Blood and organs splatter everywhere as the orc has a fist buried in its stomach, gets knocked against the wall, is orc-kebab'd, and then, for good measure, gets blown up.
Carina doesn't stop glaring at the doppelorc's giblets. She's visibly trembling and her chest is heaving.
"It destroyed one of the extracts I had prepared." She finally says, trying to get herself under control. "Apparently, it didn't think too highly of enlarge person extracts."
She's visibly angry, but it seems to be directed more at herself than anything else.
Gattel goes looking for the arrow that missed. "Shield man, could you check the other rooms?"
Eben lowers his sword, looking genuinely shocked at the amount of gore splattered about. "I guess this is what it's like up in the front lines..." he says, faintly. Sword still out, he stiffly marches into the second room and looks around.
The room looks perfectly identical to the last. The wardrobe is open, containing countless outfits—both male and female.
Meanwhile, the others see the orc bodies shifting, their features seeming to dissolve to simpler shapes. The grayish humanoid creatures seem almost unfinished, with narrow heads, gaunt limbs, octopoid eyes, and sinister, noseless faces.
"Can do, crazy man." Farrukh marches into the next room after Eben, giving it a scan as the previous room.
Carina hugs herself and walks next to Tanith and Spiny.
Don't think about it don't think about it they deserved it no they didn't they'd have done worse to us if they could I didn't need to stoop to their level
Farrukh finds a golden wand in the bedsheets. It's twisted, in a licorice-like shape, and bears an inscription in a strange, very simple-looking alphabet.
Each of the two rooms also contains a single noble's outfit and a single royal's outfit, in addition to numerous other ensembles.
"Hey, I found a wand! And some clothes. Anybody need a clean set of clothes?"
Gattel looks down at his filthy prison garb, then out the door at the blood-splattered adventurers. "Hm . . . You all may pick first."
"Oh! But there's a wand?" he asks, following Farrukh in.
Gattel picks up the wand and examines it. "Ah, it's Celestial. The writing I mean. But who knows what it actually does."
While the others are mucking about, Cuetzpalli goes down to the end of the hall and looks at the doors. If he doesn't see any traps, he tries to open them.
Carina peeks up at the dresses, her eyes settling on a royal outfit for a while before looking over at a different noble's outfit.
Ooh... red, backless, slit up the sides... wow, I wonder what I'd look like in it!
"Um... may I have this one?" She picks up the noble's dress she's been eying.
Eben seems lost in his own thoughts as he pokes around, but finally turns his attention to the others. "Huh. Clothes? Maybe, what I'm wearing now is kind of... sticky. And don't feel like taking the time to clean them even with magic..." He looks over some of the simpler outfits, for once not jumping straight on the most opulent clothing.
Tanith fusses over Carina for a moment, making sure the fluid across her clothing/armor is from the ruined extract and not blood.
"Those bastards are clever", he mutters.
While the others are mucking about, Cuetzpalli goes down to the end of the hall and looks at the doors. If he doesn't see any traps, he tries to open them.
As Cuetzpalli approaches the doors, he feels something shift beneath his feet.
A hidden trapdoor gives way. Realizing what's happening, he lunges for Spiny, but just barely too slow. Before the eyes of his friends, the Olman warrior plunges down into darkness.
He feels something—some sort of spike—graze his side. Acting instinctively, he writhes and twists in midair, feeling more spikes brush by him.
Unfortunately, "instinct" only takes him so far as the last spike impales him in the stomach. An instant later, he thuds into the ground.
It takes Cuetzpalli a moment to recover. He takes stock—he's blinded, battered, and a bit alike to a kebab. And Cuetzpalli's no dwarf, but he's pretty sure he has fallen at least sixty feet.
Cuetzpalli pauses. Something is wrong. He takes a deep breath, and realizes with a start: He cannot hear a thing.
When Spiny looks down after his master, along with any of the heroes who walk over, he sees that the pit goes thirty feet down. A curious script of flowing, shimmering runes is carved into the floor. Looking like a mix of spell glyph and decorative calligraphy, they spell out one word in the ancient tongue of the dragons:
Leave.
Cuetzpalli, on the other hand, is nowhere to be seen.
Gattel squeezes past Spiny to look. He then moves back. "I will not go first."
"Dammit. This is why I wanted to check over everything first."
"Hey Cuetz! Can you hear me?" he calls down the shaft.
Farrukh receives no answer.
