Into darkness

The air has not been stirred in centuries in these halls. Its walls are of a strange makeup: the natural stone of these caverns seems to have melded with a kind of strange metal, oddly smoky in colour, with a blue tint, and its texture feels like fine-grained sand. An alloy of sorts. The adventurers have not felt such a texture before and the material is entirely unknown to them. They look into each others faces, puzzled, then look around. A passage leads onwards. The way back? Blocked by a solid wall of stone. Did they come this way? What a stange place this is. So the heroes take a deep breath and take take their first hesitant steps into the bowels of the Darkbarrow.

It is soon evident that these halls are not of a natural origin but have been carved out of the mountain. They seem to be covered entirely in the same strange material, light blue-grey, at times pearlescent almost. The angles become sharper and the layout more purposeful as the party progresses. At times they can enter rooms, empty but for a few artefacts of unknown purpose that turn to dust at the touch. Strange panels line parts of the walls, all inert. In regions of this facility though nature seems to have reclaimed some areas: there are cave-ins and fissures, disturbing the layout of this place. After a while the party comes to a wide chasm in a large cavern. The light of their torches does not illuminate this huge space but deep in the gorge they can hear water rushing: An underground river. On the far side of this gorge there is a faint light. Concentrating on it, the adventurers can make out the silhouette of a large tree, seemingly bearing fruit that glow in a cyan colour. Or are they crystals? It is too far away to make out. Peering into the dark makes the heroes more sensitive to the little light that there is and they now notice that the far ceiling of the cavern is open to the night sky and a few stars can be seen glittering. Seeing no way across the chasm, the party continues their exploration. Coincidentally they next discover a passage to the other side of the cavern. It is heading south, then goes down a bit and then steeply back up and the party emerges at the foot of the 30 foot tall tree, the sheen of their torches barely able to illuminate its tip. Indeed there are faint glowing crystals attached to the bark, which is pale and almost looks like ivory. These crystals seem to be of magical origin and there are no leaves on the tree. Maybe the crystals are in a kind of symbiosis with the tree and supply it with nutrients. As the adventurers have travelled these caverns for a while and are exhausted from the taxing passage through the veil, they decide to break camp for the night. The caverns seem all but empty, so making a small campfire does not seem risky at this time. Setting up the watch rotation they fall asleep. What they do not notice, is that the cavern is home to an Arcanaphage, a usually non-violent creature that feeds on magic. As the heroes did not attempt to cast any magic at this point they do not run into this creature, which is hovering dormant in the shadows of the far ceiling. So they never noticed this fascinating creature….
In the morning the faint light of the rising sun casts a shaft of light down from the opening in the ceiling and the adventurers continue exploring the Darkbarrow. Shortly after setting out they come to a part of the facility that is even more strange and the walls here are even more sharply set and their surfaces more metal-like. The chambers are made up of smaller rooms, seemingly formerly utilitarian in nature and strange contraptions fill these chambers which lead up to a larger passage. At its end there is a double sided door, almost invisible but for the slight gap between two panels, each being nine feet tall. In front of this doorway there are three plinths with glowing indentations atop them. As the adventurers near these plinths, the room fills with activity: whirring sounds can be heard and pulsing light fills the room, as if in anticipation. But a distinct trigger does not seem to follow and the activity dies down again. Upon examining the plinths the adventurers discover that three distinctly different shapes form the indentations on these plinths. They are made up of geometric shapes and the adventurers deduce that they seem to have found some sort of control device, possibly to open the door. But the corresponding object to trigger the device is nowhere to be found. Or is it? Inspecting the room the heroes do indeed find some sort of shard, half buried underneath some rubble. Its shape may fit into one of the indentations on one of the plinths. Picking up the shard it feels more heavy in the hand as such a small object should and holding it leaves the hand of its bearer tingling. Narvik brings the shard over to the plinths and tries to match the shard to its intended indentation. Hovering over it, the shard begins to vibrate and pull against the plinth, sliding into place neatly. The three plinths light up once, then the ones without the shard dim again. It seems that the other key-shards need to be found in order to progress deeper into the facility. As this way seems barred and other avenues in this dungeon have not been explored yet, the party sets out to do exactly that.
