Tom nods.
"Sure thing ma'am. Next room I am waiting for you lot to draw attention."
He heads over to Raven and helps.
Eyes still blurry and head still pounding Tom doesn't see anything dangerous and heads back into the group.
The door seems untapped and opens easily. Dirty salt and sawdust coat the floor of this gloomy hall. Bits of the wall masonry have been crewed or clawed away revealing narrow, winding animal tunnels beyond. Steel rails are mounted in the ceiling, with a few lonely iron hooks dangling from them. A pile of stained pillows and moth-eaten blankets lies in a ten-foot-square depression in the floor to the northwest.
Once inside the room, a rusty, half-destroyed iron grating blocks access to a flight of stairs leading down to the northeast. A group of tiny gremlins poke their heads up and screech at the intruders in their home.
Round 1 Order: Melina, Tom, Xeno, Gideon, Johan, Grimples, Raven
Grimples are filthy urban scavengers that lurk beneath the eaves of abandoned buildings, clock towers, belfries, and steeples. Sickly-looking and ragged, they shed constantly as a result of the small parasites they host. Quick climbers, grimples also have loose flaps of skin that stretch between their arms and allow them to glide short distances.
Grimples despise humans and show it by attacking drunks, unlocking stables, torturing guard dogs, and loosening hanging storefront signs so that they fall on people. This does not stop them from sometimes allying with humans and other humanoids, but such collaborations are always temporary, as a grimple is ever plotting betrayal. Although a grimple is often arrogant and overbearing, its ability to vomit at will (and propensity for doing so constantly) remains its most unappealing quality.
Voracious omnivores, grimples feast off garbage. They frequently target inns, restaurants, and other places where they can scavenge a steady supply of food.
"Seems like our presence is unwanted!" Gideon answers, pulling his crossbow off of his belt and loading a bolt into the weapon, prepared to fire it as soon as he gets a clear bead on one of the creatures.
Not taking any chances Tom waits until at least two of his allies are engaged in combat before entering the room.
"I certainly don't know anything about these creatures. Has anyone else ever seen them?" Johan also readies an attack with his rapier.
"Grimples! Scavengers; eat trash, hate humans!"
"What ugly vermin is this?" Before getting an answer Melia moves forward. These creatures were undoubtedly nasty.
She moved towards them, blade drawn, and attempted to skewer one.
Melina moves in first, cutting a grimlin down. Tom remains in his position of safety as the others move forward. Xeno, GIdeon, and Johan ready their weapons.
Seeing one of their own fall, one of the gremlins spews a line of vomit at Melina, as the others charge in trying to bite at her. Melina easily dodges the vomit, but it does prove distracting enough for a few bites to get her. Luckily the creatures tiny mouths and soft teeth prove less than fatal.
Raven tosses the torch in, which seems to startle all 5 of the creatures.
Turn Order: Melina, Tom, Xeno, Gideon, Johan, Grimples, Raven
Rolled safe for all.
5 grimples remain.
With Melina and Xeno distracting the creatures, Tom steps in to help.
Johan steps up and attacks with his rapier
"Vile mongrels." Without much further ado Melia moved on to the next grimple. These critters were a blight and needed to be removed.
Melina easily cuts down another grimlin, and Tom dives into the fray cutting down one of his own. Xeno charges in and takes down yet another. Gideon looses a crossbow bolt and pierces the gremlin that spewed the vomit at Melina, it lets out a whelp but does not fall. Raven looses an arrow of her own into the last one attacking Melina and drops it. The injured Gremlin clearly realizes his fate seeing all the others in his pack killed with ease and lets out a wail as it takes off fleeing his now burning home. He scampers into one of the tiny holes in the wall, the tiny creature easily able to squeeze through and vanishes into the darkness.
Combat Over
Gideon pokes at the bodies of the gremlins, frowning at them. "Ugly little things..." he muses, before looking through the area with Raven to try and find anything useful in the junk.
