[WFRP] The Bloody Crown X

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert nodded. 'I agree. Do we have anything to mark the way - preferably not edible. I can't imagine or piscine acquaintance will follow us but there could be lizards or rodents about.'

[-Sentinel-]

"We could use coins, I suppose," said Elsa. "If we space them out wherever there's only one way to go, we won't need that many."

She had already sacrificed a few coppers since coming here.


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Of course there's the question of how many low-value coins (coppers and shillings) we actually have. This isn't a market; we cannot break down gold coins into smaller coins.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Or... We could just mark the ground and walls with that torch you put out," Sieghard said, turning down the left passage.

[LeSwordfish]

"They built a bridge over to here originally." Ludo said. "So they must have come down here quite often.

He crouched down and inspected the floor closely, trying to find the scuffs or footprints that would show which way to go.

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Perception vs 48: (1d100)[71]

[LCP]

It had been a long time since anyone else living had been this way. What traces they might have left on the rocks had long since been erased by time and the slow seep of water - at least, as far as Ludo could see.

Holding up the lit torch, Sieghard led the way down the passage. Compared to the tunnel they had just left, it was narrow, though not as constricted as the passage behind the secret door. It twisted like the innards of a snake, throwing off more cracks and side-passages seemingly at random. In the space of about thirty yards, they found two that were passable. The first, wide but low-ceilinged, led back off to the right. The second split off to the left, a narrow crack through which glimmers of a larger space could be seen. Ahead, the passage they were in continued, narrowing enough to force them back into single file.

The branch to the left was only a few yards long. Edging down it until he could see what lay beyond, Sieghard raised his torch. An irregularly-shaped cavern opened on the other side, easily the size of the hidden study. Mostly bare, its rough floor was potholed with several deep, flooded pits. Here and there, some small items of wooden furniture lay smashed and rotting - and piled against the back wall, two yellowing mounds of bones gleamed in the torchlight. They looked big enough to be human.

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[LeSwordfish]

"I don't know if that thing would pile up bones." Ludo said uneasily. "Definitely seems like something else is down here. Or was down here maybe, but why be optimistic?"

Ludo had no particular desire to "rummage" or "poke around" in the pile of bones, but was willing to "inspect" them, and after looking over them for any obvious differences from an expected pile of bones (was that a horn he saw on one?) turned to investigate the tunnel opposite.

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Perception vs 48 again: (1d100)[21]

[LCP]

Squeezing past Sieghard, Ludo headed over to the larger of the two piles. Passing by one of the pools of water on the way, he saw that it too appeared to be of great depth - even if he held the lantern just above the surface, the bottom was lost in darkness. Who knew just how deep these aquifers went?

Sure enough, the bones appeared human - mostly adults, with a few small enough to have belonged perhaps to adolescents. Though now a disarticulated heap, from the relative completeness of the skeletons and the dark staining on the rock beneath, Ludo suspected that before it had been a pile of bones, it had been a pile of bodies, left to rot where they lay. Many of the bones showed signs of a violent death, but he could see no signs of them having been split or gnawed by scavengers.

A disconcerting number of bones showed signs of strange deformities. Here was a skull with a single, twisted horn rising from its temple, just as Ludo had thought he'd seen from the entrance. There, another was pockmarked with tiny, smooth holes around the edge of its broken eye-socket. Arm-bones that were too long, shin-bones that were too bent, vertebrae that boasted long, mostly broken spines. Here and there, a few rotten rags still clung to these sad remains, the same long-faded blue as on the skeleton he had found earlier.

Returning to the others, he passed Sieghard again and examined the tunnel continued. It didn't go far before turning around a sharp bend. Proceeding to the corner and raising his lantern, he peered into the darkness. It seemed to continue for some distance, but another deep pool of water blocked most of the tunnel's already tightly constricted width, leaving only a narrow ledge of rock to one side. It would be a balancing act for the tall folk to shuffle along a shelf that narrow, though they could probably jump the gap as they had before. Probably.

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[LeSwordfish]

"We could be here forever searching every tunnel." Ludo said. "We're not looking for lairs like this, we're looking for proper rooms like the study. If a passageway isn't easy to pass, like this, we should find another route: people lived here, they wouldn't have done this to get to the latrine every day."

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Ludo's plan is to return to the main passageway and follow that further. Any objections?

The passageways were carved out by the water, right? Can I use Trade (Miner) to identify any that weren't, or that water isn't actively running down? A roll for that, if so: (1d100)[13]

[LCP]

Doubling back to the tunnel in which the beast had emerged, they followed it further away from the water, until they found themselves back in the large cavern into which they had originally descended. Shadows moved in the dim shaft of light that came down from the well, a faint voice drifting down with them.

"Hello! Are you alive down there?" The echoes of Thom's shout rebounded from the cavern walls for some time before they faded. "We heard screams!"

An inhuman wail drifted out of the darkness, muffled as by layers of water and rock.

"...Like that!"

