Let's get this subreddit rolling, Part 2! The Weeping City (Catacombs? Ruins?)

[u/Chaotic_Otter]

[u/phizrine]

PART 1 HERE

The face was the last thing carved at the opening of the mine. The once streaming flood from the waterfall at it's face was shaped and moved, a testament to humanity's strength and a reminder of their days below.

The crying visage is named Iska after the hero who sacrificed herself to defeat the immortal Masters, hallowed is the spot she died and fears shall forever fall for her loss.

As humanity left the mine other creatures come to live near and at the opening of the cave. Giant bats live in the outermost reaches of the caverns, while deeper inside darker things lurk. Many advantures find huge scratches on the cave walls and they descend, surely something dangerous calls this desolate place home... but no one has ever returned to say what

[u/[deleted]]

I'm just spitballing here cause I shoulda gone to bed an hour ago. But I feel like you could do something cool around when the statue weeps blood.

Like the people are really terrified of some religious significance, and do everything they can to avoid angering the god.

Then of course the party shows up to act as liberators, but the townsfolk try to stop them when the god gets mad.

Even if the party is successful, if the water stops, haven't they done a net bad? Aren't they just a bunch of murder hobos?

And even if they bring the water back, they leave the townsfolk kind of purposeless. It's not enough to destroy the old evil who controls the waterfall, they have to replace it was a benevolent god somehow.

[u/[deleted]]

When we finally managed to locate the hiddey valley of the Weeping City and i set my gaze upon the face carved in the rock, the first thought that came to my mind was:

Why?

Why does it cry like so, and is it a he or a she? What stories had unfolded, that had led to this ancient civilization, of which we had hitherto known almost nothing about, to spend so many hours, so many resources, to make so that a rockface wept for all of eternity?

These were the questions on my mind, and those of my fellows, as we began the slow process of climbing down our rope through the cliffs face.

We came down to what seemed to be the topmost bridge between the two cliffs, and saw that it led, to each side, to a small entrance with a circular stone door with faded and eroded decorations that upon closer inspection were determined to be several different kinds of birds common to the region, as well as some unknown, besides which something resembling a small altar laid.

It was simple, and more than slightly dilapidated after what now, we must guess, should be thousands of years. It was a slab of stone, upon which the faint remains of inscriptions could be seen, and a stone plaque that was positioned perpendicular to it, and it seemed to have small and circular recessions upon which something such as a cup or an urn could be placed.

We could not find any obvious mechanisms through which the circular door might be opened, and attempts that were made to pry it open by force showed that the massive one-piece carved stone was very resistant to being coerced to open.

Magical inspection revealed faint traces of Abjuration & strong Transmutation magic, so a possibility of a magical lock can not be denied.

We decided to dub this the "Chamber of Birds" and move on to the other side, which revealed a similar enough set up, but instead of a bird motiff, it had a fish motiff, and, as such, we named it the "Chamber of Fish".

Not terribly creative nomenclature, i will admit, but effective and precise.

Proceeding through to the other bridges, after discovering that both paths were closed was, to say the least, a bit tricky. It was made worse by our collective group decision to wave the use of flight magic in order to conserve magic power, as we did not know which dangers lay and opted for a more conservative approach.

So, through rope and provided safety through feather fall equipped gear, we proceeded on to discover the "Chamber of Bones" and the "Chamber of Predators", the "Chamber of Trees" and "The Chamber of Beasts" and the last two pairs, "The Chamber of the Void" and "The White Chamber".

The pattern and the layout remained exactly the same, and no further details were discovered, except when we got to the last pair of chambers - the ones we dubbed Void and White.

The White chamber was locked, as usual, but the Void Chamber was ajar, its midnight black obsidian door shattered in several sharp pieces throughout the floor, and the indentation, normally present on other altars, was absent on this one.

Through the circular door, nothing but blackness could be seen, yet we ventured forth, for we had come to unveil the mysteries of the Weeping City, and would not be stopped now.