3 Delving Death's Domain

[Aavarius]

 

Delving Death's Domain

---

"For in that sleep of death what dreams may come."

---

♫♫♫♫

PREVIOUSLY...

Abandoned qephilim ruins and mines are scattered throughout the Nammu Mountains of Hazurrium. The city of Shalmarn is built over one of those ruins, and indeed, many of Shalmarn’s buildings are converted remnants of structures first built during the Age of Myth. Several entrances into deeper, buried ruins open in and around Shalmarn, but most lead to closed off areas that have been previously looted of ancient relics by adventurers. A ruin entrance near the city’s center is called the Winged Arch. Most everyone in Shalmarn knows the Winged Arch leads to a much more expansive area of subterranean tunnels that have yet to be mapped or looted, thanks to unspeakable creatures that guard the way.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ruins beneath the Winged Arch is precisely where your search for your neighbor Tom Mallard has lead you.

As best you and your companion Ramis can figure, Tom has gotten entangled with some local warlord who calls himself the Master.  Tom has been leading a secret life as a recursion miner--somebody who travels to Ardeyn to "mine" it for his own benefit.  Just how he found out about any of this is completely unknown, but it seems he's in over his head. 

According to Ramis, the Master has attempted to fight his way into the underground ruins below the Winged Arch in years past, but local heroes fought off his disgusting, debased sark mercenaries.  The files suggest that Tom is aware of something called the Gospels of Lotan.  Perhaps the Master seeks Gospels, too? Does that mean Tom get captured by the Master because of his knowledge? Ramis suggested that it was brave but foolhardy to go into the deeps to look for Tom, though that was the only lead she could offer. 

While initially suspicious of you, Ramis has been seemingly forthright that she's from Earth--specifically Ohio.  She hasn't denied any of the information about her you shared with her from Tom's dossier, but she hasn't confirmed any of it either.  Still, she's going into danger with you and that counts for a lot.

Whatever dangers or conspiracies my lie in the ruins below, it seems the search for Tom is taking you right into the heart of it.

 

NOW...

Beneath the Winged Arch
Shalmarn, Queendom of Hazurrium
Ardeyn

You awake, a read mist swirling around your body.  It's remarkably more dispersed than it was before.  How long ago was that?  Your head swims in molasses as your brain claws its way back to consciousness.  Around you is the darkness of the large underground room, the walls and ceiling made of cold, silvery stone.  Your only light is Ramis' oil lantern laying on the ground nearby, a feeble flame sputtering in the overturned casing. 

Your clothes are the only thing protecting you from razor sharp crystal shards, the broken pieces of that feathered dragon statuette that formerly occupied this side of the room.  You must have toppled it over when you fell, for most of it lies broken around you.  Previously, the red mist spewed forth from the crystal dragon's mouth, creating a haziness in both sight and mind.  Whatever it was, the mist put you to sleep when you tried to sneak across the darkened room. 

But what were you trying to sneak away from?  Horror of unknown, organic shapes--memories from before you passed out--flood into your mind.  The hulking body of a hydra used to occupy this room, presumably also drugged into unconsciousness by the red mist.  Someone must have brought that crystal statuette down here to keep the hydra at bay, but you unwittingly set it free.  And it is free, you're certain, because a quick glance over in the direction it originally laid shows that space empty.  It's gone.  And so is Ramis.

A group of people shouting angrily wipes the last vestiges of sleepiness from your brain.  Nearby in the light of the overturned lantern you can see the four-legged, ten-foot-wide body of the hydra engaged with some unknown person obscured behind its bulk.  Several of its heads have clearly been slain, the hairy tendrils that once attached them to the central mass laying limply on the floor.  Much of that area of the room is covered in a frothy liquid, the dead heads being particularly drenched in the stuff.  What remains of the heads are shouting and cursing angrily at whomever they are engaged in a fight with. Fortunately, for whomever it is, he has managed to retreat through a far doorway that is too narrow for the hydra's bulk to fit through.  The hydra can only fit in one or two heads at a time to bite, making them easier targets.

The hydra appears to be unaware of your presence, at least for the moment.

 

 

What do you do?