Retracing their steps they take a turn into a passage, which has not been explored yet. The surfaces of this passage matches the surfaces of the area with the control devices and the party feels emboldened by the similarity. Surely a key device may be found here? Delving deeper into this part of the facility the party passes tall statues depicting armoured humanoids holding huge halberds lining the walls. They are of an aesthetic which seems alien and ancient to today's standards and their mechanical complexion makes the adventurers feel uneasy. Acting cautiously Narvik has the idea to bind the legs of the statues with rope. Just in case. Nonetheless the party passes them without incident and arrives at the end of a passage with a dead end but for a black, glassy panel on the wall. Investigating the panel Cherish touches it and a blue icon lights up, indicating a correct entry, then fades again. Vinnoniel, the druid, touches it as well, attempting to make a blue light appear as well, but nothing happens. Cherish tries again. Blue. With both her hands. Just one icon lights up. Enna touches the panel. Nothing. Cherish. Blue. Other hand. Blue. Narvik. Blue. Aha! Cherish. Blue. Narvik. Blue. Enna. Red. An Alarm sounds and the whole panel turns red. Back down the hallway that they entered from, the whirring of cogs and the sound of compressing air can be heard. The statues come to life! Their eye sockets fill with a blue light and their oddly jointed limbs begin to move in an erratic fashion. Encumbered by the rope around their legs, they are not able to descend from their plinths fast enough to surprise the heroes, but after one swing with their giant halberds they are free from such impediment. A fight with these Clockwork Soldiers ensues, which is short but intense. Sweating and panting the adventurers stand over the inert forms of the guardians, a few of their magically animated limbs strewn about. Once again Narvik has an intuition and picks up a severed arm of a guardian. He hands it to Enna. “Here, try this. Cherish? If you please?” Cherish touches the panel. One blue icon. Narvik touches the panel. Another blue icon. Enna touches the panel with the hand of the severed arm: Three blue icons light up, blink, then fade. A door opens and makes way into a small room. “I guess, you need to somehow be infused with arcane or eldritch magic.”, Narvik says. “Nature magic does not seem to work. It was just a hunch. Anyway, onward.” The small room is half-buried under rubble but on a small desk the adventurers find another keystone. Now they have collected two. Only one left to go.
Going back again to where they camped beneath the tall tree, they take the last unexplored passage, which soon turns out to be more labyrinthine in its layout. Sharp corners and narrow passages make it hard to stay together and the heroes are disoriented. As they were rounding a corner and finding themselves in a slightly larger chamber, they suddenly hear the scraping of claws on cavern stone. But the sound has more than one source. Emerging from the shadows are five doglike creatures, their skin the colour of bruised flesh. Their limbs are oddly jointed and end in sharp claws. And their heads! They have no discernible eyes and half of their face is made up by a sharp-fanged mouth, frozen in a wicked grin. As these creatures, these Flesh Reavers, slowly close in on the party from all sides, one of them suddenly jumps into the midst of the party, yanking Narvik to the ground. Rending and biting, the other creatures join the fight. But, again, the heroes are victorious. Bloodied they continue their exploration. A short while later the walls of the cavern again change texture to the now commonly found metallic alloy and the adventurers emerge into a series of rooms, all of which have more than one entrance and exit. Stepping foot into one of those chambers, the adventurers hear sound coming from a few rooms away: Some sort of metallic scraping on stone. An uneasy feeling befalls the party and they hold their breath. But the sound fades and its source even seems to move away from the party. Cautiously they move on. When suddenly they are beset from behind! A nightmarish creature, a metallic horror stands before them. Standing ten feet tall, its round body holds a multitude of metallic arms, which end in all kinds of gruesome implements: Sharp knives, whirring saws and lancet-like tips. Unexpectedly a bulbous window opens in the corpus and a pathetic looking blob of amorphous flesh shows itself: An Ahu Nixta, a demon. Several tiny eyes on tiny stalks swivel in the direction of the adventurers and the being releases a sorrowful, bone-chilling moan. It strikes fear into the hearts of the adventurers, and indeed Cherish flees from the creature, who now assails the party with flailing, metallic limbs. It uses its telekinetic abilities to lift and slam down the heroes and attacks as well as with spells as with its deadly appendages. Finally the creature is brought down and the curse of fear is lifted from Cherish, who fled several chambers away. The creature emerges from the metallic corpus and tries to crawl away, which it miserably fails to do. Narvik puts a boot onto the creature and steps down, leaving a purple looking pulp on the floor. The Ahu Nixta is no more. Inspecting the series of rooms they are in, the party discovers the last shard. Exhausted they make their way back to the control device plinths.
Cherish and Enna take one shard each and set it down on the plinths, which pulse with light once. A few seconds pass before the large two-sided door opens. Behind it there is a vast hall, dimly lit by pulsating light. Is this the site of the still-unknown artefact? Is this what the bandits and their evil masters have been after all along? Cautiously the adventurers enter the hall. It holds deep shadows and the light of a torch cannot penetrate the darkness. Occasionally a pulse of light illuminates the site: Tall columns reaching into the dark above, nooks and crannies to the left and right, a raised dais. Moving on, the party passes tall coils, which give out a dim light and once in a while flare up to briefly illuminate the hall. Suddenly there is movement out of the corner of the eye: A light blue sheen to the left. There is a translucent figure hovering in the air. Now it is gone again. A few seconds later: Another one to the right. It is a ghostly humanoid form. It fades too. Suddenly one such form appears close to the group: It is a translucent figure of a man. Possibly human but wearing an attire unknown to the adventurers. He floats past the group to a console, shortly performing some task before he vanishes again. Other figures can be seen in the depth of the hall, following similar behaviour. There: the apparition of the man again. Repeating the process from before? It now dawns on the heroes: These are ghosts. No danger to them.