"S@+#. Is he dead, you think?"
Farrukh takes one of the Everburning Torches off the wall and drops it down the shaft.
"Maybe this will let us see."
The torch vanishes when it hits the rune-covered floor.
"Well then."
"Is it some kind of teleporter?"
Farrukh takes his rope out of his pack and lowers it down the shaft, slowly.
"Hope not. I like this rope."
The rope vanishes as it touches the floor, but Farrukh's still holding the other end. If he pulls it out, it returns without any marks.
Cuetzpalli suddenly sees a bright blue light fall down through the ceiling. It's one of the everburning torches!
He can now see that he's in, of course, a spiked pit. Sixty feet above his head is a ceiling—clearly false, as there is now a rope extending through it.
"Well if it is a teleporter, it looks like we can come back through it. Here, somebody hold this."
Assuming somebody holds it, or he can find something sturdy to tie it to, Farrukh climbs down.
If he can't, he hammers a piton into the wall, ties it to that, and climbs down.
Eben eventually wanders out of the bedroom after the others, notices the cluster of bodies around the newly-discovered pit, and rushes over. "Oh, man what's with the floors in the place?"
It sure feels like a wall, but it can't hold his weight. He sinks through, and suddenly everything changes.
He is in a well-lit chamber. The floor is about sixty feet below and covered in spikes. Cuetzpalli stands down there, beside Farrukh's everburning torch.
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Eben eventually wanders out of the bedroom after the others, notices the cluster of bodies around the newly-discovered pit, and rushes over. "Oh, man what's with the floors in the place?"
"Okay, so it's a DEEP pit. Like ninety feet. Cuetzpalli is down there, but looks to have been impaled on a spike. Anybody have more rope?"
Carina pokes around in her haversack.
"Nope, got nothing. Sorry."
Gattel shakes his head. "Why would a tax collector have rope?"
Eben fishes around in his backpack. "Huh," he says, pulling the end of a length of hemp rope from its depths, "Well, look at that. How long has that been in there?" He hands the rope off to Farrukh, then resumes rummaging, a curious expression on his face. "An iron pot? Why do I have that? I don't cook."
Farrukh ties both ropes together, amking sure they're secure, and climbs back down.
Farrukh pantomimes climbing to Cuetzpalli, and then points to him, alternately shaking his head or nodding it.
Farrukh descends below the floor again.
A few minutes later, he returns, this time followed by Cuetzpalli. The Olman has a bloody stomach wound.
"You all right Cuetz? Looks like a nasty tummy ache there."
Gattel's eyes widen when he sees Cuetzpalli's wound. "Dinosaur man, it is good that you are still alive. I was definitely thinking about coming in after you but the shield man was faster"
He points to the doors opposite the pit. "An easy jump, once those are open. Shield man, can you help with that?"
"Yeah, I'm okay I guess." Cuetzpalli says. "Except that I have this," he waves at the nasty wound. "Sorry for getting hurt, I was looking for traps on the door, not the floor in front of it."
"At least it didn't eat you. I need to figure out a way to fly. Permanently. Just float equidistant from any surface..." he trails off.
"Sorry. Yeah. I can unlock it, as long as I can reach the door."
Carina nods. "I think I'll work on figuring out a way to make that into an extract next..."
She hands off a vial containing a dark blue fluid to Cuetzpalli. "Here--it's an extract of healing. I hope it'll help."
"Here, I'll help." Gattel puts away his bow and takes one end of Farrukh's rope. He steps back a few paces, then runs forwards and bounds across the gap. Balancing on his heels, he attempts to knot the rope to the handle.
"Gattel, toss me that rope, would ya?"
Assuming Gattel complies, Farrukh takes the ropes apart, ties one end back to the piston, grabs a hold of one end, and hops across.
With Gattel's help, Farrukh is easily able to make it over and gain his balance.
He doesn't find any traps on the door. He also doesn't find anything behind the door. To his dismay, he quickly determines that there is nothing behind the door but solid stone.
"Well Cuetz, I have some bad news for you. There wasn't even anything behind this door."
"Well, maybe we'll have better luck at the next one."
The room looks perfectly identical to the last, save that the wardrobe isn't open.
"It might be time to drink that vial, Shield Man," Gattel says, following him back to the friendly side of the pit.
"oh yeah, I forgot about that."
Farrukh drinks the Detect Secret Doors vial.
"Wow. Really have to concentrate on this or it just flickers out."