Callie was kind enough to lend me her armour, considering the fact that it actually gets merged into her when she changes shape. I love her leopard form, it's fantastic to see that she's finally getting a few hits in. I never thought I'd see a silvery leopard with antlers, but I think it works. I gave her my poor old sack to wear in exchange.
We walked back to the exit of the cavern we fell down. It looked like we were on a cliff's edge, with the path going upwards on the right side, and downwards on the left. Peering down the side, I could see another platform underneath us, and the same when I looked above.
The Worgs and evil both went downwards, and since the Worgs seemed to know where they were going, it was down we went. A bit of rearranging with the way we walked, I was still taking point. We figured that if I stayed just inside of Harland's range for his darkvision, with my ability to see further than most of our team and the Ring of Darkhidden, I can be invisible to most things trying to approach us unseen.
So it was me, Torwyn, Callie, Dominus and Harland at the back.
Harland and Dominus were discussing the architecture of the place as we walked. They noted that the path was most likely carved with magic, although they weren't quite sure by whom and for what purpose.
Perhaps about 5-10 minutes into our walk, we found some buildings. After more discussion from the two, they concluded that the buildings were Elven. True Elven in nature. And are quite old. Elven styles have changed a bit over the years, and based on these buildings they determined that it would have been built perhaps at the beginning of or even a little before the Age of Dragons. It seemed to have been in use until the past few decades or centuries. There were nothing important in the buildings, save some very old evidence of a fight. We decided to move on.
They spoke with each other as they walked. From what I could gather based on their conversation, Harland seems to know a surprising about about bats.
We found some evidence of another, more recent fight further along. There was some blood, and bits of Worg fur on the ground. No corpses, though. We couldn't identify the blood, although Callie wanted to lick it to be sure.
Soon, we came across what looked to be an elevator. The wood smelled weird. Apparently it was something called “Cavewood” which is actually a type of mushroom. We spent a little while discussing whether it would be edible or not. I think we were all starting to get a bit peckish. It seemed to be in working order, except the mechanism to raise and lower it wasn't at the top of the elevator. It was also definitely a more recent build compared to the buildings we saw back up the path.
Upon closer inspection, Callie noticed small metal bells attached to the ropes. She tried to ping one, but it didn't make any noise. I managed to take one down without breaking it, and we looked it over. According to Dominus it was made from a type of metal found in Ermor, one usually used to repel small vermin. I decided to silence the bell and keep it for later. Just in case.
About a further 30 minutes of walking, we found what appeared to be a bridge with a gatehouse. It seemed to have collapsed about 50 feet out. I couldn't see the other side of it from where we were. The walls on either side of the building were high to prevent people from climbing up, and a portcullis blocked our path onto the bridge. There was another building to the left which seemed to be open. We decided to go in.
Just before we entered, we felt the ground tremble. It lasted for about 30 seconds. We heard nothing more, so we proceeded.
There was a strange cage inside, the only way through a grate that blocked the whole room. There were fancy lights hanging around the cage. Only one of us could go through at a time and after some discussion, Harland went first. He didn't die. We all went through it, after seeing that Harland was fine. On the other side of the grate we found a room that oversaw the cage we'd just been through. There were five balls the same colour as the ones hanging over the cage and three glowing runes. I wasn't too sure what the heck was going on but some pretty cool stuff happened when they touched the runes.
According to Harland and Dominus, this was “Customs.” Whatever that is. Maybe it's a gnome thing.
We explored the building further. We found the barracks, mess hall, storeroom and what appeared to be the officer's quarters. All systematically emptied. One wonders why. The officer left a couple of papers behind though. Some form of request for more supplies, and what Harland deciphered to be an orientation sheet. He said this confirmed that this was “customs”. He then explained that they checked to see what things people had on them to see if it was safe to let them through, and the runes would ah, sort out the ones who weren't.
When we stepped out onto the bridge, Torwyn got scared. So scared she wouldn't move in either direction. There was a faint scent of blood in the air, enough just to make the fur at the back of my neck prickle. And then we saw them. The handprints. At the bottom of the portculis were two very defined handprints, as if something had grabbed it and lifted it up. I picked up Torwyn and we hightailed it out of there.
There... may be a reason for the bridge being collapsed. A reason Ulysses might be familiar with. But no making assumptions now, I think I need to finish noting everything down first.
Apparently, the evil went across the ruined bridge but the scent of the Worgs went further down. Harland wanted to cross but eventually we decided to continue downwards.
