Rath Temain - The Servants' Quarters

[Eldan]

The morning is gusty, blinding white clouds covering the sky from horizon to horizon. The trees, small and stunted conifers, are swaying and shedding their needles. At least the mosquitoes and flies that were your constant companions for two weeks of travel have left, but the smell of mud and rot is still heavy under the canopy.
"It should only be about five minutes that way", the factor explains, pointing into the forest away from the manor house. "Beats me why they put it so far away from the main building, really, most people want their servants close. There should be a path, but..."
He points at the ground, a uniform mass of brown needles and black, tarry mud that long ago swallowed anything resembling a pathway.
"You should see it soon. We're on a bit of a hill, so if you walk down, you should end up there. All straight south. Don't get lost, I don't want to have to send a second party to find you. It's just a small building, two stories, three families. Have a quick look around, report back. Shouldn't be anything major."

[ErebusVonMori]

Angelus nods solemnly, looking at his two companions with some mild concern, "I don't suppose either of you know much about tracking or keeping true to a direction?" The question is somewhat hopeful. "I was rather expecting the path to be a path." He has his glaive slung over his back with a strap, able to slide it off quickly if needed, the weapon thin and wispy as its wielder, but, in his own mind, equally as sharp. The weapon would occasionally slap against his backpack as he walked, taking everything as a 'just in case' though everything is not in fact much.

[arccos]

"I don't have much training in those matters, but it should not be an issue here. Downwards and follow our noses. If we need to return at a later time, we might want to clear the path ourselves. We are going to be here for a while, after all."

She made certain her sword hilt was readily accessible, and kept her shield on her arm as they walked. There was no reason to let her guard down, simply because she had left the harrowed hall of the manor itself.

[Amaril]

Cass nods in agreement with the priestess. "I'll go in the front," she volunteers. "I can try and clear something of a path as we go." She turns to give the Factor a shallow bow, then, without waiting for the others, turns and starts toward the treeline, donning her helmet as she does. As much for her own comfort as to help cut the branches out of the way, she pulls her sword from the scabbard at her waist. As she enters the wood, she starts pushing the foliage aside, thankful for her armor and shield to protect her from the prickling needles.

[arccos]

"I'll bring up the rear." It was the sound tactic, to have someone heavy in the back in case of an ambush. Besides, she could keep an eye on the shady one from there.

[ErebusVonMori]

Angelus nods, "True, straight downhill, what's the worst that can happen?" He pauses nervously,"Please don't take so tempting a comment as an invitation Dark-Eyed Lady, I would rather serve outside your halls than in for the moment." With that quick, and rather impious prayer he hurries to take his position behind Cass, watching the forest nervously. "Downhill, five minutes. As if anything is that easy."

[Eldan]

As you walk into the damp gloom, the mud soon covers your soles, then your feet, then your ankles. The ground only gets slightly drier and firmer as the slope begins to drop off. It is not the gentle incline one might, perhaps, have imagined. In the gloom, the descent over slippery needles, mud and hidden roots is treacherous. Finally, you make out a few faint rays that confirm that there is, indeed, a clearing ahead.

Twenty feet of shoddily cleared area, strewn with fist sized rocks and gravel, surround what must be the servant's building you are looking for. What must be the remains of an old kitchen garden is outside, a few brown stalks sadly willting against the walls, while the remains of old carrot plants have given up their spirits under a carpet of brownish mold.

The building perhaps 20 feet wide and five times as long and two stories high, the walls made from softwood planks that have darkened from the weather to a dark, silvery grey. The windows are small and high up under the roof, each barred with inch-thick cast iron, the door heavy timber and barred.

There is neither smoke or light and the clearing ghostly still.

[arccos]

Charmane surveys the building. It doesn't look like much, but clearly, attempts have been made to keep something locked inside.

"I wonder why someone would seal people inside that building. It also seems strange - wouldn't the people inside be able to dig themselves out, at least? Otherwise, they would die of starvation before long. It seems I was right - no hale souls linger here."

[ErebusVonMori]

"Perhaps." Angelus says, voice quiet and low, worried how far it might carry on such crisp, still air. "Or a friend sealed them in, giving their life to do so. Excuse me a moment, Cassandra, Charmane, I require some concentration." He bows politely to them, placing his backpack on the floor, quickly retrieving a small bag of grave dirt - ever a necromancer's friend - with which to do the spell, then walking slowly towards the building, circling slightly to make sure as much as possible would be in range of a long detect undead spell before sitting down cross-legged, provided nothing jumps out at him, to concentrate on the casting, his glaive placed at his feet for easy access. The spell would only stop when he was sure all information had been retrieved.

