In Silent Halls
Fifteenth Day of Elnu-Hamba (Elnu Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)
It doesn't take much to sway the fey in the stones, thirsting for attention, starving for gifts, they have nothing in common with the goblins and dwarfs of tale and song, secret they are but not by choice, dark they are, but not for hating the light: "We know... we know Adi.. follow follow and we'll show..."
And so you follow, down worn steps, under vaults of stone weeping water that had never seen the light of day. They had dug deep here, the folk of Korman halls to set the harvest in, safe from thief and vermin, halls to guard them against foes come over the sea. Alas the foes had not come from far off places, with horns and with drums, they had come by stealth in the night, worms in the hearts of the mighty ad the highborn, they had come down here unseen and here they had nested.
You see little of your guide, only the spark of red eyes in the dark and from time to time the barely sketched lines of long spindly limbs, sometimes walking on two legs sometimes on four. Once you might have called them demons, but you have seen have felt too much of true wickedness since that day on the docks of the city laying eyes on the face of a boy twisted to madness. Now you know better. Evil does not taste bitter on the tongue and it does not ring with the old sorrows in the ear. What Swift Pebble hears you do not ask, but only the next step and the next.
Esha isn't here, for all you would not be down here without her searching, the fey do not love her and flee at the mere sight of her: "She smells of the grave, yes... her we cannot save." She had never asked to be saved... and you had never asked what they might think they are saving he from. So instead it is Zaia holding the lantern, wick swathed in pale oil swaying and it is Inge on your other side, running her fingers across the signs that must have been left here by the long dead builders who had carved these tunnels out along the veins of the mountains.
Some of these places had not seen use in years, mayhap decades, old storerooms that had been placed too deep in the mountain, halls filled with old shields, their markings faded, old armor of wood and yellowing bone, moldering tapestries and weapons broken and blunted, no bronze to find here. But other chambers are just strange... at one point you pass though what looks to be a bathhouse such as one might find in Orinilu, the water black and cold and still save for a 'flock' of ducks and geese, all carved from pumice stone. The echoes of your tread set the water rippling and the odd collection floating off into the dark.
"Doors getting heavier," Tom grunts as the two of you take on the latest of them. Carved from the flesh of the hill it seems... and wholly unwilling to move no matter what the watchers chatter.
"The gauntlet, use it," Zaia says suddenly, pointing to a place on the side of the wall, a vaguely five sided impression that might have been the mark of a hand, fingers splayed out. As you place your hand the stone flows over your fingers like water, until it is a perfect impression and the path opens with a gust of something you have not tasted for what seems like ages, cold air, fresh air. Looking up you cannot see the ceiling, lost in shadows past the light of the lantern or of Durendal's flames, but further on your can see the gleam of pale moonlight falling though some shaft. How long have you been in there?
It is in this hall, past more twists and turns than you would rightly be able to recall without Zaia's chalk markings that you see the most unlikely of things, a bed of straw, a chest at its foot and beside it a water basin. There are clothes scattered about in messy piles and even a bronze pot hanging off a spike driven crudely into the wall. This it seems is where the younger prince spent much of his time. For the first time since entering the caves you can smell something in here.... rotting meat and rancid eggs, the roots at least seem to be mostly whole
"Careful.. careful... wrapped bad.... trapped," the little fey proclaim.
"Trapped with magic?" Zaia asks wearily
"Cunning, cunning," is all the fey respond.
How do you deal with the traps?
[] Walk boldly forth, you can take what may come... and f you can't you'll heal
[] Zaia does his best to unravel them
[] Write in
OOC: I hope you guys like the atmosphere on this one, took me a while to get right. 
