Morgan and Kraven pull the hidden door down with little effort from the ceiling to reveal another small 10' x 10' room .
"Ok I'll check it out.."
Sonya flies up slowly and pokes her head up into the room for a look around..
Sonya detects another hidden door on the southern wall.
The door appears to pivot in the center of the wall and looks like it will open easily.
As Sonya approaches the door, bolts fire from the wall at her as well as firing in the previous room at Morgan and Kraven.
Kraven ducks quickly as the bolts fly at his position. Apparently the traps remain active even after firing he mutters under his breath.
Thanks to Kraven she is able to dodge the arrow this time..
Sonya, Morgan and Kraven all manage to dodge the bolts this time.
Looking at the trap, there doesn't seem to be any way to disarm it short of breaking out the wall.
"Shoddy human work." mutters Morgan as he moves up to the location in the wall where the beams of fire are shooting from and begins beating the wall with his Warhammer.
The wall cracks and chips, but appears to be stronger than Morgan originally assumed.
"Proabably not the best idea to try and braek the wall down Morgan.. Shall we go through the door?"
Assuming no one objects, Kraven will review the door with his magical eyes before attempting to open it.
Kraven looks at the door and finds it to be mundane. The only thing unusual about it is its placement.
Opening the door, he sees yet another small 10'x10' room, the same as the ones before, and sees a small opening in the side wall the same as the previous ones, indicating that another bolt is likely to be fired.
On the far end of the next wall Kraven detects yet another hidden door, mechanically different from the previous one. It looks like this one may need to be opened from below.
"Okay, let's do this. Someone count out steps from the trapdoor we opened earlier to this trap door, and then climb down and count the steps again. That way, we'll get both trap doors open."
Kraven nods in agreement with Morgan's plan and counts out the steps as requested. After relaying said information, he will open the secret door, preparing for a trap to be triggered.
"I'll set the trap off.. I'm pretty nimble, especially if I know it's coming.."
Sonya uses bardic inspiration on herself and moves to set the trap off..
Simo yawns and calls out, What is the hold up? Is everything OK in there?
Sonya dodges the trap as it fires another bolt.
The blessings of Ilmater again grace Kraven as he ducks away from the flying quarrel.
The group manages to make their way through a succession of identical rooms with varying secret doors, varying from ones which simply slide open to split doors. The final door, the group discovers, requires seven studs to all be pressed simultaneously. This was learned with some difficulty after pressing one stud caused the north wall to collapse, almost crushing some of the members.
The group now stands in a large hall .
Illustration 10, The Hall of Statues
The floor of this great hall is covered with inlaid tiles, and the plastered walls and ceiling are painted with signs and glyphs. Spaced along the walls are life-sized portraits of humans, humanlike creatures, and monstrous beasts holding 2-foot- diameter spheres painted in different colors.
Twin iron-bound doors are set into the western wall among the various portraits.
At the far southern end of the hallway is an archway. The area beyond is filled with thick, roiling mist.
There is a small open doorway at the northwest end of the room that leads down a narrow tunnel to another small room. Looking down the hall you see this dusty room contains an 8-foot-tall statue of a four-armed gargoyle. One of its arms is broken off at the shoulder and lies on the floor.
Kraven scans the area with his magicked eyes before proceeding deeper into the room. Looking more deeply at the figures, signs, and glyphs, he thinks about his training in hopes it might spark a distant memory.
These pictures ring a bell for anyone else? These painted spheres are all the same size, which raises my hackles about a possible trap, but I cant see or sense anything.
You tell me, what's the point of magic eyes if you can't tell if anything you see is magical or not? All I know is that I don't trust that fog, so there must be some trick again.
Simo pokes around the wall.
Sonya uses her wand of detect magic and her wand of secrets to scan the room properly for hidden/magical things..
Kraven studies the portraits but is unable to discern anything about them.
Sonya uses her wands to probe the room. The wands reveal the following information:
West Wall, north to south
Priest, gold, 8 feet - illusion concealing a crawlway
Wolf-headed woman, orange, 4 feet
False door - trapped
Basilisk, purple, 2 feet
False door - trapped
Minotaur, bronze, 4 feet
Prancing jester, grey, 6 feet
Sphinx, bright blue, 2 feet
Ferocious ape, white, 8 feet
Human skeleton
Winged devil, turquoise, 6 feet
Giant snake, scarlet, 4 feet
Minstrel, pale green, 2 feet
East Wall, north to south
Crocodile-headed man, pale blue, 6 feet
Black dragon, silver, 2 feet - one-way secret door
Frightened man, green
Bird-headed man, yellow, 4 feet
Yuan-ti, pink, 8 feet
Hydra, black, 2 feet - illusion concealing a crawlway
Headless woman, pale violet, 6 feet
Smiling man, red, 4 feet
Gorgon, amber, 2 feet
Faceless robed wizard
Tiger-headed priestess, indigo, 8 feet
Farther down on the east wall, Simo probes the black sphere held by a hydra and discovers it's an illusion, covering another small crawlway.
