The straw doll's head dips. "Yeah. I don't remember lots before being here, though, and the other two aren't good at talking. You gotta go, though."

"We will be going. Forward. And if we meet these Sewn Sisters, we'll kill them, how about that?"

The doll hesitates, then nods. "They've got the look-a-likes, though, that tell them about the people trying to stop them. Dunno if they've got ones of you. I can't see well. But they can go invisible and walk through stuff. And they work for the bad woman. They're feeding something for her, behind the skeleton gate."

"Do you know where the skeleton gate is?"

The doll points, to the opposite side of the room. "It's over there, through the smoke. But you gotta have all the skeleton keys to open it."

"Let's go see this skeleton gate," Elatra says to her companions.

The Keres will keep a couple ghosts' eyes open for danger.

Hisame leads the way through the smoke. They pass by the cages; there's figures huddled in them - but it seems Elatra evaded whatever trap the Sewn Sisters laid to create a look-alike. Elatra might recognize a face or two, from other adventurers she'd met in the ruined city above.

On the opposite side of the room, there's twelve-foot-high, ten-foot-wide door, made of green stone, its surface carved with grinning goblin skeletons. A belt of smooth stone spans the door at a height of four feet, set with five gold symbols in a row: a triangle, a square, a pentagon, a hexagon, and an octagon. Each symbol is engraved on a recessed circular seal.

The Keres is going to notice they're being watched, by something not entirely contiguous with this plane.

"And hese would be the keyholes, presumably. If the Sewn Sisters feed something behind this door, they must be able to open it."

"We're being watched," the Keres says.

Hisame twists around, focusing with her Rinnegan - "And those would be the Sewn Sisters, I do believe, unless there's someone else hanging around looking all stitched together?" she chirps. "Come out, come out, I know where you are!" she sing-songs.

The three figures fade into view, causing the three child dolls to scurry off in fright - though the dolls don't seem able to leave the room. Still, they're making a rather valiant attempt at hiding behind the party.

One of the hags has gold coins embedded in her skin, including over her eyes, and ants nesting in her skull. The other has a string of children's teeth around her neck, and numerous pouches made of humanoid skin about her waist. The third has a squirming leather sack sewn over her head, and a viper emerges from it, to hiss: "You think you're all very clever, don't you?"

"Yup!" is Hisame's only response.

And then one of the Sewn Sisters - the one wearing children's teeth - collapses, her soul folding into Hisame's palm, as Hisame darts by her.

"Ooooh, naughty, what you've all been up to," Hisame taunts.

The other two start moving to cast spells, but they've been taken rather thoroughly off guard.

A freezing hail descends upon the sisters, and a pair of burly ghosts rush at them.

Overpowering them's going to be rather easy, all told, given their rather slow reaction times compared to Hisame and the Keres. They get off a single spell - which hits Hisame, to no apparent effect.

"Well, I'm hardly impressed," Hisame says with a little laugh. "Though I wasn't able to get all their knowledge when I ripped that one's soul... Whatever's behind that door is blocked from me, as is the secrets of their magic. Still, I know how they were opening it."

"Ought we do something about the prisoners, do you think?"

"Of course. I wouldn't leave them languishing. Though the question becomes how to leave them a path out, of course - I suppose they could just follow behind us."

"It may be wiser to wait until we are finished here. Lest they become collateral damage."

"Sensible. We'll back track for them, then."

Elatra gestures to the door. "After you, then."

She steps forward, incanting a set of odd, twisting code words, causing the locks to turn. She opens the door, revealing a black marble staircase that descends another twenty feet, a dull red glow, and a blast of immense heat.

"What's this, a door to hell?"

She laughs, says, "Let's see!" and bounces downwards.

It's a door to a massive triangular chamber! Crumbling balconies overlook a pool of lava filling the base, above which is suspended an enormous crystal cylinder held in place by three adamantine struts. Wraithlike forms swirl inside the cylinder, and otherworldly screams hang in the air. Four long, writhing tentacles sprout from the cylinder’s cap. A shriveled monstrosity the size of an elephant floats near the cylinder. Its body is wet and malformed, its arms and legs are atrophied, and its oversized head drips black goo. The creature is attached to the cylinder by a twisted umbilical cord.

"Spooky. Good aesthetic," Hisame says, looking at the walls decorated with skull and bone motifs. And sometimes actual skulls and bones, of course.

"I'd prefer an aesthetic that wasn't actively trying to kill me."

"Sensible. The spooky cylinder is full of souls, by the way - I suspect that's at least connected to what we want to destroy, here."

"Is it just me, or is that... thing... feeding off of them?"

"Does seem to be. We'll be destroying that too, then. Possibly first."