Wizards/text

The Round Theatre in Palace City holds a popular performance each year on chilly Moonless Eve. Malkin watched it in his youth and was embarrassed by its theatricality. Powdered -faced players took the role of heroic vampire hunters descending into a misty crypt, there discovering blood-suckers.

Yet what unfolds in the Castle's crypt (#30) seems at first hardly less real. The party see that the tomb in the centre of the chamber is empty; long since picked clean of its grave-goods. But there is a click as one of Guilders approaches. Then the 15' by 15' square space between the four pillars- with the empty coffin at its centre- drops smoothly downwards.

[ooc] Characters can choose to descend on the platform, or stay on the present level by stepping back onto the 5' strip at the platform's perimeter. http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/HoH_MW/02_HeroesHorror_150_ppi_2dy92.jpg

As the platform descends, it reveals that there is an identical (i.e. also 25' by 25' chamber) just below the present crypt. Its floor is awash with stinking marsh water. Stone benches lie on its perimeter. A group of a EIGHT blue-skinned monsters- perhaps ghouls- leer up from this verge so as to avoid being crushed by the platform. They are half-dressed in piratical gear.

The four pillars on which the platform has descended are notched with hand-holds for the monsters to climb swiftly in and out.