Bella follows you into the blind darkness, panting as the breath that was shocked out of her works its way back into her lungs on the run. But you see, at least; guided by the sourceless gloom that refuses to dip to pure darkness for reasons that do not present themselves. You round the corner and find a flight of steps going down to a floor below. The peeling-paint plaster walls of the interior gives way to mortar and stone retaining walls flanking the short descent on long comfortable steps. They force you to slow down a little so that Bella doesn't trip. On the steps, you encounter more dead - these, idle and thankfully inanimate. The first is a skeletonized carcass that seems to have died crawling up the steps toward the hall above. The ancient robe it once wore is flat and moth-mangled on its body, but you see the bloody stain turned black both in the remnants of the cloth and in a trail back from the cellar below. Two steps past this body is another, this one in decayed and ruined leather armor. This one has a loose crossbow quarrel embedded in the ribcage - shot dead as it rounded the corner, the first casualty of some ancient fight here. Beyond him is a small cellar with several ancient casks on racks; some long broken and dry, some still intact. Two more leather armored skeletons lie about, attesting their death in the same conflict. Past them is a huge, heavy door built into the stone and mortar archway. The blood from the robed skeleton stains the stone in a dusty, blackened trail all the way up to the door, where it seems to terminate (or rather, initiate) in a great arterial fan of the stuff. A fair amount of this room's floor is splattered with bloodstains, discolouring the dusty stone in the ancient conflict that took place here.

"I see nothing - where are we? Oh, Taalia - what is this place...? It's not even a mystery night..."

The room goes no further than this; the heavy door has no lock, but does not budge; it seems to be locked from the other side.

Above, you hear a frustrated, ethereal shriek; the battle between the dead men continues.

Spoiler: Succeed on a +0 Visual Perception Test...
Show
Even in the dark, your eyes pick out two things - one is that the floor in front of the door is scratched and dappled with what must have been years of pacing back and forth by the bone-footed occupant. The other is that the door is stained a little, too - right near the bottom, with what looks more like ancient smudges of blood than splashes; and some scratches over the top of that.