Moving spheres

[Anastasia]

No, it's coming back the way you came, from the passage on the middle of the back wall, going back up.

[Ebiris]

Ohhh. Oh, right, yeah I get it now.

Marie forgoes exploring that odd sucking sensation for now and follows those stairs in the middle towards the singing.

[Anastasia]

You go back up. Here is a large open space. A dozen and one robed men are here, all kneeling before the floor, where another black carpet with a purple circle lies. Their hoods are back, each of them bald and with noses gone - simply removed, leaving behind two holes. Their eye sockets are empty, black things with no signs of eyes. They sing with mouths split wide open and tongueless, singing their horrifying hymn to nothingness. It is yet a beautiful song, well sung and with an alluring quality Marie can feel in her bones.

Come, all you who here this. I am the Answer to all pain, all suffering.

You hear that amid the words, a gentle and loving voice. A beautiful voice, reasonable, calming.

Yet amid that you hear the shadows rustle like sheets of paper, like living things. Whispers even below the song, audible to you with your enhanced hearing.

'The light.'

'Radiance is here.'

'The song is not perfect now.'

'Oh Lady of Loss, deign to reveal this secret.'

'Let us face the light and embrace oblivion at last, please.'

'Yes, let it kill us, let it bring us to the peace you promise, we're so tired.'

[Ebiris]

Well this is miserable. Can they detect her, though? She didn't blunder into a desecrated or unhallowed area, did she?

[Anastasia]

You don't see any signs of it being unhallowed or desecrated.

[Ebiris]

In that case she'll act as if she's still got stealth on her side, floating around looking for any hidden doors or the like in this room as well as seeing what magic is on everyone here.

Take 10 for 84 on perception.

[Anastasia]

There's no secret doors here, nothing hidden.

'Bury it within the sands.'

'Bury us within the same sands.'

'Who would betray this and delay oblivion?'

'A traitor. A secret of a betrayer, who is known.'

The whispers of the shadows continue along with the song, beautiful and lonely, cold as a winter night blanketed in numbing snow.

[Ebiris]

Nothing hidden in a Sharran temple, right sure!

Anyway she would stay and listen to their whispering but honestly it sounds fairly circular and unhelpful in a paranoid evil rambling sort of way. So... back on out and the way she came down the spyhole passage to get back into the main entrance tunnel which she'll now head down to see where it's meant to lead.

[Anastasia]

It heads in the direction of the singers, before abruptly ending in a dead end.

[Ebiris]

No secret passages or is ethereal movement just assumed for everyone here?

Taking 10 for 84 on perception.

[Anastasia]

There is fading magic here - it seems tied to the wall becoming shadowy on demand, allowing people to pass through.

[Ebiris]

Not worth her bothering with. So where do these people eat or sleep or go to the toilet?

Well, there's still that chasm to investigate! Back through the spyhole wall and along to the two sentries, she floats out over the chasm to have a peek.

[Anastasia]

It goes straight down into absolute darkness - and the suction and pull against you becomes all the stronger.

[Ebiris]

What's at the sides and up above then?

[Anastasia]

Wall and ceiling, respectively. They're very sandstone-y.