Underfed Returns! pt6

So, through the desert you had gone with K'nap as your guide. You'd finally located the caravan, witnesseed the payment of *that* dragon, elementals that showed up demanding they pick up the pace or face the wrath of the Diamond Emperor, and that it was surrounding some kind of pit and excavation.

You were able to sneak in thnaks to convenient fires that you'd snuck up to set, distracting the guards, and descended into the pit in the center, looking for a place to hide.

Now you're in the pit, in the middle of what appears to be a collapsed, half excavated ruins, no doubt Kulthian ones given the engine's supposed presence.

There are 'soldiers' nearby, but they're ignoring you. Undead, surely, gievn the giant bags full of stone they're drawing towards you. The complex lays open before you, a gap in a collapsed wall leading into it, a hallway.

Victor studies carefully the area the party finds itself in. With so little information it's hard to decide what the best course of action might be. Finally he looks at the party, then points towards the gap. A moment later he raises his eyebrows and raises his other shoulder...his best approximation of a curious shrug.

"Well, isn't that convenient?" Nasrin asks almost rhetorically. She adjusts herself slightly, shifting a shoulder as if to deal with some hitch caused by the placement of her crimson armour. "I suppose the question is if we're taking the convenient open door." She too indicates the opening by pointing. Victor gets a nod. They are on the same page. Probably.

Asmli immediately nods enthusiastically, if silently, to Nasrin, and seems more than ready to move, bouncing on his toes as he does so,

WHen half your work force is undead and trained to carry rocks, rather than attack, it *does* get easier t4o sneak into a place, doesn't it?

Still, there are tunnels you can duck into, a hallway you can find your way in, a place to hide.

For the moment. A chance to catch your breaths aand your bearings.

Victor does indeed look around, trying to catch his bearings. He thinks back to how far they walked and in which direction. He tries to estimate where they are in relation to the camp and the wagons above them - if indeed they are still above them. "Ideally," he whispers in his softest whisper, "We can find another exit other than the pit that we entered through."

"...We can just go inside and look around. There has to be another exit if that is what you are looking for." nasrin is continuing toward the breach in the wall now, taking long, purposeful strides. Still, one could readily stop her if they have a mind to. "Better than waiting around here anyway."

Asmli does not seem minded to stop her, and indeed seems more than ready to be on his way, with the finish line and their goal so near.

In you go, further. You can hear voices. Guards men talking. CAn't wait to get out of here, they say. They've almost got it unmoored, they say. Only a little longer, the say.

All in all, they sound like they're hoping to convince themselves of that, let alone anyone else. There's an edge of terror in their voices.

Distant moans echo through the complex, too. The undead. The simple groans of the zombies are obviously present.

Thankfully, this complex is large. Plaques on the archeways over the long destroyed and cleared out of here doors definitely are in Kulthian. Oinly a few letters. Some kind of system to indicate where you are in the complex?

GAME: Nasrin rolls perception: (20)+3: 23

GAME: Victor rolls perception: (3)+7: 10

GAME: Asmli rolls perception: (9)+4: 13

While no one pressent speaks Kulthian, it continues to be easy enough to see that the hallways and doorways and what not are only one character different than the ones nearby. This gives you at least some idea that this was definitely a very organized locale.

You avoid at least two patrols in the meantime, one of undead, which are carrying rocks with a living and very creeped out looking guardsman moving past, and a few soldiers who are heading to the suface.

"They're figuring someone ignitred one of the whiskey bottles. Desert sun, heat. There ain't shit living for miles around and you might have noticed but we're counting down ourselves, to boot, 'for he turns us into slaves."

"We've got to get out of here."

"And go where? Ain't shit for miles, and the elements and a dragon are all against us."

Victor pauses and listens at the snippets of conversation that he can hear. He glances at the other party members. Then he turns back towards the hallways - particularly looking for the direction that seems like it might be the source of all the rocks the undead are hauling out.

Asmli simply listens, as silently as he can, making no move to talk to anyone or really so much as breathe loud.

"...Go anywhere, honestly. Further in and smash things, if you like. We do need ot do *something.*" Nasin is frowning deeply as she finds herself staring in the direction in which the last patrol left. "Do we even know what we're trying to accomplish any longer...?"

Edinaz hunkers down, just trying to stay inconspicuous. "Yes, destory the machine we need to destroy."

Nasrin says, "Then we should keep going and do that since running hardly seems an option."

This place is big enough, and company doubtful enough if we're honest, that you have plenty of ways to avoid the guards and zombies -- and even then, avoiding the zombies isn't exactly the most necessary thing, you find. There's roughly a dozen of them so far that you've counted. FInally, you pass through another hallway when you begin to hear it. More voices, more sounds of rock being cleared. You emerge above, on a platform overlooking a circular chamber. Rock and rubble are everywhere, as if the ceiling above had once caved into the chamber below you and has since been cleared away. You catch a glimpse of something in the center, a metallic monstrosity of crystal and thrumming power. A chill settles into your very bones. Something *terrible* is in there. This object of crystal, tubing and metal must be the agony engine, what you're here to destroy. It's quite large, even buried under the rubble as you can see, and its integrated into the floor and the walls.

All over the chamber are workers, clearing rocks, gently, away from the components and zombies being used to haul debris away. The work is ongoing. It won't last forever, of course, as the humans will inevitably need to change shifts, but the zombies workers will be aproblem.

They haven't noticed you yet. Discipline is clearly a bit lax, no matter how scared they are of the mummy, it's hard to maintain military rigor in these circumstances.

But you're finally hear.

Overlooking an engine powered by pain.

...but one hsa to wonder just what *was* it powering *here*?