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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eccles" data-source="post: 3659968" data-attributes="member: 5675">As Igmut, Flynne and I clung to the ladder, the rushing red waters beneath us showed no sign of abating. After waiting for a while, Igmut shouted over the sound of the rushing waters that he had seen a waterfall at the end of the tunnel. Swiftly, he tied a rope around his waist and dived in, clutching a scroll tube we had given him with swift (if simple) instructions.After a while, the rope went limp, and Flynne and I hauled in the scroll tube; it was empty. This was our agreed signal that there was nothing there, and so I smirked at Flynne and simply let go of the ladder.The red water was bitterly cold and extremely salty. I lost my bearings in an instant as I tumbled through the blood-like water before bursting into the open where I began to fall. My plan was simple, and I began trying to speak the words of an easy spell which would let me fall. However, with the darkness and the sudden falling, I found myself tumbling madly through the darkness. I tried to draw breath, but instead inhaled a lungful of the red water. Choking, I crashed onto a stone shelf, landing atop Maynard. Cracking open another sunrod, I could see Flynne climbing out of the torrential waterflow on a rope. He untied himself and scrambled down to join us on our ledge before Maynard began to climb down further into the crevasse, banging in a series of pitons as he went. Igmut, muttering about his foresight at obtaining a Cloak of Spider-climbing, followed Maynard down the rough wall, where we could dimly see a blood-red lake on a ledge, ringed with tiny white spiders. As Igmut moved past Maynard, he was struck with a sudden shower of crossbow bolts as 6 floating figures suddenly appeared from the darkness around him and fired with pinpoint accuracy. I could see few of the details, but heard his bellow of pain and the sudden movement as he and Maynard began to scramble back up the cliff-wall towards us. As they climbed, they were followed by a group of 6 ghostly wind-warriors. They fired a volley of shots which slammed into Maynard.“Peace,” shouted Endo in the auran language, but it had no effect whatsoever beyond a response of “You shall not pass”.Flynne then began to fire down at the armoured-flying figures whilst I cast a spell of sound manipulation, remembering that they had in the past clanged their swords together to create some kind of sonic assault. Endo fired his crossbow, and as Maynard and Igmut climbed towards us, the wind-warriors faded away into the darkness. .oOo.Bereft of any immediate threat, we discussed our options. After a while, it was decided that I would cast a spell of invisibility on Endo, and Igmut would give him the ability to walk on air so that the wizard could explore the cavern. After a few moments, he returned to our ledge, cast a number of spells in the darkness, and then left again. He returned after 3 or 4 minutes, at which point he explained that there were a series of cracks 847 feet below “and about 28 feet to the left”, and then 100 feet beneath these fissures in the cavern wall, the wind warriors were hovering in the air simply waiting for us. I cast a more powerful spell, transporting all of us except Endo down to these fissures in an instant, and he rejoined us. (The powers of my spell being insufficient to carry all of us). Once there, we prepared for the upcoming combat. Several of the others drank potions of flight, and I turned several of them invisible before hasting them.I remained in the crevice above the fight, assisting my friends with the use of a wand of Magic Missiles, whilst lightning crackled brightly in the darkness below me. Bowshots were fired, shuriken flew through the air and Igmut stabbed deeply with his longspear – two of the six wind warriors disappeared before they even knew we were upon them. As Endo wreathed one of the survivors with his ripping and tearing spirits, the air-warriors brought their swords to bear and clanged them together. Two of them fired waves of sound at Igmut, but the other two looked deeply surprised when their swords crashed together with the sound of bells – my spell had taken effect and ruined much of the power of their attack. A third of the flying elementals faded at the point of Igmut’s spear and he pulled his sword from its scabbard and turned to face the other three which charged towards him. They had barely reached him before Flynne shot one of them to pieces. Maynard and Igmut pounded and hacked the two to shreds, and they simply faded away..oOo.I was given a lift down the side of the cliff by the still-flying Maynard, and we descended through a pink mist besides a vast volume of thundering red waters at the bottom of the crevasse. We settled on a ridge to one side of a vast cavern whose ceiling was lined with flickering crystals. To one end of the cavern we could see a green glow at the edge of the vast red lake. Flynne crept off towards the light, and when he returned with the news of a single figure holding a lantern, we all approached. As we got close, the tall pale figure looked up.