Kaelic opens his cigar box and pulls out a cigar, dipping the end in oil. He then pulls out flint and steel and begins striking. "Should I find a place to sit?"
On the second try, lifting with his legs, not his back, Juma is able to lift the timber off the trapdoor. Opening the trapdoor, it is dark inside, but with the daylight streaming in, you can see the floor ten feet below.
Dagon can see the tower’s large ground floor has mostly collapsed under the rubble, but along the western portion of the room a section remains clear of debris. An iron trap door set in the floor is directly below a companion door in the ceiling above, that he is peering through. Shattered wooden furniture lies scattered around the corpses of two small, green-scaled creatures.
"Uh-oh, it looks like we've got more kobolds in here. Keep an eye out."
"Are we going down? I might need some rope." Kaelic says as he shows his cigars.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Juma tosses his staff in the general direction of his comrades.
"Here, somebody refresh the light while I continue to be the useful one in this outfit," he says, taking out a coil of rope and looking for a secure place to anchor it.
Kaelic catches the staff easily and, a short moment later, a white glow flows across it from end to end.
Juma finds a large piece of rubble on which to secure the rope. Climbing down, the room holds nothing of interest, but the trapdoor. The kobold copses also carry nothing of interest, their broken bodies evidence of being crushed in the collapse.
Finding the next trapdoor free of traps, the door is opened to reveal a barracks of sorts. The walls of this chamber have buckled precariously in several places, and masonry and dirt are scattered across the floor—the collapse above plainly caused this structural damage. The dry-rotted frames of five simple beds lie against the north and south walls. To the southwest, the room broadens into a larger chamber. A rusted, grinning iron statue stands in an alcove in the north wall between the two wings of the room itself, and in the wall to the south is an old iron door.
"Well let's take a look-see then shall we?" Kaelic says as he taps Juma's staff to refresh the light spell.
Looking down, Kaelic notices nothing unusual and the party drops down through the trapdoor.
As you look around, you hear some skittering noises to the west and see two giant centipedes moving in direction! The get up to Juma, mandible clacking.
Snapping into action, Juma takes the offensive with his glowing staff.
for
for
Kaelic draws his sickle and mace, then steps up to one of the centipedes in a semi-threatening manner. "Ack! They're gigantic!"
With a single blow, Juma crushes one of the centipedes, but his second blow fails to hit the other vermin.
"Combat too, eh? Feel free at any time to remind me why you guys are worth keeping around, okay?"
Kaelic gets over the size of the opposition, and Juma's ego, and swings his mace.
,
Kaelic smashes his mace into the creature, cracking its chitinous scales and knocking off a few legs, but it still moves!
Dagon scurries away from the centipedes and begins singing a mournful tune.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Dagon begins inspiring his companions!
The centipede lunges at the gnome, its needle like fangs sinking into his arm. Though not painful, the wound begins to redden.
Juma brings his staff to bear against the remaining vermin:
"Hold out your arm against the ground; I'll squeeze the poison out, using my staff like a rolling pin. It's legit, I heard it from a cleric once."
"I feel all numb and fumbly. This must be what you feel like all the time." Kaelic responds to Juma as he attempts to wiggle his fingers.
Juma swings and crushes the centipede, while Kaelic feels his coordination begin to lessen!
"You two go find me some gold. I'm going to check this door to make sure it won't kill Juma."
Kaelic searches the door, but finds no traps, though the door is locked.
Juma and Dagon search the room, finding that the iron statue in the northern niche is in fact a closed iron maiden—the rust stains on the front are actually ancient bloodstains. Opening the iron maiden, the bones of the last prisoner fall out in a pile. Within the jumble of bones, the pair find a rusty metal key.
On the western side of the room, in the rubble of the collapse, the pair find two mithral daggers with a strange series of notches carved into the flat of each blade, stored in a tightly latched iron case.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Dagon examines the daggers, which are identical. The notches are irregularly spaced, but do not form any recognizable pattern.
Kaelic casts detect magic here and there .
-Posted with Wayfinder
"Let me see about this lock..."
-Posted with Wayfinder
Juma taps the gnome on the shoulder top of the head.
"Wanna try this key first?" he asks, holding out the key from the iron maiden.
"It's all rusty. You think it will work?" Kaelic waits for a moment, sees Juma starts to drool, and concludes that he is probably not going to answer. "Well alright, it's worth a shot." He takes the key and tries it in the lock.
Kaelic attempts to pick the locks, but has no luck. Using the key on the otherhand, he easily opens the door.
Inside, a corridor runs east and west, both ends turning south after about ten feet. Looking down both sides, you see numerous jail cells line these long-abandoned corridors. Each of their solid iron doors hangs ajar, and includes both a peephole at eye level, covered with a piece of sliding metal, and a smaller slot for food and water at floor level.
In the western corridor, a curious semicircular stone ridge runs along the ceiling of the hallway. The ridge is about 6 inches across and sounds hollow if tapped.
While the others search, Kaelic renews the light on Juma's staff and scans for magic in the area.
Dagon flops over toward the west, examining the strange ridge.
Dagon finds a small crack in the ridge and spies a chain within the ridge. His presumption is that the chain works some sort of mechanism.
"I wonder if it's some kind of release to open or close all the jail doors at once?" Kaelic proposes with a shrug. "We'll probably find out later."
"Well then, stand-behind-me's, shall we proceed this way?" Juma asks, pointing his glowstick in the direction of the western corridor.
"Sure. Don't let anything kill you though. That would probably make you smell even worse."
Juma sniffs his armpit pensively, then replies, "No, probably not," before walking cautiously toward the corner.
Moving down the western hall, you see another hall interesect from the west, about thirty feet down the hall. The intersceting hall travels west for just a short stretch before turning north.
Continuing down the west hall, you find it dead ends. All the cells you pass are empty and hold nothing of interest.
"I guess we follow the pipe."
Following the pipe, you finds that it travels west and disappears into a wall, while the corridor turns north. Foolowing the corridor, it turns east a fter a short distance and deadends at a door.
"Kaelic, back to you."
Kaelic examines the door and finds it unlocked and no traps present, but it is stuck. After a little persuading by Juma, the door opens revealing a square-ish room.
There can be little doubt what purpose this chamber once served. The dank room stores an ancient rack, a fanciful brazen bull, an iron maiden, a cauldron, iron chairs with sharp edges and cruel protuberances, and a wooden table upon which sit various implements of torture. A bronze plaque affixed to the western wall depicts a crowing rooster above crossed spears. Underneath the spear, a short phrase is inscribed. The phrase in Common reads: “Confession Cleanses the Soul—Pain Clarifies the Mind.”
*blinks*
...
*closes the door*
"What's wrong Juma? Not going to look around for treasure?"
-Posted with Wayfinder