After a minute of chasing through the dark (and stumbling through the darkness for Craven), the rest of the party catches up to Craven. Craven has lost the sounds of the running ghouls once he entered a large rough hewn cavern.
The flickering light of Lenya's torch makes this cave look particularly strange.
This cave seems cut at strange angles, creating disturbing shadows, and wierd seemingly impossible bends and curves. The stone is a cloudy purple color. Rising from floor to ceiling is a tall, four-sided column, natural but extensively carved so that each side supports a different graven image. Before the column is an altar made of dull, porous slightly corroded black rock, sitting atop a 1-foot high platform of black stone speckled with violet. The room is cold -- a soul numbing chill that grips one's very heart, as well as one's sanity. It is a fact, rather than a mere judgment, that this is an evil place.
The four-sided column looks identical to the one you found in the room with the shaft, except this column is three times the size (9' tall instead of 3' tall).
Lenya detects moderate magic on the column (the column in the shaft area had lingering magic), she detects a strong magical aura all around you in the catacombs (there was also a strong aura of magic all around you in the shaft), and is stunned by the overshelmingly powerful magical aura of the altar.
Craven detects a lingering aura of evil on the column, a strong aura of evil all around you in the catacombs (there was also a strong aura of evil all around you in the shaft), and is stunned by the overwhelming aura of evil from the altar.
Kerwyn, thanks to his magical glasses, realizes that there are tiny differences between this four-sided column and the one in the shaft. Almost before the others realize what he is doing, Kerwyn touches the carved hilt of the sword of the black carved armored warrior, pulls, and a hidden drawer is revealed. Kerwyn pulls out a small black sphere that radiates a magical aura of moderate strength (the magical item that Lenya detected in the column and identical to a black sphere you found earlier in the chest).
Searching the other three sides of the column, Kerwyn and Toriah find three more hidden drawers. On the green robed and masked man, Kerwyn and Toriah find a skin-covered black drum. On the red hooded man wearing high boots and a doublet, they find a set of silver chimes. On the indigo robed man covered in strange sigils (still impossible for Lylamwyn to read), they find a bronze brazier and three chunks of incense. The items in the other three drawers do not radiate magic.
