"Yarroth, any clues as to how our quarry have been passing through here? I'm not thrilled at bactracking to the wheel."
"Give me a second and I will look." Yarroth examines the floor, not only for signs of movement, but also for any traps or secret ways to open the portcullis.
"Let's think this through. We're following a human. She can't just pass through a solid portcullis. There weren't tracks leading to the wheel. So either she didn't come this way, or there's a way through from here, or something that doesn't leave tracks went to the wheel."
"Could the portcullis be swum under?" Tarric asks, peering at the water with a quizzical expression on his face.
"With everything else being so vilein this crypt, I wouldn't be surprised to find that the water starts dissolving us, like sugar in tea."
The pool is surrounded on all sides by about 5 feet of floor. The door is recessed about 2 feet into the south wall, and the portcullis is flush with the wall. You don't see any levers or mechanisms to open it.
You glance into the pool. Your reflection appears desiccated, almost skeletal. It flashes you a wicked grin before drawing its longsword and stabbing the reflection of Yarroth beside you. You are overcome with a sense of dread.
As you enter the room you catch a glimpse of yourself in the pool. You appear rotten, your flesh hanging loose from your bones. Your reflection turns and bashes Anton with its mace several times on the back of his head.
As you peer warily into the pool you notice your reflection. Your skin is pale, but your eyes glow a sickly green. With a gesture a dark energy spreads along the pool to the others. Their reflection writhe in pain, choking.
As you examine the room you glance at the pool. Your reflection appears much like the putrid zombies you just defeated. Your image draws his bow and begins shooting the reflections of the others one by one.
Recognizing that there is a sight-based illusion at work here, Drummer begins a cheery dace to distract his teammates from the horrid visions in the pool.
Perform
"Oh. OH! Step away from the pool! Its using our reflections to attack us!"
Yarroth is startled by the vision, and looks over to Tarric as the man yells about the visions. He stumbles away from the pool, shaken and wary.
A look of sheer horror comes over Anton's face as he glances something in the pool, and he immediately breaks off running towards the entrance.
No! "Noooo! NO!"
Drummer follows the party out of the room.
"To the wheel, then?"
[spoiler=Drummer]There seems to have been some sort of enchantment on the pool, but you don't recognize the spell.[/ooc]
The sound of Anton's yelling fades as he moves away from the room. The racket seems to have alerted something, as strange screeching noises come from the southern door. You see movement through the crack under the door. All of a sudden a horde of small bats come swarming out from underneath the door, clearly quite agitated.
Drummer calls out an arcane rhyme and a pale blue fog envelopes the bats.
Taking a firm grip on his mace, Yarroth swings at the mass of bats, hoping to drive them away.
A large clump of bats fall to the floor, asleep. Yarroth smashes a single bat, which seems inconsequential to the mass of bodies that envelope him. He suffers numerous cuts which don't stop bleeding.
Yarroth damage : and 1 bleed. DC 11 Fort save or be nauseated.
Yarroth staggers back from the hoard of bats, many small cuts cover his arms and neck....and they seem to still be flowing freely.
"Ummm...little help here?!" he mummers, trying not to throw up his last meal.
Yarroth grabs at one of the bats in an effort to see what it looks like, knowing that with a quick look he might know something about the beast.
"Loud noise? Fire? Bright light?"
"Fire, torches, anything flammable that we can use to scare them off should work!"
Yarroth is falling back, trying to get out of the mass of bats and bind his wounds...he saw how completely ineffective his attack was, and does not have any torches to fend off the bats.
Yarroth cuts off a portion of his cloak to use as a bandage to try and stem the flow of blood from the bat bits he took.
Drummer concentrates and tries again. Again he recites arcane words, and againg the blue mist forms around the remaining bats.
The remaining bats fall to the floor, sleeping peacefully again.
Tarric lumbers over to Yarroth, grabs his arm and begins bandaging it.
