In repsonse to T'chazzar, Dom says, "Well, we went downstairs through a room over here..." He heads through the grate...
And is vexed by a blank wall. "Hmm. This was open when we came through here last." Dom raps the wall with his crowbar in an exploratory fashion, trying to figure where/how it opens.
Dom finds the grate unlocked and explores where the open secret door leading to the room with the trap door and ladder leading below is located. He is unable to find a way to open the now-closed and almost undetectable secret door. He spies some disturbances in the dust on the floor but nothing compelling. Meanwhile, T'chazzar scouts the main part of the stables. To his eye, the only prints in the area seem to belong to the roaches. The wagon hasn't been moved in years.
Unable to figure out how the wall opens, Domitius takes out his crowbar. "Well we know where we want to go. Unless anyone has a better idea, I'm gonna start pulling down this wall."
Davina walks up and takes a look at the doorway. "Let's see what I can find first before you start prying at things Dom"
"Let's see what I can find first before you start prying at things Dom"
Dom sighs. "Yeah, sure."
This is the kitchen window frame all over again, he thinks to himself.
Davina's sharp eyes find a board in the wall that, when pressed in, reveals a small compartment with a pull-ring. When she yanks that, the secret door opens.
Beyond, the storeroom for slaughterhouse, veterinary, and woodworking tools is as dusty and dingy as ever. Grimple tracks and some humanoid ones are still present in the dust, several of which are quite fresh. Some of the gear that hung from the walls has been removed and the corpse of the grimple that Lucius shot on your first visit is nowhere to be found. The trapdoor on the floor is currently closed, another change from your previous visit.
Thinking back to your first visit, you believe that coils of old rope, harnesses, and other animal restraints are what's missing from the hooks on the walls.
As he sees Davina successfully figure out how to open the secret door, Dom puts away his crowbar, and curls his face into a mock-sulk. "You don't let me have any fun."
He then walks over to the trapdoor, gives it a quick once-over to see if it's trapped, and then tries to pull it open.
Leora is glad Davina and Dom remember what the trap door was like last time they were here. But the memories are starting to come back to her when she notices some of the stuff missing in the storeroom.
"There was a bunch of rope and animal harnesses and stuff in here last time, looks like that's gone. Huh. Wonder if the people who took it are still here. It would make sense if they're fixing up the secret doors and stuff."
Leora listens at the trap door and secret door to see if she can hear anyone or anything else in the building. She also looks to see if any of the tracks in the dust go to the trap door or secret door.
Leora does some healing followed by some detective work while Dom checks the trapdoor for traps. The cleric notices that the grimple tracks are on the far side of the room, near the trapdoor; the humanoid ones seem to travel between the two points of interest; one humanoid print is small enough to belong to Jessibel, and it's pointing inward, toward the trapdoor.
Dom soon pronounces the trapdoor trap-free, and merely closed. He opens in without difficulty, revealing a ladder leading down into the basement room where your party was attacked by great rats on your previous visit.
The rat nest room is much as you left it: a bunch of chewed-open crates and boxes with various detritus scattered across the floor. The one new thing here is a set of serviceable tools laid out across a crate top...likely what was used to fix up the secret door on the main floor. A closed door to the west leads to the large chamber where you previously battled some grimple gremlins.
"Rats, roaches, awful fairies of all sorts. This place is always a good time, it would seem." Dom walks over to the door and tries it.
It had been a rather wild trip so far but they now seemed close to finding Apprentice. Kiri wandered the now, relatively, secured area looking for further evidence of habitation and found the trap door replaced. It seemed that someone had been here recently. As Domitus complained Kiri gave a breathy laugh and said, "When we find Apprentice I'm going to make sure she doesn't do anything like this again. I'd pluck her pinions but she doesn't have wings, maybe a nice shackle with a steel ball."
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Davina breaths a sigh of relief when Dom puts away the crowbar. I may blow out windows in the laboratory, but he takes out entire walls with that crowbar when all he had to do was unlock the kitchen window.