After another 30 minutes of walking, we noticed that the path was not quite so well-maintained here. As if nobody really went this way anymore. It was still plenty wide to walk across, but I made sure that the path we were taking was stable. We soon came across another building. This one was very run-down compared to the gatehouse. There was a rope bridge going across, one that looked to be in good condition compared to the rest of the building. Dominus wanted to try to cross it, but we managed to convince him it would be more interesting to continue descending.
As we walked, I brought up the possibility of the gatehouse having been the entrance to some sort of city. Of course, this had Harland and Dominus all excited, and they decided that should they make this ah... very historical discovery... They'd like to name it. “Harmonius” they said.
Soon, we found the other half of the elevator. From how long we had been traveling until we reached the bottom of the elevator, we determined that the spiral seemed to be about 500 feet across, and it appeared to be narrowing slightly as we went down.
The bottom of the elevator was intact, but the raising mechanism was missing. There were no bells on this side.
We continued onward, and we found the next support of the bridge. From underneath, we could see that the pillar was massive. It looked like it was all made out of one stone. Perfectly smooth, perfectly square. Harland said it was most likely built with magic. They were discussing the possibility of climbing this pillar, but after I pointed out that the pillar simply connected to the gatehouse above, we decided to continue.
45 minutes of walking from there, I saw something on the path below us. Namely, there wasn't really much of a path below us. There was rubble all over it. As we approached it, I could see that the rubble covered the bottom of the cavern.
There were tall pillars jutting out from the ruins, they were split down the middle. From what we could see, it looked like the remains of the city. A lot of the buildings were actually intact. Buried in rubble and damaged, but mostly intact. It seemed almost as if someone had taken out the supports underneath the city and it simply... fell.
Torwyn found a ragged, crushed skeleton buried amongst the ruins. There were still people here when it fell.
The Worg scent went across the rubble and into a hole on the side of the wall. We opted not to follow, and to instead have a look around. There were still well-defined streets and building areas, but no particular landmarks like libraries or churches.
Further along the “street” we noticed a blinking light in the distance. Well, the others noticed it. To me it was like a bloody beacon. I approached it cautiously, careful to remain outside of the circle of light it shed. It was inside a building. It appeared to be a small gem maybe the size of a grape. It was gently flickering at random, and the light was reflecting off gold that had spilled out of a pouch. As we stood there deciding what to do, Harley saw the gold and rushed in.
He managed to avoid being caught in a near-invisible web strung across the entrance to the building, and Harley, Dominus and Callie soon found themselves held at crossbow-point by a number of figures dressed all in black. I stuck to the shadows, watching them. They lowered their weapons at the command of the cloaked figures, and an extra three materialized out of the darkness to put the weapons into a sack.
I trailed a little behind them as they were brought in a particular direction. The six figures were met by another six, who seemed startled by the fact that they had found people at all. After a moment, they melted back into the shadows, leaving the original six behind.
I watched as they were led into a tunnel that opened out onto a busy street. Now there was light, I could see that when I had thought were six people, there were actually nine. I decided to wait a little before merging with the crowd as I would have been easily spotted by their escorts. Thankfully the colour of my fur allowed me to blend in a little more at first glance. I trailed them to a courtyard, where they were taken into a round, important-looking building. I could not follow further without arousing suspicion, so I opted to wait outside. I do hope Dominus can hold his tongue, or that Callie can keep him in check.
I'm here now, taking in the city. It's surprisingly large considering it's all very deep underground. There appears to be a lot of repairworks being done. The city was lit up by blue globes set into the walls of the cavern. There is a visible ceiling to this place, and even that appeared to be undergoing repairs. The buildings were mostly two-story, except for the building the others were taken into.
There were a number of dark-skinned people – elves, gnomes and even humans. The people seem to be speaking some form of Elven, one I am not familiar with. Part of me wonders if I can purchase something to eat but looking at their currency, it was stamped with a different symbol to the coins I'd gotten from the dungeon above. The coins appeared to be stamped with some sort of spiderweb pattern while the one from the dungeon appeared to be pure gold, unmarked.
There are some women nearby, collared. All appeared to be dark-skinned elves. Some of them also appeared to have golden manacles around their wrists.
Oh, it appears Harland, Dominus and Callie are emerging. They are now wearing collars as well. They're talking to some more dark-skinned elves, with Callie translating for them. Perhaps they don't speak Common? Callie seems upset for some reason.
They have been left at the entrance of the courtyard. I don't feel as though I should reveal myself outright so I'm going to continue trailing them until I can safely let them know I'm here.
I hope I get the opportunity to write more later. Good bye for now.
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