Chapter 2: The Tomb of Moving Stones

You rise early the next morning and make your way to the entrance you were told about. Pushing aside some bushes you find the tunnel leading into the hill. Ewan takes the first ten steps and lets his dark vision adjust to the blackness further away from the opening. Kicsi pauses but follows closely behind the fighter. After a good sixty feet of walking the passage opens up into an irregularly shaped cavern with a floor of smooth bedrock. Damp dirt and stone with tree roots protruding here an there, make up the walls. In the center of the room is a pile of dirt almost eight feet tall and, gazing upwards, you see a roughly ten foot wide opening in the ceiling a good thirty feet above you. Sun light trickles in through the thick growth of trees giving dim light throughout. To the east is a stone door with a simple pull ring in the center. Next to the door are a couple of well-used cloaks and a water skin on the floor.

OOC: Map has been updated.

The earth pile is still rather damp leading Kicsi to guess that it has been falling from the hole up above. She looks up at the hole and a rather large pile of it crashes into her face settling the point with a high degree of certainty!

The door swings open almost completely silently. Beyond, a tunnel of dressed stone slopes downward slightly for another sixty feet or so before Ewan can just make out another set of doors similar to the ones he just opened.

The cloaks are simple rough spun cotton, dark grey in color. They appear to have been washed recently.

The second set of doors also swing open more or less silently into a three way junction. A path leads south, one north, and the last continues on east. Eastward Ewan can see that the hallway is very well kept. Startled at first, he notices attentively standing dwarves--statues--standing on guard on the sides of the passage facing one another every 10 feet, six in total.

Kicsi slowly makes her way to the first set of statues in the hallway. The stern looking dwarves in chain mail and carrying battle axes look at each other with fierce determination across the tunnel. The carvings stand out form the passage walls, and they have gaps around them, so they could possibly be doors but the monk doesn't readily see any mechanism that would open them. The passage continues on another 70 feet or so ending in another door, also stone with an iron pull on it. It stands slightly ajar with darkness beyond. About five feet up, Kicsi can just make out a two inch wide, foot-long horizontal slit.

OOC:Kicsi is at G7 on the map.

Ewan looks quietly at the slit as seconds pass into minutes. He blinks hard as their appears to be a sudden change in darkness, like a passing shadow appears in the slit. He strains his eyes for a minute longer but sees nothing else. He's not even sure if he saw anything to begin with. The dim light in this hallway certainly can play tricks with ones vision.

Staring again towards the door, none of you see anything at all.

Kicsi creeps slowly through the passage. Half way to the door she freezes in her steps as a form crosses in front of the slit in the door. She can just make out two eyes peering down the hallway towards her. Holding her breath, she watches the eyes stare for what must have been minutes. Just before moving away from the door the eyes looked just ever so slightly upward. The monk slowly tilted her head up towards the ceiling. Twenty feet up from where she crouched were seven metal cages, the bottoms missing, suspended on chains.

No wires, loose stones, or levers can be seen anywhere in the vicinity. The eyes return to the door slit and stare out into the corridor yet again. Luckily, Kicsi is well hidden.

The monk slinks her way down the passage way only to find that the final third of the path is quite well lit from torches on each side of the corridor. Walking further would make her a sitting duck should the eyes return to the door.

Inching slowly like some sort of worm, Kicsi makes her way down the corridor eventually reaching the door. She leans up against it, hidden from the view of anyone (or thing) that may be looking out the slit.

As Ewan crouches down in front of the door next to Kicsi, a voice bellows through from the other side of the door. "Hey! Who turned out the lights?!" The creature on the other side of the door can be heard fumbling with something metallic. There is a screeching sound as the cages in the corridor come crashing down to the floor. Ewan squishes himself up against the door just in time to prevent his leg from being smashed by the traps from above.

A minute passes and the door opens inward, Kicsi and Ewan almost falling into the continuation of the passage. The creature, a freakishly large man of about 30 years stands mouth ajar looking at the darkness still surrounding the space in front of him.

OOC: You have gained the element of surprise. One free action before INIT comes into play.

As the darkness disappears Kicsi looks directly into the hard, stern eyes of a man dressed in a red robe. His unshaven face is twisted into an expression of confused anger as he sees the diminutive monk. He raises his dagger and he sees Kicsi roll to his left.

Questions and negotiations, however, are difficult to partake in when one's sword slides effortlessly between the ribs and pierces the heart. The man looks down with a blank stare of disbelief and then collapses in a heap at Ewan's feet. He tries to mumble a curse but loses all ability mere seconds after falling to the ground.

Kicsi deftly rifles through the robed man's pockets finding only a handful of silver and copper coins. Flipping him over onto his back though reveals a braided leather choker around the man's neck. A silver dragon is woven into the leather. Though not sure, Kicsi seems to have some sort of feeling about the dragon symbol. Tiamat? she thinks to herself.

Examining it closely, Ewan still doesn't find anything special coming to mind regarding to the symbol.

Kicsi is made speechless upon passing through the doorway into the next room. Room doesn't even really apply here as this space is one of the largest man-made structures she has ever seen. The ceilings are easily one hundred feet tall, and the room stretches in easily that many feet both to the east and north and south. The monk looks back behind herself to confirm the downward slant of the passage to allow such a space in the earth. Scattered throughout the cavern are large square stones standing anywhere from seven to twenty feet tall. Sconces, placed every ten feet along the perimeter as well as on most of the stones in the center, cast a warm inviting glow of light that somehow still feels uncomfortable despite the minimal amount of shadows present. Wind whistles through the cavern from what you think are air holes to the surface.

OOC: updated map.

After a few minutes of searching you both come to the conclusion that the place is quite empty but just as you were about to turn and walk back you hear the scraping of metal against stone in the southeastern corner of the room. You quickly shift your positions to peer in the direction of the sound and gaze to see a man dressed in black robes hiding behind one of the columns. His head is down and he appears to believe you have not seen him.

The image of the wolf appears in front of the robed man. He looks up and lets out a shriek and turns to run towards the entrance to the room from which you just came moments ago.

Ewan is quickly outpaced by the robbed man running from him but somehow luck is on his side; the robbed figure, panicked by Ewan's chase, bumps into one of the columns giving the Tiefling the second he needs to catch up. He leaps at the man and with a powerful bearhug, muscles him to the ground.