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Message: <blockquote data-quote="drnuncheon" data-source="post: 520384" data-attributes="member: 96">Ahoke stands, just off off the wooden platform, glaring into the dark balefully. "Well, we're here," she says quietly. "Now what do we do?"Harvester studies the tunnel, and the darkness beyond, raising his torch to spread the light farther. "I guess we start spelunking? Try to find our way up?""Mmmm," Sen-Jyu says, eyes narrowed in the same direction as Ahoke looks. He shrugs his shoulders and says helpfully, "Good question." Though, just to be on the safe side, Ichido-sama is relieved of the scabbard it has rested in, and is pointed forward as he starts to advance.The corridor is short - about ten feet long - and then opens into a wider room, the other side of which is lost in shadow to all but Ahoke. The stone here is reddish, although bits of bluish-green slime drip from the moist ceiling to puddles on the floor. At the edge of the shadowy light you can just see piles of equipment - broken picks, rotted wheelbarrows and the like.Ahoke shrugs, and starts walking towards the tunnel. "Well, we may as well get started." She begins to head down the corridor, treading carefully, and pulling her stone axe, just in case. "It's not natural," she mutters, very non-dwarven-like.Harvester allows the other to precede him and he gives furtive glances behind him. He sighs softly, and berates himself nearly without sound. "Maps. Next time, get a map of where you're going. Dammit."Sen-Jyu busies himself as the three advance with a tedious searching of the walls, floor and ceiling. At Ahoke's advance, Sen-Jyu whispers, "Do you think it's wise to just walk in? Could these creatures be capable of setting traps for us?"Ahoke shrugs as she walks. "I would not put anything past them." She pauses, looking around for traps, but if none immediately present themselves, will continue walking, stopping before entering the larger room.The dwarf walks past Sen-jyu, whose progress is slowed to a snail's pace as he inspects walls and ceiling. No trap snuffs out her life, or even attempts to do so.Harvester turns to look behind for a moment, and the haft of his scythe cracks into a wall. He continues to follow his companions, "I do so hate dank and dark..."Ahoke peers into the room, now that she's close enough to possibly see things that she missed from further back. "Yeah, me too," she says in agreement with the death cleric.Sen-Jyu grins and shrugs as he falls in line five feet behind Ahoke. "If you're willing to stake your life on it, I'll follow you," he says with a dry tone.The room at the end of the hall proves to be about fifty feet across, and about the same in widht - large enough that the Harvester's magic light cannot penetrate to its corners. A few beetles scuttle away from the unusual glow, their backs glistening emerald in the unaccustomed light.Ahoke peers into the room. "Ah. There's a doorway that leads into a cave on the other side," she says, starting to stump through the room without seeming very concerned for life or limb. "Here thanork, come and get us..." She peers at the beetles, but then ignores them upon determining that they are not thanork.Sen-Jyu glances back at the Harvester. "Would it be wiser to simply wait here and let her clear the mines?"Harvester glances at Sen-Jyu as Ahoke boldly goes where no dwarf has gone since years before. "She's... certainly brave..." A laugh. "Well, I think we could follow at a distance...""I -hope- that it's bravery," Sen-Jyu adds with a whisper.Ahoke grins over her shoulder at the other two. "If we die, we die in glory. And I'll be able to get some rest," she adds, in a mutter. Turning back around, she once again begins to approach the opening into the cavern.Sen-Jyu sniffs. "I'm not sure that dying anywhere under the earth is very glorious," he opines, though mostly to himself.Harvester shrugs and steps fully into the room, some short distance behind the dwarf. "I don't mind dying," he remarks back to Sen-Jyu, "so much as dying needlessly or foolishly." Another soft laugh. "I've done that before."Harvester gives a low whistle, "Hold up a sec, guys...." He kneels, fingers tracing just about the dust.Sen-Jyu pauses, mid-step. He stares at something just at his feet, then withdraws his foot so he can crouch close to the ground.Ahoke, too, seems to have paused. "Looks like someone's been through here recently," she says, glancing at the other two for confirmation.Harvester almost seems to croon softly, "Well, welll... What have we here... Yeah... two sets of somebodies, at that..." He points at some unobscured prints, "Lots of little people, and later.... maybe half a dozen people our size... no more than that, probably less." He rises. "I think we're on the right track..."Ahoke nods. "Whether little people are thanork or children, we're on the right track." She looks vaguely disappointed, like she'd been hoping for something a little more innocent. "Well, right. Let's go then.""Nnnnn," Sen-Jyu says softly. "Allow me, please, to check these. For a minute." He takes to his knees, so much the better to search about the floor. "The