The Halls of Baaat-liba

These halls have been build in and above the caves.

This is a domain of the Dark Goddess - those who want to be healed need to make sacrifices. It is aimed at the toughest cases, when nothing has helped. Baaat-liba was a Goddess worshipped before there were any names given. She is black and her form is not quite human.

Some prefer not to go, for fear of the price. The price of the healing can never be predicted. Almost everyone who goes is healed. But some are changed, forever. They have seen something, or been touched by her. The young men often become more restless aften the healing they've received. Rarely, a completely happy person returns, with no debt to pay. This is usually the case for young women. None of them has ever given birth though.

Priests who supervise the place don't go down into the caves, but nore do they leave the Halls. The sick who are brought into the Hall are handed over to them and left in the main chamber. From there, as those who have retuned say, they've been walked or carried a few levels down. There again the Priests left them and some strange creatures carried them to the Chamber of the Dark One, as the cave is called. There's almost no light there, except for some rocks radiating eerie glow. In that light some have seen the hall itself must have been once decorated by humans. Or somebody else. The carvings on the walls most prefer not to look at though.

Priests are all male, usually young and with strong muscles, but their faces are lanky and shadows rest under their eyes. Their hair is shaven very close to the scalp, their bodies covered in identical tattoos, and their robes black. The families of those who serve there say that most of them have just woken up one day, saying they've received a strange call intheir dreams and that Baaat-liba was waiting for them. Strangely enough, none wanted to oppose the call. But if their close ones tried to stop one, such a man would soon die in terrible torments from a sickness not known to any healer. So people stopped trying, they would just pray to the other gods and goddesses so that they family would be spared from being chosen. They didn't dare to pray to Baaat-liba. In some regions, they would leave some food and sweets for her, believing she may take those and leave their household alone. It didn't always work.

When the priests were no longer young, although their age had been unnaturally extended beyond normal human years, they would go into another cave, deeper under the mountain, and never come out again.