"I'll help you Kiri. She's giving me grey hairs with all her "adventures"." Davina follows the group rapier at the ready.
"You can have lots of fun beating up Firefly Man, Domitius."
The site of your previous battle with a small pack of grimple gremlins still smells of stale vomit, but all is quiet as you open the door and enter the vast, shadowy chamber. The dusty floor had been disturbed and there’s a mostly-dry line of grimple vomit along the floor to the southwest.
Dom grimaces at the smell in the room, the smile he'd previously had at the thought of the Firefly Man vanishing.
T'chazzar, sword at the ready, follows Dom into the room. "Hmm. More gremlins," he says when he spots the bile. "Not a surprise, given how infested this town seems to be with all kinds of vermin."
Leora remains quiet as she follows her companions into the dark room. She stays just behind Dom, scanning the room and ready for trouble.
Davina moves up next to Leora, and looks around carefully. "It seems odd. We weren't here that long ago."
As they entered the room where those gremlins once resided Kiri began to look around carefully. She didn't like returning here, especially since it was underground, and was ready to leave right now if she could. Unfortunately she was honor bound to find her Apprentice and meet out appropriate discipline for the trouble she had caused.
As you enter the room, you're aware that you've got company: Three grimples stick their heads out of holes in the walls a bit prematurely, and one even yips, "Gaa--oops!"
From your positions, you can spy a bigger grimple about twice the size of its normal companions lurking in the passage across the room to the west.
"Spread out! They'll try and puke on us!" Leora says, since she's not sure how much everyone remembers - or T'chazzar knows - about the nasty grimple gremlins.
Realizing that Kiri probably has a better shot at attacking one of these nasty things, Leora offers a quick prayer to Cayden Cailean to help Kiri, then follows her own advice and steps away from her companions. "Drunken Hero, bless Kiri so that she may squash these things, and protect her from their gross-ness!"
Seeing the giant grimple, Dom rushes it and does his best to take it apart before it can cause any trouble.
Seeing one of the grimples pop up near him, T'chazzar gives it a healthy smack with his backsword.
...or not.
Dom charges the possum-like gremlin, whose beady black eyes are leaking some demon's bile. Those eyes go wide as Dom swiftly beheads the thing. T'chazzar tries to stab one of the smaller (but equally demon-bile-infested) creatures, but the little creep dodges and grins creepily.
With one of the creatures within easy striking distance Kiri gathered a swirl of wind and sent it slamming into the gremlin that T'chazzar was fighting with. Unfortunately her haste and need to avoid T'chazzar caused her blast to miss horribly and plow into the ground at the grimple's feet.
Davina moves up to the gremlin by T'zchazzar, and stabs with her cold iron rapier. "Those things are like rats. They keep coming back."
Dom cuts down the overgrown grimple before it can cause any mischief; likewise, Davina manages to run one of the little runts through quickly as well. Unfortunately, that does not account for two of the little pests. They fly out of the holes in the walls and unleash the mighty streams of the projectile vomit Leora warned about. The northernmost one targets Davina, T'chazzar, and Kiri (who've lined up rather nicely for it) while the south one picks on Leora.
Davina dodges the incoming spew, but it smacks hard into T'chazzar and Kiri. Leora, too, is covered in vomit from a direct hit. The little buggers chortle with joy.
The vomit causes you to become nauseated for the following duration in rounds: T'chazzar (2), Leora (3), Kiri (4). KIRI: Remember your +1 bonus from Leora's spell.
After dismembering the big'un, Dom turns, just in time to see his friends spewed on by the grimples. Could be worse; coulda been me, he thinks to himself, as he tries to run down the one that went after Leora. He got some range on that. I bet that's like, the second-farthest distance from which Leora's been thrown up on.
Dom moves with purpose toward the southern grimple...until he suddenly stops moving and just kinda dangles between pillars, looking a bit confused and pissed off. His subsequent struggles reveal strings of nigh-invisible spider webbing strung between the southern pillar...some of which now glisten with drops of grimple vomit.
