Theryn pulled the lever and the hidden doorway opened with a dull grinding noise. “What do your orc eyes see?” Siegfried whispered to Theryn in Orcish. Theryn’s newfound darkvision ability gave him a good glimpse of the chamber before them. It was another octagonal construction with a central shaft through which the waters from the underground rivers fell to an uncertain fate in the darkness below. Chambers to the north, west, and east were blocked by heavy stone doors. What caught Theryn’s attention, however, were the mounds of dismembered corpses. Black blood pooled on the flagstone floor to ooze over the edge of the abyss, forming a bloodfall, and the bodies lay three or four deep in places. The stench of rotting flesh was almost overpowering. Worse yet were the nightmares that walked the room, evidence of the slaughter dripping from the misshapen axes they bore in their twisted claws. The hulking brutes looked like an unholy spawn of orc and demon, their muscular forms bent and hunched beneath heavy horns that sprouted from their temples. Bony spikes protruded from their grey skin and tufts of fur sprouted along their shoulders and back. The reek of sulphur almost overpowered the stench of the dead. In their wake, as they shook their horned heads and muttered groaning oaths, they left reddish shadows that glowed though there was by rights no light to cast them. Fiendsbane rattled in his scabbard. I smell Tanarukk, he whispered to Varien. Foul spawn and abomination both. Destroy them Varien before I destroy them for you. “Tanarukk,” Siegfried said, exhaling sharply. “The makers of these abominations have forsaken Gruumsh to embrace Baphomet. Creating these creatures is heresy.” “They don’t look like they want to talk theology,” whispered Varien. “I’ve visited enough churches to know that any scripture can be twisted to justify evil,” Siegfried said. “You’re looking at the extreme result of such twisting.” One of the creatures turned and snarled in the direction of their whispering, a guttural snarl escaping its frothing lips. “Fine,” sighed Siegfried, hefting his axe. “Let’s correct this theological error.” Theryn darted out and cast a hunter’s mark on the nearest Tanarukk as he charged. He struck with his quarterstaff, knocking the creature off balance, but could not follow through with a stunning strike . Instead, the creature roared and slashed at Theryn with his heavy axe, slashing the mask-wearing monk. The tanarukk bellowed as he towered over Theryn. In Abyssal-accented Orcish, the creature bellowed, “You look like orc, but you no smell like orc!” “Tell me how this tastes!” Theryn roared back in Orcish as he struck the tanarukk again, this time following up with a classic stunning strike that had the tanarukk reeling. Siegfried was next out the door, rushing towards another nearby tanarukk. “Cyka blyat!” he shouted in bad Abyssal as he hexed the creature before slashing it with his sanguine axe . The creature returned the blow for one of its own, but Siegfried’s axe slashed out, hooking the tanarukk’s blade and knocking it aside contemptuously. Siegfried sneered as he reared back with a kick that knocked the hulking creature over the side of the shaft into the abyss. He then pointed his bloodied axe at the remaining tanarukk who was stalking the southern quadrant of the room. Alec aimed his crossbow and fired two shots at the stunned tanarukk, plugging the creature twice. Delirious, the brute didn’t even flinch as one of the bolts struck him between the eyes. Air-wen drifted past his remaining comrades and entered the room. Not liking the piles of corpses, he centered himself over one of them and made an elemental whirlwind attack. Bodies were thrown like ragdolls to pulp themselves against the nearest stone walls like overripe pumpkins. Suddenly the double doors to the north blasted open, and a fourth tanarukk stomped out into view. This one wore what looked like plate armor, the steeling plating fused to his flesh in horrible-looking patches. A cowl-like helm covered his Demon-orc features, leaving room for his horns to protrude. “What is this?” the tanarukk roared. “You shall die!” He sprinted towards Air-wen, slashing him with his greataxe. Siegfried readied himself as the target he had taunted bounded towards him like a snorting bull, crazed and out for blood. Bob casted a twinned haste spell on Varien and Theryn. Yeemik brandished his censer-flail and attacked