Going Deeper Underground

The Curse of the Crimson Throne

Part 7: The Dead Warrens, part II

We stepped into a corridor that was lined with hundreds of small niches, in each of which was a human skull. The corridor had collapsed in one direction, so we headed the only way we could go. Sabelle, feeling nervous about the area, used her magic to detect the presence of any magical energies up ahead. She picked out some in the walls on either side of the corridor. Curious, she went to see if there was a trap mechanism or something built into the walls. What she discovered was much more deadly. As she moved up the corridor, three of the skulls moved and dropped to the floor. Attached to the skulls was a small ribcage and a long backbone. The things reared up like skeletal snakes in front of us, hissing silently at us.

Quickly, Adam and Reg formed a defensive line between the creatures and the rest of us, and began slicing and punching at them. The rest began to hurl spells and fire arrows, in an attempt to slay these monstrosities.

Suddenly, one rose up from the back, taller than the others, and began a rhythmic swaying action. It was so hypnotic. Even watching as a spirit, I could feel it's effect. Adam and Reda stopped attacking, and began swaying in time with the creature. They were under it's power!

Valiantly, Reg battled on, as Adam was now blocking half of the corridor, making it difficult for the rest of us to reach the snakes. He then cried out, and we could see that he had been bitten by one of them. As he looked down at his arm, he suddenly just stopped. He had become frozen in time, paralysed by the foul creature's bite.

We were now stuck. Both Adam and Reg were now blocking the corridor completely. It was then that Veyron had an idea. Taking his dinosaur out of his robes, he threw her over the heads of our fellows and the snakes, and she landed down behind them. She quickly began to tear into the one at the back.

With this distraction, the snake stopped swaying, and turned to attack the dinosaur. This instantly freed Adam and Reda from their hypnotic state. Frantically, we bombarded the creatures we everything we had, eventually destroying them. The paralysing effect also wore off the paladin, and he helped slay the last snake.

We continued up the corridor and entered a room that seemed to be a laboratory. There was alchemical equipment scattered across the tables. One of the table semed to have had an accident, and it was surrounded by fragments of broken glass. Cleaning up the glass was another Derro. He looked surprised to see us as Adam entered the room first. But before anyone could stop him, Adam drew up his crossbow and shot the Derro through the head, killing it instantly. We were all a little shocked by his action, but there was nothing we could do about it now.

On one side of the room was a door that had been boarded up. Curious, we took down the boarding and opened the door. We soon realised why it had been boarded in the first place. Standing in the room was a large figure, a man made from parts of dead bodies stitched together to form a human shape. The abomination moaned as it lunged at us, it's teeth and claws bared.

Desperately, swords were unsheathed, and spells were readied. It didn't take long, though, before the creature lay on the floor of the room, sliced into several pieces by our weapons.

And in the room we made another discovery. This time, we found a severed arm, also covered with tattoos. Another part of Gaekhen's body.

Weary, we stopped to rest for a short while here, to get our breaths back, and to heal our wounds. What lay deeper in the Dead Warrens to surprise us? Where was the necromancer that worked here? How many more pieces of Gaekhen's body would we have to find? All was soon revealed to us...