Paige 11

Paige 11:
Y'see?  THIS - exactly THIS - is why I should be an all-powerful wizard(ess) with my own underground lair.  This is exactly why that should be happening and why I shouldn't be saddled with an utter lack of magical brilliance.  Because -I- figured out that the dark corridors which magically extinguished all torches and lanterns (and glowbug parts) as soon as they entered it, were all to keep the room with the stargazing ossuary nice and dark so that the planets and stars and everything else shone like bloody diamonds.  I figured that out myself.  Did the magical overlord Zod figure out that this was a great idea which would make his ossuary (still not sure if that's the right word, but Yannick insists it is) all the more impressive?  Well, did he?

No he damn well didn't.  

HIS idea for the best use of magically dark tunnels wasn't anything like as brilliant as mine.  HIS idea was to get people to wander through his little maze and find the occasional statue and fancy chair - and then to emerge into a room filled with murderous fungus.  Even if it wasn't filed with murderous fungus at the time, and even if the people back then weren't scared stiff of paralysing witch-hags clawing their way out of the darkness as they had done a week or two ago when we last stood outside the entrance to the tunnel, his idea is still nowhere near as good as mine.  If the friendly Gods and Saints want magic to be used in brilliant new interesting worthwhile ways, well, here I am.  Bestow away.
For what it's worth, I'm glad the tunnels were dark, since my hands were shaking so bad that the lantern light bouncing everywhere would've made people sick.  There is absolutely nothing enjoyable about wandering through the darkness, lit up only by weird flowers which Bomani insisted on picking and strewing on the floor in front of me - sorry, glorious leader, not even with your miraculously restored parts - while you just know that the hags had their nest in the tunnels somewhere around here.  Finding the room of fungus was almost a relief, though I didn't have time to see whether the little stash of coins still had anything left to give.
Still - positives.  We figure there are two or three secret rooms on this floor and we have a good idea where, even though there's no visible way of accessing them.  If we can write down descriptions of the statues and so on (I think Bomani and Farok can write) then the wizard back in Sunstep might have a bright idea - but that's a few days' walk away and we're so close to hidden rooms which just must be full of interesting and valuable things.  We've cleared this floor of the place of nasty creatures and dogfolk, and though we know that there's hip-high rats down the stairs that's a long way forward from our first few visits.  We've got a magical wooden man which tries to push you into disintegrating rays and spinning blades if you pull the wrong lever, which must be worth something to the right (or the wrong) person.
And by some sort of miracle, most of us who found this place a month or three ago are actually still alive.