Harvester, may I ask you to bring that light a bit closer?"Harvester nods, and moves closer to Sen-Jyu, holding the torch outwards.Ahoke shrugs, and waits nearby, quietly, so as to not distrub Sen-Jyu's inspection.Sen-Jyu says, "Hmmm."Harvester says, "What hmmm?"Sen-Jyu points at some of the tracks. "These are thanork. About ten, maybe as many as fifteen. However, they both enter... and leave." His finger jabs at another set of tracks accusingly. "The larger ones... they check in, but they don't check out."Harvester murmurs, nodding in agreement. "And the larger ones are the 'Heroes of Bellhold', no doubt..."Ahoke studies the prints for a moment, over Sen-Jyu's shoulder, and then nods. "You're right..." her eyes narrow. "It sounds like the thanork won that little skirmish. Now, did they just kill them, or did they eat them too...""More importantly, where are the children?" asks Sen-Jyu of his two companions, though it's not really a rhetorical comment. "I don't think that they fought -- the thanork were here several weeks ago."Sen-Jyu hazards, "They could have been carried, I suppose..."Ahoke shrugs. "Let's go find out then," she says, beginning to walk towards the cavern again. "I'll bet that the answers lie somewhere down here."Harvester points down the tunnel, "I suggest we'll find our answers in the beyond..."Harvester gestures back the way they've come, "In any case, I thought the tracks with the children led up the mountain?"Sen-Jyu frowns, drawing his legs under him until he sits akimbo, Ichido-sama placed across his lap. "Might we pause to assemble some of our thoughts, here?"Ahoke stops, looking over her shoulder with a trace of impatience, but then sighs heavily, drawing her great club to prop herself up on. "Seems to me like the course of action is an obvious one. We take the only path through here, and kill anything that opposes us...""I believe that killing anything to oppose us may also relieve us of any possibility for the answers we need," Sen-Jyu says softly, looking at Ahoke in earnest. "Which is why we should consider what we know and what we -need- to know."Harvester murmurs thoughtfully, "I also have concerns about this place's stability. The mines have been closed for half a century, have they not?"Ahoke scowls. "I'm not going to sit down and have tea with the thanork, and ask them why they've taken the children."Harvester laughs, "Not 'why', Kay, but '_where_'..."Ahoke amends, "Alright, I'm not going to sit down here and have tea with the thanork asking them where they've taken the children. They're murderous little bastards, is why. They're barely sentient. Although I suppose I could beat the answer out of one of them..." She eyes her club speculatively.Harvester shakes his head. "We won't stop you from killing them... we just think we should keep some alive long enough to...extract answers.""If they were the sort to have tea, I might. That seems to be an option that their nature has removed from possibility." Sen-Jyu places two fingers at the indent of his lip, lost momentarily in thought. "The thanork went through these caves several weeks ago... why? Were they the ones to open up the copper seal? They also left the same way. The newer set of tracks implies the Heroes of Bellhold also came this way, after having likely found the same clues that we have to this point. The children, however, were lost in between the time of these two groups in this cave."Harvester considers. "When did the headaches and nightmares begin?"Ahoke frowns. "Are the human sized prints just as old as the thanork prints? They've been down here for several weeks?"Sen-Jyu says, "... and the tracks that we -think- were of the thanork kidnappers led up the mountainside, presumably to the same area -- the old dragon aerie -- which we hope to discover a way into through these mines. Correct?" He shakes his head at Ahoke's question. "No, they are not. They are far more recent. I believe the beginnings of the troubles all coincided... and have worsened since."Ahoke nods. "Yes, it would be ideal to find a way up in here. That path going up the mountain... would be insane for anything besides a thanork to try to climb."Harvester nods slowly as he thumbs through his journal. "It is my wondering that these 'thanork' may have released something... something that began affecting the town..." He looks at the tracks, then Sen-Jyu. "How quickly did they leave?"Sen-Jyu grins at Harvester. "I already thought of that -- they didn't appear to be in any rush to leave."Ahoke sighs. "And here I was hoping that some of them had been eaten by demons." She grins quickly, to show that she was (mostly) joking. "We see thanork prints in here. We see thanork prints on top of the mountain. It makes sense that it'll all come together somehow."Harvester grunts as he finds what he seeks in his journal, then snaps it shut and puts it away. "Yeah," says he, looking to Sen-Jyu. "The dreams and headaches started a few weeks ago too. I don't think it's coincidence. They released something here, I'm willing to wager.""All right," says Sen-Jyu in mock-deference. "We'll keep moving." Slowly, like an aged man, he lifts himself to his feet. "I think we're going to find out what happened once we reach the aerie. If we reach the aerie."Harvester laughs at Ahoke. "Eaten by demons? What, and rob you of your fun?"  