“You’re all wet.” Reaching around to where a large pack lay on the floor nearby, he pulled a large white fluffy item from it.“Towel?”“You Moretto?”“Ah,” the figure replied to Igmut’s question. “You have heard of me?”“Yeah. The big hairy spiders want their symbol back.”As a small black bat fluttered onto Moretto’s shoulder and he began to feed it from a mixed bag of insects and fungus pieces, the ghoul looked up at us and gave us a dilemma.“If you help me reach the sky, I’ll give you the symbol.”We looked at one another with some trepidation, as the tall flawless-faced ghoul told us of his past; that he had been exiled from the White Kingdom of the ghouls, deep in the underdark. He had found a series of prophecies in the deepest darkness which mentioned ‘Dragotha’, an undead dragon who was to rise and bring on “a time of writhing decay.”The rulers of the White Kingdom were uninterested, and had apparently branded Moretto a heretic and expelled him from his position as the ‘Marquis of Ravenstone’. After a long discussion, we eventually agreed that we could work together to uncover the secrets of the Seal of Law. After a while, I cast a spell of discovering secrets upon the cavern, learning that I should look “Above the cascade and bear the seal”. .oOo.Having climbed back up the cavern and held the Seal of Law just above every large cascade en route, we eventually reached a ledge just above the largest of the waterfalls where a large portal began to glow with a light matching that which sprang up around the Seal of Law. We pushed open this magically appearing portal, and stepped into a roughly finished stone chamber with a massive 50 foot tall set of metallic doors on the far side. Flynne pulled out his set of lock-picking tools and set out towards the door but stopped suddenly some 20 feet away; apparently fighting some magical power which took effect on him even despite the properties of the Champion’s Belt which he was wearing. As the rest of us drew closer to the doors, we registered two things – firstly that the doors were covered in a series of runes in aquan. There was a large symbol which was instantly recognisable as Icosiel’s personal glyph, together with a series of curses against Chaos, and the words “dare not enter the tomb of Icosiel, wandering duke of the waters and bearer of the Rod of Law”. Secondly, Igmut was also unable to approach the door, although Moretto had no such restriction. “Aqua, Icosiel, Pesh,” came Moretto’s ringing voice from beside us and the two large doors swung silently open..oOo.Within, there was a large chamber whose floor dropped abruptly away from us towards a cracking light-blue cloudlike substance. The sounds of wind and lightning crackled around the room.Rising from this there were a series of pillars, each slightly taller than another, though the third in line seemed to reach to the ceiling. One beyond that seemed to have a tar-like substance, whilst another rotated gently in space. Each of the pillars was 5-10 feet apart. Maynard tossed a pebble down, and it fell – we heard nothing to indicate that it might hit anything. The monk passed Igmut one end of a rope, then took a few paces back and leapt lightly onto the first of the columns. Nothing happened, and so he leapt to the second, and then the third. His outstretched arms looked to grab onto the sides of this exceptionally tall pillar, but he simply vanished into the centre of the column – it was an illusion. A few seconds later, we could see Maynard jumping out of the column and onto the next, which was rotating but seemed to cause the nimble monk no difficulties whatsoever. The next pillar was the one covered in tar, and Maynard tested this by tossing a coin onto it; the small piece of brass glided neatly over the pillar and then slid straight over it into the miasma below. Not put off in the slightest, Maynard leapt the 9 feet onto the pillar, slid a short distance and fell. He twisted in the air and snatched the column, climbing back up onto the tarry surface and looked around. He seemed to be faced with a choice – there was a lighter coloured pillar in front of him, and a slightly thicker pillar off to his left. The monk chose, and leapt the ten foot gap to the light coloured pillar, which crumbled to dust in an instant. Maynard fell swiftly, and the rope in Igmut’s hands snapped taught. The monk swung gracefully through the air, inscribing a neat parabola at the end of the long rope before he slammed with a bone-shaking crunch into the wall beneath us, only a few short feet above the crackling blue substance.We hauled him up, dusted him off, and turned him back towards the pillars.</blockquote>

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