"Nice work, Gil," Felrin says, after watching the half-elf solve the problem of how to get into the crawlspace without touching the chains. "I'll be much happier climbing down there without those chains so close by. Nasty thing, being attacked by an inanimate metal object while the ceiling wants to crush you."
He studies the situation a moment more, then says, "Well, shall I go first again?" He waits a moment for someone to speak up, eyeing Twigs and gesturing politely to allow him to lead the way. If no one rushes to the fore, Felrin carefully lowers himself into the crawlspace and takes a look down its length before crawling tentatively forward.
Twigs answers Felrin's polite stare with a gap-toothed grin, glad that he isn't burdened by anything as bloody stupid as manners. However, he takes a tentative glance over his shoulder to see the rest of the group staring also, like jackals eyeing the weakest member of the pack. "Oh alright, I'll 'ave a butchers at it... Pull my bloomin' ear, why don' chew?" Twigs says, spitting onto his palms and squirming reluctantly into the crawlspace.
Felrin offers Twigs a smile full of false good will, stepping out of the sniveling human's way, bowing and gesturing grandly for Twigs to be the first to enter the crawlspace. As Twigs passes him, Felrin lays a hand briefly on his shoulder, conferring the blessing of Asmodeus upon him.
"Naturally." Gil muttered in reply to Felrins applauding of his work, as he continued to concentrate on the magical hand. Surprised to see Twigs agree to go first, he followed the rogues entry into the crawlspace with perverse anticipation of whatever horrible experience was awaiting him.
Once he sees that Twigs and Gil do not appear to have been deep-fried, frozen, shocked or otherwise damaged by entering the crawlspace, Felrin calls Asmodeus' blessing on himself once more and follows after them.
"'Shed Thy Pride,' indeed.'" Izabelle says, watching with a bored expression as Twigs squeezes into the space.
Twigs contorts himself into the crawlspace through the narrow gap made by Giltharon's spell and the removed grating in the floor. Once under he turns his head on its side to give himself some added mobility as he looks around. The crawlspace is just that... a crawlspace... it stretches across the width of the hallway (about 10 feet) and goes about 5 feet into the hallway before coming to an end in a wall of solid bedrock.
Felrin follows behind Twigs, eventually worming his way beside the rogue as the two stare side by side at each other in the claustrophobic space.
Crammed into the small space, Felrin sniffs a bit, wondering what it is he's smelling, until his nose eventually leads him around to where he's looking directly at Twigs. He gives a last, confirmatory sniff, grimaces, and turns his attention back to the crawlspace. "It doesn't look like it goes anywhere, it just dead ends after a few feet," he tells the rest of the group. "I'm going to take a closer look."
He moves close to the dead-end wall and examines it for any way to open it or get past, making sure to keep well away from the chains hanging above.
"This just seems like a waste of more time. As if these 'tests', if that's what they are, are merely trying to keep us from succeeding at our main task. Felrin, Twigs, if you find nothing else, then I think our dear leader had the right idea and perhaps we go back and choose a different path."
@Felrin - Nope - nothing there
"Check the side walls as well, maybe we arent supposed to go straight ahead." He looked deep in thought for a moment. "If I move the chains on the other side, one of you can stick his head up and see if it is the same below the next grate."
"It's a fruitless endeavour." Izabelle says, squatting next to the crawlspace. "Our enemy here is our pride, not these chains. The Cardinal seeks to test our wisdom. To know when to fight, and when to flee. Some call it humility. Others, cowardice. Words. Meaningless. This is a lesson in survival, and our victory here comes by admitting defeat."
"It's time to double-back."Izabelle stands up, brushing herself off."That lever would not be there just for show. Knowing our Master's cunning, I bet it would have changed something in the previous chambers."
Looking at Izabelle with an appraising stare, Gils lips curled into a sneer of reluctance. "That..." He rolled his eyes, for a moment looking like he was about to retch rather than continue. "...That makes sense."
Then, without another word, he started back the way they came.
Twigs grumbles as the others turn around, letting out a yelp as Felrin squeezes past him once more. "Oi! Yew watch who you're manhandling, devil boy!"
Numair shakes his head and follows after the rest. "We're missing something, but what?"
Following Izabelle's advice, the group heads back down the passageway with Giltharon in the lead. A myriad of twists and turns later, the familiar door that leads into the second chamber comes into view.
