Chapter 12: Shadows in the Dark

[Ken]

Belarin is suddenly wide awake. "Shorak," he says slowly, "do NOT look at her face. NONE of us should look at her face."

[Dave B.]

Shorak shivers slightly from the cold touch, but he does not move and does not attempt to struggle other than his instinctual drawing in of his stomach from the point of the blade protruding from the darkness. Hearing Belarin's words, Shorak closes his eyes tight, even though his strong curious nature wants him not to. The riddle is not familiar to him, but he feels he should be able to answer it, if he has time to consider it. Although, focusing on the riddle is a bit difficult in his current predicament.


Is there a roll Shorak can make to assist in the answering of the riddle?

[Dave W.]

Adamant starts to reply to Kal's orders regarding setting watches, "Kal, you forget that I am warforged... I do not lose myself while resting... I will be on watch always..." but is interrupted by the sudden hand grabbing Shorak. Adamant turns creaking towards the scuffle and puts a hand to the hilt of his sword ready to draw.

Dec 5, 2015 15:37:09 GMT -4 Ken said:

Belarin is suddenly wide awake. "Shorak," he says slowly, "do NOT look at her face. NONE of us should look at her face."

"Face? All I see is an arm... What do you need Lady? Please do not run through our elf... he is my friend and we have lost one elf already... and we are in a bad way... in the name of Compassion, I ask you..."

---

Well, keeps getting interesting...

I'm thinking Adamant is confused... I'm not sure he caught that the strange phrase was a riddle... he's only got a 9 INT after all...

[Brian]

Condign's eyes widen at the sight of a hand gripping Shorak's throat, a blade at his gut. He considers batting aside the sword but feels there is more to this threat than the weapon. The woman's words are the key.

"Belarin," Condign whispers. "We need your riddling skills."

[Darren]

Kal opens his eyes but does not rise from the floor. "I have no head for riddles, Lady," he says. "If you plan to kill us, just do so and be done with it. I'm tired. Otherwise, come and speak with us and we'll work out whatever is wrong."

[Ken]

Belarin says grimly, “Don’t be in such a damn rush to die, Kalarian.”

Keeping his eyes focused on the floor nearly Shorak’s feet, he says, “My lady, I will answer your excellent riddle. You are a medusa. Looking upon your lovely face will turn us to stone. We seek only sanctuary here for a few hours. May we remain – alive, that is? I am happy to converse with you, even trade tales and riddles … as long as the darkness remains between us.”

[Jeff]

"Correct." With surprising gentleness, the unseen woman releases Shorak and the blade and arm sink back into the darkness. There is a pause, and you see the darkness begin to sink down into a revealed, narrow stairwell; it recedes like a well that is beginning to drain elsewhere.

Then the speaker, who has clearly begun down the stairs, calls back. "The darkness is for your benefit. You may come down. I have no quarrel with you."

[Brian]

Condign arches an eyebrow. "Not what I expected to happen." He gestures to Shorak. "Proceed carefully, my friend. I will be following close behind."

[Darren]

With a groan, Kalarian rises to his feet. "At least dying would have given us some rest," he complains. "Please, riddle-master Belarin, lead the way," he grins at the warlock. "And well done," he mumbles with a grin as he shuffles past.

[Dave W.]

"Oh, it was a riddle. Well done Belarin. And thank you, Lady Medusa, for your hospitality. Do you have a name? I am Adamant... a simple and somewhat broken warforged. I've never met a medusa."

Adamant bends with creaking and scraping noises and checks the binding on Streko's wounds. Once again he gently cradles the halfling. More reminders of his condition accompany his every movement as he carries his burdens down the stairs.

"I'm afraid you are not meeting us at our best. We clean up better."

[Ken]

"Really?" Belarin says in a hoarse, incredulous voice. "We're all going to follow the medusa down into darkness and leave the candles unattended?"

He shakes his head. "I may no longer be the craziest person here... All right, but for a few minutes ONLY." He slowly gets to his feet.

[Dave B.]

Shorak rubs at his neck, trying to warm it up. He looks to Condign. "Will you be all right with Tangat, or would you like some help carrying him?" Either way, Shorak will stay close to the Tiefling as they descend the stars.

[Brian]

"I can carry Tangat," Condign tells Shorak and picks up the wolf hound. "Adamant, will you once again carry Streko?"

[Jeff]

With Shorak in the lead and your burdens taken up once more, your party heads down the stairwell. Before him, Shorak sees the darkness continue to “drain” away.

The stairwell ends after only twenty feet, leaving Shorak standing at the top and corner of a great, shaft-like chamber which he still likens to a well. Only it’s clean, not at all wet, and of course angular instead of round. And it’s about fifty feet from wall to wall. A narrow walkway with no railing runs along the perimeter of the space, and at every corner, it descends down a number of steps before resuming the lateral walkway, then again, and so on. The darkness continues to recede, revealing the full size of the room, which is perhaps one hundred feet from ceiling to floor.

