Oh, vampiric spiders?
"That's a first, to see spiders that can cast actual magic.
That was a spell to assume gaseous form, to prevent mundane weapons from harming it. Only magic or magical weapons work on it now."
cast?
Zurka shudders, "This place is full of surprises."
Katara blinked. "Well, keep an eye out for mist then." She looked around at the webs. "Are we searching this room?"
It's hard to tell, with so many webs around, but Walter and Aralu see a hole or something like that, at the center of the room.
Mary even catches a glimpse of something metallic inside the hole, something rigid and steely.
You'll have to hack or burn the webs first if you want to try that hole.
"Hey, there's something in there. Looks metallic."
Mary casts ligh on one of her bracelets, to see it better.
"Would one of you be a dear and hack these thicker webbing away, so it can be retrieved?"
Zurka raises an eyebrow at the human female. "Very well." He sheathes his bow and pulls out his bastard sword, while muttering a minor cantrip. He then proceeds to hack away at the webbing clearing a path to the hole. "OK Walter, care to have a look?"
Walter wasn't feeling safe yet, since not all the spiders were dead, so he moved slowly towards the hole after Zurka, looking inside the hole and trying to send any magic or danger.
Walter sees no traps.
What is sees is a ladder, descending maybe 20 feet under the ground.
Deeper into the Spire...
"What? What is it? What do you see? Why don't you tie some rope around you if you're going to get that close? We don't know if that last spider is coming back...or with more spiders. And unless I miss my guess we still gots some more doors to open."
"It looks like you have found the next level down. Well done." Zurka nods in approval. "We should finish exploring this level however."
Aralu nods " let's finish exploring this level first. About the spider, could anyone beside me and Zurka hurt it on mist form? Just in case there are more of them"
"Unfortunately not, my granted magics aren't the physical harm type."
There are still a few rooms to explore, even if most of the level is cleared.
Walter finds the walls suspicious, and after a few minutes, he manages to open a secret door leading to Gorloth's big throne room.
To the best of your knowledge, there is only one door you haven't unlocked yet.
"Haha! Good eyes, lad. Well done" Meurasod exclaimed as the hidden door was revealed.
"Alright, lead on. Let's be quick about it. We've still gotta find these blasted mages, and keep your eyes open for those grimey misty spiders. Zurka, Katara, you two stay near Walter. I'll bring up the rear."
Walter once more moves towards a closed door, guessing if this one would bear a trap too well-hidden for him to find.
Walter finds no traps on the door. But its seems locked, and sturdy.
Zurka moves behind the tiefling and nods in satisfaction. "This could be what we are looking for Walter. Can you open this lock?"
"I can certainly give a try..." Walter answers as he grabs his tools.
After a rather clumsy attempt where he nearly drops his tools into the floor, Walter tries again.
Walter opens the door on the second try.
A few wisps of decayed webbing hang from the walls of this room, but there’s none on the stone ceiling and no sign of spiders in the room.
The ceiling is blank save for four 1-footwide, round steel medallions, one set into each corner. The floor is equally bare except for a pedestal in the center of the floor made of a single five-foot-square block of stone, about two feethigh. On the pedestal sits a metal-framed wooden chest, and to the side of the pedestal rests a shallow hole in the floor housing
what looks like a brass door handle set into the stone.
A stone tile lying loose nearby is clearly designed to fit over the hole,
concealing the handle.
Katara would look around the room quietly inspecting the medallions and wall. While the chest interested her things like that often tended to be traps.
Katara doesn't notice anything wrong in the room
Zurka sniffs the air and mutters softly, "This smells of a trap. Hold Katara---oh well. I will see if there is anything of a magical nature here."
Walter moves towards the large chest and the strange handle on the floor, clearly intrigued. "I agree with Zurka in that this might very well be a trap, even if the handle is interesting and clearly not supposed to be exposed like that... I wonder if this handle isn't a way to disable the trap... let me look it thoroughly first..."
"or the handle triggers the trap"
Zurka detects no magic.
Walter cautiously looks at the room, inspecting it totally.
Walter inspects the trap and then smiles to the others. "Ha, take a look here, my friends... or not. The whole room is a trap... if I triggered this, the ceiling would lower suddenly, probably crushing everyone to a pulp..."
"Do you wish for me to try to disarm it so we can take a look at the chest? If not, lets move on... in the case you wish for me to try, I'd advise you to wait outside the room..."
Zurka shakes his head slowly. "I believe we should press on here. The chest is obviously just a lure for the trap. Good job."
"how do you estimate your chances of success? Unless you deem failure to be highly unlikely going with Zurk's suggestion would be the best course of action. "
"Lets move on. Ain't no mages in the chest...right?" Meurasod's statement of certainty turns into a question about half way through.
"probably not, unless the maker of this trap had an interesting sense of humour. " replies Aralu with a hint of a smirk
"Now there's an interesting concept." ^^
Walter shrugs. "Well... it is a trap, right? One can never be sure about the intent or the genius behind it. I believe it is foolish to try our luck here."
"Are there any more rooms you wish to look before we descend?"
"I believe we have explored this level completely Walter. We should press on here."