Lucikily, the half-elf remembers the body-heat draining parasitic mold and runs in through the open doorway before the cold has a chance to do any lasting damage. Turning back, he notices the mold has begun creeping back to cover the door .
Pausing in the center, the group reflects upon their surroundings -
The northern door and semi-mold covered eastern door are open. The southern door appears plain and totally unspectacular. The western door appears to be well-worn and almost ready to fall off its hinges. The blackish-violet moldy spores that appear to undulate in the gloomy light being cast by Giltharon's cantrip.
The small alcove built into the north wall behind the north door once held three keys - Giltharon now holds two of them, having taken them earlier. The third softly glowing a warm reddish glow remains in the alcove.
Felrin recalls his earlier observations in the room...
There appear to be at least a dozen or so different treads that lead to the worn out door and at least five different sets of footprints leading to the plain door.
The tracks appear to be made mostly by medium sized individuals although there are a couple of smaller footprints interspersed amongst the lot. Interestingly enough, all the tracks appear to lead out towards the two doors with none coming back the other way.
He also spies something protruding out of the floor near the south-west quadrant of the chamber. At first glance, it appears to be a couple of bumps in the dirt floor - small irregularities. Intrigued, he looks closer, brushing away some of the dirt and spies the rusted head of a mace half buried in the well-packed dirt. Beside it are the broken remains of what might have been a water skin at one time.
"Give us a tick." the rogue says, taking the time to test both doors for traps, rapping on them with his dagger.
As Twigs carefully checks the doors for any further surprises, Felrin moves over to re-examine the buried mace head and bits of waterskin. "I wonder if there's a trap that turns this dirt floor into quicksand? And if there's a hand holding on to the other end of this mace..."
He attempts to shift the mace head out of the dirt. If this proves difficult, he draws his own mace and uses the handle of it to try to scratch away the dirt and expose more of the rusty, buried weapon and whatever may be attached to it below.
Gil simply stood around, waiting for their leaders to decide on a course of action. As Felrin started digging, he cast Mage Hand once more, assisting in moving dirt with the hand. Most of his focus was on Twigs however, silently willing the door to be trapped.
The gangly rogue takes his time rapping on both closed doors with his dagger. The worn out door creaks under the assault, threatening to break off what's left of its hinges and topple in... the plain door fares a bit better. Twigs is certain that there are no traps on either of the two doors.
While Twigs is off inspecting the doors, Felrin takes the time to check out the mace head and waterskin he had noticed earlier. The mace head appears to be buried/stuck most of the way in the dirt floor. A few minutes of digging frees the metal head. It comes out of the dirt showing a broken handle with bits of wood rotting away. The top edges of the metal head appear to have been subjected to a tremendous amount of force. Peering down into the freshly exposed hole, Felrin doesn't notice anything that the mace may have been attached to... just rotting pieces that may have once formed the handle.
The tiefling turns his attention to the bits of waterskin next as he tries to separate them and piece them together. The majority of the bits of leather have been crushed together to the point that it is impossible to separate them. What once must have been a fine supple container now appears to be dry, broken husk - a mere shadow of its former self.
Malum will move towards the first room to see if there are any obvious changes.
Malum saunters off to the first room while the rest of the group stands about wondering what to do next. Once there he doesn't notice any obvious changes. The exposed pit still sits there in front of the closed door, staring silently at the tiefling with its gaping maw and blunted spiky teeth. The pedestal in the center of the room that once held Twigs' precious is the sole fixture in the room.
"Let's get some of these doors open." Izabelle says, swinging her arm forward. "And be careful - There's sure to be some nasty surprises."
Time passes. Izabelle exhorts her colleagues to get the doors open and is met with blinks and wide-eyed inaction.
"Nothing seems to have changed in the first room, although I didn't try opening the door over the spike trap."
"Why not?" Gil asked with a blank stare. "Wouldnt it be rather idiotic if that turned out to be where we were supposed to go?" Looking at Malum in silence for a moment he added. "Let me have the keys and I will go check if it is locked, or opens with any of them."
Malum gives Gil the stink eye. "And if I tried the door and it was another trap, how long do you suppose I would need to wait for the lot of you to come looking for me. I would rather do the exploration as a group, my trip to the first room was to see if anything obvious had changed."