[Eldan]

Though there is an uneasy feeling over the entire place and something that almost feels like a very, very faint aura of necromantic magic or evil, neither spell detects auras of any actual creatures in the building.

[ErebusVonMori]

The mage gets up slowly from his meditation, retrieving his glaive before walking back over to his companions to retrieve his backpack, "As best as I can tell it's safe to go in." He says simply, "but there is something... necromantic about this place, I can't say what or how, but something about that place speaks of undeath to me." Angelus licks ever so slightly dry lips with mild apprehension, "What do you two want to do?"

[Amaril]

Cass slowly nods, gripping her sword a little tighter, her eyes not straying from the door. "There's definitely something dark here," she says in hushed tones. "More than the rest of this place."
She takes a deep breath. "I think we should check. If anyone is alive in there, they're almost certainly in danger. And if not, I'd rather not have something like this so close to the camp. Whatever the source of this is, we need to purge it before it becomes a problem."

[arccos]

The revered mother had a saying, she didn't say it often, but it had stuck in Charmine's mind, for some reason. It seemed fairly appropriate here. "Some seals are best left unbroken. Whatever that door has been barred to keep in, I suspect it would be best to leave it that way."

She shook her head at Cassandra. "Obviously, no-one is alive in there. The place has been barred from the outside, and left to rot." To prove her point, she went up to the door, and hammered on it. "Anyone in there?! We come in peace!" she paused for a beat. "See?".

[ErebusVonMori]

The necromancer waits with baited breath, tensed with the expectation, and perhaps fear, of a reply. "I wouldn't have done that." He murmurs quietly.

[Eldan]

Upon impact, Charmine's fist sinks almost half an inch into what seemed like solid wood. There is a squelching noise and some of the wood falls off, revealing moist, white fibrous material just under the bark. There is now a hole, into the dark building inside and a waft of decay.

[Amaril]

Cassandra can't help but recoil in disgust. "Ugh!" She nearly claps a hand over her mouth and nose as the smell wafts out, but catches herself when she remembers she's still holding her sword and shield and wearing her helmet, taking a step backward instead. From behind Charmine, she stares transfixed at the fibrous white stuff. "What the hells is that?"

[ErebusVonMori]

Angelus would step forward sharply, gently placing a hand on Charmine's shoulder to try and pull her back, slipping his glaive from his shoulder and shaking it loose from its strap to hold it one handed as he steps in front of his companions guardedly, taking a proper grip on his weapon, prepared to impale anything that rushes him. . "And now things are getting interesting." He murmurs quietly, "Something terrible happened here, as much as it defies the Dark-Eyed Lady's will a part of me says we should just burn it to the ground here and now, alas though that is not an option I can truly vouchsafe."

[arccos]

Charmine shrugs off Angelus' hand, but does take a step backwards. Once it is clear that battle is not imminent, she says "I would take you up on that, but I don't believe that the white fungus will burn. The whole place is probably inundated with it."

[ErebusVonMori]

"Anything burns with enough oil." He says with a slight chuckle before turning deathly serious again, "But I was rather referring to the fact I have a religious obligation to get to the root of whatever caused this."

[Amaril]

Cass' eyes narrow at Angelus' invocation of Wee Jass, but the impetus helps her regain her posture, and steps back towards the door. "As much as it hurts to admit," she says hesitantly, "the Lady's will is actually the same as the Lord's here. If the dead are restless, I'm just as sworn to put them down. Plus, like I said, this is awfully close to the camp--what happens when they get out on their own?"

[ErebusVonMori]

"I sensed no undead." Angelus says softly, "I was referring to her capacity as the Ruby Sorceress, collector of arcane knowledge, after all if we are to combat this threat we must first understand it. This whole setup just reeks of a trap, as well as just reeks. A necromantic presence without the undead... one of us is going to cursed until something falls off I can't help imagining."

