Editing Vorsaykorai (section)

==The Door==

It was difficult to open, as if it hadn't been used in some time, but eventually yielded to a good shove. Beyond was revealed a well lit room with a large, ornate set of doors on the far side. They were decorated with serpents, both on the doors and on the pillars beside them, and were in turn surrounded by six burning sconces. The serpents on each door faced up and into the centre, where a six-pointed star was set with Egyptian Gods at the points, although any symbols within it had been beaten out. Above the door was set the radiant eye within a triangle set upon a circle. Between the two was a "bridge" of souls, with Charon (the Ferryman) on the left and a blazing fire on the right - the souls flowed both ways. Four large, brownish, furry humanoids, about seven to eight feet tall were in the room. There was a damp, forest-like smell to them that reminded me of autumn on the surface. There was a chest to our left and a table with food and mugs set on it in the centre of the room. A hearth with a fire and food cooking above it was to our right. The walls were stone, but more like the inside of a building than the tunnels we had been following so far. As well as the flames around the doors, there were torches around the other walls, all burning oil.

I stepped in, greeting them in Common, but they spoke in a language I didn't understand. It was clear that we had surprised them and they had not expected anyone to come from our direction - possibly because the door had been hidden to them. Two stepped forwards with swords drawn and I felt a bit intimidated as they were about three times my height! The two farther back drew crossbows and covered us from behind. Tak looked at me pointedly and said: "forgive my friend, may we enter"? Silanna drews one sword and poked her head around the corner, above Tak, to see what was there. It was a well-kept room, and these humanoids seemed well organised, but there was a clear problem with communication. I tried addressing them in Gnomish, but that seemed to really rile them up! Silanna spoke Gnomish as well, trying to say that we were friends, but they charged to attack! Silanna struck first, drawing blood, and barking at them in a different language altogether. They still pressed the attack, and it was only our cloaks moving to deflect their swords that protected us from harm.

Tak was trying his best to calm things down, and said to us: "just hold if you can, parry if you must" whilst walking towards the table with his hands up. He grabbed a flagon, filled it from the barrel propped up beside it, and said: "better to drink with friends than make new enemies" before taking a swig. He coughed a bit at the strength, but then offered the flagon to the nearest creature. In response, the creature looked a little confused, but did lower its crossbow slightly. Silanna dropped her torch and moved to join Tak, although she didn't join in the beer call, while I had to try and dodge more blows (the cloak helped again). I didn't press my attack, though, waiting to see if Tak's strange approach would work.

Tak tried to offer ale to the other creature with a crossbow ready, but in response it pointed at the fight I was engaged in. Tak approached us, trying to get the attention of the creature attacking me, but it just roared in anger and ignored him. I tried to help by ducking away and hiding under the table, but even that didn't stop them from attacking. A crossbow bolt bounced off Silanna's cloak, and another skittered across the floor beside me as we were engaged by the back two. Silanna reacted first, cutting down the sword-wielding creature nearest her, and then rushing the one that had fired a bolt at her. She knocked it to its hands and knees as I rushed the other one, forcing it to drop its bow and draw swords. Tak joined the fight, although he was still using his fists to avoid killing anyone, and another creature collapsed to the floor unconscious. Silanna did the same to her opponent whilst I traded light blows with my foe. Silanna was first to reach us, managing to punch him to the ground to end the fight.

We all relaxed slightly, but Tak sank to his knees muttering "this didn't need to happen" to himself. I think he said it several times, but I was distracted by the fresh food on the table which was suddenly making me realise I hadn't had a proper meal for a while. I tried a bit and it was delicious! I invited Silanna to try some, but she busy searching the foe for anything useful. We were both shocked when Tak slammed his fist into the table, doing some significant damage to it, and demanded to know what we were doing and why - "this was their place, and we invaded it" he insisted. He seemed a bit hung up on how we had "entered uninvited", and (a but more seriously, to be fair) that we had killed one of them. Now we were looting the bodies as well! Silanna convinced him that it was only wise to search for information or items that would be key to our progressing on our quest, and he reluctantly agreed to look for anything that very specifically matched those criteria.

