sword. "Wooden - hollow. There's something here..." She immediately sets to work pulling the planks up, revealing a dark pit below. "Could be a trap...or a passage?" She lights a candle, and drops it down the pit to see how far it goes.
 
Dark Corridor:

The candle falls down about ten feet before hitting earth -- illuminating the sharp silhouette of wooden pikes and spikes as it goes. The group finds themselves in front of what is clearly a pit trap, designed to send unwitting intruders to their deaths. Armed with this knowledge it is trivial to jump over the pit and continue on their way, towards the southward path and down the stairs where the chanting seems to be sourced from.

Reliquary:

Descending yet another floor, you find yourselves in what appears to be a ruined reliquary. Carved alcoves line the chamber walls, dusty and damp containers seeming to house all sorts of gruesome trophies and strange crafts. The chanting has swollen into one great song that shakes the very stones of this wretched place, and at last the words of the once-muffled chanting rings clear in your ears:

"He is the Ancient. He is the Land."

Those booming words are repeated endlessly and incessantly, over and over, in a cacophonous unity of countless, endless voices -- seeming louder still from the direction of the two passageways to your right. One slopes downwards towards a rusty portcullis gate half-submerged in murky water, while the other continues into a dark hallway with no end in sight.
 
Cassia looks over the items perched in the alcoves with a curled nose and a sense of disgust. "Bone daggers, shriveled heads, devilish iconography - these reek of evil. I would leave these be, unless we must make use of them in this dreary place." She turns and looks at the two passages out. "A gate - for keeping us out, or something in...? Still, sometimes the harder road is the better one." Descending into the water, she tries to break the gate down.
 
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Porticullis:

Try as you might, the solid iron portcullis is nearly impossible to lift by hand, let alone break. As you struggle you notice in the glow of your light the slightest glint of a chain, leading to a wheel of sorts -- likely the lifting mechanism for the gate. But it is ever so slightly out of reach, as if specifically designed to be opened or closed from the other side. Finding no other path through you instead decide to go down the other dark corridor.

Prison:

Heading down the other path a chamber that appears to be a prison yawns before you in a dismal gloom. You almost even hear the creak of long undisturbed shackles. The walls and floors are stained a dull, dried red over years of use and disuse. A macabre trail leads to a lone skeleton at the far end of the hall. Something gleams on its finger. Something gold.
 
Ritual Chamber:

After a decent while of poking and prodding around the abandoned cells, eventually you stumble across a hidden panel that slides out into a short tunnel. Though it is dark you can tell that the ground inside is slightly damp, leading inwards to the barely perceptible sound of moving water. You continue forth, and find yourselves in the ritual chamber that was previously closed off to you by the portcullis.

The waters lap hungrily at your ankles, sending ripples throughout its black surface. As you take your first steps inside the chanting -- that insidious, wretched, incessant, unforgiving chanting -- falls short, as if aware of your arrival. And yet there is only yourselves within the room.

All's quiet. All. A ledge lines this chamber, overlooking a dais that rises from the murky waters. Chains suspended from the ceiling swing above a bloodstained altar carved with gruesome depictions of grasping ghouls. It almost seems like it's beckoning you.
 
Cassia grimaces at the alter, and draws her sword and shield. "It seems, friends, that we have found the heart of evil in this house of death." She turns to Tazkul and Baltair. "Do the spirits have any sense of this place? Perhaps we should destroy the alter, such is its desecration..."
 
From the moment Gaarek's feet hit the water his mood changes drastically. He slows down a little becoming more cautious and alert. He breaks into a sweat, his heart racing before he even sees the alter. When he does notice it he grumbles "Whatever we plan to do to be rid of this foul place lets be done with it.. quickly. Destroying it would ease my mind no doubt." He grips is maul a little tighter and raises it defensively clearly afraid.
 
Tazkul arrives from behind the others into the room, and grumbles a bit at what he's seeing, the Dragonborn remaining where he was, listening at Cassia's question, focusing. "At the moment, she has nothing to say of it...I would doubt that she is even aware of this degree of evil, however."
 
Ritual Chamber:

Boonslayer Boonslayer RuneRW RuneRW
The small pushes and fleeting thoughts from your "guests" that have accompanied you throughout your exploration here have been slowly been getting fainter and fainter, as if in anticipation of the darkness to come. However it is here that you first feel a singular moment of pure silence -- no words, no influence, nothing. Just a stillstanding tension you can only place as fear, of whatever mysterious forces lurked beneath what these children once saw as their home.

It is eerily silent, the only movement sourcing from yourselves for the minutes that you continue to stand here. The altar remains a foreboding structure in the center of the lapping waters. Nothing jumps out at you except anticipation... perhaps you had to inspect closer.

No, not perhaps. You absolutely had to. This was the bottom and there was no going back, now.
 
Baltair looks around, his eyes darting all around the chamber. His eyes are filled with a mix of impatiance and fear. He grabs his longsword in both of his hands as he raises his voice. "Och it just doesnae add up! Gimme somethin' I can cut intae already! And anyway, who would even make somethin' like that!" He stomps his foot in frustration, continuing. "Do you think we can just smash that... thing and be done with it?"
 
"Someone perverted and evil, that's who would make a desecrated place like this. Maybe Gaarek's hammer could destroy it..." As Tazkul moves forward to investigate, Cassia goes up next to him to assist - wary of what was to come when they step closer.
 
Ritual Chamber:

You climb the dais. The bloodstained altar stands before you, its ruined surface telling tales of its history and use. Red tales, bloodied tragedies that never again saw the light of day. At the far end of this vile chamber, a mound of refuse -- bones, detritus, and perhaps something more -- molders in a small alcove, reeking of death and decay that sends shivers up your spine as you approach further.

It's as if the entire chamber awaits you with bated breath... And just as you reach the final step, an ill wind blows throughout the depths out of nowhere, a dark force rushing around and past you beating you to the top. You blink and there are suddenly thirteen shadowy figures on the ledge above you, wielding black torches that seem not to emit light, but to swallow it and leave only darkness behind in their gaping voids. Where their faces would be, swaddled in the hood of their heavy robes, there is only a deep abyss of shadows leading to nothingness.

In one great union they begin to chant relentlessly, the dreadful sound echoing through the halls and pounding into your ears the direness of the situation. "One must die! One must die! ONE MUST DIE!"

It does not cease, not while you sit here in silence. It seems that they are waiting for you to make your choice.
 
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