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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cafu" data-source="post: 6283825" data-attributes="member: 6692807">We began to walk back the way we came, albeit lurching to an extent as so many of us were suffering from the pain. It was quite extraordinary though; there was not a word of complaint from anyone. I remembered the tunnel that Thoren mentioned. It was very narrow and would accommodate our marching order one by one. Then, as we were slowly making our way, I recollected more about the mysterious Guthwulf: “That’s it! Guthwulf! The Ragesian ambassador to Bresk; whatever his name was. There were various letters and replies from him to a Guthwulf; John, you remember? You stole most of them. It all points to someone who was high in Ragesian councils and who liked torture.” So, stumbling and lurching, we finally managed to get to the entrance of the narrow tunnel; we saw several of the stone bears moving around but as Thoren had said, they left us alone; one or two of them were carrying people, corpses we assumed. Everywhere, we saw writhing wretches, moaning and screaming on the ground; several were comatose and obviously on their last breath. By coincidence, the tunnel was very close to the way out. We turned into it; as we had been warned, it was narrow, cold and slippery; fortunately, Longhelim’s Torch was able to illuminate it a long way, both forwards and behind us. Again we began to lurch forward; I did my best to help John who was right behind me and I could see Felix helping Victor, who seemed to suffer the pain more than most but who also bore it the most stoically. Finally, after travelling for some time, we saw a bridge some distance away; or at least a walkway across some fissure in the ground; it was covered in ice; this would not bother those who wore the magical boots but I was quite apprehensive about it. Dwarven magicians wee not very good at keeping their balance on narrow icy ledges, as had been proved several times previously. It also looked like a trap. I did not need John to tell me this. Thankfully, despite his pain, John bravely lurched forward; he really wasn’t in much of a state to find any traps but he tried; as he moved forward, there was a bang and a spell went off followed by a yell from John; fortunately, we saw that he was still standing but he had obviously set something off. Then the rogue motioned us forward. As we approached, we saw that he didn’t seem very harmed although there were little wisps of smoke furling from his clothes and some sort of acidic liquid was trying to eat away at his equipment; he was obviously protected against this. We moved to the bridge and then Victor suddenly stopped; he tried to go forward but could not make any headway, not matter how much he pushed. Felix and I pushed past him and we both felt a magical barrier; we were able to pierce it but obviously the warrior could not; Drudge also failed to pierce this magical barrier and the ranger stayed with the warrior. I knew of the spell; it was a complicated magic which prevented individuals from approaching specific points. They would not be able to pass now. I spoke to Longhelim and let him know. He grunted: “It’ll be one of Guthwulf’s defences. Let’s go and see if we can find him.” The paladin approached the narrow bridge over a chasm. As he did so, there was a shout from the other side: “Have you come to talk or fight?” “Talk,” was Longhelim’s reply. “Come forward then.” All of us that could, moved across the chasm. Just in case, I had a rope tied to me and tried to look ahead at Longhelim; I made sure not to look down; looking down would be a bad idea. When I finally reached the other side, it was into a room which was unusual to say the least. At first glance, the walls were carved with lots of different scenes, most of which had been vandalized or defaced by magic; on the far wall was the carving of a face and across its lips was a tiny horizontal sliver of an opening. However, our attention was immediately captured by our host. He was a tall, man, dressed elegantly in black robes with a high collar. He carried a stone mace and had a skull dangling from his belt. His head was totally hairless and he had sharp patrician features with a particularly aristocratic nose. His eyes widened when he saw us: “My dear fellows! It could only be you! You must be Longhelim and you are Faden, the only dwarf in your group. Ah, John and Felix, the priest; where are Victor and Drudge? Ah, there, outside my little fence. Oh my dear boys, I have read so many reports about you and in fact from you, eh Faden? Your journals were most entertaining, such good reading too. I was very amused.” “Where are they?” I asked stonily. “Oh, I don’t know now. I had a falling out with the Ragesians. Especially with Kreven; really, what an awful man! Simply ghastly! I gave my best years to the cause only to be betrayed and kicked down this hole. Now, I only have him for company!” He stepped aside slightly and pointed at a creature that had been skulking behind him; I recognized it immediately: it was a ghoul. Guthwulf beamed at us and put his hands together as if he was praying before resuming his speech: “Well, I could stand here and talk about old times all day but this place is terribly dreary; look at the walls! They’re all about Leska and how great she is; I had a little fun with that but now that’s got a little boring as well. So, how are we going to get out of here?” Longhelim just looked at him: “We don’t know; we were hoping you could tell us. After all, you’ve been here far longer than we have and