Fellowship of the Dice

Glirion likewise attempts to dry out his gear, looking at the same time for dry torch and tinder box.

Finn puts his hand on the wall and begins to go around the room, feeling where they are and trying to get a sense of where Hild might have gone.

"I'm going for Hild," he says.

Varuthil calls out, "Hold for a moment, Finn. Let us not walk in blind if we don't have to. We will do Hild little good if we stumble intro a trap or walk into an ambush and die as a result."

Heva falls in with the others, looking around in the dark. "I'm sorry I've lead you all into this, we'll get Hild back."

Varuthil says, "Do not blame yourself. We followed you voluntarily. And we have faced worse." There is no warmth in her words--but then, there rarely if ever is--but they seem sincere.

Finn holds back a moment at Varuthil's suggestion. If there was a deep pit before him and Hild had already fallen into it, he couldn't save her by blindly rushing in. "Can someone get a torch going?"

Gerwald watches as the others move into the water and he dives in with them. In the dark damp chamber he joins the company. Alive he waits to see if someone can get a torch going so that they can continue their search.

None of the company are skilled fire builders, but Glirion is skilled with wood. He produces his torch and a knife and slices off the wet outside enough into some shavings, and with some effort manages to get a spark and a light on the oil soaked head of the torch. Once the torch is going, after some fight, others are easily lit from it. The light shows there is but one opening leading forward, Finn delays no longer and moves forward into a much larger chamber.

This is a vast vaulted chamber, presenting six arched openings, three on the right side and three on the left. The farthest doorway on the right side is larger, its arch decorated with stones of many colours. In the wall opposite the opening to the flooded cellar from which you entered, there is a narrow vertical chimney, leading to the surface (a faint breeze can be felt if someone sticks his head into the chimney); inside the chimney hangs a rope. The floor inside the confined space of the chimney is littered with gore crow feathers and bird deposits.

Varuthil cautiously approaches and puts one hand on the floor, murmuring to the stones, "Was anyone taken through here against their will? If so, which way were they taken?" Given the sense of evil she felt in the stones above and waste lying on the ground before her, she suspects the stones will not give up their answers willingly, but she presses them if they resist.

Gerwald walks quickly around the chamber looking at the various archways looking to see if there is any other defining features and then stops before the more ornately decorated and larger opening. He holds up a torch to see what details the light might reveal.