[Amaril]

A curse...that could cause something like this... Cass finds her mouth suddenly dry, swallowing. Fear coils around her chest, choking, poisonous. She stares into the darkness of the hole in the door, setting her shoulders.
I shall give oath...to obey those placed in authority...to keep faith...to persevere to the end in any enterprise begun...
With careful slowness, she turns to face the others. "I'm going in. Whatever's hiding in there, I...something tells me we have to know. If the place is cursed, I'll see about getting help from the Father when we're back in camp." She pauses. "I don't expect either of you to want to follow me, but if you're willing, I'll welcome the help."

[ErebusVonMori]

"Want to? Not even slightly." Angelus laughs, mildly manic, possibly hysteric, "But I've got a duty to myself and a duty to my god, and neither would forgive me if I didn't walk into the big nest of danger and prod it with a really big stick. Also you guys need me, I know more about curses and I'll put money on being more resilient to them. I just have one question: Please can I go in first?"

[arccos]

"I would prefer to see the place burn down, undisturbed. Heading in there would be casting away a tactical advantage. Still, if that's what you want to do, that's what we'll do."

She thought for a bit. "We should circle around the place first, see that there are no alternative entrances or nasty surprises lurking."

She proceeds to do just that, walking around the house, and looking for signs of trouble.

Would that be search or spot? [roll0]

22 if it's a spot check, 19 if it's a search check.

[Eldan]

There is nothing suspicous, as such, but there is a second entrance to the house, on the backside. It almost looks like a barn door, or a large gate of some kind, two stories high, almost as wide, and barred like the front door.

[arccos]

"There is a larger door on the other side of the house. I think we might want to enter by way of it. More light will be let in, for one thing, and we will have a better opportunity to run, if we have to."

[ErebusVonMori]

"Except we've already opened up this way, however accidentally." Angelus points out, "I say we go in the front, very slowly, very cautiously, and with weapons ready."

[arccos]

"Already having begun to do something foolish is no excuse to continue to do so. Besides, that hole is not much of an 'opening'." She sneered at him. "As I said, we should go by the larger door."

[Amaril]

"I don't think it's a question of doing anything stupid at this point," Cass protests. "Whatever these doors were barred to keep inside can get out this way now. What happens if we leave this door open and go in through the other one, and something leaves before we notice it? It threatens the rest of the expedition. I say we go in this way." The fact that Angelus seems to keep being right and Charmine wrong makes Cass distinctly uncomfortable, as though everything is backwards, but she has to follow her best judgment.

[arccos]

Charmine tiredly shook her head. Fools.

The paladin was siding with the shady one. Strange. Ultimately, it didn't matter what way they entered by, except for the tactical advantage. And her companions seemed to be intent on throwing that away, for some reason. Whatever. She could hardly wander off on her lonesome, and if staying with the group meant doing whatever the pale man said, well, she'd do it. The only problem was that she was still not entirely certain that he was not bad news. The paladin seemed to like him, but given how much she agreed with him, how much stock could she put in that? Holy oaths were no protection against lapsed judgement, as well she knew.

Still, she could always kill him later, if he turned bad. He'd lead the expedition for now.

[ErebusVonMori]

The magician rubs at his eyes tiredly, "Duty before all things." He murmurs before standing up straight, "We'd best hurry, before I run out of empty bravado." With that he simply slices the door off its hinges, expecting it to part easily from the hole caused by a mere knock, and walks inside, though he does have his glaive held defensively out in front of him.

[Eldan]

The door crumbles into splinters as it hits the floor.

The inside is dark and damp, as barely any light falls in through the tiny windows. Still, there are some things visible: it seems that there is a room, as wide as the building, and stretching far away into the gloom. There are no dividing walls, and no ceiling below the roof, though there are some traces of what must have been beams and masonry. It seems the building was gutted to turn it into a single room, like a barracks or a warehouse.
There isn't much furniture you can make out, either, just four rows of beds with metal frames and long-decayed matresses. And, as you look closer, manacles on all bed posts. As you take a few more steps into the room, something crunches under your feet. Small splinters of what surely must be bone, none bigger than an inch.

The air is damp and a heavy stench lies in the air.

[Amaril]

"Hold on a second," Cass interjects before Angelus gets too far inside. Sheathing her sword and pulling off her helmet, she unslings her pack from over her shoulders and sets it down to rifle through the contents. After withdrawing a scarf to tie around her mouth and nose as a barrier against the stench, she retrieves her lantern and sets about lighting it. The oil ablaze and glowing, she gathers her gear again and holds up the light just inside the doorway with her free hand, hoping to get a glimpse beyond the concealing shadows. Behind her visor, her mouth once again goes dry at the thought of what might be seen further inside, but it's too late to back away now.

