The Curse of the Witch-King Chapter 5

[ewancummins]

DESCENDING into the south-facing earthen tunnel mouth with FALA well in advance as a scout, the party begins its search for Lara's father, Hunbold.

Nothing but dirt walls and floors in the slowly descending tunnel with no encounters beyond wriggly worms and centipedes for the first twenty-five man-paces (the others may notice that Fala moves quickly, despite her relatively short legs), and then, a few paces after the passage bends left, the gnome finds a dirty curtain hanging before her, blocking the view of whatever lies beyond. The hanging looks more like crudely tanned and stitched leather than like cloth. It hangs on a massive bone jammed across the upper passage, brushing the ceiling on the top side.
The air here smells more strongly of whatever that stink at the tunnel mouth was.
Fala notes that the walls near the curtain look much stonier than the way in--no surprise, as they must have gone a good thirty feet below the surface by now.

[kintire]

Kat, following Fala, listens carefully at the curtain and, if she hears nothing assesses it briefly, seeking which part of it naturally hangs further from the wall or floor. carefully she hitches that part back far enough to see what lies beyond...

[ewancummins]

KATRIN

By the light of the sunrod Klokulf carries- (some distance back, yet) Katrin can make out some details on the hanging as she looks for a gap.
The curtain is thin, yellowish, badly-cured leather, with crude stitch work holding long strips together.
She quickly locates a raggedy end near the floor, pierced with several holes, and lifts from that section to peek under and into the space beyond.
Bones.
A heap spilled against the left wall of a stony passageway no wider than the burrow. Most old and broken, it looks like. The horns of a bull curve up from a chopped skull atop the mound.
Past the bone-pile about five paces, the dank rock passage opens onto a cavernlike stairway, dropping from view. The light over her shoulder grows stronger as the cleric gets closer.
Kat gingerly lowers the flap.
It takes

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the stronger light to really see the holes in the ragged section still held in her fingertips--

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eyes, nostrils, a mouth

[ewancummins]

Klokulf approaches and examines the gruesome hanging.
The priest can tell it's made of the flayed skins of humanoids, possibly humans and possibly some sort of sub-men, of which this strange world apparently has numerous types.

Pressing on, past the leather curtain, the group enters the corridor beyond.

The bone heap looks a mix a old and relatively fresh bones, all gnawed and hacked by fang and blade. Some cattle, sheep, unidentifiable remains, and some distinctly human bones including a skull with bloody scraps of skin and hair clinging to its crown.

Down the stairs, then, where damp walls close in tight on either side and the ceiling drops low enough that Alain and Klokulf have to hunch. The rough, irregular steps appear partly natural, cave-like, but modified with mattocks or picks.

At the bottom, at least a descent of twenty feet, the stairs level out and terminate before an low open arch.
Through the archway, the party sees a room about ten feet on a side, with a ceiling of about seven feet and two doors, one at the far end and one on the right.
This chamber looks like it was once a cave which someone further excavated and modified, cutting crude corners and filling gaps with primitive masonry.
The two doors are fashioned of some sort of pale, moldy wood with red veins, with green metal lock plates and hinges. Both appear warped, but a close look at the grimy, muddy dungeon floor before each shows vague tracks and scrape marks suggestive of things having used these portals at some point. How recently, is hard to say for sure with no weather down here to erase tracks.

[kintire]

Katrin slips through the archway and towards the door on the right, hugging the wall. She listens carefully and checks if it is locked, or there is any light beyond. If not, she does the same at the far door and reports her findings...

[ewancummins]

No light beyond, no sounds apart from faint dripping (door opposite archway) and what sounds like the skittering of some small creatures (other door).
One door locked, the other stuck.

[ewancummins]

Katrin works on the lock of the door straight across from the archway and the stairs.
It proves tricky, but with some help from Alain, she gets it open.

On the far side, a grimy, dank hallway extends seven paces to an open archway with a large chamber beyond.
Moving down the hallway cautiously, the party finds no traps and only the faintest tracks, some indistinct smears in the slime of the floor that suggest something crawled or walked through, coming in or out.

It's quiet except for the scrape of Klokulf's boots and the steady dripping of some liquid sounding from up ahead.

