Play@YSDC

The passageway ends with a large carved stone pair of doors, etched with imagery that appears all the more ghoulish and jagged beneath the flash of their light. The etchings show a long promenade of figures carried upon litters by individuals and at the start of the procession they have limbs but by the end they do not and the second to last icon set involves a circle of figures with their backs turned while one crouches below a lowered figure with his hands upon some sort of contraption. The final icon shows a face screaming in pain with two sharp points embedded in their eyes as water laps around their face. There is a winch on either side of the double doors, likely responsible for opening them.

"Oh, how gruesome!" says Sarah, looking away from the carvings.

Lionel squeezes her hand. "Hang in there, Sarah," he says. "We're almost there. Let's get these doors open."

-That's awful- says Agnes disturbed.
I hope there isn't any of those cultist- she thinks.

Ronald simply grimaces as he looks at those doors. "Two of us will need to take those winches." He clearly doesn't like the look of them.

"Well, I don't think I'm strong enough," says Sarah, looking doubtful.

"Nor I," says Lionel, "but I can give it a try if you'd rather not, Ronald."

"Two on each one?" asked Ronald, making the puppet scratch his head. "Okily dokily." He heads over to one of the winches.

Agnes go to one of the doors.

Sarah and Lionel also take their places at the winches. If each of them already has one of the others there, Sarah joins Agnes while Lionel helps Ronald.

Together the four survivors, perhaps alone in this ashen world, grip the large winch handles and turn. With grating slowness, the doors begin to open, drawing inward into darkness not yet pierced by flashlights stuck into armpits or at the wrong angles. Once the doors stand halfway open, a piercing cry fills the air behind them and there is the identifiable sound of hundreds of little bells trilling as something moves along the loose boards of the path behind them, setting off the tiny bells attached to each plank of wood.

"Run!" hisses Sarah. She clutches her father's hand, holding her torch with the other and shining it ahead of her as they race through the doorway.

Agnes doesn't hesitate for a second and run.
"Maybe we should have close the door?"- she thinks.

"We'll close the doors behind us once Ronald joins us," says Sarah. "I hope that'll keep whatever it is out."

-Very well- says Agnes nervous.

"I'm here," says Ronald, already breathless. A look around the other side finds that there are no mechanisms on this side. The cultists can block people inside but not the other way around. "Maybe the cult normally sticks too others out there?"

The doors look large and heavy and seem operated by counterweights and a block and tackle. A combined Strength roll on a single door might succeed but the odds aren't high for it.

"We must keep going!" says Sarah. "We'll never get them both closed in time!"

"I quite agree," says Lionel.

-Very well, let's go then- says Agnes

They find themselves in a short corridor that curves down and to the side and which ends at a pair of carved metal doors that show a girl pressed down onto an altar, her legs and arms already missing, as the room fills with water. A two-pronged device arches over her head, just above the eyes, and she stares at it in terror while a cowled figure crouches beside it with one hand almost lovingly upon the device. The two are surrounded by dozens of faceless solemn figures ankle-deep in water.

(SAN check 1/1d4 since you know this practice has occurred frequently for centuries now)

Sarah winces, thinking of what almost happened to Brianna, but she retains her presence of mind. "We have to go in there," she says, gulping.

Lionel shudders in revulsion, nearly losing it. All he can think of is his own little girl, and he hugs Sarah tight, tears spilling from his clenched eyes.

OOC: I don't find the char sheet to know the sanity, but I'm pretty sure I failed the test.


Agnes confronted with the true horror of the cultists receives a shock. She has seens people injured. Even children. But to see this kind of evil is too much to her and she starts crying

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