April/May 2016 lite Challenge: Base Camp

[Tonnichiwa]

"Our quest took us past the standing stones. The locals called them soulstones because they believed when a person died that their spirits used those stones as marker for the doorway into the afterlife. Lets hope they stay there, I thought to myself as we passed by. Creepy skulls and strange markings adorned them and I had no desire to see if the legend were true. We made our way to the village of Kystah and met with the local head master of the village. He warned us that no one goes to the old ruins as the place is under a powerful curse. Whoever disturbs the ruins will be hunted down by the dead and made a part of them. He warned us to stay away if we knew what was good for us. Then he asked us to leave his village because he did not want any part of grave robbing adventurers. Ha...grave robbing says he, treasure for the takin says I. What do the dead need of gold and fine silks? Better to line my pockets than lay in some gods forsaken hole in the ground.

By the third day at the castle we had finally found the secret entrance to old King Akhanashen's tomb. I KNEW they had built a castle on top of it centuries ago! All my studies at the great library of Kernarven has paid off. Now I should be able to convince these adventurers I have hired to fight off any undead we run into and hopefully line our pockets with old Akhanashen's gold! Wish me luck dear sister!

Your's forever

Vynholdt"



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[tilt]

Great start - and great story. I wonder where the camp is, then again you have lots of paper left I see

[Tonnichiwa]

Thanks Tilt, yep, lots of paper, and here's the second part.

"I had heard of tombs like this before. Many people went in them looking for treasure and very few, if any, returned. The stairs seemed solid enough, and Traja decided to go first down the stairs as he has proven to be very athletic and can do amazing feats of acrobatics if called upon to do so. Making our way through the tomb, admiring the ancient artwork as we went, we came upon a large chasm. We had heard rumors that years ago there was an earthquake that was really strong. It must have caused this chasm to open. We could see where parts of the tomb had fallen in to the chasm. we could even hear water rushing from below so there must be an underground river somewhere. I hope we don't have to cross that!

Making it across, we followed the stairway down into a room with two sarcophagus inside. Steiner decided he would open one just to see what was inside. Just a skeleton with not belongings on him. Poor Steiner has developed a bit of a cough since then. I wonder if he got some skeleton dust in his lungs?

There was an archway and a door leading out of the room. We decided to take the doorway first. Heading down the stairs and turning left, we could hear the underground river close by. Our torches finally reflected off of the water and we could see it was a fast moving river that cascaded off the edge of a cliff into the darkness, but there was another arch leading to who knows where on the other side. Nope, we weren't going to go in there. That will be the last place we look. I don't want to chance slipping in that water and losing someone.

We headed back upstairs and decided to take the archway. On our way down Fredrick pointed out how the stairway seemed to be made of mud bricks now instead of stone like the previous stairway. I wondered why, but not for long. The bottom of the stairs emptied out into one of the most disturbing scenes I have ever witnessed! The room we came upon was made completely of the bones of some ancient race. It was disturbing to see so many large skulls and bones all stuck together in the macabre way they were, forming the entire architecture of the room. Whoever the creator of this tomb was, he sure knew how to creep people out! No wonder the villagers don't try to come here and get the gold!

As we made our way through the room, some of the bones from the long dead creatures floated into the air and stitched themselves together into a weird resemblance of a human, then attacked Steiner! They seemed to want to concentrate on him and ignored anyone else. Traja, Kiri, and her sister Miri leapt into action. They held back the skeleton things long enough for us to escape out the archway, but as we ran, we almost ended up plummeting off into the next room! Luckily, once we left that disgusting skeleton room, the creatures, if you could call them that, left us alone. They did not follow. Steiner almost fell to his death however and caught himself in time. Then he noticed that there was a circular stairway leading a long way down. We were already here and no one wanted to chance going through the skeleton room and back to the river so we decided we would go down the circular stair.

We carefully descended as there was no hand rail, so someone could easily fall to their death. finally making it to the bottom, our torches revealed a large stepped pyramid that looked as if it were made of sandstone. On top of it was a throne with a skeleton. This must be it! The Throne room! Somewhere in here must be the secret entrance to the treasure chamber! Sorval's book about the history of this old kingdom said the tomb builders had placed his throne on a sandstone pyramid so he could watch over his treasure for eternity.

Kiri and Miri were so excited about it that they wanted to go check out the old king for themselves so they raced off to climb the pyramid and look for clues. That's when disaster stuck! As they climbed the pyramid, all three of the tiers started to rotate, going faster and faster, making Kiri and Miri look for something to hold on to for dear life! Suddenly, blades came out of the wall of the third tier and sliced into Miri, faster than anyone could see! She was dead before her body hit the ground. Kiri cried out for her sister as Traja raced to climb the pyramid and pull her free from it. Right before he could the spinning tiers sped up and blades popped up out of the second tier to cut into Kiri, killing her, while at the same time, Traja lost his grip and flew through the air behind the pyramid! I could not see what was going on, but the sound of mechanisms activating and a cry from Traja let me know that whatever it was, Traja was no more! A sickening sound of steam being released was next.

I was almost in a panic, as was Steiner, when he finally decided that he needed to know what had happened to Traja. The tiers were slowing down now and Steiner and I had not intention of climbing them any higher than we had to so we could get across. Climbing the first tier, we sprinted across it, hoping that it would not start up again. We were in luck for it did not.

As we got to the other side however, we could see that the spinning tiers had thrown Traja so far that he landed in a pit filled with spikes and super heated steam had billowed over his body, reducing it to nothing but a skeleton. Steiner and I were both sickened by what we saw. Suddenly a row of bars pushed themselves from the sand and blocked our way back! Then, pits started to open up of their own accord. They shifted through the sand, the same way the tiers of the pyramid had spun. We had to jump and move quickly to avoid the moving pits or the same fate that was bestowed upon Traja would befall us.

Finally making our way to the door on the other side of the room, we made our way out and down the stairs...."


### Latest WIP ###

[tilt]

that's one deadly tomb I like the fine linework you do - and curious if anyone is alive to camp in the end of it

[ladiestorm]

Wow Tonnichiwa! I was wondering whether you were going to enter something! I like it so far!!! Especially that dungeon! Are you using the new perspectives 3 for this? Love the story line too!

[Tonnichiwa]

@Tilt: Hey, it said map a camp site, it didn't say anything about anyone having to be left alive to actually use it (I know, I'm a bad person )

@Ladiestorm I'm glad you like it! Yep, I'm using the new perspectives 3 for this. Now if I can just get shearing symbols to work properly then I should be able to add a whole lot more to this than what is currently there.

[Josiah VE]

Cool! I read through that interesting (and a bit disturbing) story and at one or two parts had trouble picturing in my head and how they progressed through. Then I was like "Cool! A map! Forgot about that." Then I could picture it all good.

[Bogie]

Great story, fits the map perfectly.

[Tonnichiwa]

@Josiah VE: Thanks I guess the map did it's job then, except now I need to actually put in the camp site...and of course the story to go with it

@Bogie, Thanks, Glad you liked it.

[ladiestorm]

well, what are you waiting for? lol