Legwork: What Dreams Ae Made Of Part 5

When last we left our heroes, they were discussing their next move after examining the township more closely. They had learned of a recurrring motiff of the fourth door through the madness of its inhabitants.

Sasha is still rather clueless as to what's going on, but she does defer to the experts at the moment....

"So it is decided?" Alba asks, floating in the center of a room bearing a locked door. "We go into the mines past the altar, and see what we may find?"

Astaren rubs his temples, "My only idea is going into the mines deeper, but you know." Snapping his fingers as he pulls off his haver sack. He reaches into the back area and pulls out a several wooden carvings, each one a different phase of the moon. Then some candles, some incense sticks, and a couple of feathers. He sits the carvings down and puts a incense stick in each one. With a few whispers of his words and incense candles light up in the smells of sage and lavendar. A smile over to Alba, 'Give me about ten minutes, going to try asking the higher realms for some advice." sitting in the middle and waiting.

GAME: Astaren casts Divination. Caster Level: 12 DC: 19

"As you like," Alba says, quietly scraping a thumb against the edge of one of her hand-razors, testing its edge. It may, after all, be a concern.

Sasha says, "Mmm. I guess we'll be here a little while." She says leaning against a wall. "Interesting though....""

Astaren closes his eyes for a while and then hops up, "Ok! into the mines, and keep an eye out for any more journals. We got two leads, into the mines, and back to Alexandria to talk to those who are going made. Minds and mines, also this did n ot start here..." glancing to Alba and Kisaiya both, "Nore does it end here."

"It will," Alba says, voice dark, "lest the thing behind this wish to suffer in ways it may not imagine. Journals, then. So, so, so. To the mines, then." And with that, Alba drifts toward the door.

Back to the mines, then.

Down you go back to the altar room with all the sealed passages and the single, onyx altar.

There are six passages in total moving from the one you enter, all alonmg the one wall, all sealed off, or at least unopened.

As you go, the doll winks out of existence.

"Every third door, perhaps?" Alba muses, drifting past each door in turn.

Sasha takes a breath as the doll winks out of existence. "There's a pattern that suggests threes, Alba. So the question is...where do we start counting?"

Hun'rar ponders "Perhaps it doesn't matter where we start and we go in threes from there? They are all on one wall, we can just try the third? Or do we need to try three times?" he offers as a suggestion.

Astaren nods to Sasha, "Yea, every third." glancing at the sealed passages, "So yea, where to start, where to end." shrugging his shoulders," And this is going to take a bit of digging." Moving to the third one from the left.

Sasha says, "Try the middle two. third from the left and third from the right."

GAME: Astaren casts Stone Shape. Caster Level: 12 DC: 18

GAME: Astaren casts Divination. Caster Level: 12 DC: 19

Astaren flips through a book as he considers and nods. Closing it he traces a glowing circle in front of the stone and then pushes it forward. The stone melds before him making a passage. he immedeitnly jumps tot he side in case something attacks.

The tunnel is dug out easily enough with the help of magic. That's one, at least. Better hope it was the right one! Sealed as it was, the air here is musty and stale, and it looks like it heads on for quite a while before curving to the left, visibly.

This tunnel definitely looks older than the mine itself.

Sasha doesn't go first, bu she does look around when she gets down there. "Place definitely smells old. Dwarf old...not elf old."

Hun'rar is willing to go first, his broad shield raised to intercept any trouble. "Keep an eye out, traps and so forth." he says walking forward.

Astaren glances down the tunnel and nods slowly, "Yea Sasha, this is old, very very old." tapping his chin and shaking his head, "Thanks Huh'Rar." Falling into line behind him.

GAME: Astaren rolls perception: (17)+17: 34

GAME: Alba rolls perception: (1)+12: 13 (EPIC FAIL)

GAME: Hun'rar rolls perception: (12)+0: 12

GAME: Sasha rolls perception: (20)+4: 24

Good news, everyone! Nothing is leaping out to kill you at this time!

That is great news, right? ALong the way, you see magicite sticking out of the walls, pulsing with dark light.

It's pretty!

ALso, probably not so good for you. Raw, exposed magicit e like this can have negative consequences from time to time!

St ill, you make your way along the passage until it rounds around and around, three times actually, and you find what appears to be a small hole in the floor in a ciruclar chamber.

Placed around it are various offeriongs. Clay pots, for example. They're all vessels of some kind. bowls. pots. Vases.

As she enters the chamber, Alba begins to make a circuit of the room, examining the offering first. Not touching, but hunting for writing, sniffing at the openings, searching for some clue in the remnants of what was considered precious.

Sasha starts wandering around too....in the opposite direction of alba. trying to help as best she can.

