ot prings ternal - art l

The companions arrived back at the house on the shores of Lake Amsorak, exhausted both physically and mentally. Their travels to the city of Serraine and their meetings with the order of Celestial Knights had left them with a lot to think about. Trimus had spent some time locked in his room in the cellar copying the spells he had found into his spellbook, checking every syllable was correct, each annotation accurate before memorising the spells for the first time. Jodotha had visited the Thieves Guild in Akesoli but told no one what he had done there. Ako prayed and left donations at the temple of Normanus in Akesoli while Colloran departed for a short while in order to report back to his superiors. Darkhawk and Cain exercised and practised on the shore of the lake, the mystic teaching the fighter how to relax and concentrate.

Early one morning while Colloran was still away a messenger arrived with a note. Trimus took the scroll from a young boy in the bright red and gold livery of the merchant's guild and passed him a silver piece and bade the lad wait while he studied the message.

After reading the message to the others Trimus turned to the messenger. "Please tell your master that we will attend him shortly." The boy bowed and returned to his horse and rode off.

They rode into town later that morning, leaving their horses at the stables before walking to the Merchant's Hall. The building had a prominent position on the main square near the city centre. The frontage was quite ornate with sheaves of wheat, bunches of grapes and sheepskins carved into the stonework. Trimus approached a guard in the livery of the guild and showed him the letter. The guard nodded and held the tall wooden door open for them. Inside the guildhall desks were arranged around the perimeter of a large square room with a high ceiling. Upon the pale blue plaster of the ceiling the emblems of the nine merchant houses were displayed. Largest of the emblems and most prominently displayed was that of the Umbarth family. The three gold fish on a divided red and white ground delicately painted. The centre of the room was filled with chairs, tables and people. Merchants from all over the nation and beyond stood or sat and talked. A busy hum filled the room and Trimus could just make out comments on the price of wine from southern Thyatia, iron from the Altan Teppes and silk from Sind before Darkhawk tugged at his sleeve.
"That desk over there doesn't look too busy." The fighter said pointing to a desk two thirds of the way along the south wall. Trimus nodded and they lined up behind a portly merchant who was disputing a fine. After a few moments the ruddy faced man stood and glowered at the clerk before storming out of the hall. The clerk gave Trimus a superficial grin and offered him a seat. Once Trimus handed him the letter the clerk looked a little less smug. He snapped his fingers and a page stepped forward and listened to some whispered instructions.
"Would follow me please." The page said and led the companions up a wide flight of stairs and through a wide door. Once the door had shut behind them the low hubbub of the floor below was silenced. The corridor they were in was punctuated with solid looking doors. The page led them swiftly past most of them before knocking on one near the end.
"Enter." Came a voice from inside the room and the page opened the door.
"Trimus D'Alberon and his companions." The page announced ushering Trimus and the others in before shutting the door behind them.
Sitting at a large desk littered with scrolls was a smallish man in his mid forties. Behind him was a large semicircular window that overlooked the town square. He smiled and stood as the companions entered, crossing the polished oak floor to shake each by the hand.
"I am pleased you have come." He said warmly. "Please take a seat, and a glass of wine." He returned to his desk and toyed with a quill as he waited for Trimus and the others to make themselves comfortable.
"I have called you here on a matter of some delicacy, a sensitive matter. We have been making some changes to Archive Hall, the building where all the records, contracts and other documents of the city are kept. As you can imagine we have a lot of them and the building was too small to comfortably hold them all. Amongst other things we have been extending the cellars. During the work two people have been brutally murdered. Rent limb from limb, clawed marks on their bodies. They had been moving items from an old treasure vault which we had found, it contained a few chests of coins. Darokin daros from about a century ago. There were no other doors into the vault."
Darkhawk leaned forward. "What's our reward?" he asked bluntly causing Trimus to snort into his wine.
The mayor smiled. "Your friend is most direct. What would you require?"
"No charge to the city but we keep all that we find." Replied Ako.
The mayor's eyes widened but he nodded.
"Agreed." He said after a moments pause. "I will have my secretary draw up a contract. Now let me take you to the site of the deaths. Perhaps you will see something my men didn't."

Mortan pulled on a bell rope and a few moments later the page appeared.
"Prepare my coach, Garrin, we are going to Archive Hall."
The page bowed and left the room.
"We shall give them a few minutes then go down the back stair. The Great Hall is so busy, it will take too long to go via the main stair. All the merchants want to press cases upon me, it can get so tedious."