[ErebusVonMori]

"Wise." Angelus admits, retrieving and lighting his own lantern, glaive propped against a wall as he does so. "Have you noticed the floor?" He picks up the largest splinter of bone he can find, checking it for tool or tooth marks. "Something about this I don't trust, that fungal door, bones everywhere, manacles on the beds, someone was feeding something I think." He carefully begins checking the other bones, checking for flesh on them, expecting them to have been picked clean.

Search (1d20+1) [16]

[arccos]

Charmine digs out a rectangle of cloth from one of her pockets, and ties it around her lower face before she peers inside. "A plague-house."

She picks out a small, carved wooden charm from one of her pockets, and mutters a short prayer. The charm flares with light, and she holds it aloft, turning back the darkness.

Then she follows the others into the gloom.

Casting light. Duration 10 minutes.

[Eldan]

The room is near empty, apart from the beds and some remains of gutted masonry and ripped-out beams. A thorough search reveals, at first, only more bones, none longer than an inch and a few scraps of what might have been clothing once. But then, under one of the beds, you find a message, written in some brownish, dried liquid in coarse letters, on a scrap of paper.

They will not stay dead.
Two more dead from hunger exhaustion, Gelf's little daughter and Sevra. Dead by morning, alive and moaning again by nightfall. The overseers no longer even drag the corpses out, just chain them down and wait for them to get back up. The old bastard pours some liquid into them and they are back to the mines.
Gelf's arms had decayed so much that the bones could slip out of the chains. He was on me, before I could scream, tried to strangle me. I will never forget those empty, white eyes. The others threw him down and kicked his skull in. His neck snapped like a twig.
They he will not stay dead.
He rose again, next dusk, dangling like a marionette and raging. We tore his arms and legs off and dashed his head against a wall, to splinters. The overseers whipped us for that, destroying a worker.
Still, he will not stay dead.
I dream of dead men, stalking me. Of those limbs, skittering over the floor, like corpse-pale insects, seeking to kill me.
We had some flint, smuggled in from below, and the iron bed posts and our clothes, and we burned him. Even burning, he came at us, a a shrieking, burning limbless thing, crawling like a worm to bite and bludgeon.
I fear those bone splinters and the ash that now lies in that corner. How can we destroy that, if it rises again?
Rakh says he has one last idea.

If anyone finds this: destroy us. Thoroughly. We do not want to rise again.

The room seems to take up a good two thirds of the length of the building, with a door leading into what remains of the building. Leading against the dividing wall are two heavy wooden lockers, secured with chains and padlocks.

[arccos]

"Interesting. What corruption had taken hold of their leaders' minds, that they would stoop to such desperate abysses in the scramble for manpower?"

She resolutely passes the chained up lockers. They could purge them on the way out, if they were still in fighting condition. Otherwise it would be wiser to leave the lockers be and return for them after resting at the manor. No sense in getting into more fights than neccesary, when they were not sure how many foul things dwelt in the barracks.

Instead, she opened the door that lead further into the building.

[Amaril]

Cass fails to suppress a shudder as the note is read aloud, her imagination conjuring horrible visions of mutilated corpses rising and walking. For the first time, though, she finds the fear mixed with anger, anger at those who would subject innocent people to such horror. Un-clenching the fist her free hand has inadvertently formed, she bends down to pick up her lantern and hook it onto her belt before once again drawing her sword. "I can't help but think we won't like what we find through there," she warns, taking up a ready position beside Charmine as the priestess opens the door.

[ErebusVonMori]

"They're a threat to everyone undealt with." Angelus says simply and gravely, "Free undead are a very dangerous thing, they know nothing but hunger and they want nothing but life. Their 'overseer' though... how could he get them to work and yet not control them outside of these mines? If they were a necromancer I would call them lax or a fool but a necromancer would have no need for the living in the first place." He scans the ceiling and walls, making sure nothing has been missed, afterall there would be no one to smash the last man alive and if they have to flee in a hurry then they don't want to find an enemy suddenly at their backs.. "This raises bigger issues than the plight of these poor people, if even the undead do not stay dead in this place then the others need to know what to do with our bodies, and there are other worse implications. Imagine for a moment an army of the dead, you behead them, it keeps coming, you break every limb in its body, it keeps coming, eventually you have to shatter its bones and burn its flesh until shards are all that remains. And that's just one of them, picture thousands! What army could hope to stand against that?..." He pauses to make sure he has their attention, "Now think on this, whatever they were after in those mines they considered more powerful and more valuable than what I've just described."

