Chapter 15

I promised to tell about what we find in the basement.

We open the trapdoor. It seems to be much harder to move as if it was much heavier than it looks, but when we open it, it looks normal, so likely it is just the hinges that are partly rusted or something.

I conjure some light on my staff and Anneli's and Garis swords, so that we can see in the darkness.

We make our way slowly down the narrow wooden stairs and come to a small, maybe ten by ten foot cellar with no obvious exits and stone walls and floor.

There are some remains of former bags that might have contained some food items, now just unidentifiable small piles of mold.

As we look around, I notice that one of the walls seems to not have any of the the moldy heaps in the middle, so I start to examine it closer.

After a minute or so I notice a pattern in the stones. The others start commenting, at about the same time, that there is nothing here and there must be some other basement somewhere.

So I tell them that there is likely a secret door in that wall, but that I do not see any opening mechanism.

Next we try to push the wall and nothing happens, but tapping it gives a hollow sound.

After few frustrating minutes I suddenly have an idea. I ask Garis to help me to close the trapdoor leading up and tell then Garis to try pushing the wall now.

As he pushes, the wall slides open and reveals a very short passage with a normal door at other end.

He asks "How did you know that?"

I answer that I did not know it, but as the trapdoor has it's hinges mostly inside the wall and thus not fully visible, combined with the fact that it is the only other potentially mobile object I can see and how heavy it was to move, it seemed like a possible mechanism of some sort.

We group ourselves for going forward, with Garis in front and Anneli just behind him, me behind them, Nadia on the side of the door and Ertak somewhere unseen.

It still strikes me strange how someone can hide themselves in a ten by ten foot room with absolutely nothing to hide behind, three fairly bright light sources and four other people, without use of magic.

Garis opens the door forward and we are startled as a group of bats hurl themselves past us.

After we look forward again we see a fairly large room with stone walls that have strange figurines painted in what seems like blood, a stone floor with magic markings that seem to be painted with blood too. Along the walls there are stone pillars with candelabras that hold a mixture of incense and normal candles, giving the room a strong smell and some light. At the opposite end, maybe thirty feet away, we see an open coffin in front of an evil looking, blood soaked, sacrificial altar.

As we step into the room the vampire we saw earlier raises up from the coffin and says "So you dare to enter my domain to fight me, it will be your doom. While we were on the surface in daylight you had the advantage, here the advantage is fully mine."

Garis charges forward yelling "By Sleysen honor, you will die foul creature." Anneli touches my staff, making it glow white with magic, charges after him and while running touches her own sword making it glow too.

I tart running after them couple of seconds later, just as Garis closes on the vampire and strikes.