Echoes in the Darkness [IC]

Here's what you've learned about this big, big, dark room.

It has a ceiling you can't see.

It has a balcony around the edge of the room about 12 feet up. The balcony has a railing of narrow stone pillars.

There are stairs up to the balcony. You're standing at the foot of the stairs.

It's laid out with a pointy end, where you entered behind the stairs, and then it gets wider.

About two bowshots away from the pointy end there is a platform that is about shoulder high, and Rezin thinks there are people sitting verry still in the dark up on that platform. Also at that end of the room on the balcony, is a cockatrice, which might be dead. Or really angry. Or frightened.

The moment passes. The cockatrice makes a clucking noise, far away at the other end of the balcony.

What do you do?

The light of lantern and torch falls dimly on the seated figures. There are six of them. Do they move, or respond in any way to the new light that you bring?

No. They remain where they sit, silently and motionless, on chairs like thrones, facing out into the vast dark room.

What do you do?

Rijo finds the steps up to the shoulder high platform, and ascends them. He walks toward the seated figures.

They don't move. They don't speak. Still as stone.

Six dwarfs clad in noble regalia, each holding a finely crafted axe across his or her lap.

Rezin's voice rings out and echoes, louder than intended in the still dark space. The lamp light casts its glow upon the silent figures, which respond to the question with motion.

Their movement sounds like cracking stone and sliding stones as the six figures swiftly stand. The axes from their laps now in their hands.

Then they ... lock into place, in stasis, solid and still. Poised, as if they have forgotten their next move.