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Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 4806793" data-attributes="member: 3285">Darkmar: Part 3 – The Upper HouseTime passed.  The landscape was unaltered.  The star was slowly dipping—it touched the horizon.  Although solitary shantaks were sighted twice more, they were far off and there were no other alarms.  Something was interposed between them and Aldebaran, blotting out a portion of the star.  A construction of a fair size was ahead, surrounded by monoliths.  The building was large and slab-sided, built of stone.  It was two hundred and fifty feet on a side with fifty-foot high walls sloping slightly inward and stained a dull orange.  There was no door immediately visible and no windows anywhere.  Vlad looked up at the monoliths.  “These look familiar.”The monoliths about it stood twenty feet tall and were smoothly-tooled, four-sided, tapering from a base four feet square to a flat top two feet on a side.  “It’s strange that even though there’s nine of them, they’re regularly spaced around the structure in a circle, not in the shape of a V,” observed Beldin.“That’s because they’re not trying to summon the Unspeakable One,” said Kham.  “He’s already here.”A single doorway on the side of the structures faced Aldebaran, an unobstructed opening twenty feet square beyond which was a passageway that maintained the same large dimensions.  The walls of the passageway were vividly painted with scenes: from outside only a few can be discerned for they soon disappear into darkness, but the ones that could be seen showed cities fought over by armies that were not quite human.  The paint was bright and clear.“Do you hear that?” asked Vlad.  “Faint piping from inside, rising and falling.”“The King in Yellow,” said Kham.  They went in.  After fifteen yards the corridor leading into the Upper House was masked by darkness.  Lights penetrated only dimly, vaguely.  The first step into the gloom effectively placed them into a labyrinth.  Kham looked back. The exit and his companions were gone.</blockquote>

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