Whatever was in the pots has long since evaporated, if thre was anything at all. Some are more expensive than others. Gold, for exmaple.

Astaren looks at the pots, looks at the hole and steps forward slowly, 'Magicite, offerings, something ancient is down there, or was." frowning as he considers and shakes his head, "Seems we still must go deeper yet." shaking his head as he considers.

.

Travelling back, you're soon back to the main room, only it feels... like it took a little longer than it should have to get back. Just a bit of oddness.

You dig out the second passage and travel along it. It is much like the first, honestly, except curving to the left where as the other curved to the right. It's shorter than the first path you wer eon, seeming to spiral within the wall of the first. It leads to... another hole.

Instead of vases and pots, however, this time it appears that the floor here is stained with ancient blood. Ancient being relative here. A better guess is centuries of age.

GAME: Alba casts Dancing Lights. Caster Level: 10 DC: 15

GAME: Alba casts Prying Eyes. Caster Level: 10 DC: 20

GAME: Alba rolls heal: (4)+9: 13

Placing her hands together, Alba mutters a word in a brain-twisting language. When she pulls them apart, a quartet of points of light bob and drift in place, then sent into the hole with a wave of her hand. Again she repeats the motion, but this time when she separates her hand a small, hard-to-spot globe bobs in place. "Go down the hole," she whispers. "Look all around the room, and return."

Obligingly, the globe floats down after the hole. A few moments later, the globe returns, lights winking out in the depths of the hole. Plucking the globe out of the air, the Witch stares at it, and when it disappears she shakes her head. "Bones," she says. "Naught but piles and piles of bones at the bottom, but I cannot make sense of it."

Sasha says, "mmmm....Bones. What kind?" She says softly to Alba. "Like you said....you can't make sense of it, but it may tell us what's down there...if anything.""

GAME: Alba rolls knowledge/arcana: (18)+13: 31

Nothing else happens, of course. For now.

For awhile, after Sasha's question, Alba simply taps at her mask, muttering. "Symbols, writings, what doe--" Her head snaps up. "It is a Void cult. They were sacrificing people, creatures, all to feed the unending hunger."

Sasha winces. "uuuugh..."

Kisaiya was in a bit of a daze and starts in toward the Alba and Sasha. She had managed to find them again, just in time to hear talk of symbols, writing, cults and hunger. "Oh my Gods." Kisaiya says with a soft groan, "I am so hungry." She settles in next to the both of them and peers down into the pit as well, a frown.

"Void Cult... Void cult..." Kisaiya taps at her chin, "What is that? Is that like with the dragon that showed up at the museum? That's something with Thul? Oh! We should ask Sandy, she did the rainbow thing versus the void one, right?"

Sasha says, "Sandy has no part in this, Kisaiya. this IS kind of about the dragon and thul. though it's more about the undead aspect.""

"Not even Thul would countenance the encroaching of the Void," Alba mutters. "But, but... Recall the land of Dragonier, friend. Recall who is its destroyer and master; Heth, greatest of the Void Dragons."

Sasha says, "Doncha mean the worst?"

"Dragons are akin to the tinkerings of goblins," Alba replies. "Both are the same word."

Another tapping of her chin, she tilts her head to the side as Alba speaks and she nods her head a bit. She crouches down and then looks down into the pit once more, "Okay, okay, okay. So, we have either Heth or Thul, and I think Thul is kinda getting a bit grump because of all the alters, right?"

Kisa frowns again, "I mean, they're getting destroyed, right? So that means that he's probably losing power, and then with the Heth thing, and Heth wants to be a God, right? Alright, so what's this gotta do with dreams?"

GAME: Kisaiya rolls 5: (19)+5: 24

GAME: Sasha rolls knowledge/religion: (9)+12: 21

Sasha says, "Magic...Kisa. and Eluna is also the goddess of dreams. You heard of the 'veil' right?""

"I have heard the occasional wizard squeeze it into his torrent of words," Alba allows.

Kisa stares a bit blankly at Sasha, "Nope. I got nothing on the veil." She shakes her head and then looks back down the way they had come from, murmuring, "Hey... Funny thought though. What if this is a literal passage for something more evil. Yeah? Like... Maybe this is about a pure void." A nod of her head and she looks at Sasha, then toward Alba, a cant of her head, "What?"

Sasha says, "yeah....this was an altar for a void demon, Alba. And I mean the veil between reality and dreams. Wizards may harp on it, but their monastic order, the order of the thinning veil, really focus on it."

"Do you think that Void demon-thingy would have anything to do with the no dreaming?" Kisaiya says, looking back toward Sasha and then toward Alba.

