A Shadow's Courage
Seventh Day of the Second Month 294 AC
Teana Strycos had never enjoyed the prospect of danger for the sake of craft or lord, and she never felt the shiver of excitement at the thought of unearthing secrets that she knew even Zherys did under his saturnine facade. If one were to ask the mistress of the Scholarum where she preferred to push the understanding of her art, the answer would be in a well lit library and most assuredly not in an accursed ruin where the dead trod in legions upon cursed ground, or under it.
The trouble was, of course, that the same arcane skill she had taken up to deal with teaching and administration also made her a perfect scout for a time when a disposable pair of eyes was needed. After all, what could be more disposable than a shadow?
Down, down, down they went through the black stone as the king's voice guided, three shadows and seven
false spirits conjured of dreams and sorcery, to find what had been hidden from mortal eyes, even from the dead. Yet the first hint her semblances encountered of it were not things for the eyes to see, but for the ears to hear...
Weeping.
Soft sighs and heartbroken sobs, all resounded through the corridors of the catacombs as though perhaps the city above was still alive and these were merely those among the living descending into the domain of the dead to pay tribute, garbed in black and hiding their faces in their arms. It was only in the rare glimmer of dying torches that the mourners' true nature was revealed, for they were as ethereal as the sorceress' own seeming. It was only when one of these
mourners raised its head for a moment, as though sensing strange eyes upon her, that Teana witnessed the dreadful visage of murder and decay.
Slowly, as though in a dream, the specter reached out one hand towards the seeming it should not be able to see, to sense in any way, half hidden inside a wall. "Come to pray for us? Come to pray. Sinners need prayer... Come to pray for the godless' strength, to walk through the Seven Doors and back out again. Come to pray? Come pray with us."
Teana withdrew the seeming and waited breathlessly, looking through the eyes of the other seeming but none of them noticed anything strange among the catacombs. No alarm seemed to have been set. She tried to send the false janni further along closer to where Eskil had met the 'lord' of the city. It did not return.
Once more, a seeming keeping watch on the corridor, there were no dead to croon strange requests at her.
The conjured spirit seemed too cease existing halfway down the corridor, not bleed, not wither, not burn, simply 'be not', like a mummer drawn behind the curtain from where the audience stood.
Well damn me and damn this place with me, Teana thought, setting her seeming to glide forward.
I'm not here and I am under mind wards, might as well try.
For the briefest instant she glimpsed a poison river flowing around a poison shore, another Sphere she knew with a flash of arcane insight, then the seeming died, having tried to cross over from the world her body was in.
Opening her true eyes to look upon the king and his companions, she recounted one last thing about her visit, "The catacombs are overlapping some other realm. I'm not sure if it's in the Abyss or hell, maybe Abaddon with the Daemon earlier."
"I don't think it's any of those things," Princess Daenerys replied. "I think it's another sort of tomb, the realm of a dead god."
"So we can't approach this thing without literally falling off the face of the earth," the king mused, a thread of frustration to his words.
"I think we might need that army now, Your Grace," Ser Lonmouth offered respectfully. "We aren't talking this bunch down."
Teana had to stifle a laugh, half of relief, half at the sheer absurdity to hear the darkness below described in terms one would most often hear associated with a crowd of rowdy guildsmen on the streets.
What does the king decide?
[] Try to press scouting
-[] Write in how
[] Move on to another city
-[] Write in which
[] Return to Imperial territory and begin preparing the military advance
[] Write in
OOC: I would have preferred a wraith with a more human body and just a monstrous face, but hopefully that is good enough to get image across. Not yet edited 
