The Forgotten City XXIV
General Summary
As the party stood at the stone door. Alex, perplexed by the exotic script turned to Theo and Teleptyon for help. Theo thought a bit before shaking his head while Teleptyon quickly flipped through the pages of his grimoire. He lit up and stated "That there looks like markins used in a aforegone age!" but was unable to help with its translation he suggested that whatever the door was meant to seal was ancient. Alex attempted to slide his shim into the door frame to check for latches, but the fit of the door was impeccable. He was about to call for Khufu when he noticed that the stone was impregnated with the rusty ocher of dried blood. He reached back and ran his hand across Kegho's freshest wound earning him a grunt of confusion and annoyance and smeared the blood across the door. "Keg, grab us a trunker whats still full of claret" Alex rattled. Kegho returned with a body that still seemed a bit pink and Alex had him loft him high by the knees and slit his throat with the necromancer's sickle. The blood trickled more than sprayed even with the help of gravity and Alex pressed the corpse's new smile against the door while Kegho waggled the body by the legs.
Theo and Teleptyon gaped at the sudden act of callous desecration though Theo muttered "Worse could come to these idolatrous slavers" in a small self-justifcation. And Teleptyon muttered "I ain't gonna romance no necros" while holding his grimoire at waist level.
The script on the door flickered and then glowed steadily. Alex released the head and tapped Kegho with a bloody hand on his calf and the barbarian tossed it aside. They heard a deep grinding an an almost imperceptible crack opening on the side of the door as it began to slide.
As the door began to slowly grind open, the sickly cry of one of the slaves they had sent to search the Yafwadi guards for keys echoed through the cavern. The party realized that not all entrances had been sealed too late and they heard another slave cry out as a missile hit Teleptyon. He swung out with the Rusatian staff and killed the first Yafwadi to run at him. Teleptyon heard mumbling from around the corner, but Kegho charged and decapitated the Yafwadi preventing him from speaking. His side was cut in a final bit of retribution. And another in that room did strike out at him.
Theo sprinted to where the two slaves had been slain and challenged two Yafwadi to honorable combat, but they knew neither honor, nor Rexan. Khufu chanted and touched a glowing hand to Teleptyon who felt slightly better.
After receiving another Yafwadi inflicted wound, Kegho's blood sang with violence and he began swinging his axe with joyous abandon, but missed with his first strike. Theo yelled from his hallway that more were coming from his direction as well and that they were being punished for their secular necromancy, just then an arrow flew past his head, clattering on the cave wall behind him. Alex arrived and told Theo to step back and prepare to ignite something as he spun up a vial of oil in his staff sling. In the other hallway a Yafwadi missed Kegho and he thought the glint of flame on the blade of his axe would be pretty and threw a vial of oil at the Yafwadi and shot him with a fire arrow. Theo invoked Aeleos and flame spread across the hallways of the cavern as Kegho's Yafwadi burst into flame from the inside creating a gentle **whump**.
The door opened enough that Riven with her moon eyes was able to slip into the tangle of passageways beyond it while La Compagnia threw more oil into the flames and retreated back toward the stone door. She found a maelstrom of wind and a cacophany of voices echoing in upon themselves all bearing the name of Reshpu. Even with her keen senses she couldnot tell from whence those voices came.
The partially free slaves begged the party to take them back out the way that they had come and abandon this place, but Theo and Khufu could not bear the thought of the rest of the slaves being "ascended" and Khufu suggested they hid in the furthest of the slave cells and that the party would return from them if they were successful. They grudgingly agreed. La Compagnia made their way into the same maelstrom that Riven had begun exploring, Alex lifting the cover on his red-filtered lantern so that no night eyes would be burned and Teleptyon once more locked a door through arcane means as soon as Theo passed through. The room was filled with the script and artwork of a lost age and as Theo and Alex attempted to decipher some of it, Khufu and Riven tried to figure out which of the branching paths would lead deeper into the system, and hopefully to the ascension chamber.
