Eyenia steps up and sustains her bless spell. Bertolt lands two hits on the bouncy monstrosity, but Bella, Zetty, and Vengis all miss. Kragga enters her arcane cascade stance and channels fire through her sword, slicing and burning the creature. The orc shakes off the lingering acid.
Unfortunately, the monster retaliates against Kragga, its gnashing teeth tearing into the orc!
Bertolt raises his hammer and it sparks with lightning. "Raahhhh! You shall regret the day you ignored me foul beast!"
Eyenia heads into the room and places a hand on Kragga's shoulder, knitting closed her wounds.
Sensing the opportunity to finish off the enemy, Bella let loose a flurry of stabs!
Zetty gasps as the toad-thing buries its maw in Kragga but when the orc manages to keep standing despite the brutal punishment, she maintains her art and picks up her dagger for one last telekinetic stab.
Zetty impales the creature with her hurled dagger, then Bertolt strikes it once and Bella stabs it three times, the final strike a critical hit! The aberration falls!
Looking down into the pits in this room, you can see they open onto a vast cavern filled with water far below. It's a 55-foot-drop down to the water.
The stone throne in this room contains a secret compartment in the back. Within, you find a climbing bolt, a dragon turtle scale, and 31 gp.
Zetty puts a last few finishing touches on her picture of the toad monsters, then turns the page as she scurries over into the room. "You're seriously tough Kragga! I thought that thing would bite you in half!" She looks around. "Did they... climb up from those pits?" She peers down into the pit and tries to spot if there are any other toads down there.
"So, we could try to lower a rope and see what's down there. But maybe its better not to go right into the toad lair right away?" She looks back to the hallway "We've got two other doors."
Bella took out her healer's kit and bandaged up Kragga, who'd taken qyite a beating. "We'd best take a fair break before we go anywhere! You've got to give me a chance to get my favourite orc back in fighting shape."
"Meh. I've had worse before," Kragga says gruffly, her teeth marks festooning her body. She sits heavily on the floor and offers thanks to Bella as the halfling works studiously to patch her up. She waits for the others to make a decision on how to proceed.
"Bah, how do you have such marvelous healing skills Bella? I feel like I barely covered the wound."
Zetty anxiously keeps watch - or at least tries to - while Bella takes an hour to nurse Kragga back to health. She splits her attention between the hallway and her current study of a fierce Kragga and Bertolt in profile. Once people are looking a bit better, she suggests "Unless someone want to be let down a rope to take a peek down there, let's check that east door next."
She examines the door for any hazards or traps.
The door is not trapped. Weapon racks stand in the northeast and southeast
corners of this room. The southeast rack is empty, but the northeast rack holds a hatchet made of dark crystal. Two alcoves between the racks on the eastern wall each have an open hatch and a ladder leading down. Additional exits lead out to the north and south.
"More ways down..." Zetty glances down them, trying to see if they're anywhere near as deep as the ones in the previous room. "I hope nothing climbs up these while we're investigating."
Once she's confident nothing is currently clambering up, she looks around the room. "Seems really bare, with just the two racks. I wonder what this place was used for?" If the hatches look heavy and like they can be closed and locked, so does so before leaving the rest of the room alone.
She nods to Vengis' suggestion, looking over the northern door before letting Bella or Bertolt taking the lead in opening the way.
Bella went first, scouting the foor suggested by Vengis.
Vengis does not detect any magic auras. Zetty is able to close the hatches, but they do not lock.
As Bella approaches the north door, pseudopods suddenly extend from the door as a large maw filled with sharp teeth splits its surface! ”Knock, knock!” the door-creature says with a laugh!
Bella studied the obviously not-a-door, and tried to tell her comrades something useful about it.
Zetty finds herself too busy with the hatch to react right away, but the door's large maw and odd joke earn a laugh from her in response "Who's there?"
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"The monster that's gonna eat you!" the door-creature replies, licking its chops with its long tongue!
Bella is unable to glean any insights from her quick assessment of the creature!
Zetty rapidly starts laying down dramatic strokes on her slate, leaving the impression of a giant, slobbery tongue. "Uh, yep, keep it up, just hold that pose for a moment!"
Unable to determine anyrhing about this creature, Bella stabbed at it once, then stepped out of the way so someone else could get at it.
"Looks like we'll have to take turns!"
Bertolt moves up to take Bella's place with a careful approach, moving to shatter the weird door creature apart!
Kragga steps up to the creature and delivers an electrically charged sword slash!
Bella, Bertolt, and Kragga each land a hit on the creature! But its body is covered with a sticky adhesive, which hold fast to their weapons!
Roaring angrily, the thing strikes back at Kragga. A moment later, the weapon rack in the corner of the room comes to life, waving pseudopods and opening its own toothy maw. "Time to rack up some kills!" it laughs as it attacks Bella!
