"Yes lets leave then. We can deal with monsters on way out. We need to take the witch out first."
Gornak will be up front with Vaclav.
"Hmmm, I see something moving over there..." Thanadros points with his bow.
"Keep an eye on it. We'll close and jam the doors behind us and come back after we've dealt with Nualia."
Thanadros knocks an arrow as they back out of the room, ready to fire if something hostile jumps out.
"Uh, I don't see anything, but I'm with you -- let's get out of here."
Gornak retreats as well, keeping an eye out for the mystery monster.
You retreat without incident. Back in the large room, you face the three doors again. The former harem now contains Gob and his small goblin proto-tribe. The centre door hangs open, revealing a passageway that turns west. The third door has not been explored.
"Try the door shall we?"
Gob spent a while pacifying and encouraging the goblins, and relishing the ego stroking that one such as he has never experienced in life. Confident the goblins are friendly toward him, he recognizes the need to keep them separate from the human party and any other captives that may be about. He tells them all to bring all the food storea to the harem room and hold down there, until he gets back. He encourages them to take shifts guarding, scouting, and reveling; play is important in life he explains.
So, what did you all find? What's the plan?
"There's some dead bodies and something moving down one of those passages, but we left it for now."
Gornak opens the remaining door.
The door opens to a small room, ten feet by ten, lined with small cages. Inside each cage is a small mound of straw.
You recognise the room, though: it is a goblin nursery. Goblins raise their young by treating them cruelly from the start. Not many survive, and you would guess that Ripnugget has been busy elsewhere lately as there are no young currently here. As their new chief, it will of course be expected of you to father many young - a tradition you may wish to change toward a more monogamous existence for the remaining goblins, or not. Some of those goblin ladies are hot.
Gornak opens the cages one by one and scrapes through the straw with the forked end of his lucerne hammer.
"What is this place? A pigeon coop or rabbit hutch? Where are the animals?"
"A nursery," Gob supplies. "Goblins do not believe in treating their children gently, or with love. There will be nothing of any value here."
"No wonder they are such little terrors...
"We should go and investigate the last door" Thanadros says and starts to make his way back to the center room.
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"A nursery? Seems a more fit place for livestock than children. The family, Father, mother, children. That's the proper way to rear young. From their earliest days teach them love and respect."
The cleric shakes his head and looks at Thanadros. "To the last door then."
The door opens to a short passageway that bends to the right. Four doors open off each side of the passageway, with a fifth at the end. The first door to the right hangs open as if left in a hurry, The one-person bedroom beyond it shows many signs of having been lived in. The bed itself is rumpled and unmade, and a half-eaten meal of bread and smoked salmon sits on the nightstand. A few articles of dirty clothing sit at the foot of the bed.
"Looks more like a person's room than a goblin's room to me," Gornak opines.
He pokes through the nightstand and the dirty clothes for anything of interest.
"Gornak, let us leave this room for later, she is maybe in the last room at the end of the hall." Thanadros says, pointing at the door at the end of the corridor.
It quickly becomes clear that this section has nobody in it. The door at the end opens to reveal a large room with a silk-covered bed at one end and a large writing desk at the other. Both are finely made and neatly kept, but otherwise empty. The other doors to either side open to bedrooms - one contains an everburning torch, another is unkempt and smells of bugbear, the last has been empty for several days.
"Gornak, let us leave this room for later, she is maybe in the last room at the end of the hall." Thanadros says, pointing at the door at the end of the corridor.
"If you say so, but I figure by this time she could be anywhere. I doubt a couple of minutes will make the difference between finding her and not finding her." He shrugs indifferently.
When Orik talked about the lower levels, he waved his hand in the direction of the North West.
"I remember Orik waved his hand to the north west. We have missed something. Lets go back and look."
The group goes back the the room Aylmora mentioned and we search it thoroughly.
Perception
Thanadros searches the planning room, but can find nothing amiss. He moves into the room full of artefacts and notices how the floor has been slightly worn, as if feet have constantly paced back and forth. In moments he has isolated the wall opposite the door as the site of a cleverly disguised door, a section of the wall swings open and a stairway down is revealed...
"Orlik might have told us there was a secret door, " Vaclav mutters.
Gornak
Vaclav or Thanadros
Gob or Aylmora
Aylmora or Gob
Thanadros or Vaclav
"So this is where the witch hides herself. Come friends, and be prepared for the worst!"
The steps lead down a short flight, then turn to the left (south) and descend another ten feet. It is immediately obvious that this second flight of steps is of different construction to the first - the stonework is smoother, more cleanly finished and actually seems tilted slightly down to the west. This tilt is more obvious in the passageway that extends from the end of the steps, turning almost immediately to the east.
A stone door just around the corner from the steps hangs slightly ajar, the detailed carvings that once covered its surface defaced by chisel marks and hammer blows to the extent that only a few remnants of images (mostly of gemstones and crowns) remain.
Thanadros listens at the door to see if he can hear anyone inside the room.
Perception
Thanadros hears nothing from the chamber beyond.
Loaded crossbow in hand, Aylmora listens at the door as well.
Gornak gets ready to throw open the door when the others give the thumbs up.
Aylmora hears nothing either.
The door swings open easily. Two pillars support the ceiling in here. In many places the stone walls, floor, and ceiling are caked with ancient grime and soot. Alcoves in the north and south wall contain partially damaged statues of a man in robes clutching a book and a glaive. The entire room is canted down toward the west (where you stand), and whatever ancient upheaval caused the complex to tilt knocked the statues from their bases so that now they lean against the southern walls of their alcoves. Opposite the entrance is another, similar stone door.
"Something is strange here... Why soot...?"
Thanadros searches the area encase there is a trap here.
Perception
"I dunno, some sort of disaster in the old days, I guess. This definitely wasn't built by goblins, I can tell you that much for free!"
Perception check:
Aylmora steps carefully into the room, joining Thanadros and Gornak in the search for traps.
There are no traps in this room, or on the sole door leading out of it. The soot is normal soot from normal torches, the rusted brackets for which are still on the wall. They look like a much later addition than the statuary.
"At least our road is clear." Vaclav points across the room to the other door with his mace.
Gornak moves forward and opens the door.
Thanadros readys his bow encase he has to cover Gornak.
Mace in hand, Vaclav follows close behind his hulking ally. While he walks he keeps up a low stream of prayers to Erastil.
School divination; Level cleric 0, druid 0
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range touch
Target creature touched
Duration 1 minute or until discharged
Saving Throw Will negates (harmless); Spell Resistance yes
This spell imbues the subject with a touch of divine guidance. The creature gets a +1 competence bonus on a single attack roll, saving throw, or skill check. It must choose to use the bonus before making the roll to which it applies.
This short hallway rises in a slope to the east. Five feet from the western door, the floor is polished and shiny, unlike the dusty floor elsewhere. A pair of stone statues depicting stern men wielding glaives stand in alcoves north and south of this section of the hallway. At the eastern end stand two stone doors, their faces carved with strange runes. Between the doors is a third alcove in which a partially collapsed statue sits. The top half of the statue is missing, leaving behind a ragged stump of a torso.
Aylmora examines the hallway carefully.
The polished section is a pressure plate or trapdoor, perhaps both. When triggered bars will rise before and after the victim, blocking escape, after which the glaives in the statues will strike whoever is trapped in the space.