The Forgotten City XLVI

La Compagnia formed up on Riven and Mitra and they pressed back into the cistern room, the air laden with the faintly sweet putrescence of the beastmen and serpents beginning to decompose in the warm, muggy air of the jungle valley and the constant thrumming of the hidden machinery having a soporific effect on the party. They skirted the highest cistern and found their way back down the stairs as Mitra snuffled at the ground.

At the foot of the the stairs Theophilus bade the party wait a moment while he took out a taper candle, broke it into pieces and softened them, while Teleptyon and Khufu debated the nature of applying heat to wax to cause it to soften. The practical brother Theo was done before they reached a conclusion about the only correct way to achieve this effect. Each member of the party pressed bits of softened wax into their ear that they might not be smitten by the madness of the thing behind the door that wore so many cursed faces. Alex found the edge of the hidden trap door and took the rope ladder from Kegho and prepared to set it as soon as the opening appeared. Elissa, Herk, and Kegho took to the capstan and hoped that the door would hold long enough to leave.

That hope was dashed as a pale ocher psuedopod caressed Antonious's heel from under the door way; he deftly dodged away from its uncanny touch. Herk chopped at it with his axe and sliced the psuedopod clear away, but the bulk of the creature pressed at the door, bulging and viscous at cracks and weak points, thin lips appearing and whispering horrible secrets and lost thoughts. For a terrible moment the visage of Ka'ar distorted by the undulating mass and the ocher color appeared and spoke rapidly in anguish before disappearing back into the formless mass just before Kegho struck it with Wraithcleaver. Theo sought the largest mass of the creature and did pray fervently that Speudon would snatch away it's voice and the battle continued in utter silence.

In the other room, Alex finished attaching the ladder and noticed that he could slip through the narrow opening. He lowered himself under the door and began to search for a mechanism to release the door, but found that it was beyond him. He became distracted by the long straight hallway filled with intricate patterns of interlocking lines and Rusati Khemian. "Wizard shit," he groused "I bet Nekhtebu would've known what this was about." He swallowed that last bit horrified at the thought.

In the hallway outside of the zone of silence, Riven watched, slightly aroused, ready to fire at the blobs protruding around the door, but even as the door sundered under the weight of it, Antonious and Kegho stood in the breach fighting with the creature. Mouths chewed at Kegho and Antonious and Elissa was horrified to see tendrils of hungry mouths engulf Antonious and left the capstan to sink her spear into one of the emergent faces holding his arm by its teeth and allowing Khufu to pull him free from the beast. It turned to Kegho and began to swallow him as well. Khufu called upon Xam to temporarily quell the disorder and the creature released Kegho and milled about petulantly.

Teleptyon, Khufu and Antonious finished opening the trap door and the party joined Alex in the hallway made of cyclopean masonry and intricately carved patterns. They walked along its length for what seemed an interminable time and exited through a stone arch in a cliff face at the edge of the valley of The Forgotten City.

La Compagnia knew that there would be more peril in this place.