Once more:
Party:
The Plumage of Spring (Sorcerer 1)
The Meek Sun (Thief 1)
The Eyes of True Men (Fighting-man 1)
Slough (Halfling 1) [Retainer]
The Last Walker (Fighting-man 1) [Retainer]
They ignored the first level vaults and descended deeper. In torchlit darkness they braved a labyrinth of dank corridors, Meek Sun marking their path with charcoal sigils of Robber Code. They came to a north-south intersection, found the south door betrayed an unspeakable stench of blood and rotting meat, and lacking a way to spike it shut crept away north.
North took them past a long hallway lined with statue-bearing alcoves and into a huge room; vaulted, pillars holding up a ceiling full of shadow and walls covered in murals. But their hackles were up, for an oily tinge had been detected by the more sensitive party members, and they were not surprised when lights played over the slick silhouettes that leaped forward with low, gurgling calls.
The pair of fighting-men put up a doughty defense and the scouting pair struck true with bow and javelin. The wall of mutants broke as their number dwindled, and they groaned and pulled faces and struggled to dart into torchlight and recover the dead or take revenge. Slough was consulted on how to deal with his fellow mutants but saw in his wisdom that they were hateful, full of bloodlust, and bore a grudge for the violence done. And he scrambled back behind the strong backs of the fighting pair.
The Eyes raised his voice and demanded of the mutants that they hand over their wealth for the bodies. The audacity of this stunned the reeking horde, who murmured and scuttled in the dark.
Again the demand was called out for the adventurers tired of wholesale slaughter and desired cash and would call upon the white-haired mutants from before to bolster their numbers. For all the talk there was not much action, the two groups lingered on each other’s margins, equally matched.
Walker crept into the mind of a likely-looking mutant and learned that band quartered in a nearby hidden tunnel and acted as toll-takers, robbers, and frequently killers of other mutant bands who came up from the lower levels.
More, the shaggy white-haired mutants had paid a toll on their descent—a toll in the bodies of the Chanters, a toll in food.
Even more, the broken chest from the last expedition had been where the tolls had been kept. The robbers had long been robbed.
He told of this in a whisper, and the party set up a retreat with raised blades. Once back at the crossroads there was talk of how to walk around that band without loss, for none would pay in food or coin. They surveyed their options and headed south and east along the untraveled path. Listening at a door revealed the whispers of living beings, and they rushed upon a pair of shaggy mutants. At weapon-point parlay was had, and the trick of a southern room revealed: spears fell from the ceiling shadows and impaled at least one of the monster’s comrades. The surviving pair had been arguing whether to descend or keep at their scavenging.
They pressed on a way to pass those gatekeepers to the west, and learned through mind-reading of a back way in those hand-carved tunnels shrouded in mushrooms where the shaggy mutants made a home. But such large a band as the party would trigger the falling spears, and would best pay the toll.
So the party bid the shaggy ones to pass and headed to the trap room, finding smears of gore and impaled remnants. With ten-foot pole and thrown grappling hook these corpses were dragged away from danger and into the arms of the party. The spears were also gathered in hand.
Through the blood and dark the party dumped those corpses at the feet of the stinking mutants, calling it payment in food. It was so, and the party descended once more, counting torches and finding their light dwindling.
Down they went into deeper halls and stranger places, and they found alcoves on every wall with a profusion of protean statues all in porphyry. The Plumage of Spring put her sorcerous knowledge to the test but knew not what those monsters were meant to be. Primordial beings? Spawn immortalized? On the suggestion Meek Sun ceased trying to take one from its dais.
And their guttering torchlight mixed with an unearthly light at its borders as a trio of strangers rushed them and demanded what intruders they were in those halls. Plumage of Spring asked what place was this, teeming with mutants and yet only so recently uncovered, and they who could speak clearly instead of the guttural shrieks of dungeon-dwellers?
This was not cheerful talk and the demand was made again, who were the party and why they brought fire. The strangers were slight Green Men and Women, eyes red-rimmed like hot wires, arrayed with metal weapons and strange glowing Jale rods that cast everything in unearthly pallor. Slough spoke of their expedition for money, and one stranger did not speak but unrolled a papyrus and chanted as a whisper. Not a second later he yelled of a secret treachery, to destroy the Old Ones and the cruelty that lurked in all their hearts!
A mutual mind-reading by Last Walker told of those stranger’s allegiance to a temple of bubbling flesh and malodorous incenses deep below, and the party leapt to violence! Both sides struck lightly, and Plumage of Spring called upon a glowing hexagon with fangs on every face spitting virulent toxin who acquiesced to service. But another of the strangers unrolled his own papyrus and chanted soporific tones into the heads of the whole party!
The last thing they saw were the strangers taking knife-edge to Plumage of Spring’s servitor horror which flailed in its death-throes before passing into cosmic dust.
Book of The Dead
Boss - Abandoned in a temple
The Lurking Minion - Sacrificed for power
The Quiet Breath - Struck down by a ghoul
Rattlebones - Killed by a vengeful acolyte
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