"If this doesn't work, I will pray over it and see how that does."
"They must be blood drinkers, that is why the wounds they cause bleed so freely, there is something in their bite that retards healing. Is someone going to smash the little buggers, or throw them into the pond? I have read that these vampiric bats can be devastating to domestic animals in large numbers."
"Wharever you do, be quick. They should sleep a couple of minutes. I'll go find Anton before he breaks his neck in the dark. Let's meet back by the spiraling text two rooms back."
Drummer finds Anton sitting in a corner, his arms wrapped around his legs tightly. He is rocking back and forth, muttering - "Some kind of magic...magic...so afraid...a trick!...just a trick...so very afraid."
Seeing Drummer he pulls himself together. "I just couldn't help it, you know? I'd never willfully abandon you all in a fight."
He proceeds with Drummer to the rendez-vous point.
Yarroth helps kill all the bats. Still feeling a little wobbly, he makes his way back to the room Drummer suggested.
"Don't worry, Anton. I've fled from lesser horrors than that. Besides, you didn't miss any fighting. There was just a swarm of flesh-eating bats, against which another sword would not have been any help. Truth to tell, we probably all should have run."
"Your telling me!!, Yarroth mutters, as he stumbles into the room with Drummer and Anton. He sits down heavily, and re-checks the bandages over the numerous bat bites.
"Well, men. Whether it thrilled me or not, it looks as if we've backtracked anyway. Shall we proceed to the wheel, then? Given how badly defiled this once-noble place has become, I suspect some sort of trap. Step carefully."
Tarric sighs. "I bet we have to do something with the pool of water, but we just aren't aware of what it is. Let's go check on the wheel room."
Down the western corridor it slopes to a T. The north and south passages each go about ten feet before turning east again. After the T both are submerged into about a foot of water.
"Let's go left this time (north). They both look the same anyways."
"I don't trust this water. Give me a moment..."
Drummer takes a sling stone from his pouch and sings softly to it. After a moment, the glow from his mace leaps to the stone. Satisfied that the magic has taken, Drummer tosses it down the north hall into the water.
The northern corridor sinks to a little more than a foot of water. After the turn east it ends in a waterlogged door. It has swelled up and looks difficult to open. You hear a faint croaking noise through the door.
"Knowing this place, it is probably a giant toad ready to gulp us down. Well, shall we break down the door anyways?" Tarric looks at Yarroth and Anton pointedly, then at the door. "It looks stuck, and will probably take some muscle to open it."
Yarroth shakes his head and smile at the plump priest. "Be ready for the big frog when we get this door open, I do not wish to be mistaken for a giant fly!!"
Anton nods at Tarric, then lowers his shoulder in an attempt to force the door.
Anton slams into the door and it shatters open. The room is filled with water, probably as deep as the outside corridor. The chamber is in an advanced state of decay, with a gaping hole in the ceiling admitting a constant trickle of water. The three stone sarcophagi in this room are almost completely covered in a thick carpet of moss and fungus. A creature sitting atop one of the sarcophagi looks like a normal frog, with moist, mottled, blackish-green skin, but grown to truly monstrous size. The frog croaks angrily at your disturbance and looks ready to attack.
The frog's long tongue snakes out toward Anton, but he quickly ducks and it sails harmlessly over his head.
Yarroth quickly slams an arrow onto his bow and shoots the giant frog, he also calls out to the others;
"Watchout!! There are 2 more beasts lurking under the water"
"By the gods, how could this place have slipped so far in just a year?"
Wary of the giant frogs, Drummer slings a stone at the clearest target
and misses completely.
Tarric begins chanting, his hands cupped before him. Between his hands, a small spark begins to grow, that slowly brightens into softly glowing orb.
Trying to keep his momentum going from breaking the door down, while ducking from a limy tongue lashing out at him, Anton lunges at the frog perching on the sarcophagus lid.
"For Kassen!" he cries, putting all his strength into a savage downward slash.