[Narrator Voice with scrolling text

With the winery in flames above, the Exemplar Endevourers descended to safety down a circular staircase, taking with them some choice bottles quickly consumed by the resident Pixie. Also accompanying them was an unexpected guest, the goblin's shaman of the fallen war party as a...hostage? Companion? The thief was unaccounted for.

The party found a passageway heading south. Two locked doors opposite each other on the passageway revealed very different surprises.

The western door opened to reveal the skeletal remains of a former cart-driver, his body picked clean to the bone by rats. His journal held clues as to the winery's demise from the goblin invasion and something more sinister.

The eastern door opened by itself due to the fact that the very surprised thief fell through a secret door by the fireplace above. These things happen sometimes. I think they're called "plot contrivances". Inside the room they found a strange contraption that can copy entire pages at a time, called a "printing press". Iffy thought the little backwards letters made of metal might be worth something and gathered up a sack of them. Surviving literature in the room suggested that the winery itself was built to keep something malevolent buried beneath it...

The passage ends to the south with an solid door, but the wooden frame around it has rotted away. The passage beyond seems to stretch perpendicular, going east and west.

Regdoc shook his head to escape whatever bizarre reverie had come upon him. An excuse of "...just resting my eyes," was made to anyone who might ask. He patted Chomper and they took their place in the line, ready to delve the deeps and discover the dark secrets of the winery's bowels.

Iffy weighted the wooden, backwards letters she decided to remove from the machinery almost without thinking. Despite what she said, she doubted they could be of any value. But she was strangely fascinated by the contraption, more from the way it supposedly operated than from the final product of the process; was that a valid reason to remove some of it? Yeah, of course it was. She liked it and she took it, why not?

"Old habits, right?" She thought to herself, a smile appearing briefly on her lips, not seen by anyone.
Iffy lifted her gaze from her prize to the darkness ahead. "Anyway, you never know what can be of use down here."

She never feared darkness, on the contrary, she always found comfort in the shadows, but this particular gloom seemed of a different kind: thick, oily, unwelcoming. Behind her, her companions were arranging themselves in some sort of order.

"Let's go," she murmured to no one in particular, starting to move forward.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:26, Mon 07 Jan 2019.

The pixie bows deeply, swinging his arms in an exaggerated motion to point the way towards the darkness of the unknown.  "After you." *hic*

Amalrik moves to cover Iffy's left side.

"Oh, is it time to move out? Sorry. I was thinking about... well, that's none of your business anyway." Creston picks up his bow and moves into position to cover the rear. "I'm ready... where's that dog?"

“We are ready to proceed? Good, good.”

With some obvious effort the wizard stands up and grimaces at his bloody robes. He pokes two fingers through the hole the spear made to his robe, estimating the damage done.

“I need to see a clothier when we get back to civilization. Seriously. If we get back to civilization, that is.”

He places himself in the middle of the group, in spot best guarded from all flanks by more brawnier companions.

"I'm sure you'll be up to your knees in new robes to try on very soon, my friend," Brodd says in a light tone.  He would offer to sew the hole closed but didn't want to offend the wizard who no doubt was very adept with a needle and thread himself.

Pressing on to find whatever was supposedly down here struck the priest as important, but he was always struggling to balance the present with their mission.  Every passing moment was supposed to be a branching of creation and to always choose a new path the definition of chaos.  Brodd is determined to get them back on track, soon.

Yagi glances at her collection of bones and feathers topped with a human skull, "Com'on Thud ,Mistah Wong is ready to go, I will follow you and protect your back."

Yagi and Mistah Wong fall inline closer to the rear behind Thud?

Amalrik checks the line of march to keep track of the people behind him.  Voodoo talking heads juju, I need another drink for this job. he mutters.

He grips his sword and relaxes himself to act as needed, nods to Iffy.  Gotch' your back honeybuns.

At the free-hanging door, Amalrik easily pushes it to the side with metallic groan. The passage beyond is perpendicular to the one you're currently in, running east-west by your best judgement. The passage is wide enough for travelling double-file. The stonework is consistent with what you've seen so far down here.

"Brother Brodd, you still have eyes on that goblin shaman or what ever it thinks it is, do you?" Sasar converses casually. His expression is stern, however, when he glances over.

"Hrrr-right, *ahem*" Regdoc coughed. His bushy white whiskers shook toward the east.

"Brother Brodd, you still have eyes on that goblin shaman or what ever it thinks it is, do you?" Sasar converses casually. His expression is stern, however, when he glances over.

"I do.  I do not expect it to walk with us long, but until we are gone from this underground, allies are welcome until they prove themselves otherwise," Brodd replies.

At the intersection, the young acolyte steps forward and peers down each hallway.  Unless he sees or hears something remarkable, Brodd decides one way is as good as another.  As a man of strict doctrine, when faced with the unknown, the right-handed path is best.

"This way?" he suggests, pointing right, which would make it east if indeed they were facing north-ish.

Eron nods in agreement at the suggestion, and adds, "Perhaps we should walk double file, although we should guard our rear flank as well."

"Right or left?" Iffy stops and looks both ways, before following Brodd on the right. Although she didn't see anything strange in either direction, the uneasiness she was feeling before increases, slow and steady. Every strange echo bouncing off the walls makes her jump slightly, her head turn, eyes nervously searching in the darkness behind them. "What was that rattle? " she thinks, before seeing the bones and skull Yagi is carrying "Mpfh, that damn goblin with her chick bones..."