"Bedlam, before you proceed, let us all get ourselves and Brand to a safe distance."
Talathel grabs Brand under the shoulders and begins to back out of the room.
Me be tink'n dat da Wizard can Mage Hand da oil onto da carpet, den he be doing da same wit da torches.
Anzath frowns, "Ve kould have done dis to de slime, yez?"
"I can move it about that far." Tragershen says, marking a distance of about ten feet.
"I don't believe I want to be in the room when that ignites."
He will also spend a little time to cast detect magic and concentrate on the rug to determine its properties. Perhaps there is a command word to turn it off? He tells Talenthal "If I fall asleep as well by trying to understand the rug, please withdraw me from the room as well."
Spellcraft
Unseen Servant be a good in dungeons too.
The dwarf winks at Tragershen.
Tragershen can't make much out of the room. There's an enchantment aura lingering around the carpet.
Will you burn it? If so, please describe your process.
”I have a bad feeling about this,” Aurora says, giving Tragershen an uncertain look as she backs away. ”Perhaps Sir Dwarf should conduct his experiment himself?”
"Bedlam, I think it would be a simple matter to toss the oil and torch. Perhaps we should give you room?"
Bedlam proceeds to toss oil flasks and lit torches onto the carpet.
FWWOOOOM the oil catches, and the rug begins to flame. Smoke curls up to the ceiling, and the temperature rapidly rises in the room. A gust of wind rushes past your ankles, and the smoke consequently boils out of the top of the doorframe.
As the carpet withers, there seems to be something burning underneath it, releasing much more powerful flames than the simple cloth did.
Then the candles start to melt. As they do, the concentration of flammable gasses in the air spikes.
You may each take one action before the non-magical but very dangerous situation escalates.
Seeing the smoke beginning to build, Anzath quickly covers her head with hood, grabs Brand by an arm, and runs away!
Seeing Brand seized, Talathel focuses solely on running away from the deadly room.
Aurora continues to exit the room!
The Alchemist studies the flames from the doorway.
The dwarf peers intently at what is underneath the blasted carpet...
Trag runs. His long elven legs stretch out, and quickly pulls ahead of the others.
Bedlam sees a column of flame rip through the rug, as the dry-as-bone wood of the structure under the rug goes up in the blaze. Seems to be a trapdoor. All the candles are leaning over as they melt, pumping flammable hydrocarbons into the air. As soon as the chamber under the trapdoor is breached, the sleep magic goes off:
Bedlam shrugs off the sleep spell. He then sees the flashover rushing towards his head:
Bedlam takes 4d6 damage for standing in a gout of flame and 1d6 for being On Fire.
Bedlam's beard wreaths his face in a glorious blaze. It's difficult to breathe the acrid smoke of one's own beard...
...but our stalwart alchemist manages the trick.
Everyone else sees the top half of Bedlam caught in an incredible jet of flame. They feel the rush of the wind as the dungeon's long-stale air responds to the sudden inferno deep in the depths. The hall is getting very smoky.
Lowering his head to avoid the worst of the smoke, Talathel shouts:
"Withdraw to the nearest exit to the level below! The smoke will rise!"
Bedlam shuts the door. The dwarf then joins his fellows.
So, dat be fun! Wats next?
Bedlam slams the door shut against the incredible wind of the flames. He is still On Fire...
...but he manages to pat the flames out.
While you are probably still worried about the fire in the room, you also know that without a source of air, the flames will suffocate. As long as the door holds.
Covering her face with one arm while dragging the sleeping Brand behind her with the other, Anzath reminds Talathel, “Ve have not seen yet vay down.”
Glancing behind her as Bedlam catches up she wonders how long it’ll take for him to grow his beard back. Dwarves are just disturbing to look upon without their beards.
Bedlam--soot and ash covered face and all--smiles.
The party shakes off the shock of recent events and formulates (I hope) a new plan.