"Nothing," Alba says to Kisaiya, soon focusing on Sasha. "It fits well with what I am thinking," she muses. "The Void, it hungers, wishing to consume all. But nowhere is it written, that what is not physical is all that will fill its belly. What if, in these mines, there is a lair for a demon that consumes *dreams?* A thing that is not fed by flesh or blood or bone, but the fancies and prophecies of the dreaming mind?"

Sasha says, "Exactly Alba. Consumes dreams, then you can't sleep and rest. eventually, you go mad, and......the demon consumes you.""

Kisaiya frowns, and then mutters, "Well, then maybe we should grab Durrankar and bring him out here, pretty sure he dreams in lectures would probably kill the demon with boredom." She gives a sigh and sinks back down onto her heels and gives another look around. A tilt of her head one way and then the other, a look down into the put again.

"Okay, so let's say that's true. How do we sever its hold? Because obviously distance doesn't matter." Kisaiya looks back up again between the two of them.

"Worse yet," Alba mutters, 'pacing' back and forth a few inches from the ground. "There is a *cancer* in the dream world, in this place. If this demon does not exist in the physical world, then how would it affect--" Her head snaps up, and a string of crackling, harsh words fall from behind her mask. "WE ARE LEAVING NOW. QUICKLY."

Sasha grabs a hold of Kisaiya and starts to drag her out before she can object. "MOVE DAMMIT!"

Kisaiya wasn't objecting anyway.

Out you go. Nothing stops you for now.

Dragging Astaren and Hun'rar out with her hair, Alba leads the group beyond the borders of the village. Once there, she hunts down the length of her link to her 'enemy.' The mental equivalent of 'are you there?!'

The doll reappears.

"WHERE DID YOU GO. I NEED YOU. SOMETHING IS NEAR," she shrieks.

Kisaiya will of course help haul Hun'rar out as well, "When we stop I do want an explanation!" Kisa calls out, I mean - she does want to know. Then there's the doll. Kisa throws her hands in the air, "WE WENT IN JUST LIKE WE TOLD YOU! WHAT IS NEAR?!" Kisa of course shrieks back at it.

"WHERE ARE YOU," Alba shouts in answer. "GET OUT OF THE DREAMING."

The doll vanishes again.

Sasha runs out to beyond the edge of the village as well. At the yelling...she takes a breath.....deep breaths. "Kisa.....get your scythe out." As calmly as she can.....

Kisaiya si-i-i-i-ighs, and reaches back, pulling out the scythe with a a bit of flourish as she looked to where the doll disappeared off to. "So obviously we're talking about this demon that's manifesting. Anything else?" She frowns.

"The doll was created by a girl who has power over dreams," Alba says simply. "Power that lets her affect the physical world. And one of her dreams was taken into the village."

Sasha listens to Alba....

"Ohhh." Kisa nods her head, "So if the demon can get to her, and she has power over dreams, then perhaps he can use her to go in reverse?" An arch of her brows.

"THAT IS INDEED WHY I AM CURRENTLY TERRIFIED FOR THE MIND OF A SMALL CHILD YES," Alba says, in a *rare* display of actual concern. "WE MUST FIND HER."

"Shhh-shhh." Kisa says slowly lowering her hand a little, looking to Alba with a cant of her head, "We didn't disagree, friend Alba." She nods her head, "Let's go make new friends with this child." A smile.

...it takes a while to get back from the red ridge mountains, of course, but you do manage to make it back to BAlefire Farm. All appears peacerful on the outside.

Without waiting to talk to any of the ranch workers, Alba soars into the farmhouse, hair writhing in a long trail behind her. "Child, are you there?! CHILD?!"

No response!

Upstairs, though, where she rests, there she is in her bed, eyes wide open and curled into a ball in the fetal position.

She appears to be shaking.

Kisaiya follows in as well, moving up behind Alba before stopping and seeing the child. A frown that creases her brow and dips down into the downward pull of her mouth.

Sasha is right behind Kisa and she stops short. However, she's lets Alba wander up first....

Alba yanks off her mask and razors, scooping the child up with real fear in her eyes. "Child," she whispers. "Child, waken. I beg you, child, waken and complain to me."

FInalyl, she stirs and sits up after what seems to be a very long time.

"There was... it was just... it...I WANT MY MOMMY."

Kisaiya moves up then, looking down at the child. A reach out and she tries to caress along the girl's cheek, "Shhh, shhh, you have three here for you. Auntie Spider, The Princess, and the very Holy one -" A soft smile, a lean in, "I think it's her socks that are." Sage nod.

Sasha moves up close too.....and while she's the tallest of them, she's also the calmest. She remains silent though.

Alba sighs heavily, hugging the child tightly. "We will get you your mommy, child," she murmurs. "Be at ease, now. You are safe while you waken."