Chapter 7

The Exploration of the Crypt Continues and Continues

July, 10, At 17:00

Neiia wants to rest so the group returns to the central room.

After resting for about an hour, the group proceeds to investigate the frog room. Neiia puts her head in the water and tries to see what’s there, but the water is too muddy for her to see anything. Neiia then attempts to open the door but fails, so Agnarr opens it. Kieron goes through the door and continues to the mushroom room. The mushroom trap is triggered again, again not doing much to Kieron. Neiia then peeks into the opening used by the frogs.

Kieron tries to open the door at the end of the corridor and falls over into the water. She then struggles to get up for a moment. Agnarr comments to her that opening the door is easier from above the water, which annoys Kieron, who leaves through the mushroom room, but fortunately the trap doesn’t trigger. Agnarr eventually opens the door easily.

The group enters a room whose walls are covered with some shiny black substance. Neiia tests the substance with her dagger and notices it’s highly corrosive; the dagger becomes unusable. The group heads toward the back of the room where there is a large wheel with chains going upward. Kieron steps into some hidden pit and finds that it is filled with water, and after doing so, 6 skeletons spawn in the room. The skeletons try to frighten the group and apparently succeed to some extent, as Neiia starts rambling nonsensically and Kieron begins nervously glancing around constantly. Kieron decides to practice swimming instead of acrobatics during this battle. The others (or mainly Ertak’s mace) take down a couple of skeletons, and the rest sink into the water. After the battle, Kieron is rescued from the pit.

Neiia and Agnarr begin to turn the wheel and a portcullis opens, showing a man

Kieron goes upstairs to talk with the rescued, panicking man and succeeds in calming him completely. It’s revealed that the man was a member of a group who had padded the upper floor of the dungeon so it wouldn’t be too dangerous for adventurers. This is apparently the custom whenever adventurers are given a task to come here. This time, however, something went wrong because they were attacked by skeletons. The man wants them to rescue his sister, whom the skeletons took. The sister’s name is Dimira.

Kieron returns to the others and tells them about her discovery, but they don’t believe that Kieron has managed to calm the man down. Eventually, Neiia goes up to see and confirms that this has indeed happened.

In the evening, Ertak heals Agnarr and Kieron. Ra still complains about being in poor condition, but Ertak thinks he’s in quite good shape. Kieron also examines Ra and notices that Ra is just pretending to be in poor condition; there’s nothing wrong with him. Kieron doesn’t conduct the examinations very gently, and Ra screams like a pig being slaughtered. The group stays to sleep overnight.

July 11

During the night, again during Ertak’s watch, the floor fills with flowers. This time they are lilies.

In the morning, the group goes to the basin, but Neiia doesn’t want to go there because she’s afraid of water. Kieron and Ertak try to talk her into it but don’t succeed. Finally, they come up with the idea that if the basin is covered with a tent canvas, then no one will see their reflection in it. Neiia says that only Ertak may go there as his religion protects him. Ertak spends half an hour spreading the tent canvas and gets it spread on the bottom of the basin so that it covers the entire basin floor, but the water surface is still visible.

Kieron goes to look and starts laughing hysterically when he sees how Ertak has placed the tent, but four seconds later she becomes frightened and runs away.

Next, Ertak takes Agnarr as a test subject, so he blindfolds him and starts leading him inside, but Agnarr notices that there’s a trap in the room and comes out. After thinking for a moment, he deduces that the basin is probably the trap.

Agnarr tries to go past the basin without looking at it but doesn’t succeed. He becomes frightened too and wonders if water splashed on his hands, so he goes up to wash them.

Neiia also goes up and finds Kieron there with the group’s belongings, doing something. When Neiia arrives, Kieron quickly packs everything away. Only Ertak and Jaysek remain below. Jaysek wants Ertak to take a photograph of the basin. Ertak does as told, and afterward, Jaysek goes to develop it and read a book.

Ertak can’t get the others to come to the location, so he wonders what to do next. The others decide to go check out the hole that the frogs escaped through. Kieron goes ahead, and the tunnel continues for 150 meters while rising upward. The tunnel ends at a stream, and Kieron notices that twenty meters below is a pond where the stream goes. There are several large frogs in the pond. The group decides to return.

Next, they go to investigate the room where the skeletons were. Neiia examines the wall with a rusty sword and notices that the black substance on the walls doesn’t corrode this sword, as it did to her own dagger. She manages to tap the walls for some distance before the sword also begins to melt.