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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Karl Green" data-source="post: 2555972" data-attributes="member: 1467">PART #2 (9-6-05)2.0 ‘Into the Whispering Cairn’(occ so we got too played a week early, the other night, and now will be bi-weekly. It was a lot of fun. A basic run down (with some spoiler notes hidden along the way to explain some of my conversions and thoughts /occ)A maw of darkness opens before the party and sends a chill down Pog’s spine – a cold ‘wet’ breeze that blew out through the opening and over the group as they examined the entrance. The morning sun was still rising when they started figuring out who would go first. Then they noticed that only one of their party, Armen, had bothered to bring a torch – and he only had one! So for the next twenty minutes or so, Jaktal fashioned make-shift torches from rags and some of the dry sagebrush that grew thick around the entrance.  Now armed with two burning firebrands, Armen led the way into the tunnel. Almost twenty feet wide and fifteen feet high, the tomb’s entryway was large indeed. Jaktal came next with his lynx by his side and Jack Autumn followed close by. Pog and Nalu brought up the rear, with the Orgun holding another torch high to cast long shadows into the hall. As they moved farther in a breeze coming from deep within the tomb picked up and a chorus of almost human sounds rose around the party. Just inside the darkened tomb, the hallway branched into shallow alcoves to the east and west. Here the walls bore the most significant damage, with dozens of clumsy etchings marring the once beautiful ancient masonry like graffiti on a city wall. In the western alcove Armen discovered some soiled and moldy clothing and old bedroll. The cloth fell apart in his hands and the group moved on. As they penetrated farther into the tomb, Jack’s sharp eyes detected a light greenish glow coming from farther down the tunnel – it was to faint to extinguish their torches so they keep moving in. Again the main tunnel was branched by two alcoves to the east and west, but the eastern tunnel ended quickly in a huge pile of collapsed rubble that Pog wanted to try and dig out but whom Nalu (the only one with any mining experience in the group) said “Dat would a take a week at least iffin’ we had a team of Orgun to do it with… leave it be” Now in the western alcove the hall extended perhaps forty feet and ended in a small marble platform that rose about six inches off the floor. A strange, shattered arcane apparatus rested on the platform, its’ curved ovular frame appearing like a noble’s dressing room minor. Only a third of the frame remained, and a unusual arcane glyph about the size of a man’s head had been carved into the baseplate of the support platform.Jack and Jaktal both thought that this rune might have something to do with the Old Faiths, when barbarians often worshipped the land, sun and moons and the very elements – air, earth, fire and water. It also looked to Jack as if it might be some form of transportation rune, but from his arcane studies he knew that this was dangerous and forbidden for most modern academic studies…Pog, wandering around the alcove, found a number of shards of black non-reflective glass that might once had been a part of the apparatus and he collected them up and shoved them into a big bag he wore over his shoulder. After a few minutes the group decided to move on deeper into the tomb again and investigate the what other mysteries might the tomb hold. Moving another forty or fifty feet down the hallway it opened into a large chamber with wings leading to the east and west again. Across this chamber to the north yawned a twenty foot wide open arch draped from top to bottom with translucent cobwebs, where the eerie green light seemed to be coming from. Casting strange shadows throughout the chamber, all noted the smells of animal spores and wet fur. Armen saw a rubble pile and a large number of bones in the eastern wing of the chamber and went to investigate while the rest remained in the central part “to back him up in-case something was there” (or in Pog’s case, to run away if there was anything over there). He found that within the bone pile, many were of different types of humanoids, so with his long-hafted axe he dug around a bit in the pile to see if he could deduce any identifying items. He quickly turned up an old leather backpack, that upon opening he discovered a elaborate lantern of indigo metal insets and indigo glass panes.