Ludo was making a quick circuit of the cave, examining each of the side-passages in turn. Most seemed unaltered from their natural state, although there was something curious about how they all seemed to branch off radially from that central pool - like cracks in glass, or the strands of a spider's web. Only one, the first to the left of the tunnel Elsa had taken them down originally, showed any sign of having been artificially widened. It had been crudely dug out to about the width of a mine cart. At the edge of the light shed by his lamp, Ludo thought he could make out a wooden door.

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Waiting for everyone to sound off is a bit slow/timezone-unfriendly so I'm going to go ahead on Ludo's lead and people can backtrack if they want to.

Here's a map of everything you've found so far, now that you have the central cavern for reference again:

[LeSwordfish]

"We're all alive!" Ludo called back, a little more circumspectly than Thom. "There's something - or somethings - down here, but we fought it off. All good up there?"


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I'm knocking off for the night but: if nothing from the team above needs a specific response, Ludo will go see what's behind the door.

[-Sentinel-]

All the shouting made Elsa wince. The monster may have been driven off, but it might gather its courage again. And there might be other, similar things down here.

"Don't get too far ahead, Ludo," she hissed, hanging close to the halfling. She too was curious about the door.

[LCP]

Ludo's blasé comment about "something or some things" seemed to give Thom pause. After a long silence, he shouted back down the well: "Aye! We're good!"

They're getting agitated again, Elsa heard Morrslieb's croaking voice inside her head. Shall I peck them some more?

The door Ludo had found was already hanging ajar. It had clearly been forced with some violence - it almost fell off its rusted hinges when Ludo pushed it further open. On the other side was what looked like some kind of store-room, lying in as much destruction and disorder as the ruins above. A large number of empty wooden buckets lay scattered about, while half a dozen large barrels were arranged along the left-hand wall. Two big work tables stood against the back, one of them leaning drunkenly where its legs had collapsed. A number of tools hung on metal hooks hammered into the cavern wall - copper funnels and sieves, and the rotted remnants of what might once have been large wood-and-sheephide sieves.

In the centre of the floor was a fire pit, much larger than anyone would need simply for warmth. A cauldron big enough to boil a calf had fallen into it, the hefty wooden crossbeam that had once suspended it above the coals smashed and toppled. Under one of the fallen baulks of timber, the bones of another unfortunate lay mouldering, the business end of a broken spear still jutting between the yellowing ribs.

Another tunnel led off to the left, just past the row of barrels - the air that breathed from it was humid and cold, more so than the rest of the cave. In the right-hand corner, a much narrower passage crawled away into the dark. From the look of it, it seemed uncertain whether it remained wide enough for a human being to get far.

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert looked around, expression grim, then gestured at the narrow passage. 'I'd be willing to bet we'll find the remains of some poor fool down there too.'

Turning he looked at the left passage trying to listen in for... well... anything.

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Perception: (1d100)[12] vs 86 (+20 for Acute Hearing.)

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Just stay put up there!" Sieghard called to Thom and the others, "We've got things under control!"

"Mutants, monsters, and all sorts of weirdness," he muttered . Even if they did find something down here, he was becoming more and more convinced nothing good would come of it. He stared at the fire pit and the cauldron for a moment and turned to Elsa. "What do you reckon they used this place for?"

[LCP]

All Adelbert could hear was the slow, slow drip of water.

[LeSwordfish]

"So did the Illuminated Order come down here and break everything as well?" Ludo asked. "Or did it just all get old and rot? Or, well, was it something else?"

He headed off into the right-hand passage, interested to see if it got far before narrowing down again.

[LCP]

Ludo hadn't got far before the passageway became a tight squeeze even for him. With some nimble wriggling through the tightest spaces, he was able to keep going. He lost sight of the store-room very quickly, the light of his lantern the only thing keeping him from feeling utterly lost in the twisting dark. Still the tunnel extended deeper into the rock ahead - but he knew that if he went much further, he would have left the others far behind.

Back in the store-room, Adelbert was still lingering at the opening of the left-hand passage when a familiar, eerie wail came bubbling up out of its mouth. It sounded muted still - but closer than before.

[LeSwordfish]

In the end, Ludo's own suggestion about only following paths people would have taken won out over his curiousity - or, so he decided to believe - and he returned to the main room.

[-Sentinel-]

They're getting agitated again, Elsa heard Morrslieb's croaking voice inside her head. Shall I peck them some more?

Leave it, said Elsa. If they won't follow direct orders to stay where they are, they won't be intimidated by a bird.

"What do you reckon they used this place for?" asked Sieghard.

"Alchemical laboratory would be my best bet," said Elsa.

She probed the room with her mind in search of anything magical it might contain.

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Magical Sense 88: (d100)[99]

Edit: Re-rolled to a 23 in the OOC thread.

She shivered at the sound of the wail. She told herself the thing would not be wailing if it were on the hunt... but it did sound closer. Perhaps it would stumble upon them and fight in defense of its lair.

"Shall we call it a day?"

[LCP]

Elsa's attention was drawn to a silty residue at the bottom of the fallen cauldron. Though mostly grey and inert, here and there a grain or two seemed to glitter with a tantalising variety of colours. She had seen that glitter once before - in the canisters of warpstone dust they had found beneath Gilbertus' manse.

