Ancient Trials, Ancient Sins

Dumb
The man stayed silent for a while and so did Hal, it seems though he had learned a lot when walking around the settlement with the girl, he didn’t know everything.
Eventually, the caravan leader answered.
”Other Hazra, Gongrom if there’s enough of it but that’s rarely the case, so we are lucky they do not leave their territories too often, Winged One forbid what would happen then.
Glugra don’t ‘eat’ but Hazra are not picky with what you bait them with, sometimes we also send some sunleast, to trade with other settlements.”

He marched on and looked off towards the horizon, where the sun had passed the horizon line at last.
”We will be passing the traps on our way, so you may see some later. You will be helping us collect and restock them.”
He said that as if it was a fact not a question, though Hal did not seem to be opposed to the idea of helping them out.
”About when will that be?”
He asked instead, the Caravan leader tilted his head slightly then looked back at the sky for a moment, as if estimating a certain position.
”Time comes when time comes. When the sun reaches…”
He pointed his arm upwards slightly before the zenith of the sun.
“...about here, we should be reaching the trapped areas.”
Hal nodded thoughtfully in return, as the man averted his gaze from the sky again.

Dumb
Time passed on, now in silence and step by step they moved closer to their destination. The natives seemed to travel in relative silence as well, an occassional demand for water leading one of them to the sleds. As the sun rose so did the temperature and outside of the confines of the settlement it became clear why they always wearing their strange robes and rarely looked up at the sky, as temperatures rose also, rather signifcantly. A couple hours passed as the sun slowly moved towards the zenith. Wherever they looked it was just more of the same grey ash with barely even any wind to accommodate them, though even that may have just made things worse.

The caravan leader constantly kept a lookout and occassionally some of the group departed or came walking walking of or coming from a distance, likely scouts. At some point he stopped for a moment, talking with one of them, as the caravan kept moving, moments later he yelled several orders, small groups fromed and detached from the caravan and began moving, as he came to them, another individual taking his spot at the front.

Without any delay he got to the point.
"It is time, you will be helping me collect the prey."
Hal looked at him for a moment as he was already starting to move off and then nodded, the mans head half turned to Mainframe and Yuki.
"Follow me."

Dumb
Hal was about to answer but the Caravan leader shook his head.
"Let them see for themselves."
Both fell silent again afterwards. They continued marching in the same direction for about five minutes until an about a two metres tall contruction came into sight, made from same black 'wood' as the walls and the wandering trees, something seemed to be stuck in it, though only about a minute later when they actually reached the trap they could get a clear view of it.
The trap in of itself seemed rather simple, there were a number of beams holding the whole thing up and likely serving almost as a sort of cage, making sure the prey always came from the same direction, a few strings that looked like sinew, which once seemed to have been under strain, were hanging loosely on a large, spear-like, piece of the black carapace, impaling the... thing on its sharp end though it's maw.

What hung there from the spear, was a decently sized, just about a metre shoulder length and maybe two metres long... it was hard to describe. It seemed to be a cross of a large six-legged dog, a shark and what could be some sort of dragon, it had fins, a flat and spear-like head with thin sharp looking teeth, it had no eyes, though some of the fins could probably serve as sensory organs, judging by their positioning, the head went over into a sleek streamlined body, it was of a deep crimson red and scales covered it, which seemed to be almost as sharp as its teeth.
The caravan leader looked at them for a moment.
"This is a Hazra.", he waved them over, then pointed at Yuki and Mainframe.
"You two help me put down the body, you...", he pointed at Hal.
"...pull back the stake, it locks in the back unless it broke again."