“Was dat Churchie?” Pog asked with a bit of trill in his voice (Pog seem to enjoy pocking fun at the Paladin from the northlands as often as he could; often referring to him as either Churchie or Metalbottem) “Some kind a lantern it would appear” Armen replied. He kept looking through the bone-pile and after another moment or two he found a silver armband that appeared to be a silver and gold left. Never seeing anything like it before he held it out to the rest of the group, and Jack instantly recognized it as an Iossen Elven design, but covered his shock quickly and remained silent. Nalu took it and looking it over said “Might bring a pretty pence in Diamond Lake I think” With that the group moved into the western wing of the chamber, where a wide dais spanning the back half of the hall called attention to a faded fresco upon the south, west, and northern walls. From the vantage point at the center of the dais Jack noticed that the wall painted gave the appears that he was standing with a larger, massive chamber with seven short hallways radiated outward from the center. A chain dangled from the ceiling at the end of each of the hallways and each chain bore a gleaming colored lantern that seemed to glow in the torchlight. Clockwise, the colors were red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Armen noted that the lantern that he had found in the backpack looked like the reparation on the wall and they all wondered at what clues it might hold. Jack and Jaktal quickly noted that the colors were of the rainbow and that again this might tie into those ancient religions where the rainbow was considered a holy sign. After some consideration, it was decided to find out what was past the spider webs, Pog commenting “I’sa hate spiders… Ah I will watch our backs, you go first Churchie” Using his torch to burn a way through them, Armen and Jaktal show discovered that behind the spider webs was a wide but steep stairwell leading down deeper into the earth. The spider webs were thick for almost thirty feet but eventually they burn enough away to reveal that the stairs continued down for another hundred feet and that the eerie greenish light was shining out from some chamber entrance below. Moving slowly down the stairs, Armen was first to come through this entrance that lead into an immense domed chamber. Seven short tunnels branched from the room in all directions, extending some thirty feet before ending in rounded walls. At the terminus of each passage, a thick chain dangled from the unseen high ceiling. Five of the chains bore colorful lanterns, but two held nothing at all. Opposite the entry stairs, a brightly glowing green lantern cast weird, murky light about the room. Looking up Armen and Jack noticed that what they guessed must be chipped glass or shiny metal that was inserted into the ceiling reflected this greenish light and gave the impression of starlight or falling snow. It appeared that the ceiling doom must be thirty or forty feet about the central of the room – and below this doomed peak, a long dais held what appeared to be a marble sarcophagus. Pog slipped by the others and ran excitedly to it, ready to pry off the lid with his favorite wrench, but quickly Armen and Jack warned him quickly to hold. “Ye will kill us all ye gobber fool, iffin’ ye don’t take yer time with it” Armen scolded, while Jack almost whispered “One never knows what – security – these old builders might have installed here. Let us use our brains for a moment if we could” The elf also noticed that for the first time sense entering the tomb, that this room was silent – the strange whispering that has been the consent companion throughout the passages had suddenly been stilled. As the rest of the party moved into chamber and notice that under each of where the chain hang down from the ceiling they notice a five foot diameter circle craved into the floor and painted in the seven different colors of the rainbow – as the painting about represented. The group then examined the milky white bas-relief figure that had been carved into the top of the sarcophagus – mayhap a human, resting passively. Nalu started examining it with her keen eye for detail while the other party member spread out and started looking over the room. Pog noticed that the figure relief was missing the index finger from its right hand and started searching the room for it. Jack and Armen hung the indigo lantern that they had found above onto the chain to see what might happen, while Jaktal and his cat moved about the room looking for the spores of any other resent tomb raiders. “Why a looky here” Nalu spoke up after a few minutes “This here burial thing is likes a big arrow a pointed at that there orange a hallway. It looks likes it can be a pushed a this a way also… shoulds I push it? Da next one would be da yellow colored one ands I think ya can only push its one way” “Clockwise” Jack added as he noticed the scratch marks now on the floor where Nalu indicated. After a bit of debate, Nalu and Armen push the sarcophagus and with a loud audible ‘click’ it moves to point towards the next hallway. A rumble started deep within the floor of the chamber, shaking everyone slightly. Looking around the group is not overly confident and started looking at each other while reading weapons – or in Pog’s case, edging towards the door ready to make a mad dash out of there.   (occ Ok will continue and finish Part 2 later tonight or tomorrow… must return to work for now <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> /occ)</blockquote>

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