helvorn wrote:Kara seemed to be distracted for a second before walking over to where the stone knife lay discarded. As she walked she peered carefully at the carvings on the walls trying to determine the subject.
Once at the knife she kneeled down and reached her hand out to almost touch the object as her senses extended down and into the fell blade.
"Leveticus, I think that we have a duty to determine what lies ahead of us. I think that the source is with these items or associated with them. We are acolytes of the Emperor and should do our duty. I can heal Chani somewhat although there is some risk."
(By "her senses extended down and into the fell blade" you mean you're making a Psyniscience Test?)
The walls are covered with carvings, so you can't really avoid seeing some of them unless you close your eyes or stare fixedly, robot-like, straight ahead. So I'll tell everybody some common themes. These are all done in a primitive, stylized fashion (think Aztec art).
There are many scenes involving farming.
There are many scenes involving the sun. It is depicted as malevolent, sending down stabbing rays that strike through people's and animals' hearts and kill them. Impaled on the rays, they writhe in agony.
Starvation is a common theme. Spindly figures with huge heads and bellies lie prostrate on the ground or kneeling, as if praying (or maybe just collapsing). In some of these scenes, a small figure with eight limbs can be seen, off in the corner, poking out of a hole in the ground, or looking down from a tree.
In what looks like tunnels underneath the ground, people walk about, shielded from the sun. They gather in a room around a table, laden with food. Children dance around them.
Snakes, or perhaps worms, or something like them, are a common motif. Frequently they compose borders surrounding other scenes.
Many scenes of what looks like human sacrifice. People are pushed in pits, stabbed through the heart, decapitated. Their bodies are thrown in pits. Eight-limbed figures cavort about like little elves.
What looks like a crude cross-section of a slice of the surface (seen from the side). Above is the sun, casting malevolent rays. Beneath it lies a dessicated field of crops surrounded by wailing people. Beneath them, underground, people walk unhurt by the sun, shown engaging in various day-to-day activities -- cavorting with their families, playing with children, working, throwing people in pits. Sometimes, they are shown lowering buckets or baskets into the pits. Those eight-limbed figures show up here as well -- always peeking in from a corner or from a hole in the floor or ceiling. At the bottom of the pits, those stylized snakes or worms again. Beneath them, crossed hands extend upward, as if offering something (they rather resemble the symbol of St. Altheria you have seen worn by Arbitrator Cremalla).
A human figure lies stretched out on a table. People (including children) surround it, holding knives and plates.
The carvings don't look as faded as they used to. Speckles of paint can be seen still on some of them -- little points of red, yellow, black. They seem to writhe around a bit as you look at them, but that might just be the effect of the rays of Leveticus' glow lamp moving around.
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