1. The Tomb (action)

[Rex]

Sealgair

Sealgair moves along, squishing her bulk through the tunnel.

[GreyWolfVT]

Grax gives extra room behind in case Sealgair needs it for the smaller space and continues to follow.

[tibbius]

As Elzarune and Wraith bring up the back of the party struggling through the narrow tunnel, Sealgair emerges into darkness at the far end, and rises to her hind paws. Glimmers of light from Elzarune's lantern enable her to see dim humanoid shapes that loom motionless in the gloom. Her hind paws feel shards of hard material crunch to dust beneath her as she steps forward. The floor in general is dusty. The air is still and clear, but carries a faint odor of old death.

Grax feels you are a dozen feet or more below the previous room. The tunnel was not level.

Grax sees the humanoid shapes more clearly than Sealgair can. They are hollow pottery statues, big as people. Some are in various stages of breakage and their shards and dust litter the floor. There are more than twenty of them, about half still intact.

At the edge of his vision, directly ahead, Grax sees a long table set with dishes and cups and cutlery. There are no chairs at the table, it is high enough for a human to eat standing and too high for Grax to comfortably do so.

Something flits or quickly drifts through Grax's field of vision. It gives the impression of smoke and a wistful face. Then it is gone.

[GreyWolfVT]

Grax steps to the side and relights his torch so the others can see better and he can get a better view of the room himself.

[ybn1197]

Elzarune will investigate the contents of the pottery statues, see if it is grain or something else.

[1d6] = 2 [1d6] = 3 [1d6] = 5

[tibbius]

The intact statues are human shaped and adorned with cheap jewelry. The broken ones are hollow and hold human bones. Many of the statues hold serving platters or other household utensils.

By the light of the torch you all can see flitting clouds of smoke with wistful faces forming and vanishing in the clouds. While the clouds seem to move throughout the forty by fifty foot room it also seems that they are beginning to gather toward you. There are about a dozen of them.

You notice a clean cut opening about halfway along the right side of the room. It is about ten feet wide and eight feet high, notably lower than the fifteen foot ceiling of this room.

[Rex]

Sealgair

Sealgair will checkout the opening.

[GreyWolfVT]

Grax moves over to the other opening and checks it out with Sealgair.

[ybn1197]

Elzarune keeps an eye on the smoke patterns and watches to see if they follow Grax and Sealgair.

[tibbius]

The smoke wisps seem to be drawn to Grax's torch, melding with and splitting from the blackish plume that rises from it to soot the ceiling. Elzarune notices the ceiling of this room has numerous spots and streaks of soot.

The moaning in this room seems to come from the faces in the smoke wisps; as the faces form the moaning intensifies, as they fade the moaning diminishes.

There are about a dozen smoke wisps.

The arched opening that Grax and Sealgair inspect leads to a smooth floored and level tunnel that runs straight for about fifteen feet to ...

... a blank wall with writing vanishing at the right edge of the passage and an arched opening appearing at the left edge of the passage. The writing and the opening are moving left to right at a little more than half walking pace.

8 > 11 > 14e; 18/40

[Paladin]

Wraith follows his comrades to the opening, but his attention remains focused on the wisps rather than the investigation of the area. Do they appear to emanate from a particular area or source?

[tibbius]

It's not clear whether the wisps with faces have a particular source, but they're definitely drawn to the flame and smoke from the torch. Their incessant moaning grates at the nerves.

The wall at the end of the fifteen foot long passage continues to crawl to the right. The opening at the left side of the wall is moving in line with the passage. The writing at the right side of the wall is vanishing beyond the edge of the passage.

[Paladin]

Wraith will edge forward, motioning for someone with a light to accompany him, and attempt to read the writing before it is completely obscured.

I rolled horribly.

[tibbius]

The writing is in modern script, scribbled large and hastily with chalk. Some is smudged and most of it obscured beyond the edge of the passage, but you can read:

There are
of passages
the second
exits are
first level
tomb is
This is
opening

[GreyWolfVT]

Grax hears the call from Wraith and comes over with the only lit torch apparently.

[Rex]

Sealgair

Sealgair keeps watch as the others check out the writing.

[tibbius]

The writing slowly grinds out of view. The opening slowly grinds into view. About five feet of it are available now; the passage beyond looks like it's about ten feet across. The floor, ceiling, and walls are all porous stone. It appears to continue just about to the limits of your torch and lantern lights, then open into a large room. Hard to be sure, though - without going forward to investigate.

The smoke-face-creatures continue to flit and swirl toward and away from the torch flame and smoke. Their moaning is becoming familiar background noise. They do not seem interested in entering the passage.

[Rex]

Sealgair

"Time to move on?" She will wait to enter the new passage until everyone is ready.

[GreyWolfVT]

Grax "Yes I think so. Plus I'd like to save the torch as much as I can so let's move I'll put the torch out the hard way again."

[tibbius]

The passage is big enough that you wouldn't need to extinguish the torch - 10 feet wide, 8 feet high, maybe 40 long.