Dumb
They lowered the body without issue, though it was unexpectedly heavy. The caravan leader looked at her after her question and frowned as Hal was resetting the trap.
After a couple of moments he shook his head, not as if denying her request but rather wondering what the foreigner wanted with it and then pulled a pitch black knife from beneath his robe, it was actually reflecting the sunlight and looked as sharp as any of the weapons they produced at the forge.
He leaned down and cut open one of the legs, lodging the tip of the blade beneath the scales and cutting along with their pattern, without actually cutting through any of the individual scales. The blade still made a scraping sound moving through the flesh and once he was done he pulled a sizable chunk of meat out of the beast and put it on the stake.
He looked at her again and then cut off one of the scales, then went down to the maw and pried out one of the teeth.
Unexpectedly that took him considerable effort. Once he was done he leaned back down to the beast and nodded towards Hal.
"We'll have to carry it back, we'll do that together."

Dumb
Hal looked at the caravan leader then the beast and nodded, He went to the back, leaned down and put the tail on his shoulder ready to lift their trophy.
"Watch out for the fins, they're sharp.", the caravan leader noted as he did similar to Hal and place his shoulder under the chest the opposite side of Mainframe.
He looked over the trap one last time and then they headed off, back to the caravan. The beast was, for its size, astoundingly heavy, possibly an adaptation to stay submerged in the sand more easily or just a consequence of its build, regardless of that, the travel back was a rather silent affair with the carvan leader constantly watching the horizon only a couple minutes later the caravan came in sight over one of the dunes, it had moved since they left though that was not a surprise.

The man carrying the beast with them gestured with his arms, pointing at one of the sleds in the back, which they moved over to.
"Bring it down slowly, we down want the sled to be damaged or get stuck."
They dropped the beast on the sled over the mans head who, betraying his frail stature, seemed to lift it with relative ease, then he went back to the front of the caravan to take his original place without any further words.
The sun was approaching its Zenith and the temperatures had risen considerably by now, considerably more so than in the settlement.
Looking around they also saw that they had apparently not been the first to come back, though neither the last, as another group appeared over one of the dunes, carrying another of the 'Hazra'. Hal looked at them for a moment somewhat absent-mindedly and then returned his gaze to the horizon.
"What do you think of this place so far?"

Dumb
The Caravan leader looked at her for a couple moments before answering, as if she said something strange, as if he just said something perfectly normal and understandable.
"The Glugra, they nest in the depths of the temple, the same place where you will be looking for... whatever you may be looking for."
He turned away as the group started to make the last stretch, it took another couple minutes before they actually arrived and the spot on the horizon kept getting bigger until it eventually towered over them like a monolith. Hal moved over to the natives and helped them as they made an effort to drag the sleds up the platform the monolith stood on, the stone was pitch black and perfectly, unnaturally smooth, showing no signs of wear even after all the time it must've stood here, it's sight had something strangely unsettling and off-putting.
In the centre of the platform, stood the monolith, odd lines and patterns etched into it, straight and angular, converging in rings at certain points, at its foot, there was an opening about three metres tall and two in width, it was about as pitch black inside as the stone was itself. There were no visable security mechanisms or traps at the entrance at least from what she could see from here.
As she was still observing, the caravan leader approached her another time.
"You can still gaze at it all you want later, now help setting up camp."
He paused and turned away again only to stop for another moment.
"Don't try to sneak in at night or something stupid like that, it's dangerous and we said we would bring you back alive."

Dumb
By the time the camp was completely set up it was already almost pitch black, a distant red glow on the horizona and scarce stars showing above. Hal wished them a good night and they went to sleep, however, the night was everything but quiet.
They heard distant screeching, like the one they heard near the settlement and shifting sands, though they were closer than in the settlement, they never seemed to pass a certain point, as if the building itself kept them away. For those who got to sleep, the dreams were no better though, there was a fickle darkness in their minds. Eyes, that observed, eyes that hungered, Eyes, writhing flesh, churning, Eyes, ever moving, Eyes, ever at the edge of ones view, Eyes, but never fully in sight, Eyes, waiting, Eyes, lurking.

The morning approached, the dreams ended as abrubt as they came, with the morning came the Caravan leader, silent and a couple moments later Hal, though he seemed... unsettled.
"Good morning.", was the only thing he said.
The Caravan leader nodded when they were all there, he seemed to take note of Hals state but didn't say anything.
"We will be heading down soon, we'll be heading in last and go to the place the Elder told me to bring you, make sure not to get in anyones way and not to go anywhere you shouldn't, grab some lights from Lanra before we go down...", he pointed his arm at one of the natives standing at one of the sleds.
"...any questions beforehand?"

