Day 12 (continued)
Gage heads to the front door of the mansion to investigate the noise and ends up in the kitchen. The food there looks fairly fresh but the light is dim. The oven is cold, yet some of the food is hot.
Temerity looks at the entrance foyer and sees that it is beautiful and grand. A couple of the servants stop and stare at him vacantly. He continues to sing through the door, weaving his zombie donkey story, but there is still no reaction from the servants.
Theren continues his hunt for the cellar steps. At the end of a long hallway, he sees a dado rail that is not covered in dust, whereas all of the others are dusty. Despite examining the area, he cannot see a way through the wall. He calls Runcible telepathically.
Lavender stands at the front door, listening to Temerity singing. She finds the subject matter mildly concerning. The servants within continue to stare blankly. They show no recognition. Lavender notices that Runcible is trying to lead her, so she moves towards the house and Temerity follows her. One of the servants turns and follows her with its eyes. Lavender becomes rooted to the spot after only having entered the mansion by a couple of steps. Temerity divines that she could be moved by force but is unable to move under her own power.
He continues to sing his song about the zombie donkey paladin, who must now rescue a frozen princess with a kiss. He kisses Lavender and she breaks from the paralysis. She feels rage build within her at this audacious liberty taken and the gall of Temerity but something quells it and tells her that it was necessary. She inclines her head frostily and they follow Runcible.
Gg exits the kitchen and enters the dining room across the corridor. He has been here before, eating with the leaders of the city. He remembers that it was strange how much food there was but that not much of it was touched. He moves stealthily into the dining room, which is completely dark. Using darkvision, he sees that there is no-one in the room with him and the table is unset. Nothing is apparent so he leaves and makes his way back to the main entrance, where he bumps into Temerity and Lavender following Runcible. Gage follows them and provides a rearguard.
They meet Theren at the dead end of the corridor and he points out the strange dado rail. Lavender smacks Temerity to make him shut up, causing mild concussion. Gage doesn’t really recognise this place, even though he’s probably been here before. He knocks on the wall but nothing happens. Theren cannot sense anything magical about this place; Lavender suggests to Temerity that he uses Korako. Korako sniffs at the wall and shudders. He tells his father that it smells bad. Lavender runs her fingers across the panelling of the wall and hears a tiny, constant clicking. She calls Gage over to listen to the clicking; he hears a mechanism, metal tapping on metal, like modified clockwork. Lavender tries shoving the wall but it doesn’t move. Gage tries with the same result.
Gage suddenly notices a grandfather clock nearby. Lavender draws her sword and prepares to attack the wall where the ticking is. Instead, Gage asks Lavender to listen to the clock and compare the ticks. Gage investigates the clock, but he can’t detect what’s going on. Temerity decides to use a direct approach and inserts his rapier into the mechanism to jiggle the lock. Theren listens and can hear that the clock’s ticks match the lock’s. Theren moves the hands to 12 o’clock midnight, but nothing happens. He tries moving the hands to the witching hour and now the door clicks open.
As the massive stone door opens, Temerity’s sword becomes mangled. Try as he might, Temerity cannot get it out. Lavender sees Temerity struggle with his sword and yanks it out intact but bent. Temerity accepts the sword gracefully.
Theren gestures to Gage to scout ahead down the stone steps, which go winding and descending into the darkness. Gage, Temerity, Lavender and Theren proceed downwards in single file. Temerity seems oblivious to anything going on. Gage sees that the torch light is slowly changing in intensity. It is gradually becoming less natural, almost colder. Theren sees that the shadows are threatening the party, almost menacing them, so he whispers a warning to them about the shadows.
Temerity lights up Lavender’s sword to dispel some of the shadows and she raises her sword aloft. They see that the walls are made of stone – it is a rough-hewn basalt passageway. Theren hears a screech as the shadows pull back. They fight to get to the party but cannot enter the sphere of light created by Lavender’s glowing sword. The party walk for several minutes. All around them is the scent of decaying flesh invading their nostrils. There is no natural light at all in these depths.
The passageway begins to widen and the ground begins to flatten. They sense that their destination is close. Lavender is almost overwhelmed by a sense of undeath. She warns them all that there are undead down here. She now goes first with her lighted sword.
There is now a chamber beyond the end of the passageway in which Theren senses lots of necromantic magic. Lavender continues onwards; Gage notches an arrow to his bow in anticipation of danger.
There is a desk in the chamber to the side of what appears to be a normal wooden door. At the desk is a figure wearing tattered robes. It has half a face; the other half is a skull with a glowing green dot in the eye socket. Temerity addresses the figure and laments that they are lost, asking the way to the nearest pet shop. This confuses the figure. Temerity insists that they are lost but the figure is not convinced. Lavender shoves Temerity to one side and demands to be taken to Orris Locke. The figure replies reverently that Orris is not taking visitors, so Lavender asks how to gain an audience. He says that they must come back in 3 days.
Lavender asks the figure if Orris raised him. It replies that he was not fortunate enough to be raised by Orris’s hand. She asks if Orris is here in Arcadia. Temerity uses the opportunity to read its mind. The surface thoughts revolve around how to gain an audience with Orris, but Temerity senses that there is something that it is guarding. Lavender leans forwards onto the desk, displaying the ring on her hand as she does, and stares him down, telling him that he would not do well do deny her. The zombie meets her glare and insists that it cannot disobey orders. Temerity reads its mind and sees that by breaking the rules, the zombie would suffer an eternity of torment. Lavender is getting angry and for an instant, she resembles Orris. The zombie is taken aback by this sudden link between its interrogator and its master. It bows to her and sends a message cantrip. A few minutes later, he asks them to come through.
Through the door is another cavern, filled with dark activities. It is like the antithesis of the cavern of the Displaced. The party sticks out and everyone pauses to watch them as they progress through the cavern. Theren looks up at them as he passes and sees different people and animals staring. He doesn’t like the attention and feels very uncomfortable. Conversely, Temerity basks in the attention. He taunts a goblin and it spits at him. A bugbear leads them through to a large, makeshift building at the end of the cavern. Inside is a small seating area where they are made to wait but they quickly lose track of time. After a significant amount of time, a person steps out of the door. It is a person with a familiar face…