Leng is going to search the kitchen.
Perception:
Leng finds serviceable but not exceptional cutlery and tableware, but nothing worthy of excitement. None of you can ken where the golden rat seems to have escaped to. Though you do hear footsteps approaching the party from outside the kitchen...
"Prepare yourselves."
"Who goes there?"
Sasha faces the door through which the footsteps would enter.
As Sasha moves back into the kitchen he finds the dining hall empty and the footsteps can no longer be heard.
"I'm of no mind to play around with this phenomenon. We should move on."
I agree. Let us move out of this haunted room and onto more corporeal foes!"
"I find this most...interesting". "It seems to be harmless...but". "Yes let's go on". "I can come back here at my leisure and explore this phenomena". "There aren't any secret passages are there"?
Perception
Hess finds no sign of secret passages of any kind, and instead you regroup back in the dining room. As soon as you leave the kitchen, the doors shut and the cacophonic sound of banging pots and breaking plates resumes.
There are three other exits, two doors on the right and one deep within the room on the left.
I suggest the left one....
"An illusion perhaps. As Brother Leng suggests, we should go left."
The armored paladin will once again take the lead.
The door is unlocked and opens into a humid room that looks to be a nesting area for two monitor lizards. They raise their heads as the door opens and begin to hiss wardingly... clearly looking to defend their nest - but not yet aggressive towards you as you have not stepped foot within it.
Beyond the alcove that the lizards call home is another series of passageways leading to other rooms and doors.
Mordecai follows the direction of the group.
Quietly and slowly closing those doors, Hess speaks to the group. "Let's see what the other doors hold, before venturing onwards from here". Hess then approaches the other doors, and listens, his ear to the door.
Perception
Closing away the home of the monitor lizards, Hess moves to the other side of the room.
Behind the first door Hess hears the faint sound of creaking wood, repeated in cadence and timing.
The second door has no sounds to be heard through it.
In the distance bell tolls once and falls silent.
[b]"Let's check the room with the creaking. I will examine the door first to make sure no one has left it locked or trapped.
Perception:
The door bears no traps and is unlocked, so is pushed open easily.
A rocking chair is sitting in the center of the room. There is a small boy, dressed in peasant clothing, rocking in the chair. His eyes are open, but he does not react to your arrival. The chair is sitting on a small, round, thick and expensive rug woven in a pattern of flames. Thick smoke boils from an incense burner hanging from the ceiling.
"Child? What are you doing here child?"
"Be careful friends, this place is not at all what it seems."
Mordecai will detect magic, focusing first on the incense burner, then the rug, then the chair, then the child.
The child is unresponsive to your voice. Mordecai senses magic from the chair and child.
to determine the school of magic on each:
vs chair
vs child
Leng is going to closely examine the rug.
perception:
The rug appears to be a well made specimen, though aging and becoming threadbare in parts - especially where the legs of the rocking chair swing back and forth atop it.
The smoke from the brazier pools in the air at the top of the room, but there must be a gap in the eaves somewhere to allow it to not o'erwhelm the room.
Mordecai cannot discern the magics with certainty... but is sure of elements of both illusion and enchantment at play.
Sasha moves forward towards the child.
"Watch my back."
Sasha detects no evil within the room... well apart from the deep and ancient miasma of foulness that pervades the entire monastery. His approach draws no reaction from the child... who continues blankly staring ahead and rocking.
"What madness is this"? "Is this just a show or does it mean something"?
Hess looks for another way out of this room.
"Perhaps it is just to confuse us, or make us delay in this room for some reason. I am not even sure this is real! Should we move on?"
"Leng is right, we have little time to spare on this. One quick search though."
Sasha moves past the boy and looks around the back of the room.
Mordecai waits for a reaction from the boy from the others moving past before he moves past.
The room is laid out in a shape similar to a swastika, with a larger central area where the boy continues to rock. There are exits at each of the external 'arms' of the shape as well as a side room that appears to only be a small closet space.
"Perhaps we should check the closet first?"
Sasha nods at the words and moves to the closet, opening the door with caution.
Concealed behind the door is.... a cloakroom. There are cloaks of all sizes and colors hanging on the walls. Most of them are dried and tattered except for two which still appear to be in reasonable condition.
"What about those cloaks". "Are they similar of different". "Are they magical"? Hess looks over the others shoulders briefly, keeping his eyes on the room to make sure nothing changes.
"Hmm, lemme look..." Mordecai says, peering at the cloaks with his arcane sight
Mordecai cannot tell without physically examining the cloaks.
"Check these or leave them, we've wasted enough time here. Let's continue."
Sasha will pass the cloaks over before making his way out of the room.
"We have stumbled about this place too long, I start to feel as though we are being played with."
Mordecai will physically examine the two cloaks that look promising.
Mordecai finds that the first cloak he examines is light as a feather and after kenning it a little longer establishes that it is a cloak of elvenkind.
Bouyed by his success, he moves onto the second cloak... to find that while well made it is also infested with worms. Though he drops the cloak immediately, some of the miniscule creatures begin to consume the outer layer of epidermis on his hands... literally slowly flaying him alive...
"By the gods! What kind of cloak is that?"
"A trap no doubt!"
Sasha wastes no time flinging the cloak back into the closet with his sword while the others deal with Mordecai.
Mordecai will try to summon his eldritch energy in his hands to burn the vile vermin.
Hess throws the door shut, as Sasha slings the cloak into the closet.
"Egad". "What are those things"? Hess shouts stepping on any that fall to the floor. "Are you OK"? "Are they biting you"?
Mordecai resists the predations of the worms, managing to force them out of his body by suffusing his hands in eldritch energy. The cloak seems to be one of Resistance (+1), but remains infested with the foul vermin.
"Let's start with the North door, and work our way around to the right" , Hess suggests starting towards the door.
Moving to the arm of the convoluted room that leads to the North you come upon the door and a small bronze plaque lies upon it's surface. Inscribed upon the door is the following verse:
Chamber of wonder
Home of light
Place of darkness
Ruled by night
Trust your sword
Not your eyes
Lest doom be met
In smiling guise
As you read the final line, a gong sounds from inside the room and the door swings open. Light pours out of the room, blinding you for a moment as your eyes adjust. The walls within the room are covered with lamps, and there is a small pedestal in the center of the room. On that pedestal is a diamond of incredible brilliance. The diamond’s hundred facets reflect the light in thousands of dancing, colored rays that fill the room with rainbows.
Leng tries to get a better look at the pedestal and the floor surrounding it.
"I am thinking that the pedestal or the area around it might be trapped. Do you want me to check it before the rest of you try to enter?
"caution is rarely unwarranted."