Well rested and recovered, the party broke their camp and reviewed what they had accomplished so far. Aletha reminded everyone of the mysterious passage they had passed the previous day. She felt that it must lead into a much older section of the caverns, possibly dating back to the earliest inhabitants said to be an evil coven of warlocks. The party talked it over and decided that they wanted to head back there eventually, but that the first priority was to explore the stairs leading up from the chamber of Niramuth. Mina was elected to go in front.
The treads and walls of the stairway were carved out of the natural stone surrounding them, and the spiraled slowly upward. As the party ascended the air grew noticeably warmer and stuffier. Vismund determined that the group was still 10' underground when the stairs suddenly terminated at a wooden door, reinforced with iron banding. Pushing and pulling on the door found it firmly closed, but no lock mechanism could be seen. Presumably there was a bar set on the other side. Mina reported that the door was very warm to the touch and that she could hear the crackling of flame mixed with a kind of moaning or wailing coming from the other side of the barrier. Although flickering orange light could be seen spilling into the stairwell from the edges of doorway, there was not a crevice large enough to get a good look into the next room.
The party briefly discussed their options. Should they try to smash open the door or simply knock and hope someone answered? They searched for hidden latches but found none. Vismund examined the door looking for particular points of weakness and even considered dismantling the reinforcing bands, but decided the process would make as much noise as just breaking through the wood with brute force. In the end the group decided to leave the door behind for now and investigate the passage Aletha had mentioned before.
Retracing their steps from the previous day, the party crossed the underground river, passed through the slavers' barracks, and descended a short flight of stairs into the room with the odd altar of piled stones. Further investigations revealed that there was plaster mixed in with the tumbled down stones. On some of the stones there could still be made out portions of carved sigils filled with lead. Apparently those who walled up the old passage had placed a mystical seal of some sort on the finished barrier and then plastered over it. The party was intrigued and not dissuaded from investigating further. Mina was once again sent first into the darkness ahead.
The dark, narrow, and cobweb filled passage opened up into a small and dark octagonal chamber. From all appearances it seemed to be a very sparse chapel of some sort. The wall opposite the passage was dominated by a large painting of a circular portal decorated with skulls and stars. In the corners of the room were four large censers hanging from iron chains. A dark smokey miasma hung in the air. Beneath the faux portal was a simple wooden bowl filled with some vile looking substance. In the center of the chamber lay a desiccated corpse of a man in a flowing red robe and an ashen beard with a look of horror frozen on his face. Mina reported her findings to the rest of the group who cautiously followed her into the chapel.
Vismund approached the painting of the portal and scrutinized it. The arcane symbols all seemed to relate to a dimension known as the shadow-realm, a place on the border of the living and the dead. He found a scratch on the surface of the paint which revealed more lead sigils hidden underneath. Near the bowl on the ground was a discarded iron pin with a fleck of paint still attached to it. The bowl smelled of cooked meat and was sticky with blood around the edges. An offering of burnt flesh must have been involved in some dark ceremony.
Mina meanwhile had been checking the walls for secret doors and had worked her way around the chamber to where Vismund stood. By rapping the plaster walls she discovered that the portal painting concealed a void and deduced that there was a secret passage behind it. There were no signs of hinges or latches that would indicate a door however.
Aletha had been directing her attention to the corpse during this time. On the body she found a pair of decorative silver bracers, a long pipe for smoking, a fighting dagger, and a scroll case containing ritual scrolls for Eye of Alarm, Silence, and Magic Mouth. Other than the ritual scrolls, none of the items showed the distinguishing signs of being magical. She inferred from the way the body lay that the wizened man had been kneeling when he was suddenly struck dead and collapsed.
Jym was investigating the censers. Three of the four had been lit at some point in the past and were out of fuel, but the fourth was fully loaded and had not been lit. Jym realized there was no scent of incense in the air. So if the censers were not alight then what was the cause of the strange atmosphere of this room? Taking a moment to consider he noticed that the "smoke" actually appeared to be made of free floating shadow constantly moving and shifting shape as if by it's own will. This disturbed him and he warned the others of his discovery. He also took the fourth unlit censer, just in case it proved useful or valuable later.
