Chapter Eighty-Seven

January 19, 2013

 

9th of Storemonth

 

We open the door on the right, and find 5 naked women chained up inside the room.  The women are silent, even at our intrusion.  They seem resigned to their fate and broken of spirit.  “Are you prisoners, or are you here willingly?” Briggette asks the women.

One of them replies, “Property.”

Stefan enters the room and gives one of the women his cloak.  He asks me to loose them from their chains.  Finn walks the women out of the cave to be looked after by our army.

We move to the next door, and though I identify the trap, I have issues getting through the trap.  A light comes out and twinkles around me, and I begin to phase out, but then stay solidly here.  Letters appear to have flared up above the doorway which in abyssal say, “The blood or sacrifice.”  I cut my palm and rub it on and around the door, and the door rises into the ceiling.  The room behind has a large pentagram carved into the floor and inlaid with silver, with an exterior circle of lettering made of bronze and silver.  The interior circle is silver and the exterior circle is bronze.  The writing appears to focus on travel and going places, but I can’t make out the details.

Silas steps forth and tells us that is a teleportation circle.  He and Briggette argue about where the circle leads and whether it should be destroyed.  However, as there are no other exits from this cave, we decide we must go through.  We all enter the circle as Silas studies the runes, then asks for my hand, reopening the wound I’d already made and dripping my blood onto the circle.  Everything begins to glow red and flare up, then we realize we are in a different room because the door is on a different wall.

I unlock and open the door, and spears shoot up from the floor, harming me greatly.  Briggette heals me up a bit, and I disable the trap.  It opens into a hallway that winds around in several directions, at one point narrowing so much that Briggette can barely fit through in her armor.  The end of the hallway opens into a large cavern.  At first glance, the room looks like a charnel house.  Bones have been pushed into an unceremonious pile.  Off in one corner there is a table and throne constructed of humanoid bones.  I search the desk and find writing paper, a vial of ink and a coatl feather that appears to be the quill.  Silas chants and looks at the paper, taking several sheets and the ink into his pouch, but burning one of the pages immediately.

We move around the room to the carved out exit on the other side.  This goes down for about 200 feet and ends in a door.  It doesn’t appear to be looked or trapped, so Briggette opens it.  It opens into a large, irregularly-shaped room.  Finn and Quinn immediately walk over to the other side of the room and sit down on the floor, mimicking the motions of eating a meal, complete with laughter as they has conversations with others.  They each occasionally lift their arms as if they’re resting on someone’s shoulder, and they seem oblivious to our presence.  Briggette tries to knock some sense into them, but they resist.  We are having trouble pulling them out of their reveries. 

All of a sudden, we hear, “FIEND!!!” coming from behind us.  Sir Connor has turned to fight a naked woman who has appeared in the corner of the room.  He strikes at her, slicing through her ribcage, but she does not fall.  As Connor swings, the woman wraps her arm around his, causing him to lose his sword and slams her other hand into his gorget violently.  I fire, but still she stands.  Briggette swings and slices her head clean off. 

I check out the other door leading out of the room and undo the trap.  Briggette opens the door and is struck by a green beam.  She writhes in pain, but recovers quickly.  We go through the door.

It opens into another room, this one much larger than the last.  This is the most normally shaped room we’ve seen, with two doors on each of two walls and one door on another.  Briggette and Conner step into the room and see one area of the room filled with pillows and linens and people in the midst of an orgy.  Another corner contains several men engaged in bondage acts with women.  Another area is filled with women dominating men in bondage acts.  In yet another area, there is writhing and moaning, but the people are all bathed in blood.  There are screams, grunts and moans of passion emanating from various places in the room.  As they enter, a woman walks toward them, and Connor puts his hand on Briggette’s arm, quietly saying, “Fiend” as he does so.

She looks at them, “You are not announced.  This is very unusual.  Nobody took your clothing?  Someone will be whipped for this.”  Briggette does not waste any time, but instead immediately swings at her.  I fire, and she screams out a name as she falls from my bolt.

Three men run out of the orgy to attack us.  They, of course, are all nude.  One of the men points at Briggette and says, “I will tame you, bend you to my will.”  She laughs maniacally.  Another of the men lifts me over his head and bangs me against his knee.  Boian rushes the one who has me and stabs him repeatedly with his rapier.  Another runs toward us with a flaming scourge, and I hit him twice with my bolts.  Briggette manages to kill one of them and severely wound another.  The man with the flaming scourge brings it down on Brianna’s back, but she seems almost unfazed.  Many of the orgy attendees begin to panic and run through a curtained area on the other side of the room; however, the women who are torturing men have not stopped their perverse ministrations.  Boian steps in just as one of the men swings a giant metal phallus at my head.  The man falls, and Boian pulverizes him. 

One of the female torturers walks up to us wearing gossamer clothing.  I fire on her immediately.   A few more exchanges of blows, and she begins to chant.  She turns into a cloud of mist, disappearing into the ceiling.

I move to the next door, and when I open it, I am pricked by a needle hidden in the lock.