Reaching the larger room at the end of the hall, the explorers see that it has eight sides, facing walls about fifteen feet apart, with a bare stone floor and three egresses; the open arch through which they are peering, a door on the left, and a door on the right. Both doors are made of the same pale wood as the ones back in the antechamber. The one on the right stands lightly ajar. The one the left looks so warped and waterlogged that it might not open without a violent shove, unless maybe it's rotted enough to just pull apart.
Drops fall from cracks and joints in the room's ceiling, a vaulted construction a dozen feet above the floor.

While they are warily examining the octagonal room, Fala spots something moving on the far wall, like a big piece of stone sliding out of place.
But before the gnome can warn her friends, spiky missiles fly, winging toward the front rank of the party! Luck and armor save the heroes from injury, but the band hardly has time only to heft its weapons before the gray figures close with flint axes.
Klokulf, who had still been in the hall when the enemy sprang its ambush, stands with sunrod lifted, gets a clear look at the monsters attacking his companions; disturbingly humanlike in form despite their batrachian features, fingers like snakes complete with heads, three-clawed feet, and scaled carapaces.

[ewancummins]

A savage fight ensues, with the creatures getting the best of it for a few desperate seconds before the heroes regain their bearing. Fala chops the legs out from under one, leaving it bleeding out green ichor all over the floor. Klokulf edges along the lip of the archway and into the room to clobber an enemy from behind, but his morning-star bounces off the monster's carapace to no visible effect. Kat duels another, rapier against primitive axe, with sparks flying when steel strikes flint. Alain seizes one and roasts it with crackling electricity.

The three surviving creatures croak and hiss in alarm, falling back.
As they flee the room through the door that stands ajar, their snakehead fingertips open tiny jaws and spew out a thin green mist.
The miasma leaves Klokulf teary eyed and drooling.
Fala gags, going green in the face, but keeps her breakfast inside.
Kat and Alain withstand the spray better than their comrades, though they won't soon forget the foul taste on their tongues.

[ewancummins]

The creatures beat a noisy retreat through the door on the right and down the hall beyond it.

But Kat hears something else, too,

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a faint groan followed by rapping sounds, coming from the closed door on the left of the room.

[kintire]

Kat turns to the door, muttering

"I heard something..."

She examines it swiftly for either the best place to open it, or the best place to put a kick to bust it open, staying alert for anything that shows up from behind it...

[ewancummins]

Kat turns to the door, muttering

"I heard something..."

She examines it swiftly for either the best place to open it, or the best place to put a kick to bust it open, staying alert for anything that shows up from behind it...

The closed door seems unlocked and un-trapped, but swollen and warped. A testing tug shows it's balky, needing a hard pull or a kicking to open.

The noises Kat heard a moment before are no longer audible.

[ewancummins]

Kat is still listening at the door when she hears something out of her other ear, coming from the way the serpent-fingered humanoids had fled; the pitter patter of feet, a swifter and lighter step than the slapping of those scaly monsters' clawed triple toes on the flagstones.
She might have missed the sound if Klokulf hadn't stopped retching just a moment before.

As she turns to look, she catches a glimpse of motion in the open doorway across the room.


A soft, feminine voice calls from the darkened arch.
"You are enemies of those disgusting stinkscales. So am I. So let us not fight, but either work together or go our separate ways in peace. I am called Kerillith."

The whole party hears the caller from darkness.

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

Klokulf wipes his eyes and mouth, then shakily lifts the sunrod toward the door. "Step into the light . . ." he begins, his tone too wavering to be commanding. The directive deflates into a request: ". . . would you?"

[ewancummins]

Klokulf wipes his eyes and mouth, then shakily lifts the sunrod toward the door. "Step into the light . . ." he begins, his tone too wavering to be commanding. The directive deflates into a request: ". . . would you?"

A dark-clad woman slips into view, with long tresses the color of bone framing an elfin face as black as ink. In the gloom under the archway, her eyes redly glitter like garnets.
The cloak wrapped around her slender form hides most details, but Klokulf and his companions see the bulge of a weapon's hilt with a hand on it. She stands a little taller than Katrin.
The dark elf woman smiles, revealing perfect white teeth.
"Light-loving humans. No offense meant. Your presence comes as no great surprise, this close to the Roofless Realm."
She eyes Fala appraisingly.
"And one more at home in the dark, I perceive."
Kerillith remains in the semi-darkness of the hall, not coming too near Klokulf's raised sunrod.

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

At the sight of the dark elf, Klokulf's eyes go wide, and his hand goes slack. The sunrod clatters to the ground.
He clears his head with a shake, then goes to retrieve the rod, cursing at his clumsiness.