"If the wounded cannot be moved far, perhaps we should move them into one of these side entrances to rest, where the door could be more easily defended," Tag continues.
He moves around each chamber, carefully looking for secret exits and examining for clues, to the origin of this catacomb. His ear now throbs though the priest has cleaned up the blood and his arm hangs limp next to him.
"Is the wound very disfiguring, brother? Perhaps I can tell the girls I survived a fight with Iron Michealo, Si. Ullar did you ever meet him in the arena?"
"No Taglio, I've never fought him. I've heard the stories about him though...he is quite famous!" says Ullar, happily distracted from the pain of his wounds.
"I saw him once at the Coliseum. A dirty fighter, but the crowd loved it. I wonder what happened to him," Tag wonders.
The group begins to be disturbed by the fact that they are most likely trapped here, awaiting who knows what. A brief exploration reveals that there are no other exits besides the ladder down, and no furnishings at all on this level. Downward appears to be the only way to proceed.
Searching about in every niche of both levels reveals only the small holes in the ceiling that Dakath saw before and the ladder leading down from the second level. The stone blocking the arch is much too large for Rhune to have moved by herself. Without quite a bit of rest, even the large men will be unable to remove it.
Dakath looks around and grimly surveys the scene, "We need to get out of here," he says quietly, a faint smile passes his lips when he notices that Xania is unharmed.
He picks his sword back off the floor and looks around through the battle debris for anything interesting. Once satisfied there is nothing of value, Dakath sneaks down the first tunnel on the right, to see what is down there.
Dakath moves cautiously to the edge of the ladder and peers down into the gloom. He moves slightly back "Well we don't have a choice, we've got to go down. I hate being underground," he says to no one in particular.
Forte crawls over to the mace, and sits on the ground holding it in his hands. After a long time, he turns to Augustus and asks, "What can we do for Asif?"
Dakath carefully removes his armor although he keeps his long sword in his hand, before moving over to the ladder, checking for traps before slowly and silently descending further into their prison.
Dakath gets a strange buzz about the ladder, and brings his dagger close to it. He sees a blue surge of electricity jump from the ladder to his weapon, and realizes that the ladder must be trapped, attached to some kind of voltage.
Dakath jumps back involuntarily, he grins slightly uneasily, "Always pays to be careful eh?"
"What was that blue light, like a thunder storm, si? Someone doesn't want us to go down there. Perhaps we could find a way to draw the light out of the ladder, si. I have heard that some of the wealthy Venetian merchants take a metal rod and attach it to their houses, so that if lightning strikes it travels down the rod harmlessly into the ground, si. Perhaps something like that would make the ladder safe?" Tag inquires.
Kyo has a blank look on his face. As if anybody other than powerful ancient shamans could think to control the lighting, making it harmless.
"We can use my sword," suggests Forte, jokingly. "It's pretty much useless."
Ullar frowns but says nothing. Sometimes he can't understand Forte at all. However, sometimes he can't understand himself either.
Dakath places his dagger back in it's sheath and moves around to the other side of the hole, he drops to the floor and tries to peer down into the darkness, looking for anything unusual connected to the ladder and hoping to see what is down below.
Tag collects his things after his search and stands ready with his lantern and rapier for further action.
Forte watches Dakath go towards the hole, then moves over to his sword. He sheathes the massive blade and continues to hold the mace in his hands.
Xania follows Dakath, wondering who will turn on her next.
Forte loudly whispers to them, "Be careful down there!"
Dakath ignores the people around as he becomes engrossed in the problem at hand, his eyes seem to sparkle and a slight frown plays on his forehead. He checks above him wondering if any of the holes above align up with the entrance below, if that's the case he'll check to see if a rope could be looped through the ceiling, thus allowing him to be lowered down.
"Seriously, would a piece of metal help?" asks Forte. "I've got a couple of iron spikes in my pack."
Dakath grins from the floor, "Thanks for the offer of help my friend, but placing a piece of metal on the ladder would likely do us more harm than good. No what we need to do is avoid the ladder and find another way down, how bout lowering me down on a rope?"
"Could we try tying a piece of rope to two spikes, one at each end, then anchoring one on a rock or something and tossing the other onto the ladder to see if that will perhaps, negate the charge--or compel it somewhere else?" Xania asks.
Dakath thinks for a moment, "That may be too noisy, I think once we've checked up here, someone should lower me down the hole."
"OK," Xania nods.
"And just how quickly will we be able to drag you back up - without bumping the ladder - if what you see is similar to what we found in this room...or worse?" asks Forte. "I really wish we could stop the ladder from...from...from being full of charging before we lower someone down there."
Dakath grins at the warrior, "I need to go down there, I'm sure you and Ullar could pull me up quickly if need be. Let's hope it's not teeming with undead then shall we? Let me worry about what's down there. When I'm down, drop a torch so I can see."
"Maybe we should drop a torch down first. If these things-," here Forte gestures at the bones all around them, "-were activated by light, at least we'd see them before we lowered you down in the dark."
"Good idea," replies Ullar. "Who has one left?" he asks the rest of the group.
Dakath grins at Forte, "As you so rightly pointed out, I'm a thief and can't be trusted, one thing you forgot to mention was that I work best under the cover of darkness."
