We headed back to Hendenburgh in a spirit of celebration, now the imminent danger had been removed. Even the woodlands seemed cheerier now the hounds had been banished. Krisanna took great delight in retelling the story, embellishing the account and acting out the good bits by jumping on tables.
We returned to the castle for the first time in ages, with the journey being largely uneventful but there was word of something that Leadbelly needed to discuss with us. The repairs were proceeding to plan although there was still a lot of work to do, with the castle being a hive of activity. After yet another banquet we retired to our newly refurbished rooms - Orla looked anxiously to see if there was an en-suite bathroom in her room and was angry to find that there wasn't.
Leadbelly told us that while clearing the overgrown courtyard the workers had discovered a doorway with a broken stone seal on it. When they heard noises from beyond the door, they all downed tools and refused to do any more work until it was investigated. If only there was a group of slightly hung over adventurers to hand!
The door was cracked but Bastonn soon shifted the broken pieces to reveal a steeply sloping chalk passageway leading down into the ground. Krisanna scampered ahead whilst Bastonn held a torch. We discovered a large room with three partions each bounded by an alcove. There seemed to be a pattern in the inscriptions in the alcoves, possibly related to the elements. Water removed one and earth the next. The final one had an inscription of a sun which responded to an ember from the torch.
A passage to the south led into an even larger chamber with a large carved humanoid face on the western wall, The pillars seemed to be carved into leaf patterns. The face "This presence here is most untrue, speak of nature's order or pay for this miscue." It took a but of head scratching before we solved it's riddling rhyme and heard three clicks as the doors unlocked.
We followed the passageway to the north east and discovered a statue of a knight holding a large silvery sword with golden discs set into its eye sockets. Krisanna swapped the golden discs for a couple of copper pennies just in case removing the eyes woke the statue. Bastonn investigated the sword and realised that it could be removed with a little effort and claimed it. It proved to be very heavy, weighted with lead and more than likely an executioners sword. Yikes.
Heading back a locked door to the south proved to be no obstacle to Krisanna's lock picking fingers and revealed a large pool of warm water - could this be Orla's ensuite? The only thing that spoilt it was a bloody hobbit corpse floating in the pool and six weird, plant like creatures washing blood off themselves. Bastonn immediately slashed at two of them with a furious attack, whilst Orla and Krisanna managed to dodge incoming attacks, then Krisanna deftly dispatched one with a dagger and Orla fired twin arrows killing one, and a further arrow to finish the other, then Bastonn finished the last.
The corpse proved to be a young male hobbit who had probably been climbing down into the room before falling to his doom. Something silvery in the water tempted Krisanna into diving in but it was deeper than it first appeared and she swallowed a mouthful of water. Orla fished her out, and Krisanna reappeared clutching a large silver salver. The water also appeared to have healing properties, just a bit late for the unfortunate hobbit thief.
We headed east and Krisanna narrowly avoided two large spinning blades before finding a door and opened a door that opened on to a dead end. Ha ha, very amusing. Heading south led to another statue and a mirror that reflected the viewer as if they were a skeleton. Creepy. We unscrewed the statue and found a strange jar sealed with not sinister at all black wax. It proved to contain dozens of tiny copper coins.
The next room contained a weird crystalline structure with a figure trapped inside. There was a weird humming noise and as Orla approached the crystals started pulsing with light. Despite several attempts to break the crystals we abandoned it as being too dangerous unless someone had high willpower to resist any encrystallisation.
A bit more investigation of the knight room found an odd gutter seam around the room and some odd recesses at the corners of the statue. A bit of manipulation revealed four rods that we could push back up into the recesses and with a bit of fiddling revealed two more secret doors, the north one leading to another face room, this one with a bronze face with an odd wheel on the nose. Turning this revealed a secret passage leading to hidden exit outside the castle - could be handy,
The door to the south revealed more statues with copperwood blades and silvery amulets. Needless to say removing the amulet triggered a battle. Oops. Onto another mirror room with a corpse with slashed wrists and sinister reflections. Finally we reached a large chamber with a sarcophagus, blue mist and a large figure holding a crystal sword. One more battle and the crystal sword was ours! Holding the sword proved risky but wearing a handy gauntlet that was hidden in the casket. prevented any crystal growths
All hail the contributions to the roof fund and the new socialist republic.
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