(05) Descent into Darkness

[waysoftheearth]

Thanis tosses a torch down the steep, narrow stair. It clatters and bounces a few times before vanishing around a corner. When the noise subsides, the dim glow of its flickering flames can still be seen of the rough walls. Clearly, the stairway goes deeper...

Into the Underworld at last...

[sully]

Thanis waits 5 minutes and then proceeds down the stairs.

[rredmond]

Garamond gets in the MO and heads down.

is it wide enough for two-by-two?

[mushgnome]

Stern is prepared for the worst. He joins the party's descent into darkness.

[ehiker133]

Goldwen says a quiet prayer to the Immaculate Mother Goddess before she joins the marching order in descending the stairs.

[waysoftheearth]

Thanis waits a good few minutes, but there is no reaction to his torch forthcoming.

Satisfied there is no immediate danger, he leads the party down the steep, narrow stair. It turns half a dozen times, making a turning a full circuit so that they emerge into the undercroft facing in more-or-less the same direction as they first headed down the stair.

Thanis' torch is sputtering on the ground at the foot of the stair, but the chamber ahead is much larger than any single torch could light properly. It is well then that the space is dimly infused with an orange glow from the several huge sections of missing floor. A curling mist drifts up through these yawning gaps to swirl lazily in the air, bringing strangely charred scents and distant echoes from somewhere deeper in the Underworld...

To the immediate left and right of the landing there are archways that lead off the main chamber into dark passages. Overhead, the high vaulted ceiling appears largely in tact.

Flin knows instinctively what the others suspect; that the floor in the main chamber is unsafe.

What now?

[zygarti]

Flin reaches out an arm silently and states the obvious, "The floor here is unsafe", glancing over to Tass to make sure he is listening.

"Wraislin, perhaps you can use your staff to check the ground before we move forward?" he suggests.

[sully]

Thanis moves cautiously to approach a section of the floor that's missing and peers downward to see if he can identify what is making the orange glow.

[mgtremaine]

"Wow.. This looks completely unsafe. It's going to be fun." Tass tells everyone while trying eye a path and search for hidden dangers along it. "Flin you should use that Dwarven knowledge you always talk about to tell us if the floor is about to give way. "

[mushgnome]

"Whoa, hold up!" Stern raises his palm in a 'stop' gesture so nobody stumbles onto the unsafe floor.

The 'strangely charred scents' catch his attention. He takes a deep whiff (filtered through his mustache). The Knights of Solaria have close ties to the Church, and Stern has spent countless hours in the chapel, inhaling the fumes of frankincense and myrrh. In Stern's opinion, is this a complex aroma, evocative of incense, perfume or exotic ingredients (like he would associate with a ritual or ceremony)?