The pure white light seen rising out of the Lighthouse from the outside is finally revealed here on the outside, though it is strangely dimmer in here—or perhaps it just looks so bright outside since the Shadowfell is, by nature, gloomy. Either way, the soft white light illuminates the chamber’s full dimensions but does not reveal every minute detail. Looking down, you see the ground is littered with detritus—bones, armor, even a chest. The white light seems to emanate from the floor beneath the scattered material but the objects do not impede it.

“If you have come to find Lhash-Tava, she is not here on this plane,” the medusa calls up but does not look up. Shorak and Condign see a dark, robed figure standing on the ground level. A large hood is cast over her head, and the head is downcast, but they can still glimpse a few writhing serpents emerging from the hood. “She will manifest here soon enough. Wait here, if you choose. You may rest. The specters which dwelt in these halls have been driven away.”

With that, Condign and Shorak—still in the lead—see the medusa's shape disappear into a solid wall.

[Brian]

Condign gently places Tangat on the stone floor. "Everyone start resting. We will keep the watch rotation Kal set up."

Sword in hand, the tiefling takes up a position near the entrance to the chandelier room. The wraith remains nearby and a potential threat.

[Ken]

Belarin limps down the passage and finds a spot to relax. "Had she wanted us dead, she could have finished us very easily." He shrugs, as though to banish his remaining suspicions.

He slides down the wall and closes his eyes. "Condign, Shorak, if you have a hand mirror, keep it ready -- just in case."

[Dave W.]

Adamant creaks his way to the bottom step and finds a place to set down Streko.

"Yes, as I was going to say earlier, I will take all the watches. I do not lose track of myself while I rest; I can watch and rest. Though I will not dissuade anyone who wants to keep me company."

"Belarin, the mirror is an excellent thought, but I'm afraid I don't have one. And I'm not very shiny myself just now. Does anyone have a mirror? Could we share it for whoever is on watch?"

---

The DE Stats sheet says Adamant still has 2d10 Hit Dice left. If that's true, he'll use them up before resting. Just in case thats:

dlw32:2D10+4 → 19(10 +5 + 4)

[Dave B.]

Shorak sits down on the bottom step and takes out his boomerang to clean. Once he is done with that he takes out the bracelet he pulled off the skeletal Sahuagin and examines it more closely.

[Jeff]

Those who go down to the ground floor see the detritus closer now. The bones are mostly humanoid and probably comprise a score of long-dead creatures. A weird, dusty film covers all of it, thin like a web but vaguely colored with flesh tones; it looks like the flesh-and-blood portion of these skeletons was withered by necrotic energies. If there were specters here, this seems like it would have been their doing.

Amidst the bones are a scattering of armor and weapons—some of them look quite nice—and against one wall is a chest in serviceable condition. It is closed.

After you've settled in for a few minutes, with Condign still near the entrance higher up (despite Adamant's offer to observe all watches), there is a heavy silence. But it is calm, restful. Peaceful.

Then, nearly ten minutes in....

“It is by no accident that you are here,” a woman’s voice fills the room, but it doesn’t echo—which feels unnatural, as this is a very echo-inducing chamber.

Some of the white light issuing from the floor itself rises like a well-defined cloud, in some ways an opposite of the dark vapor you now attribute to recently slain on this plane. Like the spirits of the Merrow Down crew. Where they seemed like vestiges of extinguished life, this form looks saturated with life. Perhaps because it's not bodily present. 

A large woman’s face resides within the lambent cloud and framed by a mane of thick hair which fades from view at the edges. Her face looks human but her eyes are those of an animal. A lioness. No color shines through the bright light. Her head hangs in space approximately six feet off the ground, but it looks like her unseen body must be reclined and not at all with a biped’s posture. The face itself, though lovely, is deadly serious.

Lhash-Tava—or at least her consciousness—lets out a long sigh. “Please, describe me Argushem’s condition.”

[Dave B.]

Shorak looks up from the bracelet in his hands and smiles at Kal. "Well, it looks like the mission has become successful after all." He says softly to Kal.

[Jeff]

The bracelet Shorak has been examining is bronze-colored and rather shiny. It doesn't look like the craftmanship of sahuagin, but the half-drow doesn't know enough about them either way. On the exterior there are runes carved in the metal suggestive of religious intent. They are wavelike in design but he doesn't know what they mean. It makes him think of the Devourer.

---

Sorry! Thanks for the reminder, Dave. Gotta do that sometimes.

[Darren]

Kal half-stumbles down the steps to stand in front of the disembodied face. He makes his best effort to bow to the figure, but is wracked by a fit of coughing part-way through and is forced to lean on his sharrash and catch his breath before he can speak. "My lady," he says, "it is an honor to finally meet you. My companions and I have sacrificed much and nearly lost our lives in our attempt to reach you." He thinks, sadly, of Syrdan. "Not all of our number will be returning." Kal looks up to meet the eyes of the sphinx. "Still, an injustice has been done to you, and it is our intention to make that right. When last we saw Argushem, he was a captive of the Coin Lords. They were using him," Kal's mouth curls in disgust as though he has just swallowed sour wine, "forcing him to hand out information to their 'honored guests'."