[Eldan]

The next room must be the entrance to afforemntioned mines. A shaft, some twenty feet across and circular, has been dug into the damp ground, reinforced with boards and beams. Over the hole, a winch has been errected on a scaffold, anchored to the walls and ceiling, holding a platform on two chains. If anything, the stench of decay is even stronger from down that hole.
On the opposite side, the large gate you saw before leads outside, an overturned cart before it, earth spilled everywhere.

[arccos]

"We will need more lights if we're going down there. And perhaps some paper for the drawing of maps." Charmine muses. "Mine light will not last for many more minutes."

[Amaril]

"I've got extra lantern oil in my pack," Cass pipes up, lowering her sword again for the moment, "so I doubt we'd need torches, unless you wanted to leave lights behind us as we go. No parchment for maps, though. Angelus?" She glances hopefully at the magician, hoping someone of his profession would have writing materials handy.

[arccos]

"Hmm. Maybe we should try to open those lockers we passed - if the foul energies that drove the workforce persists to this day, we can expect to meet like resistance down in the tunnels."

She also gives the old machinery a rueful look. "I wonder if the winch still works - I wouldn't like for the chains to snap while we're halfway down. Age could easily have gotten to it."

[ErebusVonMori]

"I suppose my diary can take the hit. And I've deliberately not touched the lockers, have you asked what happened to the last man alive? A courageous man, with an agile body and mind, might perhaps have consigned himself to wait to die inside, so as not to trouble those who next came upon this place. If we open it I suggest we do so at weapon point." He says, leaning ever so slightly over the hole, pointing the light of his lantern down there, "And I've plenty of oil. Might I suggest we make a torch from what surrounds us and drop it down before any attempt to descend ourselves?" As he speaks Angelus puts his pack down, retrieving pen and paper from his bag, "Also I'm not sure I'm a reliable map maker, toughest thing I ever navigated was a library, either of you two have any experience with it?"

[arccos]

"You did see the chains, yes? Are you proposing he wrapped them around the locker after he went in there?" She scoffed. "The last man alive walked free, and barred the door behind him as he left. He was in all probability an overseer, of the sort mentioned in the letter."

[Eldan]

There is a sound, just at the edge of hearing, now. A thin voice, far away, echoing slightly, from deep below in the mine shift.
"Hello? Is someone up there?"

[Amaril]

Cass inhales sharply at the sound of the words. Caution forgotten, she moves up to stand at the edge of the drop. "Hello? Yes, can you hear me? Do you need help?"

[Eldan]

"Where..."
There is a sharp exhalation, followed by several laboured breaths.
"It's so dark. Where did everyone go?"

[Amaril]

"Just hold on!" Cass calls down. "We'll get down there as fast as we can! You're going to be okay!" She turns back to the others, beckoning. "No time to worry about the lockers! We have to get down there!"

[ErebusVonMori]

Angelus looks to argue with the cleric but stops mid-word and just nods,"We tie a lit torch to the winch then lower it down to him." He immediately begins collecting rotten wood with which to make a torch, it would been fiercely and quickly when lit but it only had to last until the bottom of the shaft.

[Eldan]

With some effort, you get the rusty winch moving and the platform is lowered down the shaft, raining brown and orange particles. The light flickers over sodden support struts, some that already have buckled under the weight of tons of black earth. Finally, after what must be a few hundred feet, the platform stops with a wet and squelching sound.
For a few seconds, nothing happens. Then, you hear the voice from down below: "Thank you. I've been down here so long..."
The winch and it's support structure creak as a heavy weight settles on the platform below, the chains groaning.

[ErebusVonMori]

"Charmine would you be so kind as to winch them up?" Angelus says, glaive levelled at the shaft, clearly somewhat suspicious of the survivor. He lowers his voice, "Cass, weapons ready please. I don't trust this."

[Amaril]

Cass bites down an irate retort at the suggestion that someone calling for help shouldn't be trusted--on reflection, given the circumstances, maybe they really shouldn't. No harm in taking precautions, anyhow. Instead, she moves to the position Angelus indicates and braces herself for attack.

Readying an action to attack whatever's on the platform if it makes a clearly hostile move towards any of us.

