…continues from Book #01, Chapter #01, Scene #02

Synopsis

The 10th Day of Ches in the Year of the Sudden Journey

After accepting Blackengorge Town Council’s request to find their two missing sons the party have headed to the mausoleum on a hill to the north of town. There, they have found a secret door leading down into a crypt where two hobgoblins lay in wait with traps. After overcoming the obstacles, the party move further into the crypts.

Scene Length

This scene starts on Wednesday 29th September 2010 and is expected to be completed by the end of Friday 8th October 2010.

Players are expected to be able to post at least twice a day.

The worked tunnel leading out of the lower tomb soon turned rough and twisting, finally leading into a large natural cavern with an adjacent area of worked stone. Water dripped like a light rain down the stalactites of the cavern, and glowing fungi illuminated the warm and humid chamber. The eerie light reflected off many pools of water dotting the slick and irregular floor.

Across from the group, to the west, a large alcove was cut into the side of the living cavern. Ancient, crumbling masonry adorned the alcove, bearing vile pictographs and strange, spidery writing. A sinister iron-bound portal stood at the back of the alcove. An immense devil’s head was carved upon the door and its eyes glowed with a faint green light.

Very faintly, and through the sounds of the dripping water, the party heard what sounded like crying coming from the direction of the devil’s head doorway.

Looking down the passageway, Tradden could not see anything that surprised him.

The fiendish face’s eye sockets served as windows into a space beyond. The source of their green glow must be on the other side of the door.

Zero summoned up the courage to look through one of the eye sockets.

The chamber beyond appeared to be a long-abandoned tomb or temple. On each side, a line of stone statues of robed men stood watch over the chamber. In the middle of the chamber a magic circle adorned with geometric runes glowed with an emerald radiance. The magic of the circle was palpable, drifting upward like an eldritch vapour, slowly dissipating into the stale air of the ancient room. Cowering in the centre of the circle were two young boys in chains!

It was simple enough for Zero to see that the devil’s head door was locked.

The devil’s head door was bound by iron and looked to be very sturdy. However, Khalin did notice that the ceiling around the door and stretching out into the cavern looked as though it had been slowly weakened by the running water. It would take no more than a relatively minor earthquake to collapse large parts of the natural cavern.

‘Well, whosoever has locked these boys in the room thinks their lock is good enough not to put any traps on it,’ said Zero.

He then grinned at Khalin, ‘Of course, they didn’t expect me to poke around in their lock!’

With a satisfying click, and a silent swing on the hinges, Zero declared the door open. He then realised he had opened the door to what looked like a magic circle with strange illuminated steam coming off of it. He casually shuffled behind Khalin and Tradden and away from the door.

Loud cries of relief came from the young boys chained up in the magic circle. Their distressed faces could just be seen through the green, eldritch vapour that continuously rose from the circle.

As the group started to move forward one of the boys shouted. ‘Careful! That elf who captured us told us this place was trapped. Even if we escape these chains, if we leave the circle the ceiling will come crashing down on us!’

‘Please, please find a way to free us!’

With that the boy resumed his sobbing.

Kireth studied the arcane symbols on the magic circle intensely. However, whatever magic was laid here was currently beyond his power to unravel. The symbols and layout of the circle were nothing like he had seen during his studies, even in some of the tomes he had managed to view that he shouldn’t.

Kireth’s only conclusion was that this was a warding circle, and the threat that the boy spoke about may very well be real.

‘I can’t remember,’ cried the smaller youth. ‘We only came up to the hill to play and the next I remember we were here. The elf just said that if we left the circle the roof would fall in. Please help us!’

‘Get us out of these chains,’ sobbed the larger, holding his arms up complete with manacles and chains.

The boys looked to be fit and healthy and otherwise unharmed. They were young, maybe just coming into their teens, but looked distraught at their plight. The malign radiance of the magic circle and what their future might have held had certainly dampened their youthful exuberance to say the least.

‘Don’t leave us!’ screamed one of the boys. ‘Please, just help us get out of here.’

The other boy continued his sobbing.

‘No, no, don’t leave us!’ wailed the older boy, and began furiously pulling at his chains and manacles. ‘You can’t just leave us here!’

‘I want to go home,’ sobbed the younger boy.

The older boy stood up and moved towards the edge of the circle, dragging his chains with him.

‘I’ll do it, I’ll step out of the circle if you don’t help us. If you leave us here we’re dead anyway,’ he stated with a trembling voice, looking nervously at the green vapours rising from the edge of the circle.

She turned to Kireth slowly, shaking her head.

‘There’s definitely a ward on the circle,’ she muttered softly to the wizard.‘Look at the symbols there, and there. If the boys leave the circle, something bad will happen. There’s something else too, but I’m not sure. I think the ward can be removed, but it’s risky — if we didn’t get it right it might get triggered.’

Tradden couldn’t spot anything obvious.

Khalin couldn’t spot anything obvious either.

Although hardy, and prepared for many hardships, young boys being captured, taken into an ancient crypt, chained up within an eldritch magic circle and being told if they leave they will cause a cave-in are likely to act hysterically.

Zero’s calm demeanour and simple tricks seemed to calm the boys down a little. It didn’t move the group forwards, much, though.

He sauntered over to Kireth and whispered,‘How do we turn this damn thing off?’

Kireth matched the symbols around the circle in his mind and with Celestia’s help worked out the pattern and arrangement. It was obvious that the warding circle had been modified in two ways — a trigger on the children leaving the circle, and one on anyone entering the circle. The trigger for the children now seemed trivial for Kireth to remove, simply a question of the correct command word — ‘xylarthen’.

The emerald glow of the circle faded a little and the vapours lifting from the circle’s rim dissipated into the air. Kireth was confident this part of the ward was removed.

This one was more tricky, but Kireth believed the command word to be ‘thenxylar’, a simple play on the symbols being in a different order.

The dim glow from the magic circle finally died as Tradden broke the perimeter, and only stains of symbols were left on the smooth stone floor. The boys sobbed with relief and held up their arms with chains attached by manacles trailing to iron rings inset into the stone.

Tradden turned round to Zero, motioning him forwards to look at the locks on the manacles. As he did so a grating sound began of stone on stone. It started softly and began to rise.

Khalin looked swiftly at the roof of the chamber, but all seemed to be fine there.

Zero noticed them first — two of the statues at the side of the room, slowly moving and twisting to look at Tradden in the centre of the circle. The grinding rose to a crescendo and the feet of the statues cracked off their base, and the figures moved in towards the centre of the room.