Realms of the Underdark - J. Robert King [31]
Those who do will find that the passage soon narrows, descends sharply, and becomes a rough tunnel hewn through damp rock. In several places, the ceaseless murmur of echoes fill this route: fading but never silent remnants of distant cacophony that seems to involve loud speech… in tongues not understood or identified by even the most careful listener.
As the intrigued traveler moves on, the grinning bones of human adventurers and larger, snakelike things adorn the deepening way, and pits begin to occur. Above several of these deadly shafts, palely shrouded in cobwebbed bones, hang dark, ancient tree trunks that end in sharp points. Years have passed since they fell like fangs to impale victims who are now mere twisted tangles of bone and sinew, dangling silently, their lifeblood spilled long ago.
Few explorers come so far. One may have to wait days for a crumbling bone to break free and fall into the depths with a small, dry sigh… and such sights are the only exciting action hereabouts.
Any intruder who presses on past the area of pits- and manages to avoid personally discovering new ones-will soon meet the endless gaze of a skull taller than most men. A giant's head goggles down the passage, its empty sockets eerily lit by the glowworms that dwell within. Their faint, slowly ambulating radiances show what dealt death to the giant, waiting in the dimness just beyond: a boulder almost as large as the riven skull, bristling with rusted metal spikes as long as most men stand tall. The bands that gird the stone about and clasp its massive swing chain are still strong. The many-spiked boulder hangs in the passage like a waiting beholder, almost blocking the way, swinging slightly from time to time in response to distant tremors and breezes of the depths.
Only a fool-or an adventurer-would come this far, or press on past the gigantic trap in search of further perils. A bold intruder who does will soon come to a place where a band of glowstone crosses the ceiling of the rough-hewn way, casting faint, endless ruby light down on an old, comfortable-looking armchair and footstool. These stout, welcoming pieces stand together in an alcove, flanked by a little side table littered with old and yellowed books-lurid tales of adventure, mostly, with a few tomes of the "lusty wizard" genre-and a bookmark made of a long lock of knotted and berib-boned human hair.
A fortunate intruder will find the chair empty, and wonder forever how it came to be there, and who uses it. An unlucky explorer, or one rash enough to take or damage any of the items, will soon learn that it is one of the retreats of a certain old and mad wizard known as Halaster, called by some the Lord of Undermountain. Only he can call into Faerun the ghostly ring of floating, skeletal liches that surround the chair, which hurl spells at those who offer him violence. The fortunate visitor who found the alcove empty and lived to walk on would soon find a stretch of passage where human bones drift and whirl endlessly, awaiting a living foe to rake and bludgeon. These bones circle with a slow patience that stirs into deadly hunger when an intruder comes within their reach.
Beyond the bones the passage turns to the right and comes to its end in a vast emptiness-a cavern large enough to hold some cities of the world above…
A cavern where many eyes now blinked again, as a point of light winked into sudden life in the darkness.
The light pulsed, whirled about in a frenzied dance, and grew swiftly larger, blazing up into the bright, floating image of… a human woman, all long silken hair, liquid grace, fine attire, and dark, darting eyes.
The deep chuckle came again, and its source drifted close to the life-sized glowing phantom, peering with many eyes at the vision.
"Let us begin," a deep voice rumbled