In the light of the gout of flames, you saw that the hallway you're in ends in a ladder. Someone goes and checks it out, climbing carefully up--into a very-stinky corner of dungeon. Let's say it's Bedlam. It's probably Bedlam, right?
Bedlam holds his breath against the stench of death, though the scent of smoke mitigates it somewhat. Ants. Dead ants. You're just outside of Gelver's little corner of the dungeon, and the ants are the ones you killed yourselves. The trapdoor that nobody fell down during that combat leads to the hallway below.
While Bedlam explores the ladder, Anzath splashes some water on Brand’s face, trying to wake him.
Brand snores, muttering "Sawen... mmmm." He keeps snoring. Pinching, poking, prodding--nothing wakes him.
Tragershen is surprised by this turn of events. This is no ordinary Sleep spell.
“Ve kan not just karry him around like diz. Ve should bring him to surface, yez?”
Be bringing him to da camp. Perhaps, rest a bit? Flames should be out by then and we be exploring da trap door.
Aurora crinkles her nose. "Well, at least no one died..?"
Her attention turns to sleeping beau—Brand.
—Her attention turns down to the comatose Brand, and she frowns. "Hopefully it will wear off in a few minutes, and is not more permanent... there are stories about that, you know."
The seared dwarf sniffs.
Be in da mood fer sum barbeque fer sum reason.
As the party thinks about food, they wander towards the surface. If Brand wakes up, they'll turn around. If he doesn't...
Gelver and Ippolit meet them on the surface. All quiet up there. All quiet except for Gelver.
A few hours pass and Brand doesn't wake up.
No outsiders appear to demand your time. What next?
At the camp, the cleric takes the liberty of setting Brand's bedroll up for him so he can be laid down upon it. Medicine is not her forte, but she casts Guidance on herself and attempts to figure out anything that can be done for him medically.
Talathel thinks on curses and magic, both their nature and how they might be broken.
Anzath keeps her weapons clean, and keeps a keen eye out for visitors. She makes sure to tend to Molotov, and asks Bedlam if it’s possible for him to make up some more Alchemist’s Fire.
“Or ve kan try your trick wid de oil, again, on de slime.” After some second thought she suggests, “Perhapz ve kan find vhere slime iz koming from, yez?” she tries to think back on the map they were shown in the tavern, “Iz oder entranze nearby?”
Back at camp, the Alchemist takes two minutes to brew two cure light wounds extracts.
He downs them, including the one already prepared.
The Alchemist then spends a few hours creating some Alchemist Fires.
A few more hours pass. Brand's condition does not improve. After taking a solid 20 on Spellcraft with everyone aiding, the best y'all can come up with is the first rule of magic: magic follows the rules of magic except for when it doesn't.
Anzath knows that this region has a karst topography. It is riddled with caves and riddles. Alternate entrances to the dungeon below aren't out of the question, but you'd be just as likely to find a cave that extends for miles without ever touching part of the historically inhabited section.
"If he has not awakened by tomorrow morning, we may need to take him back to the Ferry, or just leave him at camp while we delve once more into the depths. There is little I can do to dispel magic."
As you occupy yourselves with various camp tasks through the day and settle in for the night, not much happens. Then, as dawn breaks, you hear voices in the woods. Human voices.
Anzath alerts the others and sees what she can see.
----
Aurora grumbles lowly at this development of voices, and wraps her fingers around the sturdy shaft of her quarterstaff.
"We can leave him at camp until we are ready to return to the Ferry."
**********
Talathel nods to acknowledge Anzath's warning, then moves into nearby concealment. He draws his longbow, planning to be able to fire on hostiles before they can spot him.
45 y/o male jeweler
21 f scribe
29 f woodcutter
33 m weaponsmith
52 m tailor
The pathetic clutch of commoners that meets your gaze is far less than intimidating. How a pack of artisans made their way out this far into the wilderness, you have no idea. They range from middle age to their early twenties. For a ragtag band of wanderers, they seem fairly well-equipped. At least, their clothes are nice and they each bear arms that seem of decent enough quality. But from the iron-grey beginning to speckle the hair of the older men, to the haggard countenances of a girl who carries her swordbelt in her arms (she'd been tripping over it), there are plenty of clues to suggest that these are not elite soldiers. Only the woman with an axe on her shoulder looks at all comfortable as she leads the folk towards your camp. She freezes, listening. Gelver's shrieks are barely audible in the distance. The man behind her treads on her ankles and both stumble.