[RossN]

Adelbert

'I believe we should call it a day,' Adelbert replied. 'I'd hate to have to patch you all up again.'

[LeSwordfish]

"At least let's try the other routes from the main cave." Ludo said. "We've come all this way and not found anything."

[RossN]

Adelbert

'Something did find us,' Adelbert commented dryly.

[-Sentinel-]

"At least let's try the other routes from the main cave." Ludo said. "We've come all this way and not found anything."

"It has been underwhelming in terms of things we can actually carry back," admitted Elsa, choosing to wait another day before showing them the mirror. "I suppose we could keep exploring a bit while we're here. But keep in mind, we don't have to do it all in one day."

She had not expected this place to be so large. Had she known, she would have brought more torches.


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Not sure how many hours of light we have left. Did we ever establish how many torches out of four are lit at any one time, and who carries them? The latter could be important in combat, or if someone gets separated from the rest, etc. I think Adelbert should have one, as he rarely needs both hands in a fight.

Where shall we explore next? Do all those tunnels look more or less identical? If so, let's keep doing it counterclockwise.

[LCP]

Backtracking to the central cavern, Elsa led the way into the next tunnel round. Like the side-passage that Adelbert had examined, the air that flowed from it was cool and damp. It didn't go far before it opened onto a rocky shelf, overlooking a dark expanse of water far larger than even the pool beneath the well. Practically an underground lake, the cavern that contained it stretched back further than the reach of Elsa's torch, the far shore - if there was one - lost in darkness.

Elsa Only

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In the moisture that permeated the air, Elsa could taste the same power that breathed from the surface of the pool beneath the well. It was fainter here, diluted, but it was present all the same. Gazing into the water, Elsa thought she saw currents stir beneath the surface - currents that gleamed with the same polychromatic glitter as the dust in the cauldron.

She saw other things too - the reflection of three crow-like figures, standing so close behind her shoulder that she should have felt their breath on her cheek. She caught the stink of ash and iron in her nostrils - but when she looked around, there was no-one there.

As if on cue, another bubbling howl filtered up through the water. The loudest yet, it filled the cavern with its echoes. Astoria pulled Elsa back from the edge, standing with her spear at the ready - but no fires flared in the depths, no shapes moved beneath the surface. After perhaps a minute, when it became apparent that the beast was not going to appear, they turned back to continue their search.

The next three tunnels that radiated from the central cavern were all busts, either running into dead ends or tapering off into worm-warrens of fissures too small for even Ludo to squeeze through. The fourth, and last, seemed to lead into the same maze of narrow passageways in which they had found the cave of bones. They found a low-ceilinged cavern that looked to have been used as either sleeping quarters, a prison, or both - the mouldered rags of blankets lay between rusted chains and shackles, anchored to iron pegs driven into the floor. A number of tunnels led off into the rock around it, pocked with flooded pot-holes like the ones they had seen elsewhere.

The shrieks of the creature continued to haunt them, bursting from the darkness at random intervals. It didn't have the decency to have a single cry. Sometime it howled like an animal in pain; sometimes it sounded almost like human speech. Sometimes it issued eerie, ululating wails that sounded like nothing living. As their exploration wore on, the thing's screams wore inevitably on their nerves, though none sounded as loud and close as the one they had heard from the shores of the lake. The sentries up top could hear them too, and called down periodically to check everyone was still alive.

Ludo had exhausted in the oil in his lamp, Elsa was down to her last two torches, and hunger was gnawing in the pits of their stomachs by the time they returned from the cavern with the chains. There was no daylight down here by which to count time, but Thom shouted down from above that noon had been some time ago. Even the creature seemed to have grown a little tired - it had to have been at least half an hour since they had last heard it scream.

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[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Not a lot of places left to search unless someone feels like going for a swim with the monster," Sieghard said. "Let's head up and have something to eat. We can decide what to do next after that."

[-Sentinel-]

Elsa nodded. "We're running out of light anyway, and I'd rather not have to rely on magic for this."

She suspected the creature was purposefully trying to get them to leave, but could not work up the nerve to attack them directly. She was almost disappointed; it was likely the only living thing under here that dated back to the time of the failed ritual, and perhaps it somehow held the key to many of this place's mysteries.

But now there's no grate keeping it from leaving...

Would it go after them come nightfall? Or would it enjoy its newfound freedom? Or would it simply sulk in its dark hole?

[LeSwordfish]

"Do you think it's just a spell?" Ludo asked. "Just something that makes a noise to scream at us to make us go away?"

[RossN]

Adelbert

Adelbert looked at Ludo in disbelief.'Have you forgotten the very real monster we met? What in Sigmar's name makes you think that noise is a spell, a spell which seeminly is the only thing left intact down here?'

[LeSwordfish]

"Just an idea." Ludo said, shrugging. "But we've searched most of this chamber, and made enough noise to wake the dead - so where is it? Either it's underwater, or hiding from us. Or maybe it's some member of the Illuminated Order's plan for warding off treasure-hunters."

"If there's something else down here, I don't know where we can find it. Lets head upstairs now, we can try something else later."