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Should I run a shelter-in-place or will you hunt for a more congenial sleep spot?
Bedlam begins to prepare a Mutagen, as the others begin to set up a quick camp.
If it’s alright with the others, Adelie casts hide campsite as soon as they pick a spot to sleep. It may not fool any intelligent creatures that know the layout this place, but it will provide a bit of concealment.
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As the others set about their own preparations, Aurora will prepare Speak with Dead in her empty third level slot—afterwards, she spends the next ten minutes circling the corpse; uttering prayer and invocation as she makes her rounds, holy symbol held out over it.
Aurora will then pose her questions to the corpse.
1. "Why do the ghouls not attack you?"
2. "Why were you in Rappan Athuk?"
3. "What caused your mutations?"
Anzath pays special attention to what Aurora is up to. She trusts in the cleric's wisdom and articulation, and also watches the still bleeding corpse of the madman for signs of lies beyond the grave.
The corpse heaves a long, raspy sigh, and speaks: "Three questions... one answer... many... opposed Orcus... a mage... transmuter... was... trapped... cursed... with madness... his own... magic... twisted... set by Zehn... to guard... his evil... as the ghouls... that mage... Marthecian... I was."
The corpse falls silent again.
Finishing up his brewing, grabbing a sandwich, and taking a bite, Bedlam prepares to begin exploring again.
After the Giant? corpse spilled its guts--again--the dwarf smiles
Be more riddles. Nice, now we be get'n dis Zehn ta worry 'bout!
Zehn? Tragershen ponders the name. Does it ring any bells for him?
Knowledge (local or history, the modifier is the same)
Feeling the mad dead man's mad dead answers fruitless, Anzath then studies all the hooks and spikes in the wall. What's that all about?
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Level 5 Transmuter spellbook
Opposition Schools Illusion, Necromancy
Value 555 gp
Pages Filled 26/100
Spells
3rd Fly, Rage
2nd Arcane Lock, Bear's Endurance, Elemental Speech, Frigid Touch, Glide, Levitate, Sculpt Simulacrum, Bull's Strength
1st Detect Undead, Expeditious Retreat, Feather Fall, Flare Burst
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I'm going to assume that, after studying the room, everyone is into the idea of camping for the "night." And also that you'll take Bedlam's suggestion of camping where you are, and will use Adelie's Hide Campsite, which you'll place in the mouth of the room to get the most stealth for your buck.
Hide Campsite makes a 20 ft cube, which pretty much fills all of Marthecian's room except for the spikes and hooks. You do have a dead body in there with you, which is cool with me if it's cool with you, I guess.
As Tragershen settles in for a little reading and puzzle-solving, Anzath studies the hooks and spikes. She supposes that they were used to hang meat or victims or whatnot, judging by the caked-on blood.
While you hide in your hidden campsite and try to rest, the dungeon, never-resting, continues its inscrutable affairs for eight hours:
ogres
ghouls
rats
Marthek/nobody
ghouls (large party)
ghouls
Marthek/nobody
ogres
Whoever is on watch will hear and see various frightening foes wandering the tunnels. Nobody wants to disturb Marthek, so nobody disturbs you. But you see ogres, ghouls, and wererats escorted by dire rats. The ogres are, I think, the only surprise here--you've met various configurations of the rest of these monsters before. Three hulking ogres pass at different points in the night.
The morning of the thirteenth dawns aboveground, and you wake refreshed.
Bedlam blissfully sleeps the night. In the morning, he mixes and brews his Extracts.
Afterward, he takes a look outside. Seeing the different tracks of activity, the dwarf shrugs.
Be too bad dat Giant weren't on our side?
"A pity. But he was in thrall to the enemy and long lost. Let us venture on, and deny the enemy even more tools."
Before they bed down, Tragershen will cast extended detect secret doors, just to make sure their spot is secure.
When they are done resting, Tragershen pulls out his spellbooks and studies.
1st level spells (DC 15) 5+1: Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Grease, Burning Hands, Vanish, True Strike.
2nd level spells (DC 16) 4+1: Create Pit, Web, Mirror Image, Glitterdust, Extended Detect Secret Doors.
3rd level spells (DC 17) 3+1: Haste, Haste, Lightning Bolt, Extended See Invisible.
He'll use read magic to decipher the scrolls after he uses detect magic and detect poison to check for hijinks.
