Story I: The Rift

Devanis tries to make sense of everything he's seeing.

Pyrrah creeps in as well, giving the floating lighta wide berth. She makes her way down the slope and hugs the edge of the depression as she goes. The corpses were near the light, and she did not want to get any closer to it than they did. She's mostly concerned with the two corpses: what killed them, and why were the only two bodies in the room directly next to the orb? It didn't take much extension of the mind to see the possible connections. She crouches down and holds her torch near to each of the corpses in turn, trying to observe anything about the bodies that she could.

Devanis thinks out loud, "These bodies are out of place. They should not be where they are. They should be in soil, or else the Exhumedvwill not reach them. This light...might it be a stranded soul? But if so, why one soul when there are two corpses?"

Pyrrah freezes as the light changes and grows dark, fear gripping her. She waits, seeing if it will do anything else. If not, she'll creep forward, keeping as far away as possible but still progressing. If she can't make it to the corpses without triggering any response in the orb, she'll freeze before she triggers a large response. If she makes it, then she'll investigate.

As planned, Ameera slips to the right, against the wall in line with the statue of the noble and the light source. She whispers to Devanis. How long ago did this happen? Those bodies look like they've been here a while. As the light fades and darkness grows, Ameeras heart sinks and she thinks so soon? we just got down here.

Erran immediately stops in his tracks as the floating beacon begins to shift into tendril darkness, letting his vision readjust to the lack of light. He calls sarcastically over his shoulder, keeping line of sight on the black mass,

"I wager it would be in poor judgement to touch this... thing?"

Of clan Escolant, it probably wouldn't be too poor a thought to have something to protect yourself with, Baric calls wryly noticing nothing in the Elf's hands, but I assume you have that covered.

Baric advances into the slope, adjusting his dueling stance accordingly and moves along the wall, looking between the statues and the light.

I think that that's a sort of a friend, and he's merely upset that the place collapsed while he was peacefully resting. I think that helping him rest would merely be a helpful and supportive thing that we can do for the dead.

"Cha'sid di wer hewa."

A white, spectral hand escapes from Erran's fingertips as he invokes the tongue of the dragons, directing it towards the source of darkness, attempting to see if he can in any way manipulate it at a distance.

Responding to Ameera's question, Devanis whispers back, "I can't tell from this far away - I'd have to examine them. But that doesn't seem like a very good idea right now." He backs towards the statues, never taking his eyes off the glowing, now darkening ball.

These statues appear to be gods of death and The Wise One to guide them, so this is definitely a crypt. Baric says using his foot to sift through some of the rubble to confirm his suspicions, noting body parts and rubble. He frequently glances up at the apparition and the slowly moving magic hand moving toward it.

Pyrrah jumps and skitters backwards as the orb moves closer. "Hey, watch it!" Once the orb has stopped, so too has Pyrrah. "The question still remains, even if this is a crypt of some sort, why are these bodies here? They're naked, for starters. So they didnt just fall down the Rift and get lost, unless this town has some bizarre customs that I'm unfamiliar with." She gestures at the body of the woman. "A broken arm too. Either that's from getting pushed over the edge, falling over, or something bad happened to her in her final moments. AND out of this entire room, they're clustered here, around this strange energy. Perhaps we should simply learn from their mistakes and move on without further interference?"

"Yes, I believe that would be best. I am troubled by this but there seems little that can be done." Devanis intones a short prayer for the dead, and moves past the corpses to look beyond the bend.

Ameera steps a bit closer to the darkness, hands still raised. She points to the statue of the noble.

Seems to me, or perhaps I am being told, that these two were buried here before that crevasse opened up. The shift kicked them from their graves. Ameera seems to try to clear her head. But something else happened, something horrible attacked their bodies afterwards..... I think you may be right Baric, perhaps helping them rest is the safest thing to do. Then she looks to Devanis and whispers excitedly What did you say, about to two bodies but one soul? The beast! The beast that grabbed these bodies seemed to eat some force from the man, but didn't from the woman! Could it be her? Are their tombs nearby? Maybe we don't want this,... Ameera gestures toward the orb, ...her, left like this at our backs.