[IC] Into the Darkness

Lining up as Hastali suggested, the party ventures down the stairs past the door Mart just opened. It is, perhaps unsurprisingly, quiet save for the slap and scraping of their leather soles against the wrought stone under their feet. The stairwell takes them slightly past the pile of bones at the bottom. They appear to be human; other partial skeletons litter the chamber besides, tangled with knots of old spider webbing.

The chamber is wide, somewhat resembling the previous chamber with the text inlaid across the floor. This one, however, has no such text carved into the floor and its original purpose is, at first glance, unclear. An initial assessment of the chamber will reveal two immediate details: there is another heavy wooden door set in the wall straight across from the stairwell, and a second set in the wall to the right.

The first door is notable for being the evident site of a recent scuffle, with a familiar-looking giant spider laying curled up not four feet away from it. A flamberge style dagger protrudes from between its mandibles; the beast is quite apparently dead.

The dust in front of the other door is, by comparison, relatively undisturbed.

Mart is at first more interested in the bones than anything else. "Why are all these bones here? Did these people get trapped down here?" He inspects them more closely as they move past. When he notices the torch sputtering, he takes another from his backpack to light it.Only after that he notices the scene in the chamber. "Oh my!" He exclaims. "Well it looks like those spiders can indeed be killed." He leaves the inspection of the scene to the others.

Magnus trails down the stairs behind the other two, peering into the gloom past the torchlight. Upon catching sight of the tableau near the far door, he exclaims: "What in the abrogated city of dust did THAT?"


"Magnus, do you have any idea how deep this tomb goes? At this rate we could be here for days."

Magnus, examining the scene of the apparent spider attack, looks up, frowns, and considers the question. "Historically, these tombs tended to vary in size and complexity, I think. Probably depending on the importance of who was being buried. Depending on the time frame, we should be looking at a single floor or a split level with several connecting chambers. The single floor theory is out, since we already found stairs in two places." He nudges a bone with his foot. It tumbles from the pile.

"I'd say this tomb's king ranks up there with the important ones, so that tracks. We may have to search two levels. No more than three tops if I know anything about these musty old tombs. I've never been in one, of course, but I've read a couple of books."The disturbance patterns in the dust combined with the proximity of the scuffle with the spider suggests whatever party came through before almost certainly used the door nearest the spider. The dust around the other door seems relatively undisturbed with no sign of it having opened recently.

Mart picks up the gem and gives it a good look in the torch light. "This might fetch a pretty penny." He says, showing the found treasure to Hastali. "We'll sell it once we get to a market." He puts it in his pocket for now.

"Three floors, huh? That's quite a bit. And we'll have to keep watching our backs from now on." He says to himself somewhat worriedly.

"These bones are definitely not recent additions. Likely that they were buried here when the tomb was built." He concludes from inspecting the bones. "Found anything over there?" He asks his companions.

Hastali extracts the knife from the spider and then says that if no one objects, he'll take the knife himself. Then, partly thinking aloud and partly turning to his companions, he wonders where best to proceed. "On the one hand, it's likely we'll encounter whoever killed this beast, and perhaps the sooner we do so, the better, if they're hostile, as I unfortunately believe they are likely." "The other road, however, is untouched and therefore must still contain its treasures." "What do you think?"

"Though I don't feel very happy heading into a fight... Mart says. "Perhaps it's best we take care of whatever it is that's come in here with us." He points to the door where that shows it's recently been travelled.

Mart is surprised by how many beings are down here in this tomb. He expected to fine one, maybe two opponents but four was more than he had hoped for. As the goblin creature approached he though This guy is fleeing. His companions have fallen and he's lost hope. Though he couldn't be sure, as he had no real knowledge of these humanoids, it seemed like a plausible conclusion.

Perhaps this fleeing goblin could become an asset to them. "We have been sent here to help you." He speaks out loud to the goblin. "Stand with us and we will be victorious!" He tried his best to bring resolve into his voice. Even if the creature didn't understand the words, it might understand the sentiment. To help with that sentiment, he makes a fist with his free hand and points his torch at a fungoid.

Mart himself is surprised that he managed to convince the goblin, causing him to lose focus for a second. But then he turns his attention to the fungoids. Of course they looked like mushrooms, was that at all useful to know? Could he remember anything of note about fungi right now? Like what they fear. They probably don't like fire, much. went through his mind.

While thinking about it, he waves the torch in front of him to hopefully deter the creatures.

"These are fungoids." Mart tells the others. "Nasty little creatures who live underground. They hate fire and bright lights. We'll need to deal with them."
As the fungoids get closer, Mart tries to jab one of them with his lit torch. "let's see if they're flammable."

Two fungoids move away from Mart's torch, barely avoiding the range of his jab. The lumpy one turns to engage Magnus, who doesn't have a torch while the mottled one heads for Hastali, who also doesn't have a torch. The tallest (and angriest looking) of them lurches in from behind the others, bringing his root/claw appendages up to rake Mart's torch away.

Magnus mutters an oath under his breath and raises his knife, stepping away slightly to give himself and Mart some room to move.