Chapter 17: Underground Part 2

Written by Skarth Diem to Dronaet Klingstone

The water in front of the doors then boiled and churned and a large figure emerged, shaped from water. It appeared to be humanoid in shape, but it was larger than a normal man. It appeared to be holding a trident formed from water. It took up position in front of the doors, blocking our exit.

We sighed and readied our weapons for a fight.

The water shook beneath us, and we all staggered as if we were experiencing an earthquake.

What followed was an odd struggle as we stood on the surface of the water and tried to engage with things both above and below the surface of the water.

We could not see the woman herself. She had gone beneath the surface and disappeared. I sang the song of lightning and tried to send a bolt of power into the figure formed from water that stood in our way. But the song came out wrong and my power fizzled into nothing. I dodged sideways and suddenly the head of a huge eel rose from the water long enough to snap at me before it sank below the surface.

Wrack strode forward and slammed his trident down into the water to stab at the eel. Shay’s spirit form appeared around her head, with the spectral head of a stag and the extra pair of arms. Those spectral arms struck down into the water to lash at the eel. Riellian stepped over to where the eel could now be seen bleeding into the water and stabbed down into the water with her scimitars. The eel thrashed in the water and then was still, drifting silently away from us.

Wrack raised his shield and called upon the power of Procan. His shield began to glow, and he called out, “Spirits Begone!” The figure shaped out of water immediately collapsed and dissipated. Shay pushed against the large double doors. They slowly swung open, pushing through the water that was at the same level on the other side of the door.

The woman emerged from the water. She was crying and called out, “Please, let me live. I yield. I will give you my treasure if you let me live.” We stepped back and stopped attacking her. She went to hug the dead eel and cried out in mourning for her friend that we had killed. I felt sad for the woman. She had set her eel to attack us, and we had little choice but to kill it. Before she had looked strong and powerful, but now she simply looked sad and beaten.

All of us except Wrack stepped through the doors and made our way down the hallway to where the water was clearly much shallower. Wrack ended the water-walking spell and those of us still standing on the surface of the water suddenly sank to stand on the floor.

Wrack swam down with the woman to a small cave at the bottom of the pool. There he found a stash of various items. The woman had said we should take all of her treasure, but he ended up only taking a gold statue which was in the style of ancient Thasselon. He also took some magical gloves and a small silver bottle. There were other things there that the woman clearly valued but he left them for her.

Wrack rejoined us where the corridor raised up out of the water. We followed the hallway to another bronze door. This door had a keyhole, unlike the others we had encountered, but the door itself was not locked. Beyond this door, we found a wide hall. It was very long, with some rubble on the floor where it had clearly fallen from the ceiling. The side walls were covered with a series of very skilfully carved frescos. In a few places the frescos had crumbled with age, but what remained was an impressive monument. One showed a battle between some invaders and defenders. The second showed those same defenders, now homeless, journeying through new lands. The rest of the series showed a sequence of them finding a new homeland and building a new town, then defending it from others. Then, in the middle of the new lands was the image of a pyramid with a temple on its top. A sun hung in the sky, shining over the land.

The pyramid reminded us of stories we had heard of a pyramid called the “Sunken Queen.” It was an ancient, probably Thasselonian, pyramid partially submerged in the marshes of the northern region of Dreadwood. Few patrols go that far north so the stories we had heard were second or third hand at best. One thing the stories agreed on, was that on one side of the pyramid is sculpted a beautiful but terrible figure that is assumed to be a queen – thus the name the pyramid has acquired. Shay mentioned that she was quite sure we had been scouting to the north so we could well have ended up near that pyramid. We all began to speculate if we had somehow found our way under or within the pyramid. The dank, fouled air that we were breathing seemed to support that idea.

We moved to the centre of the hallway where we had a good view in both directions and sat down for a rest. We had been on the go and fighting for some time and it was a relief to sit and get our breath back. We fossicked through our packs and located some snack foods that we could eat to help us regain our energy. The food seemed to be the sort that wood elves prepared which furthered our understanding that we had been patrolling from a base set up by the elves near the edge of the Dreadwood. Even though we were resting, our breathing was still irritated by the dank air we had been in for all of this time.

While we were relaxing, Wrack noticed that the sun at the top of the image of the pyramid was indented from the rest of the carving. Pressing on the sun resulted in a panel sliding back to reveal a hidden hallway that led off at right angles to the hallway.

Before we explored the hidden hallway, we quickly checked the other end of the main hall we were in. At the end, we found a very skilfully painted image that made the hallway look even longer than it really was. To either side were niches, which didn’t appear to go anywhere. A hidden portcullis was concealed in the ceiling ready to fall and trap any intruders in the dead end of the hallway.

Given that the hallway was a dead end, it was clear that our most likely exit from this place would be through the hidden passageway behind the image of the pyramid. Along the passageway there were several large, sculpted heads lining the walls, each sculpture showed a different stylised animal head. Each head was up high, scowling down at us as we walked past.

About midway along the passageway, we found a narrow opening leading off to our right. The resulting passage did a zigzag to the right, and then opened up into a wider corridor. At the far end of the corridor, we could see that it turned to the left. At that far corner, we saw the bright dancing light of a will-o-the-wisp. Given that such creatures are known for tempting people to follow them into some sort of trap, we chose not to follow it. So we turned back and returned to the main passageway.

A little further along, there was a long corridor branching off to the left. It seemed to disappear into shadows. Ahead, we could see the corridor turned to the right and we could see human figures standing motionless along each wall.