It is day 23 of Harvester and we (Feno, Arnd, Armatzi, Niki, Kyro and Lhoss {me}) find ourselves presented with ten holes containing various things and a wriggling thought that this must be a puzzle to be solved. Armatzi has some wild theories about what each hole must mean, but Feno is a man with a plan! As the rest of us cower in a doorway, Feno uses an unlit torch to flip the lever set down in the northwesternmost cavity. Immediately, holes open in the eastern wall and shoot out black and yellow darts. One hits Feno and he slumps down to the ground, paralyzed. I spring into action to rescue my fellow Elf by pulling out the dart. I feel a numb tingling start to spread from my hand up my arm and drop the dart, which disappears. Feno regains consciousness pretty quickly and I examine the wall to see the holes where the darts had originated. Once I spot the holes, I begin to search the room to see if there is another wall that might also be concealing darts. Feno offers to join, so I point out the holes and he nods and starts searching. Armatzi wants to help as well, so I point out the holes, but he can't see them. Jack poofs into existence on Armatzi's shoulder, cuffs him on his ear, then disappears. Niki joins and with a little time and squinting is able to find them. Armatzi squints and strains, but is still unable to see what is plain to all us Elves. I turn to Feno and huff in Elvish "If I woke up tomorrow with human eyes, I would pluck them out and trade with a pig." He nodded with a wry grin (clearly he thought it was the most humorous thing he'd ever heard). It's a very good joke, even better in Elvish. And it rhymes.
At any rate, we do not find any other dart holes in the room; they seem to only come from the east wall. Armatzi decides he wants to flip the other switch in a hole. This time, all of us but Kyro surround Armatzi with shields as he triggers the second lever. With a loud *clunk* the portcullis drops. It does not rise with a reverse flip. Shoot, we've just trapped ourselves. I check the door to the east for traps and don't find any, so we can at least move on from this room. As Armatzi opens the door, we look back to see Kyro attempting to fish the metal circle out of one of the holes. With a bit of finagling, and some help from Armatzi, they lift the circlet out. To their horror, there is an unholy symbol of Nerull engraved upon it. A putrid smell fills their nostrils as the rotting skull appears to animate, frightening Kyro into dropping it back into the hole. Armatzi brandishes his holy symbol and sprinkles holy water on the artifact, but this is not enough! He breaks out a sacred incantation and douses the thing in more holy water. This seems to be sufficient as a cloud of gray smoke rises and then turns white. It seems the evil has bin dispelled. After such unlucky encounters, we all agree to move on from this room.
Arnd is the first through the door and begins to probe with his ten-foot pole. He calls out that he has found more burial alcoves and a pile of rubble. While the rest of us get to work looting the alcoves, Arnd and Feno examine the rubble piles. A swarm of giant rats emerges and scurries away. We don't pursue them. Arnd explores further north in the room and discovers a bottomless (question mark?) pit. Meanwhile, our noisy efforts have attracted a group of ravenous dead. We destroy them with little fanfare and push them into the pit. Curiously, they just disappear into an inky darkness about ten feet down and make no sound of hitting the bottom. This may be more than simply a bottomless pit; regardless, it is a danger to be avoided.
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