You suspect some of the other circles outside the range of Sonya's wands may also conceal things, but as of now you have not detected anything.
She pulls her 2nd wand of secrets out and probes the rest of the room she missed with the 1st, explaining all of her findings afterwards..
"Whis might take a minute or two.."
I found a hole down this way, is there any good quick method to scout it out? I can bond with a new familiar if needed.
Walking farther south and using her spare wand, Sonya detects another crawlway masked by illusion on the red circle held by the smiling man portrait.
She's also able to confirm the crawlway discovered by Simo.
"There is no need to send another poor creature off to his death Simo. Wait a moment."
Morgan begins casting, an a small eye appears, hovering over his left shoulder. He points at the first crawlspace and it flies inside.
It's just a conjuration, it's not even a real beast just has the appearance of one.
Sinjin squawks with what seems like a hint of outrage
"It's still a creature. Your lizard, was he celestial, fey perhaps? They do come from somewhere.", Sen lends words to the dragon's indignant noises.
"And looking at how utterly everything we put into that hole back there was annihilated, I have a nagging feeling he might not have gone back there."
Now that I do feel sorry for, I was very much attached to sparkle. Had he died in a typical fashion he would simply have returned to the plane he came from, Simo says with a sigh, Still - I much prefer unmaking a familiar than myself.
Amidst the ethical debate on familiars, Morgan casts Arcane Eye and sends the invisible ocular orb to explore the first crawlway.
It enters the crawlway masked by the gold circle and floats through the tunnel. This contains the gargoyle statue described above.
The eye looks around the statue and sees the missing arm lying on the floor. On each attached hand is a small depressed area, which looks as though it could fit a gem.
Moving out of the first room and back down the long hall, the eye floats down to the black circle held by the hydra.
This narrow crawlway appears to continue farther south, and ends in a blank stone wall.
The final crawlway, behind the red circle held by the smiling man, also ends in a seeming dead end.
We need to send Kraven to look at that gargoyle statue and dead ends it seems.
The crawlways did not resonate with traps, yes? he asks Sonya, Then I shall do as Simo requests. Tying off a rope around his waist, he hands it Morgan.If the tunnels start to collapse, try and pull me out.
Morgan shares what he has seen in each crawlspace with the group.
Mind is elsewhere it seems..
makes a 12!
"Probably have to investigate the crawlways further as I'm sure there are secret doors and probably traps.."
Priest, gold, 8 feet - Crawlway, Gargoyle with broken arm with gem sockets on the hands.
Black dragon, silver, 2 feet - one-way secret door.
Hydra, black, 2 feet - Crawlway, leads to a deadend.
Smiling Red man - Crawlway that leads to a dead end.
Kraven makes his way quickly through the narrow crawlway to the gargoyle statue. He sees that there are no traps in the passage.
Inspecting the gargoyle statue, Kraven is able to determine that the recesses on the three connected hands are cut to the same size as the blue sapphires the group found on the previous gargoyle.
He inspects the other two crawlways, finding both lead to seeming dead ends, or at least, True Seeing is unable to detect anything.
Returning to the group, Everything looks as it looks, the dead ends seems to truly stop, and the gargoyle statue seemed nothing more than a statue upon closer inspection. I did notice however, that the three remaining hands bear recesses that looked to be the same shape as the gemstones found near the other. Looking to whomever took up the gems, he adds If we'd like, I'll try setting the stones and see if that reveals something new, for better or worse.
"Yea.. Let me take a look at the tunnels.. Seems unlikely the mad scientists would have nothing in any on them."
Sonya checks the Hydra and the Smiling Man again..
Afterwards she checks the Black Dragon one way door..
Inspecting the secret door beneath the black dragon doesn't turn up anything new. It looks like the door is designed to open on the other side. It's possible some magic may be able to force it open.
Investigating the hydra and the smiling man do not turn up new information. You conclude that either the crawlways are dead ends, or designed to resist magical detection.
Simo sighs and says, Now I only have the one.
He pulls the window from his robe and places it on the secret door, revealing an opening through the wall, There, now we can at least continue our progress.
Morgan growls and says "I hate poorly made deathtraps. Clearly whoever made this place had no love of the art."
We still have the potential trap or secret door reveal with the gem slots in that statues hand. notes Kraven as he peers through the newly made window. What an odd manner of excavation.
We can always circle back for the gems if we hit a wall again, I'm sure we will be spelunking into these depths for a few days.
"Let's try inserting the gems.."
"Do we have an idea as to the correct order?"
Simo's window reveals a portal to the same stone wall that the crawlway leads to from the smiling man portrait.
Inspecting the gargoyle statue does not reveal new information. The blue gems all appear to be the same size and all look like they will fit in the recesses in the three arms.
Sensing that more of the group is interested in the statue over the window, Kraven returns to the statue. Stand back if you'd like, I'll place the gems into the hands. After any who wish to give space, the paladin does exactly that, pausing after each gem is deposited to look over the statue and see if anything has changed.