Chapter 1: The Knaves Visit the Spudfields

Clomm follows behind Endrei along the south side of the musty, dank room, slipping quickly past the infested rug and stepping over it to pass the big man and get close to the tall, terrible statue that stands with its back against the western wall. With Endrei still swatting at the biting insects that are swarming around his legs and Wax positioned at the door, Audree stoops and uses her torch to try and set fire to the floor covering.

The fabric flares and catches quickly, and the woman sees with perhaps some satisfaction that dozens, maybe hundreds of the little vermin are crisped and killed almost instantly. Others are scrambling, leaping in all directions, but the heat from Watters's torch is definitely a ward against them.

Standing before the statue as dark, reeking and oily smoke starts filling the air and stinging his eyes, Clomm, candle in hand, feels transfixed by the three eyes set into that green-black, horned head, and the two mouths seem to sneer and mock him. The staff, though, that the statue almost seems to be daring him to take, is beautifully if disturbingly crafted. The metal shaft is pitch black in color, and topped by... by what looks like an ugly, crying infant's misshapen head. It's made of that same strange, dark metal, and the eye sockets are conspicuously vacant, hollows inside the thing's small skull.

As flames flicker and the rug smolders, Endrei exits the room down the eastern passage and finds himself back in the chamber the group first entered. The air is clearer here and the room is lit by strange, green-burning candles that cast an eerie light, but the tall man can still smell the stench coming off the burning fabric. If it burns for long, the air here will be poisoned too. The brothers in the painting glower at him and it's hard to not wonder if it is in fact the burning village that smells so awful...

Standing before the looming statue, curiosity itching his fingertips, Clomm does not believe that any mechanism lurks near the staff, waiting to snip off a finger or inject a dark poison...

Stamping, Watters attempts to put out the fire she started.

Much is happening beneath the ground at the Spudfield farm.

Endrei utters his excuses and explanations towards the grim painting in the room where his and his fellows entered. Elius Wax carefully examines the door in the chamber with the smoldering rug and the unnerving statue, listening, looking for signs of passage or traps. Audree is comically stamping and swatting at the rug, and for her troubles she extinguishes the flames that she herself had lit. Smoke still wisps from the now ruined mat, but not so much as to do more than sting eyes and lungs a bit.

It is Clomm, though, who is rewarded for his bravery. The black metal staff is cold in his hands, and heavy as he tries to pull it free. The unmistakable sound of iron on stone resounds -- even Endrei hears it -- but the whole length of the thing comes free from the statue's grasp rather easily, like it was meant to be removed.

His tongue still out, the man's eyes flick to the trio of the same that adorn the terrible statue's face, but they do not blink, they do not look back at him. The figure does not stride forward to reclaim the weapon, or plunge a hand into Clomm's chest to squeeze the life from his rapidly beating heart. He simply... has it: a rod with a chilling effigy of a crying infant's head atop it, crafted from the same dark metal as the rest of the thing. It is solid and weighty and should be unwieldy, but something about the staff feels right in Clomm's sweaty hands...

When nerves are steeled and quiet nods are given, Elius Wax tries the ancient-looking door... and finding it closed tightly, yanks with some fervor to try and open it. It does not budge, but when aid is offered from one of his fellows, the portal becomes unstuck, pulling slowly into the room with the statue. Old hinges whisper faint shrieks, high-pitched and barely audible, but then Audree is there, lighting the way forward.

The well-constructed passage strikes off straight north for fifty feet or more, but small, open rooms are plainly visible on the right and left. A low, intricately carved stone altar occupies what barely passes for a room on the right hand side; seven of the strange purple candles now burning green in the entry room are present on it. To the left, the chamber is deeper and contains a stout-looking chest of black, lacquered wood. An iron clasp holds it shut, but no lock is evident. Northward, at the end of the passage, it looks likely that the tunnel turns to the right and continues. At that far end of the hallway, what look like three burial alcoves are visible in the walls, up off the ground. It is impossible to tell from a distance whether the alcoves contain remains.

As the quartet ponders their next move, Watter's torch -- their sole source of light, flickers and wavers. Endrei's legs and feet itch. Wax twitches his nose towards the burial chambers. Clomm notes that the iron staff in his hands almost seems pulled by some unknown force from time to time. When he sets it butt-first on the ground, the thing rotates slowly so that the head of the staff -- the eyeless, wailing child, gazes down at the end of the hall, towards the alcoves.