Behind the bar, there's a big wooden hand lever jutting up under the bar surface.....
It's a simple lever. You pull it, and the wooden door, which is about 8foot by 8foot, falls down to the left on hinges, and the bar stool plummets into the shaft.
You look down; it's about 25 feet down, and the barstool lands on a pile of mouldy mattresses.
Elgan looks down the open shaft, then back up.
"It could be dang'rous. Yew go first, chere'." Elgtan says deadpan to Gittik,...
"I was hoping you'd know....being from the surface and all."
The drow's eyes rotate on his face; the left one slides across his forehead, and the right one circles under his nose, then comes to a stop where the left one started in vice versa.
"Find another way out?"
Oso drops a light stone down the hole. It glows red just for Gittik. He ignores Baldy and his bottom.
“Gittik, can you help me tie these guys up? Then let’s go down that trap door.”
"OK."
"Find another way out?""I was hoping you'd know....being from the surface and all."
The drow's eyes rotate on his face; the left one slides across his forehead, and the right one circles under his nose, then comes to a stop where the left one started in vice versa.
"Howfur th' bugger did ye dae that?"
"Howfur th' bugger did ye dae that?""Find another way out?""I was hoping you'd know....being from the surface and all."
The drow's eyes rotate on his face; the left one slides across his forehead, and the right one circles under his nose, then comes to a stop where the left one started in vice versa.
"Do what? I don't know what I did."
"Find another way out?""I was hoping you'd know....being from the surface and all."
The drow's eyes rotate on his face; the left one slides across his forehead, and the right one circles under his nose, then comes to a stop where the left one started in vice versa.
"It's on th' other side all my kinsmen....maybe we can find another way; maybe I don't know them all."
Oso drops a light stone down the hole. It glows red just for Gittik. He ignores Baldy and his bottom.
The light rock plops silently on the pile of mattresses. You can hear several.....somethings surprisedly skittering away.
Who's down first?
"Hi, you kinky git.....I aughtta...."
That'll work.
Oso drops a light stone down the hole. It glows red just for Gittik. He ignores Baldy and his bottom.
The light rock plops silently on the pile of mattresses. You can hear several.....somethings surprisedly skittering away.
Who's down first?
Beldan will climb down there after Elgan the Eagle.
It's a pretty easy climb down; it's nice all those mattresses down there, in case you fall.
It's a 10 foot by 10 foot room at the bottom. To the east, it looks like....a hall used to lead in that direction; newer brickwork than the rest of the room around you seems to have been put up there, cutting off the hallway. There's a door to the west as well.
Nothing of interest but a stack of stained mouldy mattresses.
You can smell a certian salty biological detritus funk that says you're close by to ocean.
Wait till at least one other is down here, then check out the door – traps, listen, locked, the usual drill.
Oso drops down to help, casting white light on a couple of walls for Beldan.
"That place gave me the creeps. But mind flayers. Why grab Stig?"
Elgan-Hawk circles warily, keeping an eye open for anything and everything. He gives a birdy chuckle at Oso's words.
"Aye. It does seem that the honorable Stigwold would make but a small snack for a creature that feeds on brains!" The druid chuckles, but all the others hear is a strange soft warbling cry from the hawk.
Nothing too interesting in the room, just urine-soaked mattresses.
The door out to the west is locked.
Beldan waits till everyone is present and ready, then picks the lock.
A jiggle and a tumble later, the door yields to Beldan's picking.
A hallway, stretching west, 50 feet and then curves north.
The floor is covered every possible inch in broken glass bottles.
Good thing if you have shoes.
Thirty feet into this hall, a body lies face down in the broken glass.
Looks human or/elf/slightly built half-orc/hobgoblin/freakishlytallskinny dwarf; probably human though.
Elgan, once more in Elf form after everyone's safe descent, peeks between the taller folk to eye the hallway.
"Wa'll, dat's jes' plum' unfrendly-lahk." He mutters upon seeing the glass. He frowns when he spots the body.