Venturing deeper into the hall, Vinnoniel feels the tug of the shard around his neck. Pulling him forward to the dais ahead. There is a large console situated there, made of the same alloy that the party has come to know in this facility. The console is inert. But springs to life as Vinnoniel nears it. A loud winding up of energy can be heard throughout the hall and several coils seem to be energised. Does Vinnoniel's shard power them? What strange science or magic is this? The console lights up with displays, featuring lively lines of a script unknown. Several screens glide up from the console, displaying more of the unknown script and icons. The screens look like some sort of tablet and look as they might be removed from the console and held. Vinnoniel grabs one of these screens.
Woosh! He is ripped forward and propelled across the lands! In seconds he passes mountain ranges and deserts, oceans and icy wastes. He sees other facilities like this, connected by a meshwork of lines and icons, overlaying the terrain. Lingering but seconds at these sites, there are icons displayed until he is launched into some otherplace again. Before his eyes he sees five icons lighting up, each having its own set of unknown digits. One of these icons flashes blue.
With a start Vinnoniel is back again in the Darkbarrow, surrounded by his compatriots. He staggers and draws sharp breaths. “What is it?”, Enna asks. “What’s wrong?”. “I was somewhere else for a few moments. Maybe I got teleported.”, Vinnoniel answers. “What? You were here the whole time.”, Cherish interjects. “That is strange. I had the sensation of being launched across the lands at a speed unimaginable. I visited sites just like this one. But they were in far away lands or even on other continents. There were five of these sites, this one seemingly being one of them. Maybe this…”, Vinnoniel holds up the tablet in his hands. “Maybe this is the artefact that the bandits and their master were looking for.” “Then we got what we came here for. I think there is a way out at the back of this hall. There seems to have been a cave-in and I can see natural rock over there.”, Narvik says.
“Ahh, I haven’t felt the delightful touch of life-energy for a millennium.”, a disembodied voice says. It send chills down the spines of the adventurers. “These wretched spectres are uninspiring company, to say the least.” Out of the shadows, which are even more pronounced and contrasted in the bright lights of the coils, a shade emerges. It is a humanoid form seemingly made out of the deepest darkness. There are gloomy strands of dark energy surrounding it and it has no discernible features other than two brightly glowing red embers as eyes. “I will feed on your life-energy and it will sustain me for millennia to come. You will join these wretches forever more.” “Who are you? What are you? And who are these poor souls?”, Cherish retorts. “Those are the fools who in their ignorance thinned the veil between the realms of existence. Who opened the gate for me and my kin to befall this world. They called themselves the Arkhenith. Humans. Ignorant. Weak. But full of life. Their desperate and futile attempts to seal the breach made my feasting all the more exquisite. As for who I am? I am your death.” “Come at me then, demon. I have dealt with worse.”, Cherish replies coldly in the Abyssal language of demons. The Shadow Demon is taken aback by that but lets out a terrifying howl. Several spectres of the deceased Arcenith mage-scientists flare up in the dark, screeching in agony. Some of them flee and dissipate, but some are caught and chained to the Shadow Demon by dark tendrils. They writhe and scream but ultimately give in to the Demon and assault the party. The Demon fades into shadow only to reappear moments later and he rends the heroes with shadowy claws. Facing off against not only the Demon but also the raging ghosts of the Arkenith, the heroes are fighting for their life. Normal weapons seem to be not as effective as anticipated against the Shadow but Cherish’s bolts of light, bolstered by her Celestial Patron, prove devastating to the Demon. In a last act of furious destruction the Shadow Demon tears into the console and vanishes with a tormented howl of indignation. An explosion. One of the coils. The console. Flickering with energy and sparks. Another explosion of a coil farther away in the hall. Then silence. Boom! Blasting the adventurers from their feet another coil has exploded and in its place a fissure has opened up. A tear in the veil! Abyssal winds suck the air out of the hall and tiny objects are flung about. The din is unbearable. Helping each other up, the compatriots stumble to the back of the hall. “Run!”, Narvik yells. “Wait.” Vinnoniel screams. “The tablet.” He rushes back to retrieve the artefact, not wanting this ordeal to be for naught. The structure of the hall is coming apart: Columns topple and boulders fall from the ceiling. Arcs of energy destroy appliances and rock alike. Rubble and metal pieces fly through the air. The party rushes headlong towards the opening in the rock at the back of the cavern. Indeed, there is a passage! It is narrow and steep and quaking earth and falling rock make the escape almost impossible. Vinnoniel is struck by a rock and falls to the ground, but Enna yanks him back to his feet and supports the hobbling druid. Unsure whether they will survive and if this passage is a dead end, the party grimly surges forward. They round a corner. There! Daylight ahead! With a last sprint they emerge into the bright of day and the open sky. Throwing themselves to the sides and to the ground, the rock that they had just breached erupts into dust and deafening noise. The very mountain seems to cave in. Burying their heads into the dirt, the adventurers cover their ears. And pray to survive the stone’s fury. For several minutes gravel is raining down on them and the clamour is unabated. Then it dies down. The dust settles. The heroes raise their heads and look into each other's dust covered faces. They have braved Ki’iron Erberos and survived.