[Eldan]

Whatever it is on the platform, it takes two people to winch it up, even with assistance from the gears and levers installed for such a purpose. A minute passes before you can make out what is actually on the platform, beyond the torch.

If it is a human, they are severely diseased. The naked skin is ghostly pale and a sickly yellow-white, though there are greenish-black, oozing patches and smears of various bodily fluids. Rope-thick blue-grey veins bulge out, pulsing slowly. All the hair is gone, the skull bare. The face... most seems almost normal, but the lower jaw seems unhinged, hanging down to the chest. The teeth, where any remain, are brown, broken stumps and the tongue is a grotesquely swollen, blueish slug, the size and length of a man's arm.

The worst, however, is the stomach. It has swollen to enormous size, bulging higher than the figure would be tall if they could stand, though their stick-thin limbs surely would be unable to hold this weight. The skin is stretched taut like a balloon, and pale as to be almost translucent. Shapes are moving under that skin. Not the pulsing of internal organs, but chaotic, frantic fluttering, as if something was trying to escape by clawing its way out.

The thing gives a wheezing cough, its jaw flapping bonelessly. "Thank... you. I'm finally... out of there..."

[Amaril]

Cass' own jaw falls open behind her helmet and impromptu mask, her shield and sword slowly lowering as she backs away in horror from whoever, or whatever, lies on the platform. Her mouth automatically starts forming protective prayers to every righteous god whose name she knows--she forces herself to stop, but ends up just standing there in silence for several heartbeats, unable to think of what else to say. "Who..." She stops, taking a deep breath. "What happened to you?"

[ErebusVonMori]

"You appear to be in some distress." Angelus says slowly, almost lost for words and involuntarily taking a step back. "Um... what's your name?" He's trying hard not to be repulsed or judge him on his appearance, after all people have similar responses to him. 'Must remember this is probably a victim' He thinks to himself, trying to rationalise not fleeing the room. 'They probably need help, the more I help the more other people will like me.'

[arccos]

Charmine stares in horror, dumbstruck, and touches her forefinger to her brow, a traditional gesture to ward off evil.

[Eldan]

The figure produces something a little like a grin. "I'm... the last one. Made sure they wouldn't come back. Just me. Overseer threw me down the shaft, in the end." There is a cough, long and phlegmy. You also notice that the movement in the creature's stomach is getting more frantic.

[Amaril]

"Oh no," Cass pleads, slowly shaking her head in horror at the dawning realization, feet once again carrying her backward. "You didn't..."

[ErebusVonMori]

"I'm guessing you're Rakh, are they alive in there Rakh or are they undead?" Angelus asks sternly, readying himself to strike if he gets an affirmative answer, planning to cut the creature's belly open in a single slash, unable to imagine the pain of being digested alive.

OOC: If he finds out there is someone alive in there he'll attack, how do called shots work?

[Eldan]

This time, the cough might almost be a bitter laugh. "Were starving... anyway. Threw me down there... when i was the last one. ... Got the kids out."

No called shot necessary here, really. He's pretty much imobile and helpless.

[Amaril]

Even with the horror of what's before her, Cass notices Angelus going for his weapon. "Wait," she cautions, holding up a hand to ward him off. Turning around, she leans over to whisper, quietly enough that Rakh won't hear. "I don't know if we should. You saw the note--even if we burn them to ashes, they won't stay dead. I think we need to try and find some other way." She pauses. "And if we do have to do it...let me. You shouldn't have this on your conscience."

[ErebusVonMori]

Angelus frowns, "I wasn't going to." He whispers, "Not unless the worst case scenario bore fruit." With that he discards the weapon, walking over to the bloated creature with his best impression of calm, "How did you get the kids out? Don't worry we won't judge, we got the note, we know you all had to do brave but terrible things to survive."

[Eldan]

"They went into the tunnels. There were other exits. They will find one..."
There is another wet and meaty sound and an arm reaches out from Rakh's stomach towards you, stretching the translucent skin like a tent. It makes a few frantic grabbing motions, and then falls back.

[ErebusVonMori]

Angelus rubs at his eyes tiredly, zombies at least he could deal with, particularly if he just thought of Rakh as an elaborate prison. "How long ago was this?"

[Eldan]

Rakh gives a kind of boneless shrug.
"I don't know. Can't tell the time down there, in the dark. Weeks, certainly."