Anzath silently relays what she sees to her comrades using the signs of the Drow. She looks to Aurora, who seems to be the most approachable of the group, as if to suggest the cleric lead the way.
Setting the butt of her quarterstaff against the ground like a walking stick, Aurora strides into clear view of this ragtag group. She eyes them appraisingly. "Are you lost? Do you require assistance? These lands are not safe to be wandering around blindly," the cleric calls out, posture relaxed and holy symbol worn openly.
The woman leading the group says, "Oh thank the gods... erm... Nethys..."
The two older men brush past her with pleading eyes. "Ma'm, soldiers wiped out our town. We're from Southward, or, we were..."
The man is interrupted by the other older man...
"Our town swore allegiance to the men of Magnimar at sword point, and now we've been burnt to the ground by the men of Riddleport! Called us traitors."
The first older man interrupts in turn,
"If it wasn't for my daughter-in-law here, we'd have died for sure. But when we saw the boats coming in flying the flags of one of them counts of Riddleport, and everyone went down to parley, my boy here grabbed me, my brother, and his secretary--we grabbed our valuables and booked it out of Southward. We found his wife cuttin' wood and she's been leadin' us deeper into the forest ever since. She knows some locals up here, family named Endeferr, fellow woodcutters, and thinks they can get us a place in Zelkor's Ferry. We saw columns of smoke behind us. Woods are likely full of other refugees less'n the men of Riddleport rounded 'em up and took 'em away or killed 'em or somethin'."
The younger man, who wears an excellent chain shirt and carries a hammer in one hand and a blade in the other, pipes up, "This mainland war over our island is goin'ter kill us all an' destroy everything we built. Damfools don't know a busted backwater what's got nothin' worth stealin' from the jewels of Jalmeray, I reckon." He puts his arm around the shoulders of the woodswoman.
The final, younger woman hands the woodswoman her sheathed sword and walks directly to Aurora. She embraces the cleric and weeps.
Anzath pulls her hood up and makes her self visible behind Aurora. She hears the pleas and sobs of the refugees, but does not seem to be moved to sympathy. However, she thinks iz good dey found uz and not de banditz.
Remembering something about the man she hired on, she glances over at Ippolit to see how he reacts to news of his countrymen committing atrocities.
Satisfied, Talathel emerges from his hiding place and smoothly puts his longbow on his back.
"Greetings, citizens. Zelkor's Ferry is not unwelcoming."
Ippolit, a veteran of the Riddleport gendarmerie, listens intently. "I've heard that Count X was interested in protecting his, erm, interests on this island, and that the Duke Y of Magnimar had a false claim to the region. If it was anyone else from Riddleport, I wouldn't believe these, erm, I would imagine an alternative truth than that related by these good country folk. But X is known to cut corners, and to pay those who do the cutting quite handsomely. I myself have been offered... work. But I also know that he tends to demand a level of unconditional loyalty that makes me uncomfortable. I prefer conditional comfort, such as our arrangement here."
The folk of Southward look visibly relieved to hear that the Ferry will take them in. "Thank you, good sir. Erm. Is it nearby?"
The young secretary detaches herself from Aurora and approaches Talathel (ignoring Anzath, for unknown reasons) and asks him, "Are you really an elf, mister?"
Her eyes are big as saucers. "I learnt about elves when I learnt to read and write, but I never did see one 'cept the halfsies who come through Southward wantin' jewelry at the shoppe..." She reaches a tentative, curious hand to his fair hair...
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Under her hood, Anzath turns her head and covers her mouth. A snorting sound can be hood as she tries to stifle a snicker.