Dumb
What they got from Lanra looked somewhat like a Lantern, it was a bulbous looking piece of... well, it looked like meat, attched to on of the black branches of the trees with what looked like sinew, the thing glowed with a gentle red light and didn't give off any warmth.
When they returned to the caravan leader he was already waiting at the opening into the temple.
Hal seemed to have recovered from whatever haunted him at night and then asked the first question of the day.
"What will we be seeing down there?"
The caravan leader turned towards him, then back to the entrance.
"Glugra, nesting place of them, a lot of ash sand, darkness, there are murals, tales of the elders on the lower levels and a gate but nobody ever opened it and none of you are going to touch it."
He moved towards the entance as Hal turned to Mainframe to give her a curious look at the mention of the gate and the murals.
"Watch your step, it is deep.", the caravan leader noted as if to gain back their attention.
There was no air movement in the archway and as soon as they entered they could feel how stale the air in there was, mixed with the dust from the desert. The first thing they actually 'saw' however, was a seemingly bottomless hole, going down vertically from the entrance, admittedly, they didn't see more than a few metres due to the dusty air and the dim light but it was still somewhat unsettling. The stone, although dusty was as smooth in here as on the outside and along the walls of the rectangular hole ran a spiral staircase, slowly descending into the depths, notably, the whole thing looking like it had been hewn from a singular piece of whatever material the place was made of.
"Come.", the Caravan leader said, as he descended the first step of many.
Their steps echoed muffled througth down teh hole or maybe it was just the steps of those who had headed down beforehand, though in any case the descent took its time.

Dumb
The descent went slow and in silence, the atmosphere felt off but it may have just been due to effectively walking in circles for quite a while which likely would've made any 'normal' individual lose any sense of direction or time. However, eventually, somewhere around fifteen to twenty minutes later when trying to reach fo rthe next step all they met by was an even floor, a couple steps more forward and the walls disappeared in the darkness to the sides and their guide stood still for a moment listening. Fortunately for the pair in theshuttle, the dice did not make any noise due to their texture.

What they could hear in the darkness was... clicking, two kinds of it, one of some hard and sharp tipping against the solid floor, almost like robotic legs, the other more organic, almost like a chitter.
As their eyes adapted to the very dim luminosity in they could see massive shadows in the dark. The Caravan leader nodded. Then turned towards them, breaking the silence, although only barely.
"We will be heading another floor down, don't make any hasty movements, don't make any loud sounds."
He looked off into the darkness a couple moments longer then nodded again.
"Come."
As they passed about the midway point of the room, they saw smaller shadows moving about in the dark, illuminated by similar dim red lights, some of them humanoid from which they concluded they were the other caravan members which descended earlier, the seemed to be tending and herding even smaller shadows, moving between the legs of the massive ones. However the most interesting thing of the whole scenery was likely the revelation of the larger shadows.
What they saw was a large, bulbous orb of flesh hanging from a midsection from which thin, stilted legs extended, the exact number of which they could not determine. Atop of it, high above them, sat a familiar looking structure, it was the trees they had seen outside of the settlement.

Hal paused for a brief moment, holding his lantern up in the air to get a better view, looking at it then pulling one of the dried leaves out of his pocket, his gaze wandering between the two, simply noting "I see." in the end, continuing to follow their guide.
Reaching the other side of the room, they descended another set of stairs, this time considerably shorter and turned around to another set, eventually ending up another room, not quite as high as the former one, but equally as expansive, they couldn't see the other ends of the room though what they could see that even from the point where they were standing there were murals on the wall depicting various sensible or less senible scenes from what was presumably the history of the planet.
It was here their guide stopped and sat down on the staircase.
"We are here, take a look around, I will tell you when we leave."