The party continues forward, climbs down steep steps and walks down a corridor to a set of double doors that are open. The great bronze doors are nearly ten feet tall. The aged metal has a blue-green sheen. The doors' bas relief surfaces depict a gruesome scene of people being devoured by dragons, giants, demons, gargantuan serpeants, and other horrific monsters. Courtouches in the middle of each door bear inscriptions.
Kallad translates the Allevian writing for the group: "Plianonne placates for the peace of this mountain. Her stone guards the temple. Do not enter."
The other writing states: "The one with the second life will take the stone and bring ruin, for the stone is death to all else."
Looking into the chamber beyond the doors, you see a dark chamber with a high, vaulted ceiling. Patches of masonry show through smooth plaster walls. The air seems stale. Ranks of marble statues line the left and right walls in the wider portion of the chamber.
A lattice of heavy wooden beams spans the chamber at the point where the vaulting begins to curve inward, reaching overhead perhaps three or four times the height of a human. From these beams, four rusty iron cages hang on thick chains. The cages resemble squat, ugly eggs with curved bars instead of shells. Skeletal arms and legs hang from inside each one. Scattered bones litter the floor under the cages.
Some distance away, the chamber widens a bit. You spot six similar cages in a double row of three, hanging over a pair of bronze doors just like the first pair. They're ajar, too. The cages are lit from behind, probably by a pair of torches like those in the treasury room that burn eternally at the level of the cages. Thanks to the light, you can see that one of the cages has an intact body inside. It may be your imagination, but you could swear that it just moved...
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:35, Fri 08 Aug 2003.