[Armorican Kingdoms] The Doom Within the Mountain

[Ria Hawk]

'Nasia looked down again.  In her broken Alsson, she asked Boellah, "Do you want to go down next or should I?"

[Shadoweagle]

A'lai glanced back and forth at the two women still up, then simply stepped forth between them, shifting down and moving from foot-hold to foot-hold. He wasnt the best at climbing, but he knew well where his hands and feet would be stable on the cave walls. And thusly, he made it down in just a few seconds longer than the others had. He then shifts to one side and leans against another wall, crossing arms in front of him and waiting impatiently for the other two women.

[CaptainPenguin]

OOC: I wonder who Nurin is?

Boellah swallowed thickly, and said "Alssoneir aet baena acleimereir." 'Alssons are good climbers.'
She stepped forward, and, calling something to Alssonus at the bottom, swept the wolf-skin mantle off her shoulders and tossed it off the edge.
Then, with a strange suddeness that spoke of fear, she lowered herself over the edge and climbed, monkey-like, down the face, dropping freely at some points to lower holds to quicken the descent.
When she reached the bottom, she dropped to her knees, trembling, removed the comb from her sleeve, and brushed her hair, repeating her small fear-controlling mantra.

[Ria Hawk]

'Nasia, the last one down, slid down the slope easily.  As she picked herself up, and brushed her clothes off, she looked around.  "So where do we go from here?"  She'd never admit it to anyone, but she was beginning to be the slightest bit afraid.  There was a good probability that there were things at work her she did not understand, and she'd like to avoid contact with them if possible.

[CaptainPenguin]

As Alssonus turned to find a path, the magpie was once again perched on a nearby stone.
The adventurer shook his head. Had it been there before?
The magpie regarded the group brightly and chirped, fluttering to the stony, damp floor of the dripstone cavern. It continued to flutter along as if leading them. It seemed to realize that they were not following, and turned to face them.
It released another small chirrup.
Its eyes seemed to say "Why aren't you coming, silly humans?"

[Ria Hawk]

'Nasia watched the behavior of the magpie, and felt certain that she had long left safe waters, and was sliding into areas she had never been in, and could not see below the surface.  Nevertheless, she swallowed, and then said lightly, "Well, since it seems to know where it's going, why not keep following the silly thing?"

[Shadoweagle]

Once all the women were down, A'lai snorted faintly in impatience then peered along to find the bird. He saw it just as it chirped, as though beckoning to them, and he pushed himself off the wall he was leaning on and began following it once more, heedless of the others' words and not bothering to see if the others were following. He was beginning to give up hope, however, of finding the cause of the explosion, but he hoped the bird would lead him to something he could vent his anger out on. He wasnt actually sure why he didnt use these other four to sate his fury, but for the fact that he is sure they werent the ones who caused his distruption.

[CaptainPenguin]

Alssonus began to walk after the bird, following it into the dismal darkness of the dripstone vaults.
After a short walk, he could no longer see the bird, but instead followed it by listening for it's chirps and peeps.
Many times, he slipped on the dripping stone and cracked his limbs and head painfully, but since he could no longer find his way back, he could only go forward.
Soon, by a feeling of the lessening of pressure, he noted that he had entered a larger, higher-ceilinged cavern.
A strange reek assailed his nostrils, a thick attar of fungal growth, stagnant water, rot, ashes, and some unidentifiable, heavy musk.
"Anybody behind me?" he said, hoping the others were there.

[Ria Hawk]

"Yes."  'Nasia almost slipped as he stopped suddenly.  She had kept a hand lightly on his back, and she thought that someone behind her had done the same.  "Gods!  What is that stench?"  She wished she had a candle, or a torch, or something.  She wanted light very much at the moment.

[Luke Lavin]

Maritann struck flint on some stone and lit a torch, he followed the others.