certainly we’re sure that you have thought about this. Surely you must have a plan?” He scratched his nose and then smiled winningly: “You know me too well; I do have one or two tricks up my sleeve but first you must do something about this tiresome thing that’s causing all the pain; its somewhere beyond that dreadful sculpture. I really don’t know who carved that but the sculptor deserves to be sent here for a hundred years just for that! Look at that style, that weight on the brow, why a first year……” “Yes, yes, it’s a very bad sculpture but what’s beyond the wall,” interrupted Longhelim. Guthwulf looked a little hurt by the interruption to his art appreciation but then he brightened: “I don’t know but the pain that powers this place seems to come from there; there is also some singing; when that begins, the pain stops and allows people to recover their strength; then the pain begins again.” John said: “I bet it’s the Song of Forms.” Guthwulf turned his attention to him: “What’s that? Oh yes, the Song of Forms; Faden mentioned that you learned it in the Fire Forest of Innenotdar; from the….what were they called…….ah yes, the Seelah. By the way, you met one of my devils there, didn’t you? Fine fellow! Shame you couldn’t come to an understanding. If I had more resources, I would have sent lots more of them after you, just to insist that we could come to some sort of arrangement; as it is, ironically, we are both here, in this pit. Oh, Kreven, Kreven, you bad man, you. Talking about understandings, do we have one?” Longhelim looked at him: “Could you let my friends through your magic please. We are going to need them when we go through this face.” “Oh, yes, Victor and Salubrious Drudge; what fine fellows they are as well but let’s leave them out there and have a chat about our understanding. If we come to an agreement of course, I would be delighted to have them join us. You help me and I help you.” Slowly, Longhelim nodded: “Yes, we have an understanding; let us go and have a look at this being that is causing all this pain.” “Splendid, splendid! I do like it when people see reason. See, there is no need to just go rushing into fights willy nilly all the time.” Longhelim was just looking at him when Guthwulf negligently waved his hand and motioned at Victor and Drudge to come over. This they did with the help of boots and rope until they were able to reach Guthwulf’s lair. He greeted them as effusively as he greeted us previously and then said cheerily: “It’s that way.” He pointed at the face and then began to cast a spell which would soften stone and allow him to carve an entrance way into the rock. This time, there was no metal sheeting inside. We moved through the hole carefully. There was a short hall way and then it led to a large circular room with a round section of utter darkness in the centre. This area was surrounded by a series of blazing runes. The light in the rest of the room was dim and on our left was chained figure, the source of the singing. As he looked up at us, we immediately recognized the elven features and wings of a Seelah! He looked at us and we could hear his whisper even as far away as we were: “Oh, more nightmares to haunt my dreams; why don’t you just kill me and that will finally set me free!” Then the Seelah began to sing again. We looked around cautiously; I looked carefully at the runes and as I did so, I noticed something very odd; I don’t know how I missed it but the room was crawling with scorpions of all sizes; they crept and rushed around everywhere; some of them were already crawling over out boots. Victor carefully stepped on one, just to reassure himself that they were just scorpions. The creature was crushed and there was no reaction from anything else. As we shuffled in, the warriors took the front Felix went to the back. John went to the Seelah and tried free him. “There’s no lock on his chain!” he said in a frustrated tone. So, he drew his adamantite scimitar and slashed the chain, putting a tiny nick into it. At the moment, Felix said: “Quiet, everyone, quiet! Listen!” We all stood still and obeyed the priest. Personally, I couldn’t hear anything. A moment later, Longhelim looked at the priest with a question on his face. “I heard a noise, like lots of crawling insect legs on stone; thousands of them.” Drudge looked around us and asked: “The scorpions?” “No, it was coming from inside the darkness.” Longhelim looked at me and said: “Faden, can you look at those runes. What are they?” “They’re runes of protection and imprisonment. They are meant to keep things in and certain magic out. Beyond that, they are outside of my purview; it looks more like divine magic.” The paladin looked at Felix: “Don’t look at me! Faden’s right, it is more divine magic but he’s already worked out more about it than I could have done.” John called out into the discussion at this point: “Victor, can you give me a hand? It’ll take a very long time for me to cut through this chain.” Victor advanced to the singing Seelah, not taking his eyes off the darkness. As he arrive, he took a swipe at the ring that was holding the chain in place on the floor. That’s all it took. The ring was sliced through and John helped the still singing Seelah to join the group. Then we reformed again with the warriors at the front. “Well, what now?” asked Longhelim. We were all staring at the circle of darkness but nothing and no one came out of there. Then John moved forward with Bright Shadow in his hands and stopped next to one of the glowing runes. He looked at us and then said: “Ready!”</blockquote>

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