The Forgotten City XLV

The party awoke well rested but troubled in the Beastman guard barracks. As Theo blessed the breakfast meal they muttered about terrifying dreams, but as they heard each other talk they realized they had suffered the same dream: creatures who became what they touched, protected by the very stoneness of the hallway they were in, and who had burst through the door of the barrack and had brought the party low. The Jiam who did not sleep and so did not dream listened intently and then said "You have dreamed of a creature that roams the jungles of my home, the zorbo. It's a formidable foe. Though not evil, it is steeped in the uculukem and hungers deeply. He smiled at the possibility that the ancient Rusati had populated this magical jungle with elements from the jungles of his home and said no more.

After Theo finished his morning ablutions and Teleptyon shook off the stupor of his meditation on the nature of the Ar, the party crept into the antechamber of the complex and to a door they had yet to open on the west side of the hall. Alex and The Jiam crept to the door and cupped an ear to it, but The Jiam was overwhelmed by the sound of the water screw somewhere under the building. Alex shrugged and said "You ain't missin' nuthin', just the rustle of some rags. It's prob'ly just another one of them tapestries, this place's full o' 'em." in Oameni which The Jiam found coarse but intelligible. Kegho pushed through to the door and opened it but a tapestry hung concealing the room beyond. He glanced back at the Oameni who grinned impishly at the reveal.

He gruffly pushed past the curtain into a small scriptorium with two seats and a scattering of moldering papers. Theo and Teleptyon lit up and began shuffling through various papers but could not recognize the script. At the far door a scratching and yowling came and The Jiam shouted "Mitra!" and moved to open the far door. He was greeted by the gristly sight of a large room with two large pits filled with the slain bodies of men and women. Mitra barked at something looming in the far pit crunching noisily on the corpses of the slain. Her barks raised, one, two three heads from the pit and it reared up showing a six headed hydra.

Kegho ran into the room and lofted a vial of oil at the creature and shouted "Burn it with fire" as he ran into the room to protect The Jiam and Mitra. Theo and Antonious entered entered the room and Theo began to discourse on the lovers Rheus and Speudon and how the great hero had indeed prevented the growing back of more heads via the application of fire. As mouth after mouth snapped down painfully upon Kegho's flesh he screamed "GRAH. SHUT UP. NOW. LIGHT FIRE." In the other room Teleptyon looked up from the inscrutable texts arrayed before him and said "Someone calls for me." walked into the room to see the terrible visage of Kegho's rent flesh and a hydra covered with oil. He called out to the Ar itself to channel through the staff and the tiniest spark flew from the face of the staff unerringly to the back of the hydra and disappeared for the briefest of seconds before a wave of flame and the roar exploded in all directions from that point licking and consuming the flesh of the corpses on the ground and the hydra alike. Though ragged the beast looked about to attack Kegho once more, but a single sling stone sailed across the room and slipped between two charred exposed ribs and crushed its heart. Teleptyon turned incredulously to see Herk grinning holding his sling. "Didn't think that'd work? Did I?"

Riven stooped and looked into the pit. "The slaves were slain before the hydra came here. It was attracted by the blood. Look. They have spear wounds not claw or bite wounds." Alex suspected that there might be another downward stair but found a small chamber with cabinets filled torture implements. He took a particularly mean looking scourge and Theo suggested that the trinkets could be returned to the villagers and collected them. Alex and Khufu then searched the chest for traps and found none, but Alex was too small to help open the chest, and did not want to be injured if they had guessed wrongly and Antonious came and helped Khufu open it. It was filled with the simple posessions of the dead slaves; Theo offered to carry the trinkets and return them to the families of the villagers.

Riven had circled the pits several times stooped and staring with interest at things the rest of the party did not notice. She came up next to Mitra who was scratching at the door back into the cistern room and stared blankly at the door. The party squabbled over next steps, agreeing broadly that it was time once again to deal with the capstan and the passage under ground to the follow the beastman captain somewhere but disagreed on how to get there. Riven simply stated "We want to go this way." So they did.