The passage goes east-west. The west passage smells a bit musty.

Charlie looks down the dark and musty passage with his pistol raised.

"Is there anyone who hasn't been shot who want to take the lead?"

”No thank you!”

A voice echoes back.
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 17:20, Wed 01 Feb 2023.

Charlie pauses and blinks blankly. He hadn't really been expecting an answer from in front of him. With his pistol still pointed down the hall, Charlie calls out to the unknown voice.

"Are you with the madman who shot us?"

”Madman? Oh certainty not! Are you referring to Captain Hellroff?”

Litton puts a hand on Charlie's shoulder, pulling him back a bit behind cover.

Charlie doesn't resist Litton and pulls back while asking the others in a hushed voice:

"Shit. Did we actually just kill a Captain?"

With a mild expression, Thomas called down the corridor, "Am I to take it that Captain Hellroff is a known madman?" It was very difficult to tell whether he was making a genuine inquiry or being ever-so-slightly sarcastic.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:14, Thu 02 Feb 2023.

”He did seem a bit…unbalanced. We offered to help him, but he refused. Such a pity.”

”Yes, such a pity, Brother. But a brain can’t be replaced, modified perhaps.”

Litton looks at his companions and says in a low voice,

"Two voices but it might as well be one. Do we want to try and negotiate with them to get down this passage? It won't do for us to go in guns blazing. We almost all got smoked just now."

"Yeah, I'm with you. Talking this one through is better than getting shot. Again."

Litton gestures to Thomas.


"Did you want the honors of responding?"

Thomas decided to take that matter into his own hands by calling out, "I don't suppose that you've noticed any exploration parties passing by recently, Captain Hellroff and his quirks notwithstanding?"

"There appears to have been some struggle back here recently."

"Yes, there's a lot of blood on the floor. Someone seems to have been dragging bodies and launching them down the pipes."

"Such a waste! We could have helped them!"

Litton speaks up,

"Could have? What do you mean?"

In reply to Litton Yarn (msg # 15):

"We are monks from the Temple of the Jade Bringers of Mercy!"

"Yes, we are highly skilled in the healing arts!"

"Uniquely so!"

"And what are you doing...down here? In the dark?"

”Oh! You can’t see in the dark! How inconvenient!”

”We heard gunshots! We wanted to see if anyone needed help!”

”It’s our duty to help!”

Charlie puts away his pistol and lets Litton take over the discussion with the monks.

”May we approach?”

”Our enlightened states may seem unusual to you, but we are peaceful by nature.”

Litton looks to the group with his one, good eye.

"Do we let them? I'm not sure what we should expect to see here. Perhaps we try to keep our eyes low and not directly on them, should we fall under some dark influence."

Charlie looks between the hall and the others in the group.

"I don't see why not. They couldn't be any worse than the madman with the bomb, could they?"

Litton shrugs.

"Down here in the dark...who knows?"

You hear the tapping of sticks against the stone floor and the faint sound of pebbles jostling,m. Two humanoid figures carrying walking sticks start coming into view.

"Careful there, friends. Please halt there."

Litton holds up his hands.

The two stand there waiting.

Looking to the others, then back to the monks, Litton asks:

"How long have you been down here?"

Thomas pulls back a few steps and focuses his attention on monitoring the other two paths while Litton talks to the new arrivals. It wouldn't do to have someone or something else sneak up on them in the meantime.

The two look at each other, then back ahead.

”We really don’t keep track of time down here. Not as you do, anyway. The sun bouncing up and down and wobbling around. It still does that? Or did they fix it?”

Litton scratches his head.

"Days still happen, yes. What's beyond you in the dark there?"

He points down the passage they came from.

”That would be the Orb, then the Vault, then Aqueduct back to our Temple.”

”Our sacred Temple!”

”Where the broken are made whole!” They say fervently in unison.

Charlies listens quietly to the conversation; finding himself with nothing to add at the moment.

"Were we to go that way, beyond you, is there anything we should be aware of? Any danger to us?"

[When you said the passage THEY came from, you mean that the party came from or that the monks came from?]

[Our monk friends.]

"I do not anticipate such."

"Go not the opposite way from us! That is far too dangerous!"

"Yes! Very dangerous!"

Litton turns to Charlie and Thomas, whispering:

"Now they're contradicting each other. What do you want to do?"

In reply to Litton Yarn (msg # 37):

[They’re trying to say the way behind them is safer than the path away from them. If we could see our characters gesturing in the appropriate directions this would be much easier.]

Litton turns to Charlie and Thomas again, whispering:

"I feel that I was wrong about that. I think they're saying the way behind them is safer than the path away. Do we press on? Perhaps one of us can convince them to accompany us?"

Wrong thread.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:35, Tue 14 Feb 2023.

Charlie thinks for a moment, before asking the blind men the first question to come to mind.

"Is there anything down here we should be wary of?"

"Beware the Library of Heresies!"

"Flee the machinations of the Fragile Ones, lest you be trapped forever!"

Thomas threw a skeptically quizzical glance at the two, then at Charlie, then back at the two again. "Fragile Ones? Now, who or what would those be?"

"Those who were once men!"

"Entombed in clay!"

"Souls incinerated in unholy fires!"

"Until only their bones remain!"

"Painted so very garishly!"

Charlie raises an eyebrow in surprise.

"Clay covered bones? Why should we be wary of them? And what is this Library of Heresies?"

”Yet still they move!”

”Do not let them encase you!”

"I see," Thomas stated. He'd rather not see them, all things considered. That still left the other half of the Charlie's question unanswered, so he prompted for it again. "And the Library of Heresies?"