Hello,
Fraud kept his eyes averted from the black abyss as you turned away from the foul remains of the slaughtered shadowdemons. Boamund, however, cast a final glance into those endless depths and saw clearly into them - all the way into Hell. His mind withstood the maddening onslaught of visions and he turned away, now briefly able to see through any darkness; even the thickest Helldark.
You descended the ledges down to another cave, where clumps of lead were embedded into the walls, and you ascertained that they were fragments of a giant troll's skeleton. Oddly though, wormlike strands of darkness slithered between them like fluid flesh, and that was not right. Bog and Miguel got caught by then and had some flesh eaten, but you escaped before the maggot-like things ate you down to bones.
A cleft-like tunnel led to a larger cave that reached high into the cliff, with a crack on the left side of its ceiling visible in the distance, which must have extended to the surface world. Thin streamers of shadows hung limply down from the ceiling; still as if they were stalactites. The middle of the cave sported a column of stone that extended from floor to ceiling and was chewed and clawed and inscribed with many symbols and depictions, with none of the defacement visible elsewhere. There was a disconcerting feeling here… and you soon felt the presence of spirits that brought that feeling upon the place. Boamund's rational mind ignored them, and Miguel shrugged off an attempt to drag him into a part of the Spirit Plane where intellects fell apart. These were Passion Spirits of Idiocy that lurked here as guardians, but now they left you alone; not troubling Bog or Fraud.
You approached the column and saw many intact prayers chewed onto it. The column evoked the power of great mother Ortele Threetooth when approached. She spoke again, her voice whispering from it in Darktongue: “My power has held vigil here since my demise; Xentha's mercy has embraced me, and I now extend it to embrace you. You may rest in the comforting shadows, and you may need it. For beyond lie three final challenges: first, there is another trick of the crazed enemy; second, there is a great Dehori that has risen from the Abyss and is hungry for your flesh; third, there is the enemy lurking in my shrine, and she will be desperate and unpredictable if you survive to face her-but face her bravely and with calm, compassionate minds if you do. Perhaps there is still hope. Even for me. Farewell; and may Xentha's cloak of night ward you from the flames of hatred.” You took the opportunity to rest in this safe space of Xentha, and the darkness soothed and healed you.
A tunnel twisted back deeper into the cliff from here, and led to a widening of the tunnel where shadows hung low to the ground like fog. Sensing a trick, Boamund used his new sight to peer through the shadows and saw hot, infernal coals smouldering everywhere on the floor. With some probing, you found that they could not be moved; the rock itself was alight with hellfire. Boamund ran across safely, then all the others (with some minor injury from the heat, which would seep through armour if one took too long), but the trick (of heat/fire hidden by Darkness) was navigable easily enough thanks to the warning.
The tunnel expanded into an onlong cave that met that black abyss again. Fragments of bones were scattered around the floor, and the walls were deeply scored with massive claw and bite marks, far beyond those any troll could make. Across the cave, cobblestones were visible in a stoneworked passageway leading to the left. Wisely, you cast some magics in preparation of trouble. Bog roared a berserk challenge, knowing that your enemy awaited, and he rushed in alone. Out of the nebulous pit climbed a giant, demonic troll-thing made of shadows. It fended off his blow, taking some injury, and then ripped his weapon arm off, which sent it into a vicious blood-frenzy. Howling with rage, it grabbed him and was about to bite him in twain, when the rest of you rushed in to confront it. It flung Bog's body at Fraud who rolled aside, and then it faced you all. With a few blows you felled the fearsome thing, mainly by Boamund hewing away at its leg until it dropped. With the hell-horror defeated, Miguel turned to Bog's bleeding form and healed him. It took some convincing to prevent Bog from eating his own arm, but you moved forward to the final chamber.
The stone passageway had completely collapsed to the right side of the entrance, near the abyss that was visible as an impenetrable blackness fracturing its wall. To the left, the 6m wide passage opened into an 18m wide, 24m long great hallway with large alcoves to the left and on the far wall; reminiscent of the two prior chambers near the entrance, again with statues but hidden in thick shadow. On the right wall opposite the alcove there was a collapsed region that might have once been an alcove, but whatever it was was destroyed. Four pillars again dominated the central hall, extending 20m up to the ceiling. In the middle of the pillars was a 10m tall dark granite pedestal, deeply carved with Darkness runes, and with a 6m diameter sphere of darkness hovering above it, quivering like jelly. An ebony murk spilled off of the sphere like mist, rising to the ceiling, as if the sphere was the source of night itself, and obscuring the ceiling's surface as if it had become the starless night sky. But there was the feeling here both of intense magic and intense wrongness and malice. As evidence of that malevolence, the walls of the room were abundantly splattered with dried blood and gory gobbets.
