The party moves deeper into the cavern in the cliffside.  

It is dark... after just 30 yards, only Meili is able to see clearly unless someone has a torch or other light source.

Moving further, the air changes.  The thick, humid breath of the jungle is cut off like a door slamming shut, replaced with something cool and still.  The air in here is stale and smells as if it has lingered for centuries.  It smells of dust, powdered stone and rusted blood. 

Beyond the initial entry chamber, the tomb opens into a wide stone hall, 10' across, its floor made of massive square tiles worn smooth by time.  The walls are carved with faded Omuan glyphs and bas-reliefs, depicting grungs, flail-snails, cranes and other jungle creatures.  Some are in combat with one another, while others are locked in mocking, chaotic poses.  Some have been defaced, others circled with chalk or etched over with notations in Thayan script.  

Just ahead, the party finds more sign that others have been this way before.

The word “PIT TRAP” has been chalked in large, blocky letters across the stone in white powder and a line runs the length of the the hallway in the middle of the floor.  Inspection reveals a faint gap in the stonework, perhaps where the floor is made to open.  Nearby, chalked on the stone wall beside a grotesque, skull-topped lever is another message:  “DO NOT PULL.”

Beyond, there is a massive stone slab, clearly once meant to seal off the passage.  It has been forced down into the floor and jammed in place with iron pitons driven into cracks in the masonry.  The slab now lies flat against the floor at an angle, forming an awkward threshold.  Looking at the pitons, it looks like someone has pried a few of them loose.

All around, signs of earlier exploration linger.  Empty potion vials, broken chalk sticks, and bloodied bandages suggest cautious but costly progress.  Despite their power, the Red Wizards and their mercenaries have clearly paid for every foot they’ve advanced.

Up ahead, the sound of rushing water can be heard.  Past the stone slab, the hallway ends abruptly at a "T" intersection.  There is moss covering the walls here, but someone has cleared most of it off of the floor.  There are 4 chalk "x's" marked out on the floor.

At the end of the hall, a bas-relief carving of a bearded devil’s face adorns the wall.  The devil’s open mouth is a well of utter darkness.

Above, chalk reads "Warning!"

To the left, the hall passes over a rusty drain hatch, the sound of moving water below.  Past that, you can see what looks like a glass or crystal door.  Something is chalked above it, but it is too gloomy to read from the middle of the hall.  

To the right, the hall opens up into a much larger chamber, concealed for now in darkness.

Ran will use the new lantern they found back with the little raptors (believe it was 30' bright plus 30' dim light - with a bless in reserve if needed).

Ran looks from the bearded devil's face to Mica and back.

"Dare you to put your hand in there, mate," Ran says.

He then looks down both paths of the tunnel.

"Not sure I like a big open space at our back," Ran says and turns towards the larger chamber, holding the lantern up to reveal any more warning signs as they go.

"I’d advise against it," Meili said, glancing at the gaping mouth of the devil carving. She didn’t think Mica would actually take the dare, but the words came out anyway, dry and automatic.

She looked at the crystal door, then at the large chamber off to the right. "The wizards left the pit trap open - and didn’t bother sealing the door behind them. I doubt they’d close this one either." She gestured toward the wider hall. "That path might be the safer bet."

With a wary glance back at the ominous carving - just in case it decided to breathe fire or worse - Meili stepped carefully toward the larger chamber, like Ran scanning the walls and floor for fresh chalk, loose tiles, or anything ready to kill the unwary.

Mica looks at the bloody bandages and debris along the hall and shakes his head, it looks like the Red Wizards worked their way through a lot of mercenaries to clear the path.  He looks up as Ran points out the devil carving.  He barks out a short laugh that echoes eerily through the hall. “Ha, no chance.  But I am grateful they marked all of the danger areas.” 

He looks down the hallway toward the closed door and nods towards Meili. “Yea, they probably would have left that open if they went that way.  Let’s check out the open area.  Lead the way.”  He urges the others onward, glancing back over his shoulder from time to time to watch their back trail.