Bertolt rips his weapon free with ease. He half turns, bushy brows jutting up and down as he glances between their foes. "Kragga, go and focus that down, I shall hold this off!"
With another mighty pull he frees Kragga's weapon as well. "Go and strike it down!" He roars, and turns back to the door, raising his shield.
Zetty hops back a step as the weapon rack springs to life as well, expands the range of her art to accommodate the newcomer, and calls out "That's some stickiness! Too bad we don't have some universal solvent for it." She tries to think through if these mimics have any weaknesses the group could exploit.
Eyenia wracks her brain, trying to figure out what this creature is.
Eyenia recognizes the creature as a mimic! Mimics are ambush predators and voracious eaters, surprising their prey through their uncanny ability to mimic the form of common furniture and miscellany. Killing a mimic causes its adhesive to dissolve, releasing creatures or objects stuck to it.
Eyenia conjures a beam of healing light and directs it to Kragga.
Kragga avoids getting grabbed by the mimic. She catches her sword as Bertolt tosses it to her, then enters her arcane cascade stance and swings her electrified weapon at the mimic again!
Bella stabs the mimic that struck her, managing to yank her weapon free afterwards and fall back. Kragga finishes off the one that had disguised itself as a door with a brutal slice of her sword.
The other mimic resists Vengis's slow spell, but it is still momentarily slowed as it slithers forward and attacks Bertolt. It misses badly!
Bertolt waits until Bella moves into the corner for the flank, then unleashes his attacks!
With a clear shot at the mimic, Zetty continues her inspiration and propels a piece of the fallen door-mimic at the weapon rack mimic. "No eating us today!"
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Bella agiley dodged behind the aberration and stabbed with her rapier, "People are off the menu!"
While Bertolt and Zetty miss, Vengis impales the mimic with a weapon from the rack. Then Bella's rapier drives deep into the mimic's body, striking vital organs and slaying the hideous monster!
The crystal hatchet that appeared to be on the weapon rack turns out to have just been a part of the mimic's disguise. However, beyond the doorway that the first mimic was blocking, you discover a supply room filled with shattered jar. Among the debris, you can find a few intact bottles, including a lesser sea touch elixir and a corked glass bottle with runes identifying it as bottled air.
"Bottled air? Ah, you must be testing us to see if we actually listen when you identify such items!" Bertolt laughs and picks up an empty jar, throwing a hand over the top of it. "Look, bottled air!"
"Oh nice!" Zetty turns the bottled air over in her hands before rolling her eyes at Bertolt "Yeah, you go ahead and rely on that bottle. I'll use the magic one that produces an endless supply of fresh air. We'll see who gets asphyxiated first." She grins "Unless you changed your mind and want to hold onto this instead?"
Zetty carefully shoves the sticky mimic bodies so that they're covering the trap doors, then turns her attention to the southern door. "How about this one next instead?" She takes a moment to inspect it for any dangers, on alert after the mimics managed to get the jump on the group.
Bella volunteered, "Let me check it for dangers."
She checked it for traps and then opened it.
The south door leads to a hall connecting several doors. Between the doors, padded furniture has blossomed into mounds of white fungus in this small waiting room.
Zetty holds a hand up "Careful everyone, I've seen some awful art of these. Those white fungus bits all over that furniture is going to throw up a bunch of spores when we go in. Our best bet for avoiding rotting from the inside out is to get through quickly. Just hold your breath and don't stay around for more than a minute."
From the door she peeks around the room to see if there's anything interesting among the furniture. She doesn't go in until everyone is ready to zip through.
Bella replied to Zetty, "OK, I'll go first when everyone is ready."
She fastened a damp bandana over her face. When the party was prepared, she moved quickly to the western door. After a quick check for traps, she opened it.
Zetty spots a few glints of silver among the cushions of the sofa. Bella is able to quickly gather 13 assorted silver pieces, minted centuries ago by a long-shuttered mint that are worth 4 gp each to a collector.
The west door opens onto a room with a counter that bears a few cracked serving dishes. A dusty and shattered display case features only grime and broken glass.
Searching the display case uncovers the words “They Are Watching You” carved into one of its wooden sides. Bella realizes that the words are near a hidden hinge, and the entire case swings aside as a secret door.
Zetty scurries past in much the same fashion as Vengis. In the western room, she stops to take a look around. "So this was maybe a bar or kitchen? Looks like no one's been using this floor for a long time. Odd, since one group or another moved in for the other floors above us." She rubs a finger across the counter to see how much dust it'll pick up. "Or maybe the mimics and monsters keep everyone away. I wonder what all these creatures eat down here. Can't be too many adventurers. Maybe they ate whoever was doing the watching?" She points at the words carved on the display case.
She points out the door continuing further west with her inkpen. "We can come back and check that one afterward. Secret doors mean interesting things, right?"
"Let's see where this one leads!", Bella replied to Zetty. She listened at he secret door and checked for traps, before cautiously opening it.