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Sekhemre punctures the mite's leather armor again and just as he yanks his rapier free, Kayluss' club flies by end-over-end and nails it right between the eyes. The mite staggers dazed for a second, but brings his blades up defensively while muttering something in its own language.
The mite lashes out wildly with his off hand, but follows up with a solid slash which skitters across Sekhemre's chain without penetrating the links.
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Blood is beginning to seep through the little freak's leather jacket in a couple of places now and it steadily drips from underneath the stiff leather. Blisters have formed across his face and arms from Wadi's fire and it looks like Kayluss has broken his nose. The mite spits blood and brings both swords back up into guard position.
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Once Torvic is sure that Alie is not in any immediate danger from the dart, he leaves her in Dakram's care and limps across the room to one of the smaller doors. He grabs the door handle and rattles it, "Locked! Help me get this opened now!" The muffled moans from the other side of the door rise in response to the door rattling.
By the time Khedon has made it out of the pit Torvic has run out of patience and begun hacking the lock off with his axe. He shoulders the door open and freezes, "Oh hell..."
Inside chained in manacles is a woman whose head is fully encased in some kind of fungal cocoon growing down from the wall. Ropey strands wind down from there wrapping around her torso. The cocoon pulses softly with blue light. Next to her a dwarf stripped down to his skivvies turns his head wearily to the open door and rasps in surprise, "Torvic! That really you?" Tumorous blue growths burst through the skin of his feet, legs, and chest. Old faded scars from a lash crisscross his back and shoulders. Sitting across from them, a middle aged man stares out blankly. Half of his head is shaved and rough inflamed stitches crawl along his temple and scalp.
Tossed in a heap by the door is a tangle of manacles and a couple of high quality swords with detailed ivory hafts.
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Dakram moves about the room carefully looking for other traps, not wanting any others to fall into them, he also looks around for his daggers while he does so.
He stands still for a bit and looks quite please once he is properly bandaged. " That was an observant little bugger, I was making my way fairly well and then crunch on those bugs and the thing was attacking."
After scouring the room for daggers traps and loot. he attempts to help with the healing not that he has had paticular success before.
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Torvic drops his axe and quietly says, "Hold on Merisk. I'm gonna find the key." The dwarf limps over to the fallen mite and kicks him a few times until the vermin scurry away, then pats him down to find the key and goes back to free the prisoners.
By the time he is unlocking the manacles on the shirtless dwarf, the party has regrouped enough to join him. "This is Lyrehawk, yeah?" he nods to the woman whose head is wrapped in a fungal cocoon. With Kayluss' help Torvic begins to peel away the fibrous sack which leaves trails of slime behind and finally, horrified, they remove a tentacle-like tuber which had grown down into her throat. She gasps weakly when it is extracted and after a few moments whispers, "I can't see..."
Alie, Dakram and Khedon drag her out of the makeshift prison and continue removing the remnants of the darklands fungus and its slime from her. Although her skin is an angry shade of red where it was in contact with the slime, the woman has an athletic build, and if not conventionally attractive would be striking in another circumstance. As it is her eyes dart around unseeing and she struggles to sit up while managing a choked whisper, "Who are you?"
Merisk rubs his wrists once unchained and rather than shake hands, he and Torvic share a firm dwarven wrist-grip. "Thank the gods you came back! Who are these lot- and where is Jorlin?"
Torvic hangs his head in shame, "Jorlin is dead. She came after him in his dreams, that nightmare witch. After he died she came after me next but ever since that sick bastard cut into my head I don't really sleep. I just stayed awake for days trying to get out of here and get some help. The mites found me in the end but Torag be blessed, that's when these Pathfinders found me too."
As quiet settles into the locked down foundry, the group realizes they can faintly hear the mad orchestra from a shaft stretching up into the darkness. The broken gear in the floor of the shaft includes a heavy pulley system that must have once pulled items from this room up the shaft elsewhere.
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The rest of the afternoon and evening passes in a tense series of watches. A few hours in there is a commotion of banging and slurred yelling at the doors you came through. A high pitched voice drones, "TIFER! TIIFFEERRR!!" while pounding on the door before trailing off into nothing.
Over time the orchestra above wanes with players dropping out until only a single horn blows erratically. Then finally- silence.
Through the rest Merisk dotes over Lyrehawk and Torvic catches them up on what has happened since he made his escape and return. Lyrehawk and Merisk are the Aspodell rangers Torvic hired out as part of his expedition. The catatonic man turns out to be a Chelish merchant who was captured recently. He hasn't spoken since the derro dragged him out for surgery. After discussing Jorlin's death in his sleep, the original expedition comes to the conclusion that none of them will ever really escape these caverns while the dreamstalker still lives.
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At some point during the rest Merisk dozes off for a while, and Wadi takes the opportunity to tentatively see how Lyrehawk's vision is recovering. Tentatively he brings reveals more light to see how much she can adjust to and test her recovery.
Wadi-
Afterward Kayluss wakes Merisk and brings some of the crueler tools of the healer's kit to bear. The process is disgusting and grueling but in rotation the pathfinders manage to drain the blue swellings on the dwarf's feet and bind them fully with bandages. Merisk is stoic throughout the process and though he silently flinches in pain during the work Lyrehawk is there to clench his hand.
Eventually he manages to stand and take some tentative steps. He'll be able to limp around slowly, Lyrehawk can see though her vision isn't fully clear yet and Torvic is on his feet despite cracked ribs and the wound from the crossbow. Still- they may be more of a hindrance than any help to you all going forward. Lyrehawk claims a small sword and a little crossbow from the unclaimed gear and Merisk takes up one of the ivory handled swords which it turns out were his originally.
Opening the massive double doors you came through, the first thing you notice is a mite face down asleep in the hall just outside the door.
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The trek back through the Gallery and up the stairs is more or less uneventful. Every now and then one of you might catch a glimpse of movement just past the edge of your light, but no one is ever able to confirm that anyone is out there.
The shirtless drugged figure on the stairs is gone this time. Candles still burn with wax running down the heads of the crafters immortalized in stone who flank the stairs. In the center of the hall the bodies still lie in a heap surrounded by a large pool of blood spread across the tiled floor. The revelers are still mostly here, though they have broken off in small groups where they lay in a tangle on rugs or pillows in various states of undress. Most seem to be sleeping it off.
On the raised platform where the orchestra formerly played an elven woman draped in flowing red linen lounges across the arms of a throne. On one side a mite massages her scalp while another attends her feet. Even from a distance you can tell they she looks painfully thin and gangly. One disproportionately long arm reaches down to the floor and plucks a freshly foraged raspberry from a silver serving tray. Her thin bony fingers (nearly one and a half times as long as normal fingers) drop it into her open mouth and she sighs in pleasure.