The party moves toward the larger, open space.  They step out from the stone corridor and into the yawning vastness of a grand staircase.  It is a vertiginous shaft of ancient masonry that plunges deep into the earth.  The air grows instantly colder, almost clammy, and carries with it the reek of mildew, dust, and something foul.

The chamber is immense.  It is fifty feet wide - maybe more — and stretches downward several floors at least into a well of shadow.  Encircling the shaft is a narrow stone balcony, just five feet wide, clinging to the walls and spiraling downward like a serpent coiled upon itself.  At every landing, other arched corridors branch off like veins, suggesting a labyrinthine maze of chambers spreading out below.

From somewhere below, the party hears a sound... marching.  Rhythmic.  Almost inhuman.  The sound of feet... too many to count...  all striking the stone in perfect unison.  Scrape.  Stamp.  Scrape.  Stamp.  It's distant, but not far enough.  There’s no shouting, no words, no conversation.  Just the soulless cadence of coordinated movement, like a military parade hidden in the darkness somewhere below.

As the sound echoes upward, Ran and Meili, scanning the lower levels just below, both spot something.

A flicker of movement.  There, on the balcony just one level down is a figure.  Its body is gaunt and pale, not entirely rotten but unmistakably wrong.  Its limbs move with a jerky stiffness, as if controlled by invisible strings.  But most chilling of all is its head, or what remains of it: a rusted iron pyramid has been grafted over its skull, the edges bolted into flesh that no longer bleeds.  No eyes are visible, yet somehow, it looks to be peering down below, toward the same marching sound they are listening to.

It pauses.  The metal facepiece tilts ever so slightly, as if sniffing the air.  Then the thing turns toward them, as if it feels their eyes up it. 

Then, wordlessly, it turns and flees, vanishing down the next flight of stairs and into the dark corridor of the floor below, limbs skittering awkwardly like a puppet torn from its master’s hand.

Below, the marching never stops.  If anything, it grows a shade louder.

"More golems?" The place was as scary as they go, and Meili whispered her question. "It sounds more like machines than living beings".

She crept to the edge of the spiralling balcony and peered down into the shaft below. Cold seeped up through the stone and into her bones, but it was not the cold that froze her breath in her lungs. "By all the gods - what is it?!" 

The image of the rusted pyramid welded to the head of a human with iron bolts sunken into meat - Meili was sure she would see it in her nightmares to the end of her days. Only when the thing ran off could Meili speak again. "It will warn... whatever that is down there." She drew back from the edge, trying to keep her voice steadier than she felt. "Do we check the other side first... or follow the corpse down?"

The prophecy had spoken of underground, and this path yawned before them like a throat. She glanced back the way they came - toward stale but breathable air, and light that hadn’t yet forgotten the sun.

She wouldn’t admit it aloud, but spending just a few more minutes up here didn’t sound so bad.

Before Ran can grab for his bow, the pyramid zombie is gone.

"Damn," Ran says. "I don't think so. A golem would have come up here to get friendly. That was a bright zombie or ghoul or some other nasty undead."

He sets the blessed lantern down for a moment, lights a torch and then drops it over the side and watches the stairs, platforms and passages carefully as the torch spins light and shadows as it falls, looking for a sign of where pyramid head went or for a sign of what's making the marching noise below.

"Here's to hoping it really is a machine and not feet."

At Ran’s word, Eryndor tightens his grip on his lute, fingers poised—its magic ready to strike or soothe, should the dead below rise to greet them.

Mica steps forward at the shouts of the others, peering down into the darkness toward the sounds of the rhythmic marching.  “What was it?  What did you see?” he asks Meili.  He considers her description of the pyramid and thinks back to the butcher’s tent in the camp above. “They had the body of one of those in the camp.  A dwarf with a rusted pyramid bolted over his head. So the Red Wizards did not destroy everything down here.  How could it even see us?” 

He watches as Ran’s torch flips end over end down the shaft.  “We could spend forever wandering these hallways, I say we follow the creature down, before it can warn whatever lies below.”