“A trap do you think?” asked Riyan.
Bart glanced back at him and nodded. “Probably,” he replied. Turning back, he moved to the edge of the pit and looked down. Kevik came to stand beside him to provide light with which to see the bottom.
The pit was easily twenty feet deep, and from the shadows below, it looked as if the floor was covered in foot long wicked looking spikes. A dark form lay impaled on three of them.
“Why would they leave the body down there?” asked Kevik incredulously.
Bart shrugged. “Maybe as a lesson to the others to be more careful,” he guessed. Stepping onto the boards spanning the pit, he began making his way across. Behind him, the others followed, each in turn taking in the grisly sight at the bottom. Though they couldn’t make out any distinct details, they had no doubts as to what time must have done to it.
Once past the pit, they followed the passage until light again became noticeable before them. Yet another burning torch was set in a wall sconce at an intersection where a passage crossed theirs moving from the left to the right. Bart was quick to determine that the new passage to their left showed the most signs of traffic. Turning to the left, he entered the new passage. Wherever those who had been stripping this place of valuables had taken their loot from, it was probably near the hiding place of the last key segment. At least, that was Bart’s hope.
The new passage continued on for a short spell before opening up on a room that held four biers. Another torch burned in a sconce to light the way. Whatever grace and dignity the dead that had been interred here had known was gone. Stripped of their armor and other valuables, their bones had been haphazardly tossed to the floor. As they had found back in The Crypt near Quillim, there were chests sitting at the base of each bier. Those had been smashed open and their contents taken.
“This isn’t right,” Riyan said as they passed through the room. “The dead deserve more respect than this.” The others nodded silent agreement. Each was disturbed by the way the dead had been treated.
In the left wall near the far side of the room, was the mouth of another passage. Moving quickly, they left the scene of desecration behind them and entered it. There, they were again aghast as they saw sarcophagi that had once reverently lined the passage in wall biers, now sitting askew. Some were even upended along the sides of the passage. Corpses, treated with the same manner of disregard as those in the previous room, were lying stripped of all accouterments and dignity in and around the sarcophagi.
Riyan paused by one of the corpses that was lying half in and half out of a sarcophagi. He looked closer at it and figured it to be a man. Could he have been a great warrior in life? A wise man? Now nothing was left of his pride and glory. Testament to the disregard held by those who had stripped this place of all things sanctified.
They passed over a score of opened and broken sarcophagi before the passage ended at the shattered remains of a door. Naught was left but a broken remnant, still held to the wall by the top hinge. Where the rest of it had gone was anyone’s guess.
Beyond the door was another burning torch that revealed yet another room of desecrated dead. Once lying upon rows of biers, the naked dead now lay in disheveled piles upon the floor mixed in with the shattered remains of broken, empty chests.
A path had been cut through the corpses lying upon the floor. Following the path, they came to a series of downward leading steps situated in the middle of the room. As Kevik’s light illuminated the steps, they saw that the steps spiraled into the darkness below. Lying on the floor near the top step was another spent torch, still warm to the touch.
Bart stepped on the first step and then turned to the others. “Knowing they’ve been here first will make this a whole lot faster,” he commented.
Riyan nodded in agreement. “No fear of traps,” he said.
Turning his attention back to the steps, Bart resumed his descent of the steps. “That pit with the rotting corpse was one,” he continued. “I’m sure there will be more. As long as we stay on this well traveled path, we should have little to worry about.”
“Except running into others coming up from below,” stated Chyfe as he stepped on the top step and followed.
Continuing to follow the steps, Bart’s voice echoed back, “I wouldn’t worry too much about whoever we may run across down here. This isn’t where they would have guards. Rather out at the camp or on top of the hill.” Glancing back over his shoulder, he indicated for them to remain quiet so as not to alert anyone coming from below of their presence.
Following the steps down, they encountered another torch set in a wall sconce at every revolution. Kevik wondered if the light from his staff was really needed, but felt better having it aglow so kept it going.
The steps spiraled around for three revolutions before coming to an end at the beginning of another passage. When Bart saw the passage opening up, he came to a stop. “Wait here,” he told the others then moved forward to make sure it was clear.
Straining to hear the slightest sound from up ahead, he made his way to the bottom step. Moving silently, he came to the last step and looked through the opening only to find another long, empty passage extending directly away into darkness. A torch’s faint, flickering glow could be seen in the distance.
Bart turned his head back to the others and said, “Come on down. It’s clear.” He waited on the step until Kevik joined him. Then he asked the magic user, “Any word from Soth?”
“Not yet,” he replied.
“Then we have to assume things are going well up there,” Riyan said, joining the discussion.
Bart nodded. Once he made sure their group was still together, he set off down the passage toward the other burning brand. Doorways and other openings branched off to parts unknown as they progressed down the passage. As they came to each, they would peer through before moving on. All they found were more instances of destruction the grave robbers had caused. The dead stripped and lying on the stone floor, sarcophagi defaced, some destroyed completely.
As Riyan passed by one doorway, the light from Kevik’s staff reflected off of something within that caught his eye. Before he could clearly see what it was, Kevik had moved past, taking the light with him. “Wait a minute,” he said. Kevik and the others stopped and glanced back. Riyan motioned for him to return to the doorway. “I think I saw something.”
“What?” asked Bart, walking with Kevik back to where Riyan waited.
When Kevik returned and his light once again shone into the room, they saw what had caught his eye. A mural on the far wall that was remarkably similar to the mosaic they had found on the island by Catha.
The dragon wrapped tower, the lake, the hills, everything was the same. Only it wasn’t a mosaic. Rather, it had been painted on the wall. Parts of it were ruined by what looked to have been knives or other metal instruments having been scraped across its surface. Another sign of the destructive nature of the grave robbers.
“This cinches it!” Riyan exclaimed when he saw the mural. “The last part of the key must be here.” He made to enter the room but was stopped by Bart. “Better let me take the lead,” he said. “Not sure if they spent much time in here. There could still be a hidden trap they haven’t tripped yet.”
“Alright,” Riyan said as he stepped back to allow Bart to enter first. His eyes were fairly dancing with anticipation.
The room was small and there was no evidence it had ever been used to house the dead as had the previous rooms through which they passed. What purpose it once held remained a mystery. The only item of note was the mural.
“Could this be the way?” Kevik asked Riyan.
“I hope so,” Riyan replied. Keeping his eyes on Bart, he waited.
Bart stepped carefully into the room. The glow from Kevik’s staff illuminated the room fairly well. The floor was nondescript, simply plain stone. Other than the wall bearing the mural, there were no other markings of any kind. Moving cautiously, Bart would move one foot forward then pause once his weight was fully upon it. When he didn’t detect any movement beneath his foot such as a shifting plate or a miniscule drop one would feel when a trap was triggered, he would move his next foot forward and continue.
He made his way to the mural and began inspecting it. The detail with which it had been drawn was meticulous, down to the individual granules of sand at the water’s edge. First he ran the tips of his fingers across its surface to check for any irregularities. When that didn’t produce results, he began to gently press on various objects depicted in the mural.