Silanna found a scroll that seemed to offer protection from evil, which Tak took as another sign that we had misjudged the creatures. Instead he approached the ornate doors, but there was a loud bang and he was thrown back into the table forcibly. I went to check on him, and he shouted quite loudly: "I hurt"! I offered him the last of the healing ointment, but he pushed it away and entered a trance for a while. We had seen this before - he was tending to his own wounds. Silanna had disarmed a couple of the foe when one started to wake up; it quickly shuffled back towards the wall, clearly afraid of what we were capable of. As I watched, Tak tapped me, pointing at his ears - it seemed that whatever the doors had done they had rendered him deaf.

Tak sat staring at the door with a tear in his eye, which was a sad sight - he certainly didn't hold back in expressing his emotions. Thankfully he couldn't hear Silanna barking at the creature that had awoken like a gnoll - it seemed to be the only language that they both understood. He wasn't being particularly helpful, though, from what I could gather.

Tak watched our prisoner as Silanna kept searching the bodies for useful information and I headed towards the chest, but as we moved away he tried to make a run for it. He headed for the door we had entered through, but Tak was able to intercept him and stunned him with a powerful punch. Silanna found a key on one of the bodies, and I saw that the chest had a keyhole... perhaps it was meant for that? Tak wanted no part of it, as he thought we were just planning to steal from them, so we were not sure about any possible traps, but Silanna offered to try the key anyway. With a satisfying click, the lock opened and thankfully nothing bad happened as a result. The chest was quite full, and we pulled out a small crossbow, coins, scroll cases (ivory and metal), bottles, and bags. The things that were of note were: a blue liquid in a bottle (possibly water breathing), the hand crossbow (it was particularly light and ornate with a magazine), a heavy glass bottle with an opaque silvery liquid, and a light blue effervescent liquid in another bottle.

Then we found an Identify scroll within a leather scroll case, which made things easier, and we used it to learn the properties of several items we had collected (including Tak's new lute). Silanna was particularly interested in some barbed arrows that might allow her to dismiss summoned creatures. Tak was checking the unconscious creatures as we were sorting through these items, and noticed a broach that a creature was wearing. It was shaped like the eye, pyramid, and circle symbol but was cheaply made. As Tak reached out with his hand, though, it was instantly attracted to the ring he was wearing, sticking to it slightly. He decided to take it with him, as it clearly had some kind of affinity to the ring.

There was a cornice pattern around the walls, which we hadn't seen when we first entered, that showed a variety of half creatures being tortured elementally in a repeating pattern on all but the wall with the large door in it. That wall also showed half creatures, but in various states of disease or decay towards death. I did notice something different about one of the stones in the wall behind where we entered, and called Tak over to take a closer look. Tak pressed the unusual stone and he and Silanna just managed to jump back as a spiral stairwell opened beneath them! The mechanism definitely predated this room, as if it couldn't be changed when the room was constructed, and I was sure that it was Gnomish!

We decided to descend, wary of going too far down though. After a few turns we reached a stone door with no locks visible, and we noticed that the stone had got darker as we descended. The stone was surrounded by a gothic arch about five feet tall, but I couldn't focus because I was worried about leaving the stairs open to the room before - I had closed the door we hand entered by, but we should try to conceal this path as well. Tak went back to investigate, and as we waited we heard another tuneless strum before a grinding sound as the stair entrance was concealed again and Tak returned. He now turned his attention to the small door at the foot of the stairs, finding a small niche that a hand might fit into.

I reached in and found a handle that I pulled. Spikes laced with poison sprang out around my hand, but it was a Gnomish design and they stopped short before touching me - the others would have been in trouble. As I pulled, the door swung open towards us to reveal a square room about thirty feet across. It was dark, and no heat sources were visible, so we stepped inside. Although I was comfortable, the others had to stoop as they found the ceiling to be quite low. As we searched around in the dark, Tak found a door opposite where we had entered and a six-pointed star in the centre of the floor, about fifteen feet across and without symbology on its points. The circle in the centre of the star was glistening white, like Brightbane that had lost its power. The walls were cut out of the stone here, not constructed like the room above. There was also a slight depression in the centre of the circle.

