1.02 H (1/2)

“What about this room?”

“Empty.”

Sostrom shook his head as he walked out of another dark room, his staff glowing. Calruz stomped out behind him, growling irately. Ceria tried not to scowl at her friend, but it was hard.

“Not a thing?”

“You can see for yourself.”

Sostrom pointed into the dark room and shook his head.

“Whatever was in here, it wasn’t a treasury. And now it’s long gone.”

“Damn.”

Ceria cursed and kicked at the ground. Olesm peered over her shoulder into the empty room.

“I don’t get it. This is the lowest level, isn’t it? And you said there would be treasure—”

“I did. But who knew this place would be so cursed big?”

“But the treasure’s around here somewhere, right?”

Ceria growled at Olesm and he backed away, hands raised. Gerial put a hand on her shoulder, but she sensed the tension in it too.

“Most likely. We just haven’t found it yet, and we’re all tired. Why don’t you go with Sostrom and check those rooms out?”

Sostrom made a face, but walked with Olesm down the dark corridor to peer into another room.

Ceria made a face and patted his hand with hers.

“Sorry, Gerial.”

“I know how you’re feeling. But he’s trying to be helpful.”

“I know. It’s just—”

It was later. In fact, it was two hours later. The last of the undead had been killed and their remains incinerated with a spell and those adventurers wounded too badly to move had been sent back to the burial room. A few more had remained as guards in case more undead popped up, but the rest had been searching nonstop since then.

Searching for treasure.

“Any word from Gerald’s team?”

They’d split into two groups, one going down the left passage, the other the right. Of all the teams, Calruz’s hadn’t lost any adventurers besides Horn in either battle, so they’d taken a few of Lir’s mages while the other adventurers under Gerald had gone left. Yvlon had remained with the wounded and they were keeping up a stream of communications with several adventurers who ran messages across the vast ruins.

“We just had one come by. There he is—”

Gerial led Ceria towards a panting adventurer drinking water and talking to Calruz.

“Any word on the other team’s progress?”

The man made a face.

“Nothing substantial. They’ve come across more empty rooms same as you. There’s some kind of urns in one room—just filled with dust, whatever’s in them is long gone. Old scrolls in another, none magical. They found a few undead, but nothing else. How’s it going over here?”

“Uneventful. We killed a few zombies but they’re mostly cleared out here as well. Has Yvlon seen anything?”

“Nothing. I’ll get back to Gerald’s side of things if you’ve nothing else.”

Calruz grunted irritably and the man took off. Gerial shook his head as he watched the man jog slowly off into the darkness, a ball of light following him.

“This is where a Runner would have come in handy.”

“This is where a hundred Runners would come in handy. They could search this place faster than we can.”

Ceria kicked at a wall. She knew she was frustrated, but she was exhausted from fighting and irritable from countless annoying questions from a certain Drake. Calruz had suggested quite sensibly – which was surprising – that instead of splitting up, their team should move together closely to avoid unpleasant surprises. The need to check each room and hallway for traps or ambushes had saved them a few nasty surprises, but meant they were moving at a snail’s pace.

The fire of battle had left all the adventurers tired, it was true, but it was more than even that which made the searching arduous. The ruins had become silent once more, and somehow, without the presence of the undead it made everything feel more ominous.

Ceria kept expecting another zombie to pop out of the shadows, and one or two had—but the feeling hadn’t disappeared. The worst thing about an ambush is that you don’t stop worrying after you survive one. Rather, you keep worrying it was only the first.

Gerial was probably feeling the same, but he still tried to be reasonable.

“You know he’s never done this before. And he helped us get through that fight a lot more easily than we would have otherwise. Just don’t snap at him.”

“I know. I know. But he keeps asking and—what if he’s right?”

“Yeah.”

Gerial, Ceria, and Calruz all fell silent. Treasure. They were all certain—had been certain—it was down here. You didn’t have ruins with this many guardians without treasure of some kind. But what if the valuable goods had been knowledge, or something more intangible?

What if the dead had just congregated here because this was a glorified graveyard, and the only goods were the few bags of gold and jewels they’d recovered from the dead adventurers? It was a good haul for a single team, but wouldn’t even recoup the losses of their expedition.

Ruins could potentially be sources of amazing wealth, like the Ruins of Albez where magical items were still hidden under the rubble. But sometimes ruins were just old.

You heard stories, sometimes, of adventurers who would fight their way down to the lowest part of a dungeon, sacrificing all they had, losing friends and bleeding each step of the way to discover they’d cleared out an ancient storage house for grain, or the living quarters of some subterranean people.That was the nightmare that hid behind the dream, and Ceria and the other adventurers were living it right now.

“We’ve still got a ways to go. There’s plenty of chances the vault is just ahead.”

“Sure.”

Ceria nodded and Calruz grunted. She sighed, and was about to stand up when she heard pounding feet.

