Shaking the Hands of Glory

Letting the rogue scout ahead, the party set to descend the revealed shaft, which led to a small chamber with a single corridor leading away. The rogue heard the murmur of conversation and dim wavering light from down it and creeping further forwards, he spied past a turn towards a further chamber containing two men relaxing in conversation.

The others in the group had now descended and with some stealth they approached the second room, before finally rushing forward. The party briefly surprised the occupants, although they quickly recovered and prepared weapons. A further man resting in a far corridor, moved to open a nearby door and a fourth appeared from a side chamber. A stiff fight, enjoined by a quartet of guard dogs released from a rear chamber, still saw the party victorious and they proceeded to search round the rooms for further clues.

The cluster of chambers appeared to be a long disused underground warehouse and excepting a recent crude infill in the outer corridor, nothing unusual showed. The cleric hammered at the corridor infill, whilst in a corner of the guarded chamber, the rogue found a false wall section covering a rough hewn tunnel leading away. Quickly ducking down the short narrow passage, he discovered a small chamber on the other side of the infill, from which a spiral stairwell led down.

He descended with the swordmage in support, to find a large room at the bottom, dimly lit. The rogue saw only two figures at the far end and decided to sneak in, whilst the swordmage went back up to bring the others down. The rogue gained the cover of the bench tables running down the centre of the hall, but towards the far end he knocked a chair and was accosted by the figure seated on the end dias.

Realising he'd been spotted, the rogue stood and made to engage the leader in conversation; he elicited little except a name - Argesh - and soon found himself being surrounded by more fighters. The rest of the party appeared from the stairwell, to see the rogue dodging for his life and they advanced to engage his opponents. After a protracted fight they defeated them and rested briefly before quickly exploring the area. Finding only what appeared to be a kitchen and connected food storage, they moved on into the chamber beyond.

A strange blank room met their eyes, only broken by a lone statue near the middle of the floor, which at the rear rose ten foot to where the room continued back at a higher level; the raer face was pierced by two stairwells leading up to the higher floor. The lower floor was flagged with large slabs, each marked with an engraved cross at the centre of which was a small hole. The rogue moved forward and despite his care, was caught by a spear shaft as it shot up from the hole in the floor.

Realising he was in a trapped room, he took a random path and managing to avoid any further traps he sprung, moved towards the stairwells at the rear of the room. Passing the statue, he was again surprised as a fireball shot from the carved mouth facing his side. Managing to roll through, he avoided the blast and reached the stairs at the rear. The others followed and also made the stairs, though the less dextrous suffered some injuries from the traps.

They moved to the upper floor and edged down the corridor beyond, the rogue again out front. More cautious now, he spotted pressure plates crossing the width of the corridor and jumped across them. Landing on the far side, he drove forward yet again, as the floor fell away beneath him to reveal a fifteen foot pit. Two more fighters appeared from a junction ahead and quickly closed on the rogue, but he managed to manoeuvre them to allow some more of the party to jump over the pit and assist the fight.