The back stair was narrow and dark but led swiftly into a small courtyard where the page stood beside a wooden coach harnessed to which were a pair of white horses. The doors of the coach were emblazoned with the Umbarth crest. The page opened the door and the Chief Secretary boarded the coach followed by Trimus and the others. Inside the coach was dark, the curtains over the windows drawn tightly closed. With a jerk the coach moved off.
"Let me tell you what little I know of the area around the Archive Hall." Began the Chief Secretary. "The guild bought the hall five years ago when we moved a lot of the records from the Merchant Hall. The merchant who had owned it built it some twenty five years previously on an empty plot of land. A temple had once stood there but had burnt down half a century before."
"A temple to whom?" interrupted Ako.
"Dakash." Replied Mortan. "Do you know of him?"
Ako shook his head.
"Anyway we converted the merchant's house and everything was fine till we started to explore the cellars a week or so ago." The coach stopped and the door was opened by the page. The coach was parked outside a three storied building of wood and brick with large glazed windows. A wide front door stands at the top of a short flight of stone steps. After helping his master down, the page held the front door of Archive Hall open. The workers inside bowed and curtsied as Trimus and the others, led by the Chief Secretary passed through several rooms lined with books and scrolls then down a flight of stairs to a dusty cellar. The centre of the stone floor had collapsed into a smaller room below whose walls were of stone rather than brick. Darkhawk went down the ladder followed by Jodotha. The pair looked around briefly before returning to the others.
"I can't see any obvious doors." Said the rogue, "But there may be some secret panels hidden behind the dust, webs and whitewash."
Trimus turned to Mortan. "We will return tomorrow. Once we have found out what we can of Dakash and his temple."
After the Chief Secretary had departed in his coach leaving Trimus with a key to the cellar, Ako and Jodotha visited Venou, head priest of the order of Normanus, while the others returned to Lakeside House.

Vanou's busy grey eyebrows twitched upwards as Ako asked about Dakash in the clerics rooms beside the temple.
"Dakash has not had a temple in Darokin for half a century or more." Replied the cleric. "He was known as the Lord of the Night, a strict, evil god whose aim was to banish the forces of light. The temple here was tolerated as the clerics did some good works. But rumours of people going missing, curses and plagues would not go away till one night the people rose up and stormed the building. Many were killed on both sides and the temple was burnt and razed to the ground. Some say the fire started before the townsfolk arrived, that the fire was that of Righteous Judgement . Why do you want to know." A concerned look occupied the cleric's face.
Ako told his superior what he knew and the elder man nodded slowly.
"You will be going into danger, my son. As you depart ask brother Peratias for four vials of holy water, you may need it."

The following day they returned to the Archive Hall and let themselves into the cellar. The air was damp and clammy and moss grew between many of the cracks in the stones that made up the wall. They searched the room thoroughly and found a handful of coins which had fallen out of the chests as they had been lifted from the cellar but nothing else until Jodotha found a hidden door in the east wall.
"There is, or was a doorway here." Said the rogue running his finger along a faint line in the wall. "But I can find no way of opening it."
"No need to worry." Said Darkhawk and disappeared up the ladder for a few moments returning with a pair of heavy hammers and two wide bladed cold chisels. "These should open it."
A few minutes of hammering from Darkhawk and Ako soon had the doorway cleared and they stepped through into a large room. Directly in front of the door was the back of a altar surmounted by a statue of a humanoid figure with large horns growing from it's forehead. A faint tang of smoke hung in the air and the floor, walls, pillars and ceiling were coated with a thick lair of soot. At the far eastern end of the room what remained of a wide pair of doors hung from twisted iron hinges. Before the altar a pit gaped open, the metal grid that had covered it was now twisted and distorted and was jammed about halfway to the bottom. As the companions walked across the floor towards the double doors they threw up clouds of choking black soot and trod on charred bones and twisted weapons.

They edged around the north side of the wall in between the pillars and the soot covered wall. The double doors opened onto a large antechamber. The walls were once covered with frescos but now only fragments remained, fire, damp and time having caused the rest to flake away. Ako cautiously brushed the soot from one area that was less damaged than the rest revealing a battle scene with shadowy figures in the background. Another pair of double doors led to a long corridor running north and south. Jodotha listened at the junction for a moment before shrugging his narrow shoulders.
"I can't hear anything from either direction." The rogue said.
Darkhawk muttered a childhood rhyme under his breath his thick forefinger pointing first south then north then south again as he did so. "North." He said at last and led the others down the corridor. The soot covered walls, floor and ceiling seemed to eat the light from their magically enchanted gems making the corridor seem darker and more threatening.