All three adventurers grabbed at their weapons and the others down the hall turned, ready for battle. But the woman who ran towards them was beaming and waving her arms.

“We’ve found something! Possibly a treasury!”

The shock that ran through Ceria was electric. She smiled and the other adventurers whooped and cheered.

“Where is it? How big?”

“It’s right at the other end of the ruins, down the other passage.”

The woman pointed back as she explained.

“We’re not sure it’s a treasury, but it has every signs of—they’ve found a huge pair of double doors. Sealed. Magical runes of warding on the fronts and Lir says some of them look like warnings.”

Ceria frowned at the same time Gerial did.

“Wait a second. That’s doesn’t sound like a vault to me. It sounds like a guarded treasury, the kind that has the nastiest monster waiting right behind the door. You didn’t try to open it, right?”

The adventurer rolled her eyes.

“We’re not idiots. Lir and the other mages are already setting up traps near the entrance with Cervial’s team. Yvlon wants a hallway full of traps before we crack the seal.”

She grinned.

“Cervial’s group even has two beartraps. Don’t know how they carried them all the way down, but they’re setting them up. Even if what’s inside is as big as an Ogre, it won’t be able to ignore that.”

Ceria had seen the iron and occasionally steel contraptions used to hunt bears and larger monsters. They were nasty, vicious, and she’d nearly stepped in one more than once. She shuddered, but it was a fine weapon to use.

“As soon as you lot finish on your side we’ll seal off this passage with a spell and open those doors. Yvlon is going to join us and we’ll see exactly what’s inside. Lir says the runes might be warning of the undead guardians, and if so, we just killed them all!”

“Or more could be inside. Wait for us.”

“How soon until you’ll be done here? Gerald wants to know.”

Ceria and Gerial looked at Calruz. He shrugged.

“We’ve found nothing of worth so far. Give us a few minutes to gather everyone and we’ll follow you.”

“Well hurry up. Gerald wants to crack the seal this instant and the other two Captains are the only thing holding him back.”

The woman grinned and dashed back as the other adventurers began to chatter excitedly. Ceria and Gerial exchanged a look.

“Warded doors? That’s right out of one of those classic stories you hear about. Odds are three-to-one it’s trapped or something nasty is lurking inside. Gerald better not open them before we get there.”

“He’s no idiot. But Yvlon has the right idea. Regardless of what’s in there, we can turn the passageway into a killing field. Even ten Crypt Lords wouldn’t survive a fully spelled passage if we combine resources.”

“Hey, hey everyone!”

That voice came from behind the others. They turned to see Olesm running towards them, beaming in excitement.

“Olesm? You’ll never believe this, but we found something! A vault, sealed by magic over on the other side of the ruins.”

The Drake skidded to a stop and gaped. He grinned.

“Really? That’s great news! But we found something as well!”

“You did?”

Ceria exchanged a glance with the others, but they followed as Olesm eagerly led the way back down the corridor. They stopped at a huge opening in the wall, possibly where doors had once stood. Olesm pointed in.

“Look—but be quiet!”

He pointed and Ceria gasped as she stared into a massive room. It was some kind of crypt. Well, the ruins were a giant crypt. Only this was the crypt inside of the crypt. What that all meant was—

“Tombs.”

“Coffins.”

Hundreds of them. Each one was stone, spaced apart evenly in a room that was so large it made Ceria feel as if she was standing outside again. She could barely see the far wall. The only light in the massive room came from a single staff. Sostrom was just inside, staring at one of the walls.

“This is the place where all the dead go.”

Olesm whispered loudly in Ceria’s ear.

“It must have countless tombs, probably with a lot of important people! And probably treasure if they bury their dead with their valuables like we Drakes do!”

That was true, but Ceria stared at the tombs and had another thought.

“They could all be undead in those graves. There’s no telling how many of them reanimated with the Crypt Lords about.”

The other adventurers crowding behind her groaned and grabbed at their weapons. Gerial shushed them while Olesm whispered.

“That’s what Sostrom said. But he found something else in there as well.”

He pointed, and Ceria saw the mage looking up at something on the wall. She nudged Calruz and he nodded, so Ceria slowly approached with the others.

Sostrom jumped when Ceria put her hand on his shoulder. He whirled, staff raised, and relaxed when he saw her face. He bent down and whispered to her.

“Ceria. You nearly scared the piss out of me.”

“Better that than you screaming. What are you looking at?”

Carefully, Sostrom edged to one site and raised his staff higher so Ceria could get a look at what he was seeing. The white light illuminated a dark stone wall, but etched into it deeply were…

“Words?”

“Something like that. It’s not magic—at least, no runes I’ve seen before. But what language it is I can’t tell for the life of me.”

