Nomen Infernale XXXVIII:
General Summary
When La Compagnia exits the House of the Snetwa, they see Yahi stir from a seat facing the door and head to them. Theo is delighted and Alex unsurprised that Yahi has attached himself to the party after their last encounter and Theo retains his services yet again. They pass through the Temple district and slip past the celebrants of the Eklena and stop for snacks before heading back into the tunnels. Yahi noses into their business, but Theo keeps his responses vague and Alex reminds him of the importance of discretion. Alex slips him another gold and suggests that since he will likely wait a while for their return he should keep his ears open. Yahi nods and heads back to the Abrami Gate. They return to the magically sealed trap door with relative ease, although they find a door no one remembered closing and move forward with extra caution.
Teleptyon reads the scroll to open the doorway and it glows a bright, heatless light before turning to dust in his hands and blowing away in a breeze none of them could feel.
Alex listens at the trap door and hears the dripping of water and muffled voices. He strains to listen to see if he can tell whether they are trogolodyte or human voices, but the door is thick and there is too much ambient noise.
Asbjørn and Kegho lead the way into the narrow passages and are immediately met by a trogolodyte, which Asbjørn nearly bisects across the middle. Kegho and Riven fire arrows at the shocked creature, but only Riven's finds its mark. Asbjørn easily finishes it off while the rest of the party is still descending into the shaft. They hear the sounds of running and grunting to the east but nobody comes. Another passage leads to the south and Alex and Elissa face that way as they travel deeper down the eastern path fearing an ambush.
Kegho and Asbjørn move deeper into the eastern cavern. Kegho cleaving the head off the next trogolodyte they find. They wait again, but nothing comes. As they round a corner they find a larger natural cavern with a crude idol to the Magna Larva surrounded by bowls of blood and dismembered body parts. In the cavern, the barbarians recognize the slight uneveness of the space that comes from trogolodytes in hiding and they begin to fight with the beasts. One of them is clearly larger than the others and is dressed in what could loosely be described as regalia. Asbjørn realizes with revulsion that his left eye socket is filled with a writing mass of maggots. He shouts "Hoo-mahn" in heavily accented Rexan at them before charging at Theo. They swing at each other and cross weapons, but fail to damage each other. Kegho slices with Wraithcleaver at the leader's side and the axe bites into him. A warrior strikes at Theo moderately wounding him. Asbjørn, itching to remain in the fight, but unable to get a clear space to attack, fires his shortbow, but the string snaps under the force of his mighty draw. The warrior again attacks Theo and wounds him. Theo moves away from the battle as Kegho and Asbjørn continue chipping away at the trogolodyte leader and his warriors.
Once clear of the morass, Theo prays to Lamos for his touch and receives blessings from him.
