The southern door leading out of the druid’s crypt opens with a soft scrape of stone against stone.

The corridor beyond the doorway is nondescript, the gray stone smooth and unadorned with any markings or decorations. The eastern wall shows dark stains near the ceiling, evidence of the encroachment of moisture from the marsh above.

The passageway leads southward for thirty feet, before abruptly halting at a dead end. At the corridor’s midpoint, an adjoining branch heads west for a little more than ten feet before also reaching a dead end.

Dust lines the floor, thick and undisturbed.

Clearing his throat, Lampert speaks quietly as he holds his torch aloft. ”It is strange. As long as I have known, Helix has been a small village, mostly filled with those who work the forests or ferry goods. But this…all these people buried here. How is that so many lived in this land so long ago?”

Gwendolyn nods and keeps her guard up. "This whole place seems rather odd. Certainly, this place stinks of unnatural evils."

She slowly moves along in the midst of the tallfolk.

Dax pushes the door open, and notes the swirls of dust, he disturbed. "This door has not been opened in many years."

Standing at the midpoint of the corridor, he notes, "Two dead ends, or perhaps hidden doors?"

"This place is ancient Lampert...it's possible that where the little village of Helix now stands, there may have been a vast city larger than ten Ironguard Mottes!

Civilisations rise and fall and are forgotten."
This message was last edited by the player at 07:23, Sun 06 Feb 2022.

"I was thinking the same thing," Malivoire said in response to Dax.  "Worth a search, at least.  After all, who digs perfectly good passageways, hidden by a concealed door, and doesn't take them to some other room or exit?"

Lampert's observation drew a wry smile from the mage, especially when he considered how long Lampert could have known anything.  Two decades, perhaps?  "Dax is right, Lampert.  I am much older than you, and I have no living memory of the moor being anything but the way it is today, more or less.  And the crypts have been here much longer than that."

"But perhaps this is something we will uncover during our explorations.  I am certain our patron is interested in the same questions you ask, and will pay well for the answer to that riddle."


OOC:
If Barnabus doesn't call us off officially to head back the other way, Malivoire will search the end of the short western branch for secret or concealed doors.
21:21, Today: Malivoire rolled 2 using 1d6.  Secret Door (1-2).

Barnabus speaks to the linkboy for what might have been the first time.

"I wonder if you have that question the wrong way around, living man. Should it not be, 'Have you always presumed that the living outnumber the dead?'"?

"The kingdom of the dead dwarfs the domain of the living. That is why they demand our proper care and protection."

What exactly that means, he doesn't say.

He catches his breath while the others mill about for a bit, pursuing their own purposes.

Dax will check the south end of the corridor for hidden doors, but does not find anything.

---

Dax Moonblade rolled 4 using 1d6 for secret doors (2).

Lampert listens attentively to the party members who give answer to him, showing them the respect  due those of greater experience and wisdom. Nonetheless, he blinks in either wonder or horror at Barnabus’ response, his lack of reply to the priest leaving his perception of the cleric’s words in question.

Malivoire’s search of the western branch of the quiet corridor requires only a few minutes before the mage spies an indentation between the seams of two of the wall’s rectangular stones which he discovers to be the handle for a hidden door.

Although Dax’s search does not yield a similar discovery, the Ranger cannot shake the instinct that there is a concealed portal present which has merely escaped his perception for the moment.

"Let's leave these deeper mysteries for a later time," Barnabus decides, after the magic user has discovered the third concealed door of this, their first expedition.

Back through the druid's crypt, across the room with the pedestals, and then past the broken sarcophagus, he shepherds them until they have reached the room with the pottery. From there, it is to the chamber beyond the door on the southwestern wall.

The iron banded door in the southwestern corner of the chamber that held the ash filled pottery opens easily, only giving out a brief creak as it moves.

Beyond the doorway is another stone corridor, the gray walls stained dark with moisture along most of its length. The scent of moldering corruption hangs in the air.

The hall has two branches. The first extends south of the doorway for a little less than twenty feet before reaching another iron banded door, its metal reinforcements pitted with rust. The second branch leads eastward for forty feet before terminating at a dead end that is blackened by moisture. Nothing stirs within the gloomy passageway.

With a great inhalation of the ever so sweet, intoxicating odor of decay, Barnabus forces himself to turn away from eastern branch of the hall. Instead he directs the experts' attention to the iron-banded door down the southern branch. They should give a listen before leading the assembled further south.

Dryvyk maintained his position in the party with a grim stoicism that would put many heroic statues to shame. His shield and sword were ready for action however, should such services be needed any time soon...

The elven mage held his position in the order, nervously fiddling with a dart in its slot on his belt while he waited.  In the oppressive gloom of the passageway the exceptional calm of the druid's chamber seemed long ago already.

No sound is audible on the other side of the moisture warped door. Even Ishmael, with his sharp senses, can hear only silence.

OOC Through the door then.