Ceria stared up at the strange words, if words they were. She was familiar with several written languages and she had travelled far and wide, but for all that she had never seen this style of writing. She beckoned, and Olesm softly padded over with the other adventurers following.

“Olesm. What do you make of this?”

The Drake frowned up at the wall as Gerial turned, watching the rest of the room for movement. There was none, but the countless tombs disturbed him greatly. He could just imagine something creeping up on them while they studied the wall, and so he faced the other way while his friends conferred.

“I’m not sure. It looks like some kind of message, but is it a prayer or something else?”

“You can’t read it? Does it look like something your people might have written long ago?”

He hesitated.

“It—it could be something written in the past. But we don’t write in the old tongue anymore. I certainly can’t read it.”

“Is this important?”

Gerial winced as Calruz’s voice echoed through the room. The Minotaur wasn’t worried about waking anything. He folded his arms as he stared at the carvings.

“It could be nothing. But it might give us a clue as to what this place was or what it contains.”

“But you cannot read it.”

“I can.”

Gerial twisted his head and stared at Ceria in disbelief. She was raising her wand, and the color had changed to a light purple as she illuminated the wall.

“A little spell I picked up when I was at Wistram. [Translate].”

Sostrom whistled softly.

“That’s handy.”

Ceria nodded as the words glowed faintly with purple light. She frowned, concentrating as she spoke.

“It is. But I’d prefer a translator even so. The spell takes time, and it doesn’t work unless there are enough words to read at once. And I often get a muddled message, sometimes nonsensical depending on the content. But it should…oh.”

None of the other adventures saw anything change, but Ceria’s pulse began to quicken as the words on the wall—

They didn’t exactly change, but somehow she understood them. And she could put them into her own language. She turned to Olesm, eyes wide.

“I really don’t think this is a prayer for the dead.”

“What? What does it say?”

“I—it’s disturbing. Really disturbing.”

Calruz snorted.

“We are not mewling human children. Speak.”

The half-Elf hesitated, and then she cleared her throat and began to read haltingly. The words she read were almost like a song, and had the same cadence, the same innocent rhymes. Her words were swallowed by the darkness of the massive room.

“Skinner, Skinner!

He’ll eat your tails and tear off your skin!

He’ll pluck out your eyeballs and devour your kin!

Skinner, Skinner!

Run while you can!

Your flesh will be taken with a touch of his hand!

Hide in the darkness, hide in the light.

Fighting is useless; Skinner is fright.

He takes our scales and hides our bones

And makes this place our very last home.

Skinner, Skinner, never open his door.

Or soon your bones will lie on this floor.”

When she finished, there was only silence. Then one of the other adventurers laughed nervously, and someone else joined him. Their laughter echoed in the vast room, and then faded away uneasily.

Gerial didn’t laugh. Neither did Calruz or most of the other adventurers. Ceria’s face was pale as the light of her wand and the glowing words faded again, letting darkness creep back.

Gerial’s voice cracked a bit as he spoke.

“That was disturbing, to say the least. But what does that mean?”

Sostrom hesitated as he stared at the words on the wall.

“It sounds…almost like a nursery rhyme. But not one I’d ever tell any child of mine.”

Olesm shivered.

“I’ve never heard that…that kind of song before. Who in their right minds would write such a thing?”

“It was a warning.”

Ceria whispered the words and Calruz nodded. The Minotaur’s hand was twitching towards the handle of his battleaxe, and that made Gerial even more nervous. He tried to laugh it off, but couldn’t bring himself to smile.

“A warning? Who writes their warnings so—so cryptically?”

“Maybe someone who’s afraid of speaking plainly. Or—or—this isn’t a warning. Maybe it is a nursery rhyme, or a prayer. The kind you write of something that’s been around forever.”

Sostrom shook his head.

“Who is this Skinner, then? An undead? Or a [Necromancer] or some kind? Whoever wrote this message seems to fear him.”

“Perhaps he’s the reason this place exists.”

Olesm frowned as he looked around the room. The other adventurers blinked at him and he pointed to the tombs.

“This is clearly a burial place, but that’s odd because we Drakes don’t tend to bury our dead in stone. Too expensive. We usually cremate them. But that line…”

He stared upwards and murmured.

“‘He takes our scales and hides our bones…’. That can only be my people who wrote this. So—so they built coffins to hide their flesh from him? But is he locked away with the dead down here? That would make no sense. Why not burn the bodies? Surely they’d want to keep him far away as possible.”

Sostrom raised a finger.

“A thought. Was this a trap for this Skinner creature or—or is he the guardian of this place?”

More silence. Gerial shivered. He felt cold, the uneasy chill of fear he’d felt on the most dangerous of missions. He opened his mouth, but another adventurer raised his voice.

“What the hell is a Skinner? Some kind of special undead?”

“We don’t know. But odds are that is what’s hiding behind that door Gerald and the others found. We should go back and let them know we’re in for a fight.”