Rather than the risk of planar travel, we decided to open the door - there was another Gnomish hand device for doing so. It revealed a short passage that sloped slightly upwards to a larger room that was lit well along all its walls. A translucent wall shimmered between the passage and the room, which looked like another structure that had been built with stones covering the walls. There was a lot of activity inside, and it looked like a dwelling place for orcs. They obviously couldn't see us, though, so the wall must have appeared normal to them. We closed the door while we discussed our options, with our attention instead turning to the star and circle.

I stood in the centre of the circle, focusing on my people, the Ironcloaks, and the peak we were directed towards (the Peak of Lords). Light played across the star until a position, about 11 o'clock from our entry point, started to glow. I vanished from the room and appeared in a void - is it because there wasn't enough energy to make the full transition? I tried to will myself back, and thankfully that worked! Unfortunately, only Silanna was in the room when I reappeared. It seems that Tak had tried to follow, using the ring over the symbol and then stepping into the centre and disappearing. We had to stay together, so we both entered the circle and held hands before focusing on Tak. We shifted again, but this time appeared underwater, quickly quaffing potions to breathe. How did he always manage to find water no matter where he was?!

Tak swam past us quickly, seemingly trying to tell us of a threat, and we were suddenly surrounded by foes! They looked much like the ones we had seen in the hot water before... the ones Tak had told us were pure evil and should be destroyed. We briefly struggled, but found it hard to fight underwater, and when Tak was caught in a net the rest of us were quickly captured too. We were carried to a rough hewn, rocky cave entrance (still underwater) that was roughly circular, and this restricted the numbers around us. If we were going to escape then there wouldn't be a much better place.

I lashed out with my mind, managing to stun my captor and started trying to escape the net that held me. I could see Tak struggling as well, so as I freed myself I stabbed his captor in the back before anyone could react, and it was a killing blow. The other creatures moved to secure the exit, taking Silanna with them, and struck at Tak. He managed to break free, but then I was surrounded by creatures coming from behind and we traded blows. Some glowing snakes shot into me painfully - they had a shaman with them! Tak had his blades out now, and killed one of the foe, and I managed to kill another despite the pain the snakes had caused. Silanna was being carried off, so Tak sped forward to try and head them off. The shaman followed him, leaving just one in melee with me... enough that I couldn't follow (even if I could swim).

Tak reached Silanna, healing her so that she was conscious and able to fight. The water was really restricting both Silanna and me, though, stopping us from fighting effectively, and we both took hits. In contrast, Tak was just as lethal underwater; despite being hit by the glowing snake things that had hurt me, he chased down and killed the caster straight afterwards. I had finally managed to kill my opponent, and those near Silanna started to flee. I  was still stranded and sorely wounded, but Tak returned for me, dragging me forward to where Silanna had managed to free herself. He then dragged us both on until we reached an air pocket with a slope that took us out of the water and ended in a door.

My first thought was to try and will ourselves back to the room we had used to travel, but that had no effect. There was a deep noise from the water, and Tak warned that the enemy were approaching, probably reinforced. He ushered us through the door into darkness, then used a metal spike to pin the door closed. I took out my torch, as Silanna's were soaked, and we made our way up a spiral staircase. There were recesses every twenty feet or so with old weapons in, like old staging posts for battle, and a bit farther up there were also unlit torches on the walls. Silanna swapped wet for dry, lighting one to get a brighter light as we continued.

We eventually reached an ironclad door, which was locked, with another cut out to the side with old weapons within. The door was solidly spiked from the other side - we could see some of the metal around the edges. Tak and I tried to deal with the lock, but without any luck. Silanna came to the rescue, though, reading a scroll that caused the spikes to ping out and the lock to click open. There was a shout of alarm from the other side, and we could see a chink of light, before some weight was put against the door. Tak tried to call out for aid, saying that we were fleeing from the evil in the water, and surprisingly he got a response of recognition. They knew Tak here!

The door opened and an elf poked his head around the door, beckoning us forward once he saw Tak. Then it got very confusing. We were at Fontainver, apparently only one day after we had left. It seemed that we had traveled through time as well as space, and Fontainver was just as I remembered seeing - guards everywhere and ready for a fight. Tak went to see his master in the monastery, and we followed as we were both strangers here.