the tanarukk who was busy slashing at Air-wen. He connected with the weapon, but as it rebounded off the tanarukk’s steel armour, the censer began to glow darkly. Yeemik’s eyes rolled up into his head as he fainted and collapsed at Bob’s feet. With a shout of triumph, the steel-plated tanarukk chopped down on Yeemik’s unconscious form, only to have the attack deflected by Varien’s shield. The paladin stood in a defensive stance over Yeemik, Fiendsbane raised menacingly. “Demon or orc, or neither, you shall not win this day,” He said to the tanarukk as he slashed with his magical sword, striking true. He struck the creature again and attempted to shove him back, but the tanarukk stood his ground. He slashed again with Fiendsbane and connected, unleashing a smite that blasted the creature with radiant damage. Fiendsbane made an unpleasantly pleasurable noise in Varien’s ear as he drew tanarukk blood. Quickened by Bob’s spell, Theryn charged at the stunned Tanarukk, avoiding the swipe of the steel-plated fiend’s weapon. He struck the creature again, unleashing a flurry of blows before following up with a critical strike that crumpled the creature’s bony brow, and took advantage of his new speed with yet another attack that left the creature stunned again. Theryn knocked the tanarukk back with his quarterstaff and let gravity do the rest. The unbalanced creature, unable to move, keeled over into the abyss and disappeared. Then he took a deep breath as he leaned on his quarterstaff for a moment. He turned to Siegfried and called out, “Keep up!” in Orcish. Siegfried obliged. Engaging his new foe, he locked blades and used his leverage to drive the creature back against the heavy stone doors, which bounced in their frame but stayed firmly closed as he bludgeoned the creature. “Reject Baphomet!” Siegfried shouted at the creature with each staggering blow. “Forsake Gruumsh! For I am your god now!” He knocked the creature off its feet and drove it against the doors again and again. Blood sprayed from between the tanarukk’s clenched teeth as his body was crushed against unyielding stone. Alec drew his mercurial greatsword and slashed at the tanarukk, sending a firebolt at it for good measure. The fire blasted the creature but didn’t seem particularly effective. Air-wen went on the attack, slamming the steel-plated tanarukk before engaging the second tanarukk locked in battle with Siegfried. The tanarukk wrested free of Siegfried’s axe and slashed back at the wildshaped druid, cutting Air-wen deeply before unleashing a rage-driven attack against Siegfried, who stymied it with a well-placed shield spell. “Why are you looking at him?” Siegfried snarled at the tanarukk, indicating Air-wen. “He is not your concern at the moment!” With a contemptuous Bob launched a firebolt and frowned as it damaged but did not destroy his target. Yeemik remained prone and unconscious. “Wake up, devil!” Varien shouted down at Yeemik as he unleashed a critical strike on the steel-plated tanarukk, killing it, then kicked off the wall and spun in mid-air as he split the creature facing Siegfried open like a corkscrewing blade. The creature’s innards were illuminated with a blast of radiant damage as the fiendish tanarukk came apart at the seams. Siegfried looked somewhat crestfallen as the fiend dropped to his feet, dead. Varien shrugged. “You were taking too long,” he explained. “Let’s move.” All was silent in the chamber save for the screams of the falling tanarukks as they neared the bottom of the shaft. Varien headed north through the double doors blown open by the entry of the steel-plated tanurukk, whose steaming corpse lay nearby. He investigated the chamber and found that the ceiling had caved in, destroying whatever had been deposited inside. Judging from the residual aura of consecration his paladin’s senses detected, it had likely been the final resting place of an important priest or shaman. But the sarcophagus, if any, had been obliterated by tons of falling rock. “Shame,” Varien said, kicking at a fragment of stone. Theryn marveled at the vividly-painted murals that adorned the walls that depicted, in graphic detail, the wholesale slaughter of humans, elves, gnomes and dwarves at the hands of vast orc legions. Various castles, settlements, and other assorted fortifications were being set ablaze by gleeful orc berserkers. Shallow alcoves in the room contained four statues of screaming orc warriors