Ancient Trials, Ancient Sins

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
Hal seemed to be pondering for a moment before answering, the smooth ashsand crunched beneath their feet as they walked.
"I would not be able to tell, these topics are... admittedly beyond me. Where are theor gods if they were so powerful, did they just leave? Where has this great civilisation who occupied these ancient buildings gone?"
He shook his head.
"...but, certainly, something about this world is off, whether the people know it or not."

As such, the day slowly passed without any further notable interruptions or conversations, the members of the caravan took turns pulling the sleds, occasionally picking food or water off them, the landscape stayed mostly scarce, safe for the occasional island of the strange 'trees' standing in the distance, it was not until the sun began reaching towards the horizon again that what they presumed to be their target came into sight...

At first, it looked like a tiny spot on the horizon. A faint rectangular black shape against the dawning sky. It would've been by all means nothing particuarly outstanding on any other planet but here it immediately caught Mainframes attention. Whatever it was, it looked like it was artificial in nature, though it was too far away to tell for certain right now.
Moments later, Hals head turned into the same direction, seeing as Mainframe seemed to be pinning down a spot on the horizon.
"Hm. Could that perhaps be our destination? The time would be about right."
As if prompted by his words, the Caravan leader raised his arm and gave several handsigns to the other people in the caravan, who began picking things off the sleds, some of them split off and began walking ahead. The leader in the meanwhile fell back to them and began talking.
"We will be arriving soon, we will set up camp and you will be helping us with that, tomorrow we will be heading down into the depths to gain new seedlings, the Elder said you were allowed to take a look around there, so long as one of us is with you. Everything clear?"

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
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."

Dumb
Their guide frowned at them in the darkness, obviously suspicious of the question, though answered nonetheless.
"Usually I'd say that's none of your business, but you will find it anyways once you start going around the room. It's on the opposite side of the stairs."
He shook his head.
"Not like you're going to be to open it anyways but remember, no touching the gate."
He seemed to be rather confident in his assumption.
As he spoke the last words, Hal turned away and began walking along the wall, apparently inspecting the murals, the dim light of his lantern slowly getting smaller in the darkness as he moved further away.

In the meanwhile the dice went unnoticed, or if they had indeed been noticed the guide showed no reaction to them, going along the walls, they came to the conclusion, that the room was apparently octagonal and at that several dozen metres across, even larger than the room above them, a number of pillars were in the center of the room, forming another octagon, though whether they were load-bearing or merely decorational remained a mystery.

Dumb
As Mainframe approached gate, what she found was... curious.
Where one would have expected some monolithic doorframe what she found was an almost circular plate in the wall. there were no visible slits in it indicating to where or how it would be opening but it was clearly spearate from teh surrounding walls.
On the surrounding walls, stylised figures were depicted, some kneeling, their heads to the ground, others the hands raised up as if in praise or awe. On the gate itself, was a large, vertical stylised eye. Lines going going out from it like a radiance, all ending at the eye itself, surrounding it seemed to be what almost looked like a sort of crown, marking the border between the walls and the gate itself.
There was something unsettling about it, less about the depiction itself but more about this particular instance of it, as if it had a presence in of itself.
Taking a closer look at the surroundings,s he could not find Hal, he was likely walking somewhere through the darkness, the light too dim to show his position, however one the walls themselves she noticed figures she hadn't seen before.
There some bent over in agony, some kneeling instead of their hands on their ground, seemed to be holding htier heads and writhing agony, some of those she presume praising, looking like they tried to gauge out their eyes in painstaking detail the carving in of themselves should not be able to depict at this scale.
It was as if the gate had suddenly grown ever so slightly larger before her.

Whatever it was that rested here, they had certainly found something.
The question was, whether this was what they were looking for.

Dumb
As she approached the guide, she could hear him, before she actually saw him, likely courtesy of all of the interference on this planet. His voice genuinely surprised for one.
"Oh, you're back already?"
As she came closer she saw him tilting his head, as if looking for something besides, or behind her, which was not actually there. Though even more strangely, the man was not wearing his hood anymore, showing what could be pale skin and what could be silvery white hair, he squinted, his pupils a dark colour, though any of this was hard to determine with certainty, given the light they had given her was not exactly optimal. From what she could tell he could be anywhere from 30 to 50 years old, if human standards applied to them at all.
"Where is your companion? Haven't seen him since he you walked off, are you trying to distract me?"
It was now that she noticed, Hal was in fact not here, nor had she met him on the other side, or seen him at any point between. Which likely meant he was still looking at the walls.