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You can only see down as far as your torch will go.....so, blackness.

Kent lights a second torch and gently drops the first torch through the hole.

knight.errant wrote:Kadatheron hurries to catch up with Cisneros. "Are you unwell friend?"

Cisneros coughs. "Don't worry... about me."

Kadatheron frowns, scanning the moor. "Perhaps we should find another way in? One that may not require a rope?"

Kadatheron scans the moor for an alternate entrance.

beermotor wrote:Kent lights a second torch and gently drops the first torch through the hole.

Ellie peers around Podrick's form wide-eyed and watches the torch drop through the darkness.

The torch drops down into the hole, and thankfully does not go out.

Beyond the hole is the vaulted ceiling of a lower room, perhaps 30 feet to a side. The hole enters this room from some 35 feet above the floor. The walls are decorated with worn frescos of some form of procession, and bones and rubble are scattered across the floor. The western wall has partially collapsed, but an archway is visible to the east, closest to the southern wall.

Looking out over the misty moor, you can see standing stones, many tilted like broken teeth, and several other mounds, some of which appear to be sealed behind stone doors, and others of which appear to be open.

So, nothing down there, right?

Grim says, "Shh! Quiet!" He waits for a while, listening, watching the torch below, lying flat on the floor near the hole, trying to see down into the room to make sure there's nothing down there waiting for them.

Assuming that nothing shows up, he'll then tell Kent, "Tie the rope to this frame. We'll go down one at a time. I'll go first, Themble (unless he's AWOL; Kadatheron or whoever can come second) next. There's a doorway, we have to guard it until everyone gets down."

Cisneros coughs. "Yes... this is ... the way," <hack wheeze> "That ... we must ... go."

Kadatheron raises an eyebrow at Cisneros, "If you are certain this is the best point of entry, then so be it." Kad will go after Themble (or in his place if he's MIA).

Podrick will go next. Then Jeren, then Ellie who tries to wait until there is someone at the bottom and guarding their decent first (if possible).

knight.errant wrote:Kadatheron raises an eyebrow at Cisneros, "If you are certain this is the best point of entry, then so be it." Kad will go after Themble (or in his place if he's MIA).

Cisneros nods at Kadatheron. "The dwarf's ... cousin," <hack wheeze sputter> "fell ... down there." <pant pant pant> "What I ... need ... is ... that way ... also." <wheeze>

Daryl spits. "What about what I need, elf?" He grunts, spits again, then waits for everyone else to go down before he does.

All right-y then.

Everyone goes down the rope without a hitch. You are now in the roughly 30-foot square area, with a single archway leading out.

Kent hands the torch on the ground to Kadatheron. "Here you go, sir."

Grim says, "Okay, now what?"

Cisneros coughs for a while before he can speak, clutching at his sticky, wet chest wound. <pant pant> "Through ... the door. Back to ... where Murq ... was ..." <hack hack cough> "... tapping at the wall." <pant pant pant> "East of there."

I forget what wall the doorway is on, but can we assume to know the way back to where Pikar and the others fell?


Grim whistles for attention. "All right, listen up. Stick together. Me and the elf here, Kadatheron, will be first. Kent and Gunnar next, then the rest of you. Kent, you tap with that pole in front on where we're walking. We go slow. Keep torches lit. You guys in the back, watch out behind regularly." He swings his warhammer around a bit, testing its weight. "They hate fire, so if you can hit 'em with a torch before they get onto us, that's fine. Just don't hit me in the back."

beermotor wrote:I forget what wall the doorway is on, but can we assume to know the way back to where Pikar and the others fell?

You are free to assume whatever you wish! But, I fear, this may be a case where my legendary kindness as a judge has been overstated.

The archway is in the southern part of the eastern wall of the room. Beyond it is a hallway stretching to the east. After 10 feet, you can see another stone hallway branching to the north. Just beyond this, a door to the south, and just beyond that, another hall going off to the north.

All is silent, save for the plink-plink of dripping water seeping through the moorland above to trickle between the stones of the floor.

"Stick together now," Grim says. He sniffs he air for gold or gems w/in 100'. !!!

East to the first door on the right, which leads south. Then we'll go through that door.

Kadatheron takes the torch from Kent, "Thank you." He glances at Cisneros in the gloom, then whispers to Grim, "I wonder if the fell things down here can smell blood as you can smell gold."

Jeren looks over his shoulder nervously as he shuffles along, trying not to bump into the dark forms of the others in front of him.

The ability to smell gems and gold is a great one, and has been of much use in my home games. Be aware, though, that I consider this akin to infravision (or normal vision, for that matter) -- it is a sense, with a given maximum range, but things can interfere with it. Strong odours, intervening walls, etc.

Grim sniffs eagerly, but smells nothing other than cold stone, damp, mould, and the charnel smell of the crypts.

As the party moves forward to the first southern door, you can see further down the hallway you are currently in. Immediately after the second northern branch, there are doors to the north and south. The corridor continues eastward beyond them.

The door opens into a 20 x 20 chamber, littered with debris of old stone, rat droppings, bone, and mouldy winding cloth. There is another door in the opposite wall, directly across from this one. The room extends to your right, so that the eastern wall is to your immediate left.

Garth nervously shifted his grip on his club. Just one good score of loot from this place and I can get back in the dice game. And this time he new his luck would change. He just need one more chance to win big.

Next to him walked a dwarf clutching a hammer in his beefy hand and a halfling with a dagger. The dwarf was Olaf something and the halfling's name he couldn't remember. Judging from the tattoos on the halfling's arm he was some sort of sailor though. What he was doing out here and in the barrow Garth had no idea.

Jonas, the last of this group that had walked together to the barrow to join this foray into its depth, pointed to the door across the room with his staff, "Those of you who have been here before, do we go through the door there or farther down the corridor?"

Kadatheron looks to Cisneros for an answer while scanning behind the party for any movement in the dim light.

"Through this door," Grim says. "Follow me." He directs the party through the opposite door on the south wall.

Passing through the far door, you enter a room that is roughly 30 x 30, but the far right wall is cut off to form a diagonal, within which there is a single door. A passageway extends to your left, abutting the wall to the north. You can see a door to the north just inside this passage, which otherwise extends eastward into darkness. Charred bones, as if of some dog-sized animal, are scattered across the floor here.