DCC DotSK: Act 1-3

When the others lend their strength, a few grunts and grimaces are required to roll the heavy stone out of the way. Careful to not roll it too far or let it tumble down into the water, the adventurers leave the thing in a state such that the tomb can again be resealed. Inside? A passage, dark as Dufgal's bowels, and smelling as bad. The day's diminishing sunlight reveals that stone slabs line the walls and low ceiling... and that tight spiral designs are etched on the undersides of the roof stones, much like those on the outside door.

The air inside is still and rank and cool; puddles of water have pooled on the hard-packed earthen floor. The tunnel appears to continue for twenty or thirty feet at least, fading into the gloom.

Dufgal, seeing how dark the inside of the tomb is, takes out his fire starter kit and a torch. Once the sparks hit the tinder, the flame takes quickly and the tomb is illuminated. He steps in and looks down the tunnel. He feels a chill. He makes room for the next one through before moving inward any farther.

Anora catches Aldric’s look, and barbs:

"Given how fickle your mistress is, I have no doubt but that the serpent would have taken you first!"

The sea bitch was a good deal less loyal towards Aldric than Aldric was towards she!

Tyravasiel peers down the darkened passage, trying to make out any important details with his superior elf eyes. He catches a glimpse of some sort of chamber at the end of the corridor, but the glare from Dufgal's torch quickly puts paid to any further study. The beggar casts an annoyed look at his fellow-- visible only as a thinning of the lips beneath his blindfold-- but does not comment.

Instead, he unwinds the leather wrapping from his 'cane' to reveal that it is, in fact, a javelin. Its shank is fashioned of some bright, strange metal that is neither steel, nor silver, nor electrum, but shows aspects of all these alloys. Ty stuffs the long strip of leather into his pack, then shifts his grip on the javelin's shaft, holding it now like a weapon and not the blind man's crutch it has seemed to be.

"The corridor ends at a chamber, not far away," the elf declares. He steps up beside Dufgal, ready to proceed in the first rank.

The man from Garion’s Folly perceived not the annoyance from Ty, but the shift in demeanor as the elf transformed his mere walking stick into a weapon of war. Dufgal felt a twinge of twin feelings; fear and admiration. And then an embarrassment came over him as he realized that the elf’s blindfold was more than fabric. This descendant of the fae was shrouded in mystique. The thief gave himself permission to stare as if he had forgotten the elf could actually see. The temptation to strike up light conversation was mounting yet the context interrupted his thinking. The thief shook it off and began to step forward.

Most of them ducking slightly to avoid the low ceiling of the stone-lined passage, the four adventurers begin their delve, with Dufgal leading the way with his torch. Beside him, Ty is armed with a slim, dangerous-looking javelin that he has otherwise kept hidden this entire time. Anora and Aldric bring up the rear as they quietly and carefully move forward, and after forty feet of so of traversing the dank, damp passage, the corridor opens to a wider, but still low-ceilinged chamber. The stone slab floor slopes down steeply from all four walls, falling away into a dark pit in the center of the chamber.

The air is cool, and the torchlight reveals both that the walls glimmer with condensation, and that the sloping floor in the center of the roughly 30' x 30' chamber is slick with green and brown slime. Another stone-lined corridor continues on to the north past this chamber; shadows and Ty's enhanced sight suggest there might be stairs forking left and right off that passage.

Dufgal wonders if they should all go single file or would the elf peel off and go right if he went left. He started left, inching forward by shuffling his feet and feeling the wall with his free hand. In his right hand, he extended the torch to give him the best view of the way ahead.

As she’s about to slip beneath the doorway, Anora looks back up at the two men who had guided them here. How telling that they didn’t feel the need to participate in their own salvation…

She pulls her sword then, thinking it best to be armed similar to her fellows and slips beneath the doorway!

"Dufgal, you have the surest foot! We should avoid the center!" Anora says from her place at the rear! Pelagia knows that’s waiting in the muck below!

As Dufgal goes left, Ty works his way slowly around the right side of the chamber. He keeps his back to the wall, and his javelin held low in one hand before him. If he starts to slide, he'll jab the point against the floor in order to brace himself.

With only one torch lighting the way, shadows stretch and shift as the quartet moves carefully, deeper into the tomb.

Tyravasiel-Llir wonders about the Hound's ability to lair in the tomb, and to step around this sloping floor. Certainly, the monster could clear its span in a single leap... but the thought has Ty examining the floor in the passage leading to the entrance they just came in. There are tracks -- many of them. Huge, misshapen paw-prints... and as Ty looks back at the entrance, he sees on the back-side of the stone portal not just the same strange spiral patterns they have seen elsewhere but also deep scratches, like the beast was furiously trying to claw its way out...

Anora shimmies in behind the rest, carefully crossing the dark, flickering room! She follows the light, as so follows in the steps of Dufgal and goes left!

She ignores the cleric, and his odd relationship with Pelagia! She would have the advantage at a later time… she hoped!

Edging around the pit, Ty looks back the way they've come.

"A large animal came through here," he observes. "There are tracks."

The elf pushes his blindfold up onto his forehead, revealing pure green eyes that glitter like uncut emeralds by the frail light of Dufgal's torch. He narrows them, peers back into the gloom of the corridor they've traversed.

"Look there, on the door stone," Ty murmurs, waving a hand at shadows. "Scratches, as if something were trying to get out."

As nothing of consequence happens as he carefully crosses the room’s edges, Dufgal makes it to the opposite opening. He inches forward to glimpse the first stair on the right. He stops, he looks, he listens.

As Ty rejoins Dufgal, the pair lead the way forward as the whole group it careful to step around the sloping, hungry-seeming floor. The thief's torch reveals that the main corridor, still ten feet wide, continues north at least to the edge of the torchlight.

The light reveals more and more of the musty tomb, and the group sees the stairs on their immediate right descend into darkness before jogging and continuing to the south. Ahead, on the left are another set of steps -- but they look less steep than the set Dufgal and Ty linger near. Beyond that, the group spots another narrow passage splitting off the east...

Delegating once again, Anora calls out:

"Tyravasiel, you have the keenest eyes. Which way would you have us go? I can see scarcely any further than the light in my face!"

The wizardess can feel her cheeks reddening from being so close to the intense heat!

Dufgal, not wholly understanding the gift of sight bestowed upon the elves, lifts his torch even higher to "help" Ty see what Anora is requesting.