Calruz nodded.

“Agreed. We will hold off opening them until we are prepared. And perhaps—”

He hesitated.

“—Perhaps we should send word to the surface. Ask if any know of this ‘Skinner’ creature.”

Ceria nodded. She felt relieved that he was the voice of reason, for once. She turned.

“Let’s hurry before Gerald makes a mistake. I’ll go f—”

It happened suddenly. Ceria screamed and dropped her wand, her hands flying to her head. Gerial drew his sword, but other adventurers around him were shouting or falling too. He looked around wildly, but nothing was attacking them.

Half of the Horns of Hammerad clutched at their heads. Ceria fell to her knees. Her [Dangersense] was going off, but it wasn’t like the ambush. That had been a premonition. Fear, foreboding, the knowledge of danger suddenly chilling her to her core.

This—

This was terror. This was death. She heard howling in her mind, and knew she would die if she stayed. She—

“Ceria!”

Caluz’s massive hand shook her back into reality. She looked up at him. He yanked her upright with one hand.

“On your feet! What’s happening?”

“My [Dangersense]—something just happened! The doors—the vault—”

He cursed.

“They opened them? The fools!”

He began to storm down the corridor, but Ceria grabbed at him.

“Calruz! This isn’t like before. This—my Skill is telling me something bad has happened. Really bad. Far worse than the ambush.”

He stared at her, only partly comprehending. He couldn’t feel the certainty, the absolute terror in her head and heart. Olesm stumbled towards them, sword drawn.

“We are in danger. Extreme danger. We have to retreat.”

Olesm shakily wiped at his mouth. He’d thrown up. His tail thrashed wildly as he stared around in the darkness.

“I’ve never felt anything like that. When I was a child and the [Necromancer] attacked ten years back—that was the closest. But this is different. I am afraid, and the [Dangersense] doesn’t convey fear. We have to go.”

“Let us regroup. With speed. Warriors, form up and mages, follow close behind. Prepare for—”

He broke off as Ceria grabbed his arm. The Minotaur stared down at her as she looked around.

“Shh! Quiet. Do you hear that?”

The other adventurers fell silent. It took them only a second to make out what Ceria had heard. In the distance, a high pitched sound. No—many sounds, all joined together.

“Screaming.”

It was faint, but echoed down the long corridor into this room. And as if that had started something, they heard another noise.

Cracking. Dull thumps sounding from behind them. Muffled moans and hissing. The adventurers turned.

Gerial’s hand turned white on his sword. He stared at the coffins in the room as suddenly, noises began to echo from within.

“Oh lords and ladies preserve us.”

Half of the lids of the stone coffins shifted or crashed to the ground as their occupants suddenly began to move. The adventurers’ light didn’t illuminate all of the room, but they saw things crawl out of their stone beds, jerking upright, faint pinpricks of crimson light flare into existence as they stared at the living.

Their moans and ghastly sounds filled the huge room, echoing, growing louder—then they screamed as they got up and began running towards the living.

“Run!”

Gerial wasn’t sure who said it. It could have been him. But every adventurer in the room was suddenly running for the door as hundreds of undead began pouring towards them.

“The door!”

Calruz caught Sostrom as the mage ran out the double doors. He pointed to the corridor.

“Can you slow them down?”

The bald man hesitated. He raised his staff.

“I—I could cast [Sticky Ground]. The webbing would slow them down but this many—”

“Cast it! The rest of you, follow me!”

Calruz started running before the words had even left his mouth. Sostrom desperately raised his staff and cast the spell as the other adventurers sprinted down the corridor after Calruz. Suddenly, the lower levels were filled with sounds again, the clash of metal, surprised shouts from up ahead.

Screaming.

Sostrom caught up with Ceria, his longer legs pumping madly as he ran with his staff raised before him. He shouted, wildly.

“We don’t have much time! Only a few minutes before they catch up!”

No one else said a word. They pounded down the corridor, and when they rounded a corridor they saw a group of armed adventurers, around fourteen of them led by Yvlon. They raised their weapons but lowered them when they saw who it was.

“Calruz!”

Yvlon waved the Minotaur over as he ran towards her. Her sword was drawn and she had formed up her group into a solid line blocking the corridor down which Gerald had gone.

Calruz paused and pointed. Ceria and Gerial fell into line with the other adventurers, covering the way they had came as the Minotaur talked with Yvlon.

“What’s happening? Where are Gerald and the others?”

She shook her head.

“Last I heard they were up ahead, trapping the corridor. But then our [Dangersense] went off and—the door. They must have opened it.”

“Fools!”

“They didn’t say they were going to open the vault. I made it clear to Gerald he had to wait until he regrouped. So why…?”

“Have you sent anyone down there?”

Calruz looked down the dark corridor and Yvlon nodded.