[/b] Many of the Ghawns have stayed behind in the room where they found the two dark mantles, Grandma Ghawn visibly shaken. They are beginning to understand why the orcs they found upon entering were in such a shell shocked state. Some of the braver, younger Ghawns proceed to examine the dungeon. Having shut the north eastern door, Jangis, Gromor, Fang, Tanlen, and Dhrek proceed south to the double doors. Like many of the doors in the dungeon, these double doors are wide open. Dhrek sees when approaching that a table, stool, and a bed, all intact, sit across from the door. A circle of 6 stools in the center of the room surrounds a pile of dirt on the floor. The room aprox 35' square does not seems to be empty of living creatures.[/b]
[/b] Many of the Ghawns have stayed behind in the room where they found the two dark mantles, Grandma Ghawn visibly shaken. They are beginning to understand why the orcs they found upon entering were in such a shell shocked state. Some of the braver, younger Ghawns proceed to examine the dungeon. Having shut the north eastern door, Jangis, Gromor, Fang, Tanlen, and Dhrek proceed south to the double doors. Like many of the doors in the dungeon, these double doors are wide open. Dhrek sees when approaching that a table, stool, and a bed, all intact, sit across from the door. A circle of 6 stools in the center of the room surrounds a pile of dirt on the floor. The room aprox 35' square does not seems to be empty of living creatures.[/b]
"Don't forget me!"
Dhrek Ghawn looks through the doorway so see if it looks ok. Noting nothing he steps inside. Go to Map 9. Directly to his left he notices an open "secret" door. The door is made of stone and is aproximately 3 ft thick. It pivots in the middle of a 7 ft wide opening and is 6 ft tall. This leaves aproximately 2 feet of clearence on either side of the wall to pass through. It sits about 1 foot of of the floor. It looks like this door opens to a passage beyond.
In the room hollowed out skull sits on the desk along with what appears to be a backscratcher. A basic bed lies along one side of the room.
The Ghawns enter what appears to be some sort of sleeping quarters. Jangis notices that the tracks in the room are almost all from orcs. He also sees a hollowed out kobold skull on a desk, sitting along side the backscratcher made of lizardfolk bone. The bed, a basic plank with four large legs, has on it a blancket and pillow made of troglodyte skin. Dhreck looking at the circle and six chairs surrounding a pile of dirt surmises that this might be a way of communicating plans or drawings using it as a chalk board. The writings have all been wiped away. Fang relates to Gromor that the owner of this room must have been a leader or more importaint than others based on the size of the room and single occupancy.
Summary: The Ghawn family has entered a cave upon the request of the clan leader. Entering from two different entrances only to reunite shortly after entering massive underground complex. It is unclear how something this large could go without mention in their town. They met a group of orcs suffering from battle shock but were unable to ascertain what dangers caused them to be in this condition. Since then the party has found evidence of troglodytes, orcs and kolbolds living in the dungeons. They have fought a krenshar, fiendish dark mantels, and two fiendish rat swarms. The dark mantles rattled half of the party, specifically Grandma and they remained in this room while others ventured on. The underground complex radiates magic from everything and gives the summoner and his eidolon a strange feeling they cannot quite pinpoint.
The adventuring part of the party has entered what appears to be a large personal room of an orc. This orc must have been a leader of sorts because he has a crude strategy pit made of a pile of dirt with six stools around it. He used this to sketch out plans. The party has thoroughly searched the room. A hollowed out kobold skull sits on the desk along with a backscratcher carved out of lizardfolk thighbone. The bed, a plank with four legs, still holds a blanket and pillow made from troglodyte skin and stuffed with the hair of orcs.
The room has two exits, one the double doors in the north that the party came through and the second and open secret door on the east wall.
Tanlen searching the bed revealed a hollowed out leg with seven small pieces of jade worth 690 gp. The rest of the party is unaware of his discovery
Tanlen scoops out the pieces of jade and holds them up for his remaining companions to see. "Whoever these people were, they had a few nice things. I wonder where they got them?" After everyone has a look, he wraps them up in a spare piece of cloth and slips them into a beltpouch.
"Yeah, this seems like a reasonable place to rest, if we can block the doors. The question is, when is night? How long have we been down here? It feels like months since I've seen the sun..." With a sigh, he motions to the doors. "Still, we're down here, and we need to find the other end before we can get out. Which door?"
Tanlen peeks through the secret door revealing a passage not much wider than 5 feet heading south. Even with the his light spell bouncing off of the stone walls, the passageway continues beyon his vision range, although there may be a turn to the east right at the end. As Tanlen investigates the whole party feels a minor rumbling and shifting. Dust falls from the ceiling, but it does not seem to do any structural damage.
The dungeon structure does not seem effected by the small tremor, although the dust did diminish vision for about a minute. Tanlen and Jangis lead the party down the passageway which widened slightly as it turned left. The passage continues a few feet and ends in a door.
The dust obsures any obvious tracks that may have been left.
"Doors, doors, doors," Tanlen mutters as they approach the next door. "Who designed this place, anyway? I can't imagine it was built for testing new leaders - there's got to be more to its story than that."
Once he reaches the door, the half-elf gives it the once-over, then (assuming it's safe) opens it.
The door was safe to open and reveals a passage on the other side. The passage runs north beyond your vision, and east for about 40 feet before turning south. There is a door in the north east corner of the passageway.
This area appears to be more affected by the tremor. The rubble strewn around in this area hampers movement (difficult terrain). Parts of the ceiling have fallen away.
Tanlen searches through his memory of any mention of this vast systems of rooms and cooridors but comes up empty. He finds it hard to believe such a complex could go unnoticed or unmentioned for any length of time.
Jangis carefully walks down the passageway, his progress hampered by the rubble on the floor. He as he approaches the door he looks to his right to see the hallway continue south and then turn east. There is a door on the western wall near the turn. The door he is approaching, like many encountered so far is open. Rubble covers the floor and spills out into the hallway. On the other side of the room is a collapsed archway that appears to give access to a further room. An earthquake has obviously damage this room rather heavily and the rubble is piled up at least knee deep.
Tanlen follows behind Jangis, carefully, and peers into the rubble-strewn room. "Sure doesn't look like they built this place well, for as well hidden as it is." He pauses and reconsiders, "Or the construction was actually very good, and it's just very old. I just hope it stays intact until we get out."