Before they leave their temporary lair, he'll tell the others "Since we don't have a clear way to get out of here, let's plan in case we get separated. On the level above us, there was that deadend room behind a secret door with a lone ghoul? We can regroup there."
When they are ready to leave, he casts mage armor on Adelie, uses the pearl of power, casts it on himself, and then casts extended see invisible.
Adelie nods at Tragershen’s suggestion. ”That works. If we do end up having to use that plan, how long should we wait in that room for stragglers before exiting Rappan Athuk?”
As the party discusses fallback options, they also rouse themselves for a day of exploring. Where will you go next? See the new map--options are east down the hall, or return to the room with the stairs and start opening doors, or do something completely different.
Instead of waiting for consensus, I'll let whoever posts first decide! The race is on!
"Ten hours, perhaps? If you can judge so in the dark?"
Let's head out of the room and go straight down the hall, as opposed to going back to the door room.
With Read Magic, Tragershen identifies his scrolls: Fly, Bull's Strength, and Touch of the Sea.
The party shuffles down the hall, checking doors as they go:
Door One:
You don't see a trap, but you do hear many ratty squeaks behind the door.
Bedlam smiles at Fate. He mouths
Breakfast!
before drinking his Mutagen.
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Aurora rolls her eyes and mutters, "If you wish to eat literal filth, dwarf, I will not help you when you fall ill from it."
She readies her crossbow and makes sure Nico is secure.
The first thing Anzath does in the morning is swaddle up the hobbaby as tight as she can, stuff his mouth with chewed rat jerky, and bequeath him a name. She settles on .
"Iz Dimitri," she introduces him to the group, then slings him onto her back with the rest of her gear, right below the scabbards of her scimitars.
At the door she downs an antiplague and antitoxin, draws Kritfisher, and readies to throw the door open.
Bedlam gives Aurora a wounded look. He winks a Nico. Watching Anzath getting her drink on; causes the dwarf to do the same...
Licking his lips, the dwarf prepares to open the door....
Tragershen quickly applies some Vermin Repellent on himself, then nods his readiness for the door to be opened.
Mone sniffs at the base of the door.
"Iz Dimitri,"
Mone smells rats.
"Get back doggo."
Mone obediently retreats to behind Anzath.
Talathel readies himself to stab at any oncoming rats.
As the door swings open, you see a room boiling with dire rats.
Talathel, Bedlam, and Tragershen may act!
Bedlam, this is your chance to kill Nine In One Blow!
Bedlam--never one to refuse a gift--smiles at the rats; while mixing his surprise!
Hello boys...
The smiling dwarf then follows after!
As the door swings open, you see a room boiling with dire rats.
To try and slow how many can come at them at once, Tragershen fills the room with arcane webbing. [ooc]He'll center it 5' back from the door so some PCs can get in and engage rats trying to get out of the webbing.
Bedlam's blast rips through the rats, killing nine in one blow. Seven remain around the periphery of the room.
Tragershen aims a spell, but after seeing the sixteen rats diminished to seven rats, he may well decide to put it back in his pocket and leave the work to the warriors.
When the light flickers into the room and there are far fewer remaining than it sounded like, Tragershen calmly draws a vial of acid and uses it to power the glob of acid spell that he hurls at one rat.
Acid splash, ranged touch attack , damage .
Edit. Possible crit, confirm and damage if it applies., damage .
Talathel begins stabbing rats that survive the flame and vitriol of his companions!
Adelie grimaces. ”Sorry,” he mutters at the rats, knowing they can’t understand him. ”Normally, I’d want to give you a chance to flee or hide, but after meeting your family upstairs...”
He walks forward and swings morosely at a rat.
Wielding Kritfisher with two hands, Anzath steps into the crowded room and slashes away.
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Gelver rushes forward, yelling at the top of his lungs, as always "CURSED!"
He can't make an impact.
A single rat has a chance to react:
...it fails.
Ippolit mutters, "For hells' sake... it's just rats, Gelver!"
He chops a rat in half.
Nobody hears your madman's raving calls. Nobody except the one rat left alive...
Lolly kills the last rat.
There's no treasure in the room, unless you happen to eat rats.
Onward?
If there are no other doors in the room, then we'll continue the same way until we hit another door or intersection.
Bedlam places a number of burnt rat carcasses into a sack. The dwarf smiles at GM Parrot the entire time....