"Shto yebat!?" Dom yells angrily as he's abruptly stopped by... spider webs? Oh, come on!!! He wrenches himself free with no small amount of effort, looking around (and up) to try and get eyes on whatever spun this web.
...and just as quickly as he's trapped, Dom powers free. No sign (yet) of the arachnid that spun the web.
"We already did spiders," Dom growls. "Maybe the Firefly Man could cook up something in a nice, horse-sized scorpion...?"
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"It'll take more than that to gross me out!" Leora says, ignoring the puke from the fairies. She doesn't ignore the other fluid leaking out from the living and dead demons- black demon bile. Taking a few steps towards the unholy altar, she raises her flask and dumps some of its contents on the ground. "By whiskey be purged!"
"I really hate those things. Now spiders? I'm going to let you and your crowbar lose on Firefly Man for sure Dom. This is ridiculous. We've already done this. Let's hope the demons aren't back. I don't think I can take it."
Davina steps up and stabs at the gripli in front of her.
T'chazzar spits and coughs and wipes his face.
Leora's positive energy removes the outward taint of the bile-oozing grimples, ensuring that once they're dead no passing vermin will feast on the stuff and become a new tainted giant. T'chazzar seems to be in some distress from the stinky goop he got blasted with. Kiri's protective winds aren't strong enough to protect her from the vomit stream, and she takes a direct hit as well .
Kiri felt the vomit splash allover her, the winds that surrounded her serving only to spread it out over more of her body, and wretched at the disgustingness of it all. Not willing to stand there and let it happen again, and being unable to attack the little puke, Kiri instead slipped back out the door to get a wall between herself and the gremlins so that she could retch in peace.
Davina managed a decent stab in the gut on the grimple who'd previously thrown up his breakfast on T'chazzar and Kiri. The thing starts to give a yelp of pain before puking its lunch in a forceful stream at the aasimar and drow! This time, both avoid the nasty stuff. The other remaining gremlin flutters over to the barred gate to the southeast and seems to be contemplating whether or not it can squeeze its prodigious belly through the bars.
T'chazzar continues to spit and wipe at his face.
"Nothing to lose your lunch over, little ones. Just your heads." Dom hustles to try and seal off the escape of the grimple at the gate.
Seeing that Dom probably has that grimple taken care of, Leora rushes the closer gremlin to attack it with her rapier, saying "You're gonna lose alright!"
Wanting a clear shot at something Kiri moved to see the un-engaged grimple and gave it a vicious smile as she sent a burst of wind at it.
Unfortunately it looked like, yet again, fate was against her and that her attack would miss.
Aggravated at her total inability to actually hit anything Kiri tried attacking the thrice cursed rat again. This time she felt far more confident as the blast seemed to be sailing in right at her chosen victim.
Davina stabs at the grippli in front of her again.
Davina and Leora give their grimple a lesson in fencing, each running the creature through before it can puke any more or conjure any other mischief. Dom charges the remaining gremlin and lops its head off a mere moment before Kiri's air blast strikes, lifting the headless corpse and wedging it between two bars of the great iron gate that leads below.
Near where Dom and Kiri killed the last grimple, the giant spider web seems to have been torn away. The dust on the floor shows signs of a great disturbance or struggle. A quick check reveals the grate's not locked.
T'chazzar recovers from the nasty grimple puke and appears to be his old self again.
Closer to the grate, a few individual footprints can be seen. Some smaller ones (Jessibel's?) face toward the grate and the stairs beyond; a larger set both comes and goes.
Domitius perks up as he examines the tracks on the ground. "The smaller prints match a woman about Jess' size. The bigger one, he's clearly burdended from carrying large containers of fireflies..."
When he sees T'chazzar, he makes a brushing motion against the right side of his chin. "You've got something on your... no, the other side. No, the other side; I'm not a mirror!"