DCC DotSK: Act 1-3

And after the sound -- the contraption, or whatever it was -- dead silence returns to the tomb.

"The door ... it doesn't lead anywhere. It's just a wall, I think. Or part of some mechanism. Did you hear those gears grinding?" He shoots a nervous glance back at that orifice above the door and see if his Bitch Queen enhanced sight detects any changes.

There was no change in the sensations Pelagia filled Aldric with... something vile lurked deep within that crawlspace, but nothing felt different after pushing on the doors.

"Nothing's different up there. Let's just backtrack and head down another direction."

While the rest of the crew were investigating the doors, Dufgal felt his curiosity piqued to a peak beyond his threshold of tolerance. He finds handholds and footholds on the wall beside the door. He grips with all his might and shimmies his heft upward. His eyes must gain purchase!

Anora stifles a tut as she shimmies out of the fall-path of the thief. She did require knowledge of what was waiting above, and the thief was willing to provide. She admired him, even as she made way for him to be sent back earthward before long.

Hopefully nothing follows along after him…

"Your claws are easily a match for the Hound’s, Dufgal!" Anora says as encouragement, as she watches the man go!

Without magical water serpents or giant spiders or demonic hounds harrying him, Dufgal has an easy enough time climbing the wall high enough to peek into the narrow, dark space above room entrance. The crawlspace wends into darkness. Only two feet in height and not quite as wide as the door frame it's above, the big thief sees that the cramped space has a rough stone floor, but a ceiling of packed earth and roots, which dangle down. The smell here is powerful -- of damp earth, must, and rot. There is scarcely room to crawl in there, and any pack or heavy armor would need to first be removed.

Before climbing, Dufgal had handed his burning torch to a companion. They hand it back to the man now so he can peer deeper into the shadows. After a distance of just five or ten feet, the explorer sees that the claustrophobic space turns sharply to the right.

---

Dufgal, ever efforting to be helpful, is torn between Aldrich’s "onward, deeper" and "there’s a vile threat lurking ahead." He pauses as the crawlspace turns to the right, considers going back, but curiosity gets the better of him. He peeks around, holding up the torch, trying to discover what lies beyond.

Dufgal squirms up and into the orifice as the others watch, unshouldering his pack and pushing the torch along ahead of him. Arm over arm, he wriggles his way down to the not-to-distant corner, his nostrils twitching and flaring at the smell. The blackness is absolute inside the passage; without his torch, the man would not be able to see his hand in front of his face.

His legs and feet slip from view, then he finds himself at the corner. Leaning around, holding his torch aloft in the two-foot high tunnel as best he can, he sees that the passage continues straight west for what must be thirty feet -- to the edge of his torchlight.

Not even sure if he wants to know what lurks in the interminable darkness, Dufgal strains his eyes to look anyway.

Anora can hear her heart hammering in her chest, as she waits for some report from Dufgal! Words, or a deathly scream would each tell their own story!

"Should we…?" she asks quietly of the others, before choking off the question!

In the flicking gloom inside that cramped, oppressive space, Dufgal finds it a little hard to breathe. Is that because of the smell? It's hard to say. But at the edge of the torchlight, some thirty feet away, the ceiling looks... different. There's a dark spot that stands out from the rest of the dark brown, root-bound earth that comprises the roof.

With each breath being harder to come by, Dufgal begins to shimmy backward. He knows he has no conclusive evidence of what lies ahead, but an instinct deep within him encourages him to protect the image of his usefulness to the others. He begins to concoct his story…

He climbs back down to find Anora’s widened eyes anticipating his update.

The thief stammers through his obvious lie, "I’se … uh, I’se had gone through that dark place on my stomach and, uh… I’se seen a big snake coiled in wait. I’se figgered it didn’t attack on account of this ‘ere torch. I’se seen that it had no treasure and it was no hound neither, so… I’se came back down to tell you’se."
Dufgal could barely manage looking at the well-coiffed lady, as pleasing as that usually was for him. He couldn’t bare it if she knew he was fibbing. He shuffled past her to start back toward the others.
"Should we’se join the others?"

"A snake…" Anora says, wondering on this new information.

"How big, Dufgal? I appreciate it might be hard to tell! An equal to the Hound? Might it outmatch it, should it came to a contest?"

Aldric is watching the whole thing unfold. There's an unease in his stomach, knowing that there's danger that lurks above. When he returns, he breathes a sigh of relief.

"Sometimes a man just has to see a thing for himself," he says to Dufgal as he pats him on the back. "Pelagia's gift gives me all the sense I need of the thing up there, but I understand your need to lay your own eyes on it."

He waits, with curiosity, to hear his answer to Anora's question.

"You saw a giant snake. Just sort of... coiled up there, in the tunnel."

Ty is having none of it. His weird, green eyes narrow upon Dufgal as he stalks back across the chamber, crunching snakeskin as he goes.

"And it didn't attack you because you had a torch. That's a stroke of luck! I have a couple of torches in my pack. If one flame cowed the beast, think what terror two could strike in its cold heart. Or dare I say it, three."

The elf presses his lips together. For a moment it seems he'll say more, but then he shakes his head.

"We haven't much time left to us before sunset. We should have a look at that catacomb we passed, where our Pelagian father sensed no threat to us."

The awkward thief upped his personal temperature and began perspiring in the cold dungeon. He simply waved his arms to indicate a very big, but not unbelievably big snake. He then quickly turned as if the group had decided to leave the room.

Something had set the extranatural hairs of their elf companion on end. Of the fact that Dufgal didn’t exactly answer her question, Anora says nothing.

"Lets!" Anora says, though she privately rebukes the idea of the Pelagian Father being hers.

Aldric let's the others from up, taking the flank behind Ty and Dufgal, before entering the next chamber.