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Message: <blockquote data-quote="htetickrt" data-source="post: 1417554" data-attributes="member: 16534">Into the CryptsEventually the druid speaks, her words laced with bitterness over the quick loss of Earl.  "Well," she remarks, "I don't see as the doors will gain us much if our goal is to find the drow who killed the other drow.  I'm not against searching behind the doors, but Kai's right, we were fortunate our losses were not greater.”  Her voice trails off.  Andy idly flicks his nunchaku from side to side without a word.After a time, Trella breaks the silence again.  “Was the seam around the repaired plaster door tight?”Kyree nods.Danek frowns.  "Do we want to find some drow, or do we want to kill as many drow as we can?" she asks.  "I mean, if we can help it we don't want live drow behind us.  I think we should check out the doors."Quid agrees, “as long as it is cost effective.”Dobi states, “I’d prefer a somewhat more subtle approach…but I guess that isn’t likely with such a large and loud crowd.”Kai frowns in turn.  "It's true that these bodies were systematically looted, not like the farms.  The drow who did this may not be the drow we're looking for."Danek scowls.  “I’m opening a door.”  The portal creaks open without incident, and her lantern light spills into a wide hallway, apparently untouched for many a year.Quid’s acquisitive eyes gleam at the promise of long-buried treasure, and she advances to crack the plaster seal open.  The ten tombs inside are clearly unmolested despite a previous entry into the burial room, and the Waukeenar swiftly discovers why.  At her approach, a quartet of golden lions appears and assails her, tearing flesh and muscle with ease.Kyree reacts with alacrity, pumping arrows into the tangle of feline flesh.  Nearly tripping over herself in her zeal to retreat, Quid nevertheless manages to send one back to its Celestial abode, even as her scimitar, slick with blood, slips from her grasp and clatters noisily to the stone floor.Khail pushes forward, his blade slicing down upon the lions with deadly force.  The paladin grimaces with each blow, but his duty is clear, and a second falls before him.  Danek, Trella, and Dobi advance past him, cutting muscle with blades and crushing bone with staff.  The trio eliminates the last of the crypt’s defenders, returning the dark place to a silence broken only by the quiet chanting of Buttercup as he minister’s to his fellow priest’s wounds.Khail falls to one knee, begging forgiveness from Torm for his actions.  Quid retrieves her weapon and moves to examine the sarcophagi, drawing an angry stare from the paladin.  “This place is consecrated to the powers of good; we should not have intruded.”Quid shrugs and begins searching the tombs.  “Perhaps, but these powers of good did not hesitate trying to kill someone who didn’t know that.  Anyway, we need whatever’s here more than the people buried here do.  Treasure needs to be spent, or you don’t get that pretty multiplier effect.”Khail snorts but doesn’t press the issue, even after Quid’s pointed look upon uncovering a minor stash.  As the loot is loaded into the party’s burlap sack, the priests converge upon the Waukeenar, eliminating enough of her wounds so that only blood-splattered armor remains to remind her of her near demise.Once the party has gathered again in the hallway, Trella slams her staff against the ground.  “That’s enough!” she thunders.  “If we’re going to go exploring, we’re going to do it intelligently, and as a group.  You all got it?”Nods follow the druid’s proclamation, so as she approaches the third door she motions for the party to array itself behind her.  Reaching her hand out to the plaster sealing it, Trella seeks to test its strength.  She is quite unprepared for the jolt of raw negative energy that assails her on contact with the door, threatening to extinguish her very life.  It takes every bit of her potent constitution to stave off death, and even then she cannot escape a series of fresh wounds that open across her torso.Trella backs away, snarling.  “Screw this!  This isn’t a drow grave, there aren’t drow inside the sealed crypt, and we’re not grave robbers.  We’re moving on.  Anyone have a problem with that?”Somewhat cowed by her anger, the party remains silent.  Trella leads them to stairs that Kyree found, down into the deeper crypts.A hallway of worked stone extends some twenty feet from the base of the stairs, then opens into what appears to be a natural cavern.  Graves are hollowed out from the walls of this cave, and some jumbles of bone are visible within.  Barely a glance is given to them as Trella moves the group past the cavern, and through a hewn stone passage into the next one.  The second is nearly identical to the first, save for the presence of a marble statue in its center.  The sculpted stone depicts a gaunt, alien-looking creature with bulbous eyes, an insect’s mandibles, and an elongated oval head.Staring at it, Quid comments, “Why would anyone waste that much marble on Jergal, guardian of tombs and seneschal of the underworld?  It’s not like he’s been a major player for a while now.”Rhien responds thoughtfully, “Perhaps this has been here for a long time.  Or perhaps that which the statue guards is dark indeed.”Trella, still no-nonsense about matters, says, “Whatever it is, it’s not our concern.  We move on.”The druid leads the party toward a barely noticeable bulge in the tunnel ahead, marked by graves only along the east wall.  Before she can take another step, Kyree stops her with a hissed warning.  “There’s some type of creature—no, several of them.  Gray with tentacles, and trying real hard not to be seen.  Um…I think they can hear me.”</blockquote>

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