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Message: <blockquote data-quote="arwink" data-source="post: 1956082" data-attributes="member: 2292">There are more tunnels, moor soot, endless hours of darkness.  Even the occasional attacks by the burning skeletons starts to die off as the Copperheads venture deeper into the winding labyrinth.  Halgo’s experiences with caves are enough to keep them from getting lost, but the caves are so uniform that Amarin’s crystal starts cataloging the state of each individual chain link in Geoffrey and Blarth’s armor.“Hey boss, check out the runes,” the crystal says.  Amarin is so used to ignoring it that he almost misses it.“What did you say?”“The runes, boss,” the crystal repeats.  “Around that passageway.”Amarin looks around.  The group is standing in an intersection, a tangled knot where melted passages have met and separated once more.  Halgo and Geoffrey debate directions, looking at the Sulrathi map of the caves.  Amarin can hear Halgo saying something about one of the caverns ahead being the likely destination, but they aren’t entirely sure which tunnel will lead there.  Yip and Blarth are simply standing in wait, both leaning a soot-stained arm against the wall and cocking a lazy ear towards the tunnels in case something is hunting them.  Following the crystals directions, Amarin heads over to one of the smaller passages.  It leads to the east, or so Halgo says, and likely away from the cave they’re searching for.  No-one has paid it any attention, except for the psi-crystal.  Amarin scans the wall for a few seconds before he sees it too, a circle of glowing runes around the portal leading in.“Umm, guys?” Amarin says.  He pulls a small brush free from his belt and starts clearing the soot.  The runes burn with a sudden radiance once freed, filling the room with a crimson light.Everyone is around Amarin in a flash, weapons drawn.“What did you do?” Halgo demands.  Geoffrey has moved beyond that, glaring at the entry way with a mad gleam in his eye.  The fingers on his heavy mace flex menacingly, and he’s obviously expecting trouble.“Look,” Amarin says, oblivious to the sudden tension.  “Runes.  Apparently there’s something down here.”“You can read that?” Geoffrey says, eyeing the ugly script cautiously.  Amarin shrugs.  “It’s close to the trade tongue my family uses with its allies,” he says.  “But older.  Much, much older.”“What does it say?”“Something about this being a resting place,” Amarin explains.  His long, thin fingers trace the runes as he reads.  “Or a prison for someone called the Betrayer.  It warns against us freeing him.”“All those runes say that?” Geoffrey asks.  The burning rounds surround the tunnel, easily eight feet wide.“It’s hard to say, a lot of them have been damaged,” Amarin says.  “And it is very, very archaic.”Geoffrey looks to Halgo.“Do we check it out?” he asks.  Halgo strokes his short beard a few times, eyeing the runes cautiously.  It’s not draconic script, which cuts the chances of them being a warding spell by half.  Whatever is in there either needs to be moved, knows something about the caves, or is already dead.“It could be new,” he points out slowly.  “Something the necrotheoligist kept here that isn’t recorded on our map. If it is, we can’t really leave it.  I just don’t think we want to disturb it if we don’t have too.”“The crystal could do it,” Amarin says cheerfully.  “It’s feeling much better after its rest.”Geoffrey blinks a few times.  “Much…better…after…” he mutters, and then the crystal grows its spindly legs once more and leaps from the tip of Amarin’s staff.  It bounces back and forth a few times in front of Geoffrey, giving the impression of a small puppy waiting for someone to throw it a stick.“Okay, let it go,” Geoffrey says.  “But tell it to be careful.”The crystal is gone before Geoffrey has finished speaking.“Don’t worry about it,” Amarin says.  “It’s small enough that no-one will notice it.  Once I left it inside a bat’s nest for three days, trying to work out why the slept upside-dow…”His head and arms snap backwards suddenly, eyes rolling back in his skull.  Glowing runes suddenly appear around his head, circling back and forth like dancing fireflies.  Amarin lets out a high-pitched scream, and fire roars out of his eyes and mouth.“BAHATH-ETU-SHELBATH-MATHU-NIKLU-TARVATH…” Amarin chants, his voice gradually becoming a guttural roar.“Damn,” Halgo thinks, eyeing the runes that float over Amarin’s head.  “Those are draconic.”Then Amarin falls to the ground, limp and bleeding from his noise.  From down the corridor a deep voice chuckles.“FREEEEEEEE!”</blockquote>

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