As Gil heads towards the first room Malum will tilt his head inquiringly... "And how long should we wait to follow up to check if you are still breathing?"
"Trapping the door after placing a pit trap in front of it seems rather redundant. Either way, I'm sure to spot it if there is one." Gil said matter of factly, sauntering off down the hallway.
Reaching the first room, he snooped around the door, making sure no traps yet remained, then carefully leaned towards the door to try the keys.
Upon Malum's return, Giltharon exchanges a few testy words with the tiefling and stalks off by himself to the first chamber while the others stand around.
Returning to the others, Gil motioned towards the hall he came from. "The door behind the pit was not locked. There is pitch blackness beyond, and my light did not seem to function within. Whether that indicates powerful darkness magic or an anti magic field I could not say."
He looked at both tieflings in turn. "Perhaps your...gifts, may see what lies beyond."
Felrin says, "I'll take a look. Anyone else coming?" He gives a toss of his head, indicating the room Gil's talking about, and says to the half-elf, "Let's go."
He returns to the first room and looks through the door that Gil has opened, to see if he can observe anything useful, or anything at all.
Malum will follow Felrin to look into the 'dark' room that has frightened poor Gil... :)
"That sounds promising. Let's move."
The group backtracks all the way to the first chamber once Giltharon announces his findings.
Once there, Felrin steps up to the edge of the pit trap and carefully leans out over the gap to peer through the door into the darkness beyond. As his bony fingers latch on to the door jamb, he focuses his eyes to get accustomed to the unnatural absence of light in the corridor past the door.
There's a small recessed area about 4 inches wide that travels parallel to the door jamb on the other side on the two sides of the corridor and the ceiling. The corridor itself appears to be about 5 feet wide - narrower than what the group has been used to thus far - and stretches out for about 20 feet before turning sharply to the left. The floor appears to have the same kind of metal grating that was present in the corridor with the chains.
"Hmmm, would it not be possible that this hallway simply connects to the other one we discovered? Possibly, going the "obvious" route in this room would have lead down this hallway, just as it did with the other. Something tells me we were too hasty in figuring the fungus guarded route the correct one." Gil mused, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "I suspect perhaps the well travelled route was well travelled for a reason."
"Or perhaps our master is merely having some fun with us. Or one of servants. Either way, we should still be on our guard."
Numair steps in behind most of the others; he will attempt to go second from last.
"Lots of room for speculation about what the master is up to, just one way to find out. I'll see if I can learn anything more about this hallway," offers Felrin.
He studies the recessed area in the door frame for any clues to its purpose and, if it seems safe-ish, he steps from the edge of the pit into the doorway.
Taking a deep breath and steeling himself against unknown potential hazards, Felrin clumsily steps from the edge of the pit and into the doorway.
His relief is apparent after a few moments when nothing leaps out of the darkness in an attempt to chew his face off... and the walls don't close in... and the ceiling doesn't collapse...
"A magical darkness?" Izabelle frowns, unsure of how to approach this conundrum.
"I do not see the point in going in there, its surely another trap of a sort." Gil said with his usual conviction. "The tracks back in the other room that lead to the well used door, they included a set of small prints." He squinted at the darkness again, clearly not wishing to go in. "The Ravens had but a single Gnome amongst them. Would it not seem likely that the Ravens, being in the Masters employ, have already been through this dungeon to prove themselves?"
"'an yer thinkin' they would've clued us in fer a bit of silver, eh chief?" he says, with a sigh. "Mitra's ghost, I wish I thought of dat."
Gils lips curled into the displeased look the followed whenever Twigs had spoken. "I dont think they have clued us onto anything. I rather think they had no reason to cover their tracks when they were here." He crossed his arms and scowled at the Twigs. "I do not think they knew we were coming."
Rubbing his chin, Malum looks thoughtfully at Gil. "I think we might be making an assumption that the Ravens were given the same test as us. Instead I think we should only work with the facts before us, that someone went through here and did not return."
Malum will stick his head into the darkness to see if he can track Felrin's movements for the rest of the group.
Felrin looks over his shoulder at the group and asks, ”Anyone coming along? It’d be a shame if I were the only one to pass this test.”
He turns back into the dark hallway and takes a few steps, keeping his eyes peeled for any surprises. If he doesn’t spot anything that causes him alarm, he keeps going until he reaches the sharp turn to the left, twenty feet down the corridor, and peers around the corner.