Moving on from the odd mirror room you come to a chamber with several skeletons. They are pinned to the wall with metal rods through their rib cages.
Zadira looks closely at the skeletons.
Kayla cautiously looks over the room entrance, and looks for signs of a trap, either active or already sprung.
There are no traps, sprung or otherwise. Your close examination reveals blood strains on the rock walls. These people were nailed to the wall while they were still alive!
Yikes. These people were nailed here while they were still alive. Good thing it was a long time ago.
This natural cave chamber contains a wooden bed and a table, but its
most noticeable feature is the fact that forty skeletons have been spiked to the wall in the same way as those in the chamber outside. Sitting on the bed is an unnaturally thin humanoid, holding a hammer and a long steel spike. When he sees youall, his eyes glow yellow.
"De mirror looked interesting. Ve should go back ven ve can." she looks as if she wants to examine the mirror, but follows the others into the next set of rooms.
"Hello. Who are vu?" she asks the creature.
Kayla cautiously enters the room, checking for traps with nearly every step
her hand on her blade ready to draw in case of trouble.
"Hello. Uhh... what a lovely spike you have there. I'm sure those people spiked to the wall deserved it, what a good job you did. We, however, are just travelers passing through, no threat to you, no need to spike us."
”identify yourself!”
Zadira goes and stands up against the wall, and takes no other action.
Kayla sees Zadira move to the wall, with a curious look. ok, I'll give you chocolate, no need to stand in the corner.
The beat stars breathing quickly, like it's holding back some urge, then it darts for Zadira with a scream like a dog breaking free from its leash! It holds its spike high!
Vuzi and Grelthe are up!
As Zadira moves to the wall, Grelthe looks confused and asks "Zadira? Whatcha doin'?" She is already at heightened awareness therefore, when the creature springs into action, and she rushes to interpose herself between the thing and Zadira, dropping her shield and attempting to wrest the spike from his hands.
Grelthe expertly disarms the spike, but he still has his hammer, several spikes across his back, and a mad look in his yellow eyes!
[ooc]Well, he does have to draw one now, so your effort isn't worthless.[/b]
Vuzi casts Boneshaker on the creature. She tries to force him to move back away from Zadira.
The man grunts and flinches, but is undeterred by his own bonees' resistance!
He reaches Zadira draws a spike, and is about to stab her!
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Grethke scores a solid hit
Kayla maneuvers to catch the weird guy off guard. ahe slip around to gain a flanking advantage as she draws her blade and then strikes.
Grelthe uses her Morningstar this time to try to knock the hammer out of the creature's hands.
"I will not allow you to hurt her! Zadira, wake up, move!"
Marco takes his white hot bone sword and attempts to cleave into the monster, nimbly striking on the other side of the Melee combatants
"Keep him avay from her." Vuzi darts up trying to stay out of the creatures range. She casts Protection from Evil on Zadira.
With a mad dash and Massey cuts the party manages to take out the creature before it kills Zadira. She us immediately freed!
Under the Spiker’s bed, there is a small treasure trove. It includes 12 usable pairs of boots (and a considerable quantity of footwear that is so old as to be unusable), 2 pointed hats, 6 suits of chain mail, 1 suit of full plate, 8 longswords, 7 helmets, 9 light steel shields, 4 lanterns, 3 vials of holy water, 13 backpacks, a small birdcage, a spare hammer, and 30 long iron spikes.
There is a bag containing 614 gp and 1,358 sp, a turquoise ring (100 gp), and a plain gold necklace (50 gp). One of the helmets is enchanted, lending the wearer a +1 on all saving throws (as a cloak of protection+1).
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"The stuff in this bag looks valuable, but as far as the weapons and armor, the only thing that's probably worth reselling might be the full plate. Do you think Vance might be interested in any of the rest?"
Does this room have any exits besides the one we came in?
Thanks, guys.
Zadira feels sort of ashamed that everyone had to save her again. She accepts Kayla's offer of chocolate gratefully.
"Keep de protection Zadira. You might need it. I am sure dat Vance vuld like dese things." Vuzi waits to see what the others would like to do next.
"I doubt de rat voman vent dis vay."
"It does seem as though we've lost the path we're tracking. It is hard to track someone who can shapeshift as small as a rat. Maybe we can pick up some clues by finishing exploring the last level, since that is where she was seen last? There is the other stairs that go down to this level as well, maybe she went that way?"
The party backtracks through the rune room and back through the mushroom cave to the level of Vance and his shop. Only the west of the level remains unexplored. The stairs downward are in one of the northern storage rooms.
We drop off the extra armor & weapons (as much as you determine we can carry) with Vance, and then explore the west side of the level.
"Let us go to de vest." Vuzi suggests.
The party backtracks through the mushroom forest (carefully), emerges from the dirt-rain room and continues down the hall until they loop back around to the introductory room when you come down from the first level. Here they take the southern of the two western doors. To your great surprise, a small lady with a huge rat snout and ragged red robes rounds the corner coming the other way!
The rat girl tosses a bag at the party and turns to flee! The bag explodes in a cloud of fine metallic particles that sweeps over the entire party!
Suddenly filled with adrenaline at the sight of their quarry, he bounds forward and attempts to cut her down with his red hot bone blade, ignoring the powder
She yelps as Cain slashes across her back, then darts around the corner, deftly avoiding an opportunistic strike from Cain!
He follows got on her heels while the rest of the party recovers.
The next room she flees into contains a sarcophagus and another for on the far side. The rat dives over the stone barrier and is through the far door in the blink of an eye!