Boamund's darksense probed the shadowed alcove and saw a tall non-trollish humanoid statue in robes. Fraud walked toward the pedestal, calling to Xentha's darkness, and the mists began to descend to him, swirling around you. But the room's main occupant did not like this, not at all! Two scintillating rubbery blobs of hellish power manifested from the dark sphere- they were Hellions; spiritually manifested energy of the Underworld. They blasted at Boamund and Fraud with fatiguing lashes but the two men held up bravely, while Boamund disrupted them and they grew weaker with the usage of their lash-power. Eventually, as hostilies continued, they were both vanquished.
Yet out of the shadowed alcove came a darkness-hag; an ancient (Godtime) spirit who had been allied to this shrine and now jealously squandered its power for herself. She was Granny Greedclaws, and she flew on shadowy winds, challenging “You lost long ago, Xentha. It is foolish to send your slaves to caper in my grim palace. They made it past my demons, so they must be strong and clever. But they're no match for me, nonononono. I ripped great mother Ortele Threetooth into bits and I can do the same with them. The only change that will come to my palace of gore is the prize of their corpses as new decorations!”
Granny invoked many tricks- a Fear spell that Miguel survived, a box of wooden puppets that kept everyone but Fraud harmonized with their dance while he tried to stop her, a skull-“grenade” that seemed to do nothing but make people laugh when Miguel shot it and it turned into a cabbage, plenty of offensive folk magics and curses, a rain of blood that left you slipping around, and a wicked Hellstrike of fire that would have incinerated Fraud if not for his invocation of Xentha's darkness-shield. She made some offers; Fraud rebuffed the first, unpleasant one: “You are no stranger to the wiles of immortal women, I know, snake-face. I may not look it but I am tremendously fecund, sweet little meat-man.” She also noted “I have powers any mortal would desire. Wish to bring back the dead from the Underworld? Have unfond memories you want scooped out? I'm your lady.” And that was still not tempting.
But you sensed from the outset that she lacked some confidence, concerned by your presence, and Fraud gradually opened conversation with her-at first making little headway, but gradually wearing her down from utterly murderous frenzy toward banter; especially as she learned that the two other shrines had been cleansed. At last, you presented the incense-bowls to her and she recalled that she had gone mad… had she murdered Ortele and ripped her to bits or was there more to that story?
She offered three ritualistic riddles to you, with prizes from you as the stakes, in order to carry on further conversation. You failed at the riddles, much to her glee, and Fraud gave her some spells and such. Now she was more friendly, and offered some information: She was a friend of Ortele Threetooth but was stricken mad when the Subere shrine was overrun and demons flooded forth– she thought she killed Ortele but actually the demons did, and she merely ripped Ortele's body into pieces out of grief. She had fought the demons at first, as Ortele hinted at in the beginning. She used her Earth powers to shake the complex and destroy some demons, but this also backfired and let more in, driving her mad from the guilt. Right now, her mind was focused on the power she has, and she was reluctant to release it but did not understand why she wanted that power. Her grief left her desiring solitude and that was the extent of her insight, you surmised; in desperation she grabbed at any power she could hold onto to protect this hermitage. She dimly recalled the Vadeli power of “Yomil” that started all of the problems here. At last, she agreed to release the shrine of Xentha from her grip, and so she incanted to it, the earth shuddered, and she bowed and muttered an apology to Ortele. The sphere returned to more normal darkness rather than its rubbery form, and the murk it emitted turnedto normal night-darkness too, revealing that the ceiling had rumbled open into a wide cleft exposed to the night sky, with all its stars. Somewhere up there, some of you noted a dark mote ascending; rather than stay and serve the shrine, Granny Greedclaws had chosen to go into the night and do as she pleased; but perhaps she would return.
Ortele's spirit then whispered from the darkness: “Hope indeed there was, and you have set it free! So shall I go free, too; free as the shadows of the night, no longer bound in my haunting. As for this place, it will heal and those of Xentha may find it again and resanctify it. You have made all this possible. And as for you, Xentha sees what you have done and returns the favour of your defense of her holy ground. Let her comforting darkness ward you as you seek out the enemies that would hide in it. May your seeking last for many meals. I go to drink of the night eternal…” the voice faded quickly; Ortele was at rest now.
Fraud was gifted with a rare Folk Magic of Shadowed Shield: in twilight or greater darkness, may summon shadows for 1 MP to bless a shield and protect it, raising its defensive Size by 1 grade and its AP by 1 .
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