Camilla looked around the crypts in confusion. Large sarcophagi lay in sconces dug into the walls, their sides graven with chivalric scenes of battle and the hunt. Cobwebs draped the caskets in gossamer sheets of silk, though, thankfully, Camilla didn’t see any of the webs progenitors. A slight breeze stirred the strands and Camilla turned towards the source of the unseen airflow.

“This way,” she declared, stepping through the nearest archway. The heavy stone arches stretched off in both directions like rib bones of a vast serpent. Bones crunched underfoot from where something had overturned stone ossuaries. The bones were yellowed with age and splintered by blows as though to get a the marrow, though Camilla couldn’t imagine remains so ancient retaining any such thing. At least these ancient Knights had been spared the vile necromancy that had dragged their more recent brethren.

“There has to be a way…” Camilla’s words trailed off in a scream as something black and massive smashed into her sending her sprawling into a side passage. She skidded across the slick stone, her left hand grasping for some hand hold as her right held onto her rapier in a death grip. A bestial roar mingled with Cydric’s battle cry and the hiss of a blade slicing the air. With a strangled oath she felt the ground give way beneath her as she went over the edge of a pit, plunging deeper into the darkness. She had just enough time to scream before she splashed into icy water. Instinctively she held her breath and kicked her feet, driving herself back above the surface, though it was so black she could see nothing. The current sucked her along at the speed of a brisk walk. Rocks scratched at her skin and she thrust an arm out in front of her incase of an unseen object.

“Myrmidia’s bleeding…” she tumbled down a shallow decline and splashed into another pool. To her surprise she found that there was light here. Veins of quartz in the wall glowed with lumience from some unknown source. She was in a large pool that was fed from the stream that had swept her along. Kicking and splashing she crawled ashore on a pebbled beach. The room was a subterranean grotto that had been eroded around the pool. The light that suffused the place was pale and pure. Camilla watched it in fascination as the light shifted through the spectrum at some slow random progression.

“Cydric!” she yelled, but the roar of the water and the echoes of her own voice were all that returned to her. Glancing around she noticed a fissure in the rock. Pushing herself to her feet she walked to the opening and squeezed through. On the other side she found a small room light by the same crystalline light. A skeleton, partially articulated but covered with fungus was huddled in a corner. The body was wearing rusted armor but the gauntlets and pauldrons were missing. Writing was scratched onto the wall. Camilla leaned close and read the ancient Brettonian. And then she understood.