I enter the chamber, fully alert.  The chamber is pretty much empty except for the cubical rock and some trash over against the wall opposite the altar.  The trash proves to be bones, human bones at a brief glance.

Suddenly I'm joined in the chamber by something.  The something has the rough shape of a man, but scaled skin, like some sort of lizard, or whatever. Also, the something appears not to have eyes.  It does have skin flap covered areas where ears might be expected and I suspect that it uses hearing and perhaps scent to make it's way in the dark of the underground.  The something creature has a large mouth with meat ripping teeth.  It also caries a sword!

I'm a Krelzyn warrior, thus I'm a trained fighting man.  I don't fear a man, but I know very little about whatever it is that faces me.  I must use every advantage I can get.

If the something creature has no eyes, it would be reasonable that its hearing and perhaps sense of smell would be acute.

As the creature moves in on me, I move away from the altar and into the middle of the most free space within the chamber.  I have no idea how strong the creature is and I may need to move, to avoid its strength.  I then try to attack the creature's weakness.  If the creature indeed has sensitive hearing, I give the creature some noise to work with.  I shout and I hear the noise reverberate in the small chamber.

The creature staggers back a bit at my shout and seems to be badly affected by the noise.  I use the creature's distress to get a thrust of my sword into the creature's hide.  I have to stop short of a killing thrust, as the creature moves back and then thrusts with his own sword.  I parry the creature's thrust and try another thrust of my own.

The creature and I are well matched, except for the creature's inability to withstand loud noise.  As the duel continues, I use a shout and then footwork to thrust from an unexpected angle.  My strategy works, although the tactical responses necessary to avoid the return thrusts of the creature are very demanding.

I'm better at thrusting, but the creature is very good at slashing strokes and I would have been in trouble if I hadn't wounded the creature before it could use its full strength against me.

As it is, the creature is bleeding some kind of dark red blood that has a foul odor.  The loss of the blood seems to be weakening the creature and I find that its slashing strokes are more easily handled than at the start of our combat.  I finally parry a thrust downward with enough force that I can get my return thrust deep into the creature and it falters and then drops its sword.

My Krelzyn sword then slowly devours the creature.  I don't withdraw my sword, but move my sword in a rocking, twisting motion that seems to not only cut what's left of the creature, but also to absorb at least parts of the thing.  At first I think that it's just the creature's blood that my sword absorbs, but it's also the tissue.  As my sword continues to devour the creature, my sword begins a high pitched keening.  As the sword continues to absorb the dead thing, the keening changes to a wild sort of maybe song.  Finally, there isn't enough left of the dead thing left to really work with and my sword ceases to make noise.

If the creature is mostly gone, its sword remains.  I pick up the sword and find it very heavy.  It's almost as if the sword is made of lead. However, lead is soft and the sword is very hard metal.  I have no idea what the sword is made of, but I decide to keep it with me, just in case.  After the ruby ring I got from the Zugoff, I want to be very careful about things I find during my Krelzyn adventures.

With the creature dead, I peer out the entrance to the chamber and find nothing but an empty passageway, dimly illuminated in my light.

I then return to the chamber and examine the large, cubical stone that may be the altar I was sent to find.