Moving carefully, Ada and Jarem descend to the cellar of the Ten Bells. A pair of doors, each without obvious interior handles, stand open, one to the north, one to the south. Footprints in the somewhat sandy floor show multiple persons have come down the stairs and moved between both doors.
* * *
Maugra squints into the darkness and gasps in horror just as Garnet's lamp illuminates the short five-foot tunnel beyond the archway and the room beyond.
The little chamber chills the heart. There is an overwhelming sense of pure evil emanating from it, a hatred so deep that searching for its root cause is like yelling down a bottomless well. The walls are decorated with crude fetishes crafted of bits of flesh, hair, bone, and organs. Stinking viscera is smeared across almost every surface. Simple furnishings fill the room: a chest, a ramshackle table, and a pile of humanoid and animal pelts that seems to act as a bed. In a disorganized array across the tabletop and floor are jars containing preserved organs and a gruesome collection of body parts wrapped in bloodied rags. Mixed in with the remains are instruments of terror, all the items one would expect of a well-stocked torture chamber.
As horrifying as all this is, it fades in comparison to the wretched being standing before the group, which is like staring into the very face of terror. With its ashen pallor and leathery, weathered skin, the being looming in the light of the lantern has the appearance of a very old, emaciated man. Atop its head rests a cap, which seems to have been colored with blood instead of dye, and on its feet the creature wears over-sized iron boots. Fiery red eyes bore menacingly at Garnet, conveying such contempt it's as if it views pondscum instead of threats to its very existence.
The creature reaches long, skinny arms ending in sharp eagle's talons towards the group, beckoning them forward with a leer.