"So, unfort'nate local, er' a message fer visiters?" He asks to the group in general.
Pip strums a quick beat on Lucille
"Flesh Starts To Rip
Gouging Through Skin
From The Throat
Blood Gushes
Glandular Eruption
Blistered Skin Secretion
Internal Punctures
Blood Regurgitation
Gagging, Choking, On Broken Glass .."
Stops and looks around at the others
"What?"
Yipes!!!
"Heh heh - sound like goblin song!"
"Hm. Dat wuud 'splain deh sudden feelin' o' glass in mah ears." Elgan says straight-faced.
"Heh heh - sound like goblin song!"
"Kobold actually. Ode to the Cannibal Corpse, I think it's called. It kinda loses something once you translate it from Kobold-dialect Draconic."
The place has pretty good acoustics....maybe it's all the broken glass on the floor.
"Broken glass. How... prosaic."
It's just a man. In leather.
With a gaping hole in the back of his head.
Big enough to put a small fist in, if you had a small fist, and were inclined to do so.
The internal of the skull is spattered with drying pulpy gore, but no brain.
“Wow Pip … wow.”
Beldan is wearing his climbing boots, so he’ll step out across the glass, carefully, searching the place for traps. Then he’ll search the body.
Nothing in the trap department, other than the broken glass decorating the hall.
The body is as lacking in valuables as it's calvarium is lacking grey matter.
There's sucker marks on the face, which is cruelly screwed in contorted pain and horror, as well as shards from the floor.
The glass offers no danger or hindrance to anyone completely vertical and wearing more shoe than a ballet slipper.
"The mind flayers have all sorts of weird powers generated by their supercharged frontal lobes, right? Do any of you remember if that includes aerial propulsion? That would explain the thick carpet of glass - the illithids just float right over it while their prisoners have to slog through it. Take a guy's shoes away, and he'll never get past this mess."
Here and there, intermittently....nothing too cohesive at a cursory glance.
“Ugh.” Beldan looks up at the others. “So these mind flayer things … they literally eat brains?”
"They do indeed. Their tentacles wiggle up your nasal cavity, latch onto your brain stem, pull really hard, and then... nomnomnom! So you might want to take care to not let a mind flayer too close to your face, just in case it gets a little peckish."
Pip gulps at the talk of mind flayers
"Ick! Anyone got a spare helmet?"
Elgan looks as he can't decide whether to be more nauseated or angry at the mention of mind-flayers. He settles for glowering, but looking decidedly green. He shimmers into hawk-form and floes above the group, room permitting.
"Helmets won't help much. But perhaps a set of nose-plugs will?"
The hall continues west about 50 feet past the corpse, then turns right(north) and runs 100 feet to end in a door.
There are doors every 5 feet on either side of this hallway.
They all look like cell doors......stout, wooden, with a small barred slat at about face level. All padlocked.
There is also a door at the very end of the hall, a blackened iron door with hundreds of spikes on the outside.
There is glass on the floor the entire way up to this spiky door.....
Oh, and Elgan can fly around in here...
"What the hell is up with all this glass?" Altai, clearly annoyed and perplexed, kicks broken glass into an empty cell. "Did they hijack a consignment of wine glasses?"
The cell doors are all locked and closed.....
"They do indeed. Their tentacles wiggle up your nasal cavity, latch onto your brain stem, pull really hard, and then... nomnomnom! So you might want to take care to not let a mind flayer too close to your face, just in case it gets a little peckish."
“Yikes!” Beldan reaches into his pack, pulls out his old cloak, then begins tearing a long strip off it. He wraps the strip several times around his nose, his mouth, then the rest of his head, including his ears, until his head is swathed in black cloth, only the area around his eyes and the very top of his head visible. “Mmmph,” he says.
After that he keeps moving carefully along the hall, picking his way around and across the glass, sliding aside the windows of the cell doors and looking inside as he goes.