(074) Ye Nether World

Ashtad whispers to the group in a low voice, "I may be able to help get a prisoner, if we can find a lone person I can pin them down with arrows, and then we can make them talk".

Desmond carefully approaches the gate and examines it, and the walls on either side, to see if there is any way of opening it from this side.

It is an octagonal-shaped chamber about 30ft wide (which would be crowded if the whole company of nine were to push in). The ceiling is as the inside of an octangonal pyramid. Standing in the center of the chamber is a 3ft wide, four-sided stone menhir with steeply pitched sides, tapering toward a near-point some 8ft from the ground. Each of its sides faces one of the four exits from the crossroads room, and is graven with alien runes.

To the left, a narrow stair descends into darkness. To the right, and directly ahead, dark passages continue at this level.

After a brief council the group decides to try a left turn.

Do you mean the group decides to try a RIGHT turn?

Olaf continues to keep his eyes and ears open from the back. He watches and listens more toward the rear ceiling and behind than in front. He pauses occasionally to listen for any sounds behind them, but never for more than a couple of strides, nor does he fall out of the light from the lantern being carried in front of him.

Do you mean the group decides to try a RIGHT turn?

Apologies, I did mean right. I've updated my earlier post.

There are, occasionally, distant echoes of moans and clangs that can be heard when the company are still and quiet for a moment... you are certainly not the only denizens of these catacombs, but for now who ever the others might be, they seem to be some way off.

Desmond/Mondes takes a closer look at the portcullis. It seems to have been dropped with some very significant force, a very long time ago. Most of the nearly inch-thick bars seem somewhat bent from the impact, with the dagger-points at the bottom genuniely crippled by the force. The bars are clearly old and corroded, but they still look redoubtable. About 10ft beyond the bars, out of reach, there is an ancient-looking winch and chain mechanism that a man (or two men) might use to raise the gate. From the other side...

"Bah... where's that old elf and his magical spear when you need him??" Desmond mutters, spying the winch and chain.

He checks to see if there is any way he is able to squeeze through the bars to the other side. If that doesn't work, he asks Dieter, "Think you could bend those? Or you and Olaf could lift them enough for me to get through?"

Olaf hears what Desmond says as he moves into the room saying, "It Dieter, Torben and I can't lift it, then we'll have to find another way."

"If we do get it raised, even a bit, we'll want something to put under it to keep it up. A boulder or something like that." Olaf looks around to see if there is anything like that in the vicinity.

Does it look feasible at all to get through? How far apart are the bars? How tall is an uninterrupted space between them? Because I don't want to waste time if we obviously can't make a big enough gap between them.

On the other hand, I don't know about lifting them. They're already bent. Even if we oil them, they'll cause a hell of a screech and draw every unfriendly in a five mile radius.

The ancient, slightly bent, portcullis bars the way forward. The passage is scarcely 10ft broad, if that, and it is questionable whether three Men could find ample purchase to apply their full strength to it all at once.

However, Dieter and Desmond/Mondes (them being at the front of the column) examine the gaps between the bars with interest. Had the bars been perfectly straight, the gap between them would have been almost, but not quite, large enough for a slim man or an elf to entertain the notion of slipping through. As it is, even with most of the central bars bent somewhat--inward it seems, as if hammered from this side by some terrible force--there is clearly no prospect of any Man slipping through.

Desmond/Mondes, is a mere Hobbet however. He wonders... were he to remove his pack, cloak, mail, padded jack, etc. etc. might he, just about, be able to wriggle and contort....

Olaf glance around him at the detritus in the passage, but there are no loose rocks lying about any larger than his fist. A couple of minutes back down the passage he thinks he may have passed a rock the size of a helm...

While the others consider the portcullis, Armando notes something curious... right under his feet there is a flagstone that is apparently marked. Moving the grit and sand aside with his boot, he makes out a tired old glyph carved into the stone. It is hardly as deep as a dagger blade is thick, but he thinks it might be a half-recognisable, 4in wide shape: a clawed right hand.

Desmond/Mondes begins quietly removing their gear, making a small pile of it near the portcullis so that he might reach through from the other side and grab it, if he can make it through.

Once he's removed most everything he can remove without completely embarrassing Josianne or Ashtad, he attempts to slip through the bars. If he can make it through, before he does anything else, he puts his padding and chain mail back on, in order to be fully prepared in case something happens between him trying to open the gate and the gate actually opening.

That is, of course, unless Armando figures out what to do with the tile prior to Desmond getting completely down to his skivvies.