Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6356692" data-attributes="member: 6696971">That is fine.  Especially since you were able to pull this off consecutively.  Below is what you learn during your questioning:* "Most have been sick or died from sickness.  We don't say it out loud but I think...well...what you said (very nervously)...may be the truth of it..."** 1)  He wears the skins of everything that dies or around him...mostly its what he kills.  He doesn't cure it so good...I think that's on purpose...and he and his chamber always stinks of death cause of it.  His eyes are so dark that they appear black.2)  He talks to something we can't see...sometimes right in the middle of talking to us...and it it answers him but we can't hear it...3)  He's lived here a long time.  When we got desperate, we found this place.  That was 10 years ago I guess.  I've lived down here mostly so I just get word of what happens up top but don't see it so much.On this, he tells you (a) no one and no thing (all manner of meat and gathered food is there) is living there and (b) the kennel doubles as the barracks for the men down here (all of the dogs and men are dead now...except for the man in front of you and the man you captured before).  To expedite matters due to the medium, there is no point of access to the higher levels in either of those places.  When/however you investigate:Larder - The larder is an extremely cold, cavernous basement.  Nothing of interest there.Kennel/barracks -  There is a naked, pregnant woman in chains, thoroughly defeated (physically, mentally, emotionally).  Clearly she has been raped hundreds of time.  She is so deeply drawn inward that she barely registers your presence and she doesn't resist if you attempt to move her. There is a reasonable amount of mineral wealth wrapped in bedrolls or stowed in various (easily opened due to their poor construction and your skill) lockboxes.  300 GP worth in total.  You also find an ancient book that these men probably have no idea of its value; a Tree Stride Ritual Book written in a fey language that would be unfamiliar to them.Finally, you find a well-constructed, multi-person canoe and paddles.  Its extremely heavy and requires several people to move it.* It does.  It meets other rivers into a greater body before it continues on and feeds into the river aboveground that accesses the bay.  The upper level is accessible where that great underground body of water is located.  Its a climb, but they've worked the stone into a a spiraling stair.  They send foodstuff and goods that way.  There are typically a few men there to receive.** Its at the top of the complex.  Its a scary place with skins hanging on the walls, all kinds of garish pictorials painted, a stagnant pool of water and the Circle of Blood.  He needs no guards and none could stay in that place for long without retching.*** He welcomes them.  Anyone who wishes to challenge him may do so freely by entering the Circle of Blood and announcing their intent.  Only a few have.  The last time, 5 men banded together to challenge him.  They were quickly vanquished, but their deaths were a terrible and slow thing.  Most folks think that The Rotting Man takes more than just your flesh when he kills you...  Well, that hasn't happened in a few years.  But there are whispers that the son of one man that was killed, Yamel, has a mind for vengeance.  He has some favor with some of the others.  I don't know where you'd find him.  Up top somewhere.</blockquote>

Verification