Journey to the Darkest Dungeon

Entering the Ruins

The adventurers took their first steps beyond the threshold and slowly began advancing through the hallway. Treading carefully they observed their surroundings, alert and holding out for assailants of any kind. Old pieces of furniture and broken crates were scattered throughout the hallway, all coated in the same layer of dust as the previous room. Every so often Dismas noticed patches on the surfaces around him where the dust had been swept off by some kind of movement. By some thing. The lobby had been long forlorn and overtaken by the ravages of time. Here though, they were no longer alone. Blade drawn he paced down the hall together with his allies.

The torch barely illuminated two paces around them, there was more than enough room to conceal someone or something from their restlessly searching eyes. The silhouette of the first door appeared on the right, exactly where the map had said it would be. There was little incentive to deviate from their path and yet the idea of whatever it was that had scraped the dust off the surrounding objects lurking in that room waiting for them to pass, upset the rogue and increased his eagerness to scan the surroundings tenfold. Eventually a seconds door came and went, then a third. It was merely a few minutes until they reached the end of the hallway and their torchlight shone brightly against the portal to that final room. It was leaned, not closed, their light was already seeping inside the room, the noise of their steps had long passed the threshold. If someone was waiting for them, they knew they were coming.

Reynauld understood that, so he handed the torch off to one of the other adventurers, he did not even look at who grabbed it. Then, motioning the team to follow him, he walked a few steps back, before charging at the door with all his might. His shocked companions watched as the armored knight burst through the brittle portal, knocking it off its hinges, before quickly rushing inside after him.

His sword raised, there he stood, taking quick strides through the room, ready to ambush whomever dared to assault him or his fellow compatriots. But nothing came of it. As the torch in the plague doctors hand began to illuminate the room in slow waves of yellow flickering light, his unblinking eyes, his tense, aggressive form found nothing at all to attack or defend himself from. He lowered the sword.

A long burnt out fireplace adorned the wide end of the room. The walls were lined with tall bookcases, reaching almost as high as the ceiling. Some were skewed, reaching crooked from the wall, one was knocked over entirely. A worn out armchair next to the hearth told stories of long evenings in peaceful study, next to the crackling embers of a homely fire. But covered in muck and grey, everything in this room, just as the rest of the castle, seemed to be years past its prime. Next to them stood a table. At first nothing about it seemed extraordinary, though as Dismas drew closer he noticed shackles and nails affixed to the its surface. Dark stains had seeped deep into the material. No meal had been eaten here in years - this was a torture device. Prompted by his disturbing discovery, he took a step back and let his gaze wander around the room one more time. 

His companions discovered it at the same time as he did. In the faint flickering light of their torch, they found a symbol, smeared across the wall above the fireplace. With thick, dark streaks someone had painted a rune of unknown implication. A thick half circle with daggersharp ends, pierced towards the center by a number of spikes. He looked at his allies. Reynauld had his sword raised a little higher than just a moment ago and Junias shifty gaze dashed from one corner of the room to the next, her feet quietly shifting beneath her. The tension in the air was palpable.

Slowly the highwayman drew closer to the table. Near the top, where the unfortunate soul's head would have been, he noticed something he had missed before. Embedded into the tables surface there was a trinket of some kind. A box. Made of fine dark wood and carefully ornamented with swirls of golden gleaming metal. The doctor joined him at the table, less interested in the box and more in the contraption before her. Her eyes darted across the tables surface and the many gadgets affixed to it. Her fingers gently felt the needlepoints, the rusty fixtures. She could not wager a guess at the gadgets purpose, though it did evoke a warm nostalgic feeling within her. Then she heard it. A faint melody had begun emanating from the box in Dismas' hand. As his cloth-wrapped fingers gently turned the small crank on its side, notes of a decidedly uncanny quality flowed forth from the box, filling the room with their strange affect. She watched as the highwaymans eyes filled with a strange sense of dread at the eerie harmony.