He snorts. "Well, I, for one, intend to live long enough.. or enough times... to complete my tasks for Him."Ahoke grins. "Well, demons aren't known for being nice, so if they could rob me of my fun..." She looks at Sen-Jyu then. "We have to reach the aerie. I want to find out what's in that other town, so we have to survive all of this."Sen-Jyu shrugs, "It might not even be a question of living long enough -- it might be a question of the shaft or shafts leading there still being intact."Ahoke sighs. "True. Let's hope that it isn't that bad... because if it is, we're in trouble. It's not like I'm an Old One that has knowledge of this kind of place..." She moves towards the cavern again, putting her great club over her back and drawing her axe again.Beyond the doorway, a huge, irregular cavern stretches out. The Harvester's light shines dimly into it, but is quickly swallowed up by the gloom, showing only wooden pillars bracing the rough-hewn rock of the ceiling. Even Ahoke's dwarven darkvision cannot see the far end. Beetles scuttle off into the darkness yet again as you approach.Harvester laughs softly, "Y'know, my grandpappy always said, 'Don't borrow trouble.'... let's wait and see when we get there."Ahoke whistles low. "This is a big cavern," she says. "There might be thanork just out of vision range, waiting to kill us," she says, moving forward eagerly.Harvester whispers to Sen-Jyu, "She hopes...""Oh, lovely," says Sen-Jyu, his eagerness inclined in the opposite direction, but he persists in moving forward nevertheless. He slants his hat back still further on his head, allowing him greater peripheral vision.The cavern broadens to the right, deeply enough that the light does not reach, and continues on in front of you.Ahoke steps towards the right, and then stops. "No, that one's a dead end. We should go straight... looks like a shaft. Let's get it done.""Get -what- done?" asks Sen-Jyu of Harvester, hoping that the priest might shed some light on this dwarf's death wi -- er, sudden enthusiasm.Harvester says, "Er... Get the dyin' done?"Sen-Jyu says, "... oh.""The cavern narrows into a shaft about ten feet across, the floor bearing the marks of the many heavy wagonloads of ore that have been carried through it. The keystone of the door's arch has been carved with the head of a smiling, kindly dragon - although the effect is somewhat marred by an old chisel-mark across the dragon's nose.Ahoke snorts. "Well, if that's what we're going to get accomplished, then yeah. But preferrably save the human children, kill whatever is causing the headaches, and then go on with life.""Just the human children? Were there any others?" The Harvester asks, with a soft laugh. "Okay, save human children, no one else... Got it."Ahoke freezes into place, staring up ahead into the darkness. 'Oh..." she says softly. "That doesn't look good at all." She proceeds, with a bit more caution. "Severed heads..."Harvester's voice falls as well, "Of...?Ahoke hmms. "Two thanork and an elf, looks like." She grips the axe tightly. "Which is a strange combination, come to think of it.""Perhaps that's what the recipe called for -- two parts thanork body, one part elf body. The heads are just the leftovers." Sen-Jyu's quip rather dies on his lips as he advances with the others.Ahoke gives Sen-Jyu a strange look, and then chuckles rather weakly. "Umm, right." She continues advancing, yet more slowly, finally showing some caution.Harvester does laugh softly, with humor at Sen-Jyu's jest, and shoves the torch into his belt, freeing both hands to grip the scythe. "Well, if I've got to hold the target...er, torch, I'll do it up there."As the other two approach with the light, they can see what Ahoke speaks of. About ten feet down the corridor, three severed heads - two thanork and a female elf - are stacked into a rough pyramid. The thanork heads have been severely gnawed by beetles - the elven one seems rather fresher. The ubiquitous beetles flee for the safety of the darkness as you approach.Ahoke frowns as the group approaches. "Was one of the village's heroes an elf?""That would be my guess," Sen-Jyu answers. "I don't know if one can import elf heads."Harvester nods, then shrugs. "I think so, yes."Ahoke mms. "Well, she may have come here on her own... or been captured like the children. How were the heads severed?" She leans over to look.Sen-Jyu looks a bit sick at seeing the woman's head, despite his joking.Harvester approaches the heads and sits on his heels beside them. He examines the remains thoughtfully, poking and prodding as necessary.You take a single step into the mineshaft.Three pairs of sightless eyes snap open, and swivel to see who approaches. The lips part, as if drawing air into nonexistent lungs...and then the heads begin to scream.It echoes down the corridors, raising the hackles on your necks - a shrill, unearthly keening that speaks of the terrors of the grave and what lies beyond.Harvester says, "Well, sh-t."</blockquote>

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