Tom wipes his blade on a nearby rag, and stashes it somewhere he can easily access. He pokes the wee beasty with his toe, to make sure it's not likely to get up.
Then he looks for anything worth keeping.
Johan also searches around the room (if it's not too crowded).
There are a number of blankets in the depression that you quickly use to snuff out the spreading flames. Searching through their little nest, you find the grimlins little horde. 12 golden crowns, 185 silver shillings, 342 copper pences, a pair of quartz earrings, and a set of nine silver coat buttons that seem valuable.
The rest of the room is mostly empty. On the eastern side of the room is a rusty, half-destroyed iron grating that blocks access to a flight of stairs leading down to the northeast. There is a rusty lock that holds it secure.
Melia stands there rubbing the sore spots where the things bit her. "Nasty creatures. Luckily there weren't too many of them."
She joins Xeno, trying to stamp out the flames with her boot. She tries to disperse bits of the nest on the stone floor, limiting the amount of fuel available to the flames.
The gate is currently locked and shut.
"The key does seem the safest thing to try next."
Tom looks up from stuffing his pockets with coins.
"I should what now?"
His face obviously guilty.
He looks around at the others.
"Right, the key."
He heads over to the lock and attempts to unlock the door with his key.
Listening at the door in case there is anything on the other side, and inspecting for any traps.
The lock is so rusted over the key struggles to fit in it. After a few hard thrusts the rust is chipped away enough for the key to slide in and turn, unlocking the gate.
After proceeding down the stairs and around the corner is a large open chamber. A fifty-foot-diameter pool of rancid, brown slurry fills most of this circular chamber. Chunks of plaster have fallen away, leaving ragged patches behind in the walls and ceiling and mounds of rubble on the floor. What wall space remains is decorated in crude drawings and symbols of sinister form. Greasy-looking chains run between four stout pillars rising from the muck and anchor to various points on the wall.
The pool is 50 foot wide and round. The chamber itself is about 70 feet square. Your torch barely stretching to the far end. There are rubble covered walkways around the pool.
Tom sticks to the edges of the chamber, sneaking from cover to cover to scout out the far end of the room.
"I'm definitely with you on that one. Whatever this mess is, I definitely don't want to go swimming in it. Even so...we need to find out what's on the other side. But I'm not going near that without doing a bit of scouting first." Gideon answers. Looking around his immediate area, he tries to find a chunk of stone or rubble that has some good weight to it, but will still be throwable.
Giving himself a few steps lead, he heaves the piece of rubble out toward the pool, trying to get as close to the center of the room as he can.
"What exactly did you say this place was?"
Rexas ponders the question for a moment before replying. "I have read in one an old Kintargo history book. Some years ago, the city was having issues with flooding so they raised the whole city several feet. Some of the older buildings in town have basements that were the streets and buildings of old Kintargo. It could be that this used to be a public fountain or something that was poorly capped at that time."
Raven and Tom both make their way around opposite sides of the room and eventually find two doorways about 50' apart. Peering inside, the rogues see the rooms beyond were once separate but the walls and doors between have fallen apart so much that you can easily see and cross into the other. These rooms have fallen mostly into disrepair. Chunks of plaster hang from the walls, exposing rough stonework beyond. Scattered furnishings that once outfitted bunkrooms, a kitchen, and even an armory lie scattered about in states of complete disrepair, and doors hang from hinges in the crumbling archways that lie between the chambers.
Johan moves around the pool to Raven's door...
Gideon's rock makes a loud kluhthunk as it hits the water, just as you'd expect it to. Raven peers in and does not seem to notice anything new in the room beyond.
Satisfied that there is nothing sinister waiting for them beneath the surface of the brown liquid that Gideon is reluctant to think of as "water", he advances after the others, catching up to the group in a few moments.
Melia guarded the rear as the others moved down and checked the waters. Who knew how many of those vermin they fought earlier were hidden in the walls.
As the others moved on she moved after them, blade drawn.