"How many thieves do you know who want to sneak around throw torches ahead of them?"
He chuckles, "Now just lower me down and let's get this over with." Dakath removes his studded leather so that he has better room for movement.
"Dakath, is there something we could use to touch the ladder--something that would not allow the current to travel from it to our skin?" Xania continues.
Dakath turns to look up at her, "Hmm, I'd rather think of a way to avoid the ladder rather than testing that theory just yet."
He moves into a sitting position, "The way I see it we have three possibilities, based on the footprints we found above, there must be a safe way down. We could avoid the ladder and be lowered down, alternatively there is a way to disarm the trap from up here, or someone at the base of the ladder disarmed the trap."
"What about the option that the one who went down on the ladder enabled the trap?" Ullar asks.
Dakath stands up and brushes the dust from him as best he can. "I think we should search up here first for some way to disarm this trap, a switch or a button of some kind. If we don't find one, Forte can lower me down to see if I can locate anything down there."
She touches his shoulder lightly and whispers softly to him, "Thank you for believing in me. For all that she attacked me, I would not want Rhune hurt, as she is one of the few that has always been kind to me."
Dakath looks at her and places a hand over hers, "Don't sound so surprised, you should know I'd believe you." He smiles once before moving off to search for this switch he suspects is here somewhere.
There is nothing remotely resembling a switch or triggering mechanism from above. Dakath peers down, careful to avoid contacting the ladder. However, he cannot see anything in the darkness. As there is no motion that he can make out, he asks for a torch to be dropped down, which Kyo does. In the torchlight, Dakath can see that the chamber below is small, with only one door on the west side.
Following one of his options, Dakath has Ullar lower him slowly on a rope into the small chamber. He is extremely careful to avoid the metal of the ladder and somehow manages it, dropping to the ground. Resting right alongside the bottom of the ladder, he sees some sort of metallic device with wires coming out of it. He has never heard of or seen anything like this. The wires are connected to the ladder and wrapped finely around the bottom rung. Putting two and two together, Dakath figures that the wires cause the charge. Carefully, he pulls forth his dagger to cut the wires.
The moment he does so, he hears a clicking noise and feels a sharp pain in his stomach. Looking down, he sees a tiny dart, reminiscent of the arrows the sprites shot, protruding from his belly. He falls to the ground.
Ullar is unable to see exactly what happened, but he sees Dakath fall to the ground.
"Dakath is his by something!" Ullar calls out, trying to avoid the now comatose body of Dakath hitting the electrically charged ladder.
"F*ck!" is all he can say, trying as hard as he can to keep Dakath from the ground. The pain in his muscles is quite severe but the warrior bites on his lips.
"Forte...give...me...a hand!" he shouts. "We should avoid having him hit the floor nor the ladder. Anyone able to see how his status is?" Ullar inquires.
Forte runs over to help Ullar pull Dakath up.
Kyo lends his strength to the effort.
"More trouble down there Ullar?" Tag cannot see, but sees the worried look on Ullar's face. "Let me go down on the rope, maybe I can help Dakath."
Xania turns to Tag. "Let me. If there are more invisible ones down there, maybe my spell will work again on them."
Forte looks at Xania. "Keep the rope tied around you. Then at least we can pull you back if something gets you."
"If you're lucky, there won't be anything to pull up," Xania grins impishly at Forte.
"Dakath is unconscious, I think. I think it would be safer to get him up first before someone else goes down!" says Ullar, now trembling a little, clearly having difficulty to keep Dakath from the ground. It's obvious Ullar can't handle somebody else going done on the same rope right now.
"Now lower me down," requests Xania politely of Forte.
"Uh, sure," Forte grunts, straining to help Ullar pull Dakath up using the rope. "As soon as we get him back up, we'll send you right down," he says with a grin.
Xania grins suddenly, "Should I say please?"
"Only if you want to. Now stop before I laugh and drop the rope," Forte says, smiling.
Xania bites her lip, her eyes dancing.
Ullar, standing next to Forte keeps hold of the rope; as if to make a statement. However, he realizes that two stubborn people are a serious threat to the group, so he decides to be the wisest of the two and hands over the rope to Forte.
Dakath falls to the ground, held only by the rope around his waist, as the big warriors pull him up Dakath swings heroically, suspended in mid-air until he reaches the ladder at which point his body stops swinging!
Asif continues to sleep.......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....
Remarkably, indeed quite so, the warriors manage to drag Dakath up to the hole without letting him touch the electrified ladder. They see that he is sleeping soundly, similar to how Kyo was on the raft. However, the dart in his belly is not one of the arrows fired at you on the water. Rather it is a traditional dart. Pulling it free and seeing that Dakath only sleeps, the group breathes a sigh of relief and considers what to do next.
Taglio and Xania argue for a moment about who should go first, but as Taglio is the more skilled in such matters and the more able to handle being pummeled by a skeleton club, the warriors lower him down.
At the bottom, Taglio sees that there was nothing to fear, as Dakath must have been successful in cutting the wires leading to the ladder. Testing it with his sword, he finds it is now safe. He motions for the others to come down.
As Dakath observed but could not inform the rest of you, the chamber is small with one door on the west side, plain and unadorned. Checking, Taglio is unable to find any traps or other problems on the door, but admits that he does not have much skill in this area.