[Shadoweagle]

A'lai's evolved eyes - accustomed to spying through the darkness, focussed upon  the group as he stayed a pace or two behind them. When Alsonnus spoke, he did not reply, but reached into his robes and withdraw both poignards, the sound of their metal scraping across the leather sheathes echoing softly in the high-ceilinged room. The man's gaze narrowed at the sudden bright light exhibited by Luke, but he says nothing still, instead shifting his gaze across the room, studying it in as much detail as possible.

[CaptainPenguin]

As Maritann entered the room, his torch flared hugely and then receded, agitated by the corrupted atmosphere.
The light seemed not to be able to pierce the thick, miasmic air, revealing only certain parts of the cavern, and leaving others in deep shadow.
Alssonus, 'Nasia, Boellah, and A'lai stood in a line, with Maritann at their back. Before Alssonus' feet, the slick dripstone of the cavern fell off into a series of a steps, upon which the water rilled quietly, contemplating the darkness of the cavern.
The stench emitted from the base of the cavern, where the water that emerged from the falls so far above pooled and gurgled stagnantly. An evil-looking cluster of bone-white mats floated menacingly on the surface of the pool, some sort of massive water-fungus, and among them, small, cylindrical stones stood, looking for all the world like stepping stones leading away into deeper portions of this rotting cthonic lake.
But, chillingly, the fungus was not the only thing that floated in the morass. Barely hanging on the roof of the waters, a bloated, bleached corpse lashed the nothingness with it's splayed innards, and its putrefaction was readily visible.
Alssonus clapped a hand over his face and glared at the carcass as if it were an abomination. Boellah clung, trembling, to his arm, skin paling as she averted her eyes and made the familiar finger x to ward off evil.

[Ria Hawk]

'Nasia let out a soft inarticulate sound, and involuntarily stepped backwards.  She collided with someone behind her, and apologized without turning around.  "Do you think he drowned?  Got lost down here and fell in the river. maybe, or fell in somewhere else and was washed down?"  She shuddered.  She was trying her best to ignore the implications that the state of the body presented.  "Lady Fortuna, Lord Karmos, grant us safety," she whispered.

[Shadoweagle]

A'lai laughed heartily at 'Nasia's words - revelling in her disgust - and stepped forward a half pace, lowering to a crouch to peer down there. "If he drowned, why are his organs so nicely displayed?" Of course, due to the many horrid rituals his kind perform almost daily, he is not in the least put off by that. "I expect that, if there isnt something in the river that slaughtered him, something further on did so, and threw him in there..." A'lai stood, now, and began walking down those stairs. No point in staying up there, anyway. Both daggers are held out in front of him, ready and waiting, the dull gleam of the metal seeming almost hungry for blood.

[CaptainPenguin]

Alssonus and Boellah, after a pause, followed after A'lai, stepping mincingly across the step-stones. As they passed, the pale, bloodless corpse danced ever so slowly by the whim of the water, and tentacular organs slid out to caress the fungus-crusted bases of the stones.
Onward they went, but as they progressed, no darkness came.
Instead, bizarre tubular growths of lichen on the walls of the waterish tunnel, like parasites on the belly of a stone dragon, emitted a soft, sepulchural glow that, mounting on itself, lit the passageway more completely than any torch.
Ahead, the step-stones slowly ascended to the a monolithic circular stone platform. Yet more steps rose from this platform to, most curiously, or ominously, a stone door in the wall, carved with a single symbol: A triangle within a circle.
The magpie, forgotten in the revelation of the corpse, flapped ahead and perched before the door, waiting as if it was the key to the stone portal.

[Luke Lavin]

Maritann used to blood and gore stopped and gazed at the corpse, "It isn't there because they something sacrificed him, its a warnning. We'd be best to take heed of it, weapons ready everyone." Maritann gazed into the corpses gloozy eyes.  He shivvered he made more than a few people stare like that, "Come on move it along no point gazing at it all day, it will only scare us more."

Maritann pulled out his shortsword and checked their rear.  He nudged Beolah infront of him.  There was a a series of strange insriptions in the wall next to him, he brought his torch closer. "Hey look at these, their ancient.."

