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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ForceUser" data-source="post: 616913" data-attributes="member: 2785">Session Four, Part ThreeHATE-FEAR-RAGE-DEATH. Hunt. Kill. Rip. Eat. Copulate. Sleep.Sleep. Slumber.Awaken. Mother. Obey.Follow. Climb. Run. Jump. Attack. Scent of manflesh. Horseflesh. Hunger. Hatred.Flash. Green. Blinding. Fear.FLEEFleefleefleefleefleefleefleefleeHIDEflee.Mother. Obey. Run. Sleep. Run. Sleep. Darkness. Warmth. Comfort. Sleep. Wait.Hunger.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Tam examined the statue. The party stood in a dank corridor of uncovered stone somewhere within the desecrated temple of Hanuman. Recessed in the walls of the corridor at five-pace intervals were worked guardians of stone, silent warriors depicted with weapons and armor wholly unfamiliar to those present. “We cannot place the culture, but we believe it is southern. South of Dai Viet.” The wu jen shook his head and rubbed the small of his back.“How far south?” asked Woo. The monk glanced down the tunnel ahead to the extent of the torchlight; through a trick of the shadows (or perhaps something more sinister) the guardians stared back at him solemnly. He shivered.“Hard to know. Not Champa. More southern than that. There are lands beyond filled with jungles and beasts, with wild people who live in trees and worship strange spirits. Perhaps from there.” Tam squatted, then stood and resumed his place behind the fighters. “So what you’re saying is you don’t know,” grumbled Lei. The old wizard shrugged, and the mercenary frowned before pressing on down the corridor, torch in his buckler hand, scimitar in the other. The walls pressed in around him, and he sweated nervously in the cool underground air. Behind him, the others followed.They passed many more stone guardians, but after a while the tunnel angled diagonally and no more statues flanked their passage. The diagonal portion of the corridor ended shortly in a pair of heavy wooden doors, well fastened into the stone wall. Mai crept up and put an ear to the wood, then stepped back and smoothed the front of her ao dai. She swallowed, “I heard monkeys. It’s not locked.” Lei’s knuckles went white around the hilt of his weapon, and he nodded and stepped up to the doors. Vinh stepped beside him, and each man gripped one of the two iron pull-rings. Woo drew his jiann, Mai her duan jian, and Hien and Tam flexed their fingers and prepared to cast spells. With a nod at each other, the two fighters heaved on the doors, but instead of a satisfying smooth glide, the old rusted hinges protested. The wood swollen in its frame shrieked, and grating over stone the doors opened no more than a foot, while the men strained and yanked and cursed while taking care not to drop their weapons.Inside, darkness swallowed the torchlight, casting frantic shadows through the sliver in the doors. Small forms scrabbled in surprise, but then the howling began, echoing eerily off the bare walls within. Lei gave up on his door and added his strength to Vinh’s, and between the two of them they opened the right side enough to allow them to pass. Mai darted up and tossed a torch into the chamber ahead, and sparks danced off stone as it bounced and rolled within. Illuminated, the room beyond appeared to be dressed for martial training, with racks of bamboo weapons along the walls, ropes attached to the ceiling, straw dummies, and woven sparring mats over the undressed stone. On the far wall a door stood recessed at the end of a short corridor. That door lay open with blackness beyond, and wriggling through from that space came a large silver douc with pronounced incisors and a swollen barrel chest to join the smaller monkeys already there. The sparring room smelled of dust and animal waste, and in fact the floor was littered with it. The frenzied animals attacked as the group streamed in, but the outcome was never in doubt. Afterward, Mai and Hien poked about the room, Tam sat down to have a drink of water, Vinh stood guard at the doors they’d entered through, and Lei and Woo explored the next chamber over.“It’s a furnace room,” called the monk, “Square, there’s a door on each wall.” The furnace, built like a gigantic kiln, took up most of the space beyond, allowing no more than a corridor two paces wide on all sides of it. In the center of each wall sat a recessed wooden door, some of which were ajar. The noises of the evil primates rebounded from beyond two of them, though the distance was hard to tell. Lei placed a hand upon the furnace’s bricks. “Cold.” Woo nodded, “Hasn’t been used in some time.” He wrinkled his nose at the smell of old soot. The front of the furnace had an iron door, now latched. Using his staff, he unlatched it, then pushed open the rusted metal and peered inside. He coughed as a fine layer of old ash swirled from the opening of the door, but sat upon the small ledge and thrust the torch into the silent device. “Appears to be a chimney or something here. Could lead out.” He pondered the merits of crawling up the tube; the fit would be uncomfortable but not impossible. Finally deciding against it, he shimmied down and dusted off his robe. “There are carvings on these doors,” declared Lei, and Woo stepped over and held up his torch to get a better look. Lei stood in front of the only secured door in the furnace room. Fully intact, it depicted a host of spirits cavorting underneath a large spirit of the sky, who with outstretched arm directed the others onward. His breath blew clouds along. “Spirits of the wind,” said Tam, who had joined the two younger men. “They are agents of August Heaven, bringing fair currents to all who rely upon them for their livelihood. This is the Wind of the North.” He indicated the large spirit.“But that would mean the artisan who carved these doors was Viet, or held Viet beliefs,” said Woo. “Yes,” replied the wu jen. As they puzzled over that, Mai entered the furnace room and began listening at the open doors. “Shhh!” she whispered, “They are very close!”“Right,” said Lei, and he took up his sword and strode to her position, throwing the door aside and rushing within. Instantly the sounds of the idling creatures changed to screeching alarm and hatred, mingling with the sound of ringing steel hacking through flesh and bone. Woo rushed to aid the mercenary, diving past Mai, torch in hand. As the others exploded into motion, Tam stood in the back, content to let the fighters do the fighting. To his right, the door depicting the Wind of the West stood half-open. As he listened to the sounds of combat and studied the portal, pondering what he had learned, he started in surprise as something beyond the door stared back at him with red eyes filled with malice and ill intent. Before he could speak, it leapt at him.</blockquote>

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