grasping double axes. Theryn’s attention was drawn to the sealed doors on the western side of the chamber. He could read the runes as plain as day. “Uruth Ukrypt the Merciless, our mighty king, loyal servant and vicious hand of He Who Watches.” Theryn relayed the information to Siegfried, who was concerned with a telltale pool of blood in the chamber’s southeastern section. “Interesting parallel between Gruumsh and Helm, wouldn’t you agree?” Siegfried murmured as he regarded the blood pool and the recently-slaughtered corpses of Bloodsworn orcs who lay sprawled about it amid the destroyed remains of several zombies. He lowered his sanguine axe to the blood pool. “I wonder,” he said softly. The axe began to drink from the pool of blood, filling the vial clenched in the skull’s teeth until the metal jaws sprang open, discharging the filled glass tube. Siegfried snatched the vial out of the air and pocketed it. He looked down at the pool, which was by now greatly diminished, and prestidigitated the remaining smear away. Then he turned to Theryn. “Now then, let’s take a closer look at that door, shall we?” He called to Varien. “Oh, Varien! Don’t you want to see that thing we came down here to find? That thing that’s over here?” He strode to the doors. “Now, that’s going to be trapped,” he said, waving his axe at the door lock. Theryn nodded and tested it with a gentle push from the butt end of his quarterstaff. The door stubbornly refused to open. “Right, we need to think about this,” Siegfried said. “Perhaps we should rest a moment while Air-wen descends into the shaft and finished off those tanarukks, should they have been tough enough to survive the fall, or.” “Coming through!” Alec said, hefting the portable ram. Without slowing down his stride he reared back and drove the battering ram into the middle of the double doors, shattering the lock and blasting the doors open. “Or we could do that,” Siegfried said with a sigh. The party members stood at the threshold of a long, narrow corridor that opened into a burial chamber. A strong stench of mildew assaulted their senses. The passing of the centuries and the intrusion of the elements couldn’t completely overcome the great reverence that had gone into the room’s construction. Pale witchlight from a hidden source fell on a heavy stone sarcophagus that rested in the middle of the tomb. From their vantage point they could see that the stone lid of the sarcophagus had been carved to resemble an orc king lying in repose, a powerful, crowned orc clad in full plate armor grasping a stone double axe and shield. Ground water, having leaked in through cracks in the walls, formed murky pools around the base of the sarcophagus. Black mildew encrusted the walls and floor tiles. The party paused in the ominous silence, which was then broken by the sound of approaching footsteps, heavy with armour. With a creaking clanking sound, an eight-foot tall orc clad in shining silver plate armour stepped from the shadows to block the sarcophagus, her great bulk nearly filling the breadth and height of the passageway. The orc woman’s bald head was the colour of amber, nearly translucent with age, and she seemed to glow with an inner light. Her brows furrowed as she brandished a long greatsword that looked to have been carved from the bone of some great creature of legend. “I am Battlewarden Orralthum of the Eternal Order,” she spoke, her voice rang out, heavy with centuries’ worth of gravitas. “You shall not pass.” Varien stepped forward and addressed the undead orc. “Pass away? No, not today. Pass judgment? Yes.” He raised Fiendsbane. The Battlewarden’s hairless brow arched as she raised her sword in mock salute. Air-wen streamed past the party members in a howling elemental charge, falling upon the Battlewarden and slamming her as he enveloped her in a swirl of air current. The Battlewarden grimaced but endured the druid’s elemental attack, and then called out to hidden allies in the shadows. “Clear this rabble!” The shadows themselves moved, the only thing distinguishing them from the darkness being two pairs of glowing red eyes. Silently, they attacked Air-wen with ethereal claws, draining the druid’s life force. Siegfried grit his teeth and set forth in his most imperious tone as he cast charm monster . In Orcish, he barked, “Cease this foolishness and halt this attack, servant! Dismiss your wraiths and bring me the axe that is my birthright!”