IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 16B: THE SANGUINEOUS DRINKER

January 19th, 2008
The 6th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

PRISON CELLS AND TORTURE CHAMBERS

Eventually Tee concluded that there was no way for her to get the door open: There was no mechanism for her to manipulate and she couldn’t figure out any way to fool what identification magic was being used by the palm reader.

They headed back to the hallway crossroads and went in the opposite direction. This took them into a small area with four chambers similar to the antechambers in which they had found the black cords upstairs. In each of the chambers, they could see the smashed remnants of complex machinery.

“What are these things?” Elestra openly wondered.

Nobody knew. But Ranthir, poking around through the wreckage, found more of the black cords leading from walls and attached to what was left of the machinery (suggesting that machinery like this might once have been found in the chambers upstairs, as well).

A doorway on the far end of this area led back out into the pool room. They turned around and went back to the crossroads, continuing on their way.

A set of double doors led them into another hallway, this one ending in another bluesteel door. This bluesteel door, however, had been heavily battered from the outside, bending it hideously inward. Despite its warped condition, however, its tremendous strength did not seem noticeably lessened. They had no luck trying to get past it.

So, instead, they took a side passage that led them into a narrow hall flanked by four prison cells. Each of the cells had a lever on the wall directly opposite it, and some quick experimentation by Agnarr revealed that these levers opened the bars on the cells (retracting them into the floor).

Two of the cells were occupied by skeletons. Tee shot a couple of arrows at them, just to be one the safe side, but they didn’t appear to be undead… just dead.

One of the cells, however, didn’t need to be opened: The bars had been broken and bent outward. (Clearly whatever had been locked in there hadn’t wanted to stay put.)

Agnarr was pondering the cells with a thoughtful look on his face. This made Tee nervous. “What is it, Agnarr?”

Agnarr turned to Dominic. “Is one of these bodies an orc?”

Dominic did a quick examination of the bones and identified that, in fact, one of the bodies had belonged to an orc.

Agnarr grinned, grabbed the hand from the orc skeleton, and ran back to the room with the rods and iron door. He stuck the bony hand into the palm reader…

…and promptly triggered the trap again. This time, however, he’d been ready for it and managed to roll out of the way. He could still feel the powerful bolt of energy as it scorched the air beside him, but he managed to walk out of the room under his own power.

“It was a good idea,” Tee said. “I thought it was going to work.”

Agnarr grunted.

Passing through the prison hallway again brought them to a room filled with implements of torture, including a blood-stained rack, iron maiden, and manacled chair. The blood on the floor was still fresh – a grisly proof that the preservation spells on this chamber were still active.

THE SANGUINEOUS DRINKER

 A quick search of the torture chamber, however, turned up nothing of interest. So Tee turned her attention to the iron door in the south wall of the chamber – believing, based on Ranthir’s mapping, that it would lead to a short hallway emptying out into the pool room.

As she worked, most of the others watched her dutifully, waiting for the door to open. Tor, however, walked around the room, looking at each of the tools of torture in turn and burning an image of them and their dark purpose into his mind. The types of wrongs that had happened in this chamber burned at his conscience – it didn’t matter if they had been committed a hundred years ago or a thousand years ago.

As he paced, however, Tor crossed in front of the hallway leading out of the room… which was fortunate, because he heard the telltale clacking of skeletal heels upon stone. Looking down the hall, he saw a gore-spattered skeletal feature racing toward them. The creature’s organs still dangled in its bony chest, glistening with fresh blood.

Tor cried out a warning, whipped out his sword, and charged down the hall. The creature lashed out with its terrifying claws – each skeletal finger horribly elongated to at least two feet in length – but Tor ducked under the blow and lashed out with his sword. The blade caught the creature in the side, slipped between the bones of its ribcage, and cut deep into one of its dangling organs.

The wound sprayed a torrent of arterial blood. It caught Tor in the eye and, as he was blinded, the creature jabbed out with its other hand. Its claws punctured his shoulder as if they knives, and then – horrifically – Tor could feel the creature sucking the blood from his body.

Still half-blinded, Tor tried to stumble back. But his feet slipped in the slick coating of blood that the creature’s spray had left down the length of the hall and he fell onto his back.

The creature raised both of it claws high in the air. Elestra, drawing her crossbow, had stepped into the mouth of the hall and now she fired – but the creature plunged both of its claws down into Tor and the bolt passed harmlessly above it.

Agnarr shoved Elestra out of the way and raced down the hall. The creature reared back and Agnarr tried to jump over Tor’s prostrate form… but he missed badly, twisting one foot on Tor’s leg while his other slid wildly out of control on the blood-slicked floor. With a bone-jarring crash, Agnarr landed on the floor beside Tor.

Elestra was fumbling to get another bolt loaded into her cross bow. Tee was still trying to get her dragon pistol drawn. Agnarr and Tor were both practically helpless and at the creature’s mercy. Things were beginning to look truly dire.

Dominic, brandishing the holy symbol of Athor before him, took two steps down the hall; called aloud the name of his god; and opened his body and soul so that his god might channel pure energy through the conduit of his faith.

The undead creature turned to dust before him.

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