The group debated leaving well enough alone and getting out of the strange shadow mist or pressing onward and finding a way through the wall. Regnor resolved the issue by barreling through the plaster wall leaving it in ruin behind him as his momentum carried him farther down a hidden passage. Once the sigil inscribed wall had been breached the shadow mist in the chapel began to coalesce into a more solid but still shadowy tentacle of great length extending back through the Regnor shaped hole in the wall. The tentacle flailed about and grasped the first thing it came in contact with, which happened to be Vismund who was standing near the portal at the time of it's breach. The tentacle wrapped around the dwarf and with surprising force pulled him off his feet and into the passage as the rest of the party looked on in mounting horror.
Beyond the portal Regnor had charged into a spacious room with what appeared to be a large circular stone well dominating the center of the floor. The well was circumscribed with a mystical pentacle filled with lead and decorated with more strange and arcane symbols. Emanating from the well were many more long and shadowy tentacles, writhing and grasping wildly in the air as if trying to find some purchase or hold to pull itself out. The whole impression was of something very large and enraged trying to squeeze itself through a much smaller opening. The tentacle squeezing Vismund began to slide past Regnor, so he turned his attention to rescuing his companion. Under his strong ministrations the shadowy appendage broke apart, losing its grasp on Vismund, but then reformed itself long enough to lashed out at the fighter. The sapped some of the dragonborn's great strength.
By this time Jym had followed Regnor and Vismund into the adjoining chamber. He called out encouragement to his allies and then moved into the fray, slashing tentacles with his bastard sword. The tentacle horror retaliated with a burst of flailing tentacles which battered everyone in the room. Aletha and Mina moved into range striking distance and hurled bolts of fey magic and daggers at the shadow thing, dealing significant damage. Regnor, Vismund and Jym picked themselves up and redoubled their efforts against the thing. When the horror was severely wounded a dark cloud of shadow filled the room clouding their vision briefly and weakening them further. The tenacious party brought their many powers to bear and beat the shadow horror back. When it was finally defeated the remaining tentacles broke up and faded away to nothingness.
After a quick breather the adventurers investigated the well. Mina noticed a single wisp of almost imperceptible shadow curling up from the depth of the well. The well itself was made of stone, but the stone gave way to thick inky shadows only a few feet from the mouth. Aletha sent experimental bolts of eldritch energy questing into the darkness which struck nothing. Lit torches were dropped into the well only to be quickly swallowed by blackness. Vismund drop a single coin from his collection of cursed rat treasure into the well, but if he made a wish it was not answered. Finally the group decided someone should be lowered into the well to look for treasure and they nominated Mina. Mina reluctantly went along with the plan but expected to be well compensated for the risk.
As she began to be lowered by rope into the well, the wisp of shadow she had seen early curled itself around one of her fingers, resembling a ring. In her mind she felt a brief struggle for dominance, but in its obviously weakened state the shadow thing was not able to exert any control. Instead it formed a symbiotic relationship with the tiefling, granting her greatly increased health when in its favored environment, the shadows, at the expense of some health when in full daylight, but granting no benefit in full darkness. Mina seemed pleased by this arrangement and continued down into the shaft.
The stone of the shaft gradually gave way to thick shadows. The walls of the well became at first spongy, then fluid, and finally insubstantial. At the full length of her rope line she had not reached any sort of bottom but was surrounded by inky shadows in which her eyes began to play tricks on her, giving the impression of movement all around her. In the silence her ears seemed to pick up the faint whispers, sighs, and sobbing of many voices. Being thoroughly freaked out and not finding anything of value here she signaled for her companions to bring her up. They briefly thought about dropping her as a laugh but eventually hauled her back to the surface.
The group decided that this eerie place was best sealed up and left behind. Vismund used some of their group loot to perform rituals on the two plaster paint and lead seals to make them whole again. Once the rituals were complete the party headed back the way they came.
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