[Ria Hawk]

'Nasia hesitated, then followed the others onto the rocks.  She did not look at the thing in the water, but kept her eyes resolutely on her footing.  She did, however, put her hand on one of her knives, hidden in a nonobvious pocket.

[Shadoweagle]

A'lai's gaze lingered on the corpse for as long as Maritanns gaze did, and he snorts derisively at the assassins words. "A second-rate work of a sacrifice, at that." He chuckles once more, then continued on, shifting his gaze curiously to the luminescense given off, and then to that odd door. Strange, that a door would be carved so deep in these mountains... He steps up to that door and ponders over it briefly, before looking up to the bird with a questioning glare, as though saying 'what now...?'.

[CaptainPenguin]

The bird looked back down, almost mockingly, at the Kozkirrim, and then released a series of whistles and chirps.
There was a sudden coming of total blackness, during which Boellah screamed, her jangled nerves close to snapping, and then the fungal glow resumed, revealing a strange sight:
The door was open.
Of the magpie, there was no sign, but from within the shadowed doorway, a faraway crimson glow could be seen, faint as if at the end of a long dark void.
From within, a gasping blast of air, lacking the damp fetidness of the cavern's, but bearing a heavier odor of musk, exuded, carrying dark fancies into the minds of the group.
Alssonus stepped forward, and, turning for a glimpse of reassurement, stepped into the doorway.

[Ria Hawk]

'Nasia looked around.  She didn't really want to go through that door, but she wanted even less to stay here with the thing in the water.  There was a small space where she could move around the others.  She did and went to the door.  She hesitated for a moment, then cautiously stepped through after Alssonus.

[Luke Lavin]

Maritann for fear of being left behind rushed ahead and stepped through after 'Nasia.

[Shadoweagle]

A'lai heads through last, in that case, walking casually along behind Maritann. Of course, his lips curl into a faint, ponderous grin as he considers on how easy it would be to slide his poignard straight through the gap between the ribs of the mans back. He does not do this yet, however - he may have need of this person yet - Why eat the bait when it can save from the bear mauling you?

[CaptainPenguin]

The darkness of the hallway was decieving, concealing the pandemonium within. Though from the outside the chamber seemed silent, when they had entered, strange echoing buzzes emitted from the unseen corners of the hall, and unheralded voices shouted incoherently, though they were muted, as if the came through walls of thick stone and long distance.
As they passed, Boellah whimpered at the half-imagined, slick caress of some tenebrous being, and Alssonus jumped at the quick slap of some gruesome claw, hidden by darkness.
Ahead of them, the red glow solidified and clarified. In the distance, a massive, tree-like web of bloody light, a great crimson inflorescence, defied the eye, unlike anything ever seen.
Shadowy, infrahuman forms flitted and shambled within and on the borders of the incarnadine glow-tree.
Alssonus stopped, his front illumined in cast-off bloodlight from the bizarre tree. "What...Is that thing?" he said, hesitantly.
His answer was a muffled boom and sound like deep, mocking laughter.

[CaptainPenguin]

Before the tree, a more corporeal figure appeared, a tall and straight, scarecrow-like form, draped in a dark robe, tinged bloody by the red glow-tree. The figure was an ancient man, a withered gnarled being, his face a massing of wrinkles upon lines, a sagging facade. The ancient creature's rigidly straight spine seemed in defiance of this aged countenance.
In his left hand, the man held a staff, made from black iron, and in his right, an iron talisman in the form of the sigil from the door, a triangle within a circle.
"Why do you enter, children?" he said, in a voice that seemed so burdened with eternal age and unimaginable responsibility that it seemed close to failing.
But behind his voice, the ear could detect a second, sinister echo, as if a demon perched upon his shoulder and mocked his words.
"We have no time for your intrusion," the elder said, demon-echo repeating behind. "Leave us."

[CaptainPenguin]

(OOC: Hey, hey, people! We're so close to being finished...Why quit now?