They soon passed a cross passage that led to stairs leading up to the east and down to the west. Darkhawk briefly investigated both flights.
"Those are blocked." He said pointing east but those leading down appear to be passable."
"Let us come back to them when we have seen what there is at the end of this corridor." Said Trimus.
Just past the stairs another corridor led west before the main passage ended in a metal door. Across the door lay a heavy wooden bar which could not be removed until a heavy padlock was unlocked.
Jodotha cracked his fingers and grinned. "A very nice piece of work." He said "Gnomish or dwarven probably." He unwrapped his tools and set to work, his nimble fingers selecting fine metal rods then twisting and turning them within the padlock. Sweat beaded his brow as he struggled with the complex mechanism until with a smile and a final twist there was a click and the lock popped open. The rogue unhitched the padlock and dropped into his belt pouch while Darkhawk lifted the wooden beam from the door.
"Ready?" the burly fighter asked and once Ako and the others had nodded he opened the door. Beyond the door, in serried ranks stood nearly two dozen skeletons each with a short sword. Before anyone could move the skeletons advanced and attacked Darkhawk and Ako who were in the front rank. Darkhawk fended them off allowing Jodotha to swap places with the cleric who then raised his holy symbol and demanded the undead to retreat. Seven of the undead warriors crumbled into dust but the others kept advancing and attacking but Ako's actions gave the companions the chance to move into the room. Trimus stayed at the doorway in case any foes came from behind but most of his attention was on the battle within the room.
Ako flung a throwing hammer which destroyed another skeleton while Jodotha attacked another. His blow was unsuccessful and he took a cut from one of the skeleton's blades. To his horror he saw that the edge of the blade was covered in a black substance that seemed to burn his flesh. Shocked by this he took another blow and retreated. Trimus grimaced at the sight of the wounds and scraped the worst off with his dagger before attempting to suck the rest out. He was still doing this when Ako laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Let me see." He said. "We've disposed of the undead. Cain and Darkhawk are searching the room."
"I'm burning up." said Jodotha.
Ako touched the wounds with his staff and called upon the powers within the wood to heal the rogue and remove the poison. His prayers were answered as the red swellings around the wounds faded and the gashes closed up leaving the faintest of scars.
"There's nothing in there." Said Darkhawk returning with Cain to the others. Disappointed they retreated back down the corridor to the first side passage.

Turning west the passed along a passage before entering a burnt out bedroom. The contents of the room could only be guessed at beyond a bed and a chest. In the corner of the room was the charred remains of a human, a crossbow bolt in his throat.
Continuing south they again ignored the stairway down to the west and passed the entrance to the antechamber. At the end of the corridor was a door. Jodotha listened but heard nothing and found nothing to indicate the door was trapped. Darkhawk opened the door carefully, all were worried after the last encounter, but this time the door opened onto a corridor. One arm continued south to another while the other ran west. They headed south and Jodotha again checked the door. They opened it to reveal a room where the ceiling had collapsed. The rest of the room was empty save a few burnt bones and the charred remains of crates and barrels. The western corridor ended with a door in it's southern wall, this door led to a room similar to the one they had just left.
"We are running out of options." Said Trimus sitting on a pile of loose stone while munching on a apple. "There are the stairs leading down to a deeper level of the crypt, the door leading south off of the chapel and the pit, I suppose we should look into that there may be some clues there to what is happening."
"I say we finish this level off first, make sure nothing is left to trap us below." Said Darkhawk mopping up the last fragments of cheese from his palm with a crust of bread.
The others agreed with this sensible suggestion and returned to the main chapel to examine the small door that led south from the accursed place.

Beyond the door lay a pair of small rooms both heavily charred. The first yielded nothing to the companions' carefully investigations. The second was a little more interesting. Amongst the charred timbers was a contorted metal box. The outside appeared to have been inlaid with gold and silver but only fragments of that former decoration remained. The lid would not open easily so Ako struck it firmly with a hammer a few times until Jodotha could prise it open with a dagger. Inside to their disappointment was nothing more than a congealed chunk of melted candles and incense. Jodotha turned the box over in his hands for a few moment's evaluating it's worth before tossing it into the collection of rubbish that filled the south west corner of the room.

They returned to the chapel and stood around the edge of the pit in front of the altar.
"I don't like the feel of this." murmured Ako as he looked over the edge into darkness.
"Neither do I." Replied Darkhawk. "I'm going to change." The fighter grasped his talisman and moments later he assumed the form of a celestial knight. Jodotha tied a torch to a rope and lit it. He slowly lowered it over the edge of the pit watching the flickering length of wood spin slowly as he did so, the flames fitfully illuminating the walls of the pit as it did so.
"I can see something, something glinting, possibly a sword." Said Darkhawk from inside his helm.
Jodotha pulled the torch up and extinguished it. He tied the rope to a pillar and lowered the free end down into the pit.
"After you." the rogue said bowing to Darkhawk who nodded and climbed down the rope.
"It opens out after about twenty feet." Said Darkhawk, his voice echoing strangely. "The floor appears to be covered with coins, gold and copper. I can see a staff, lots of bones, shattered bones. The air smells odd." Darkhawk poked at the floor with his foot shifting a few of the coins about. "The floor is stone and appears solid, I'm stepping on to it now."
The others held their breath.
"It's all right, it appears to be just a pit, and oubliette." Darkhawk said after a moment.
"I'll join you." called Jodotha and shinned rapidly down the rope. He carefully plucked up the staff and tucked it into the straps on the side of his pack. "I've got the staff for you Trimus." He called back cheekily.
He got no answer. At that moment several skeletal figures stepped out from the shadows, their eyes glowing an eerie blue. One moved towards Trimus, another towards Ako reaching out with ragged clutching claws. There appeared to be a haze or cloud of dust about the skeletons as they moved.
"Darkhawk!" called Ako, not taking his eyes from the approaching foe. "We need you up here. Now!"

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