"I am sorry to say we were among those guests, but I assure you, lady, that we did not know about Argushem's imprisonment. When called upon to speak with him, he chose to relay to me your condition. I don't know why he chose me, my lady, but I could not listen without offering to assist. And so that is how we came to travel here and to find you. But tell me, how is it you are able to talk to us here when your body still resides on Eberron?"

[Brian]

Condign turns his head and listens to Kal address the sphinx. He maintains eye contact with the doorway to the chandelier room in case the emissary were to find its way into the lighthouse.

[Ken]

Belarin, not entirely convinced that this appearance is as fortuitous as it seems, shifts his gaze to perceive arcane auras.

_____

Invoking Eldritch Sight once more.

[Jeff]

Belarin winces slightly as the cloud of light registers brightly with divination magic. If Lhash-Tava is illusionary, then the illusion conceals any more than. But the mere manifestation of light and voice is clearly divination, a magic he would associate with scrying or even contacting other planes of existence.

“We are each given our own tools to do that which we are required to do. Argushem possesses knowledge of some places and events as they unfold; it is not prescience, nor prophecy. He can be made to call upon that insight for the benefit of others if his hand is forced. And so it has, because I am here. If he alone were held in captivity, he would yield to the so-called Coin Lords nothing, only his own sacrifice. But I am being used against him. If I am freed from my bonds, I can locate and free him as well and we will quit this insufferable city!” Her anger, the simmering rage of an untamed beast, is evident in her tone.

Calmed now, Lhash-Tava continues in a tone that could be interpreted as haughty but it sounds intrinsic to her bearing: “I possess knowledge and power to see and hear beyond your world, into neighboring planes and even different times. I know also where they intersect. With effort I can manifest my mind, and some of my magic, into these places. I do not so idly."

Dec 9, 2015 11:21:02 GMT -4 Darren said:

I don't know why he chose me, my lady, but I could not listen without offering to assist. And so that is how we came to travel here and to find you."

The face smiles. “I cannot read into your character, but Argushem is a paragon.” It is obvious to those of you who have ever known deep affection that she admires her mate profoundly. “If he has chosen you, then he is testing your valor and your virtue. He will not be mistaken."

“I would reward you if I could. You have journeyed through the realm of the dead; that is no easy venture. And you have suffered..."

She looks downward. "The former occupants of this vault—apparitions now banished—gathered their treasures here. Many of these objects are cursed, though I could not say which is which from here. You may look through them if you choose, but I suspect there is danger among them. Even touching the wrong one could be treacherous. The only objects I trust are the potions, which I know to be within that chest. There is healing energy therein. You may open the chest; that, at least, is safe. I am afraid that is all I can do from my prison.”

"In the meantime, you are as safe here as any living thing can be. Greshnaza will ensure it. It is the nature of my presence that required the riddle. For you, I made sure it would not be difficult."

[Darren]

Dec 9, 2015 12:09:18 GMT -4 Jeff said:

"In the meantime, you are as safe here as any living thing can be. Greshnaza will ensure it. It is the nature of my presence that required the riddle. For you, I made sure it would not be difficult."

"For him, it wasn't," Kal says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at Belarin. "If left up to me, we'll all be dead right now." Kal grins, then coughs.

"Your hospitality is welcome, my lady, as are your gifts. But tell me, now that we know where to find out, how can we rescue you?"

[Brian]

Hearing the word "treasures," Condign's ears perk up. Not normally one to seek out wealth, he also understands the need to improve your equipment if you want to improve your chances of survival. Taking the sphinx at her word that they are safe, he wanders down to where the others stand and takes him time looking at the items strewn about. Blade, armor or shield, he is looking for the items that appear of highest quality. He will, however, not touch anything at this time.

[Jeff]

...And that reminds me that Belarin's eldritch sight will also reveal a little bit more info about the items. Stay tuned on that front, Ken!

[Dave W.]

Adamant has been standing near where he set down Streko. He has been unearthly still, as if carved from marble. From what he has said in the past, he is aware of what's going on, presumably listening to the conversation, but there is no outward sign of that.

---

I have this image of Addy standing still dressed as the Royal Guards in England... with a big furry hat and bright red coat... and Condign, child-like, waving his hands as close as he dares to the warforged's face... and Belarin jumping at him yelling "BOOO!!"

So, he's getting a start on the resting thing... he'll let Kal do the talking... that's always safe...

[Ken]

Belarin, his attention divided by the brilliance of Lhash-Tava's spirit and her mention of "treasures," nevertheless hears Kal's question to her. "Yes," he adds as he examines the floor, "how are you imprisoned and by how many?"

____________________

Dec 9, 2015 13:46:34 GMT -4 Jeff said:

...And that reminds me that Belarin's eldritch sight will also reveal a little bit more info about the items. Stay tuned on that front, Ken!

I was about to ask. ;-)