3 - 088: The Third Piece

[K Man]

{Sorry 'bout yesterday. Was just slackin'}
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Krysta, Girud, Mordrock, Galdren, Hero, Caelith, Callian and Garor - Satsified there is little else here to slake your adventuring lust, the party gathers up and ushers its way out to the hallway. The remaining doorway does just open to a small landing that is, as expected, full of leering demonic faces and haunting visages of figures in pain.

Heading back to where you left the boats, you find them secured and gently floating in the soft flow of the filthy water. You can easily move into one boat and turn it sideways, providing a clean bridge to the other side. Another steel door with leering face provides access to a small room, barely twenty feet to a side.

Hanging in the center of the room is a half-decayed human skull. An iron spike, driven straight through the temple, is what keeps the skull hanging from the frayed rope tied to a black iron chandelier above. You can tell the skull used to belong to a human male, but little else.

Also, directly below the macabre skull, is a spiral staircase that descends into total darkness. [I'll sum it up as to not waste time] The staircase descends, nearly a hundred feet or more, to a pair of well-concealed doors. These doors open up to the shaft you fell down earlier...most likely a way for demons to ambush those that have fallen into the pit.

You count your blessing you were not one of them...

You make your way back up the staircase and out to the boats. There is the hallway that heads East for a bit before taking a sharp turn South. [Towards area 10]

Beyond that...the hatch back to the main decks....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Romar and Yuri - Romar watches as Yuri, in a near-catatonic state, marches forward galantly. He is unaware of the pain Yuri feels, the burning as though his very soul - the remnants thereof - are aflame...

However, Romar just went through the very ordeal himself.

Seconds later, the vampire snaps out of his trance, eyes focusing in the darkness on his ranger companion.

The two of you are free, having survived yet another of the insane purifying test the cleric of The Hidden City.

If there are many more like this...you shudder to think.
__________________________________________________________________________________________

[Fangor the Fierce]

Area 10 sounds good to me...

[Wizard]

(Yeah...though Callian would like to borrow the ring for now. He won't put it on yet [boats don't float too well w/giant rocks in them], but he'll have it ready [unless anyone objects].)

[BluSpecs]

Works for me as well

[Japic]

10 is good, and yes, callian can have the ring for now... although I may have to see hat it does, and who would benifit the most from it in the long run.

Item = Ring of Density This unique item, when worn, grants the wearer a +8 deflections bouns, as though wearing full plate armor. It also increases the wearer's hit points by 50%. (I.E. - 50 hp becomes 75) These excess hit points are considered temporary and are lost the instant the ring is removed or the wearer is unconscious. It also removes the wearer's ability to swim, jump or climb as their body becomes as dense as a rock.

That thing is pretty nice actually.... somewhere in the future (if Girud is going to continue to be the front man for damage) that may be useful for him. The boots of levitiation would help prevent drowning afterall...

[Jevva]

10 sounds good to me, though in reality the ring would be really good for any of our frontline fighters.

[Hero]

Hero is always ready to go first.

[GeneralMHB]

Yuri walks out, almost emotionally exhausted from the ordeal bestowed upon him.

I owe this diety yet again I see....

Walking towards Romar, feeling his forehead, he wonders how much further is it to the Hidden City.

I pray that the Hidden City will accomidate what we are looking for. Let us continue onward to our next test.

[VemuKhaham]

Romar looks at Yuri with worry as he makes his own way through the barrier. When he comes out again, he is relieved, but only for a second.

"The Hidden City will be worth it, Yuri. We must keep faith in that, for that is our only way into it. Without it, these tests would have long ago tackled us for certain. It will be worth it in the end, regardless of what aid they may have to offer us... for I prayed to Fahrlanghn many a time, and I believe so did you once, and in doing so I believe it was not our idea but that of His to go where we are heading now. It is a City devoted to the most powerful of beings, the Gods that we pray to. If there won't be the help we seek, then where would it?"

Romar helps Yuri out of the cave if he still feels weak, and into the glorious outside, though dark it may be, it is of another kind of darkness. It is the darkness of the moon, wherein they have found cover from great perils. And above all else, this darkness doesn't come with the dank air that was in the cave.

If Yuri feels ready for it, he will set off towards the next stop, be it another trial or the city itself.