"I didn't, but I could prepare it now if you want to wait a bit. What did you find?"
It is true we are likely to not find ogres in this hole. It is also true that we are expendable pawns to the dwarves. Sent out to soften up their enemies before they shed their own blood. Taking some time here and there to investigate the land around us may have incalculable advantages in the future.
Shaeyl waits for Grub at the bottom, I believe this capstone is right up your alley. Your assistance is much appreciated.
Grubgullet sucks in his gut and tries to descend the ladder. He barely fits through the trapdoor hole and the first rung snaps under his foot as he puts his weight on it. Luckily he more or less fills the entirety of the hole and doesn't really fall. Instead the group ties the rope to a tree outside and Grub uses it to shimmy down into the cramped root cellar. His head barely clears the hole and its a short jump down to the earth below. Once below he is able to deal with the capstone, but how?
Grub's first inclination is to punch the crap out of it, but you aren't all sure if that is the best first choice.
Grub scratches his head for a moment, then begins trying things. First, brute strength... his specialty.
If that doesn't work, he'll attempt to move it with geokinesis. Unfortunately, his grasp of the power over earth is minimal, and he quickly realizes that he's not skilled enough to do it.
Frustrated, he would reel back his fist and prepare to smash it.
Shaeyl pulled a piton from his pack and handed it to Grub. Here, try this. You might be able to pound it into the capstone.
Shaeyl will also try looping the rope around the top edge of the capstone and using the piton to tighten the rope (like a tourniquet). This might give enough leverage to at least twist the capstone and loosen any seal.
Grubgullet grabs the entire top of the sealed tube, perhaps not realizing that there is an inner seal that could be pried out somehow. He sinks his fingers into the earth and grips the entire top of it straining. You hear some ripping as his clothes tear slightly as he bends over in the confined room but he uses the small room as extra leverage propping himself and stabilizing as he tears the entire top of the hole out, seal, masonry tube and all ripping it from it the top of the hole. Pieces of masonry and debris plink off the sides and drop deep into the hole. With a grunt he drops the entire thing in the dirt to the side with a loud thump.
Shaeyl mumbles something and puts his piton away.
The group looks down into the tube descending deep into the earth.
The jagged masonry where the top of the tube was torn away provides a step down and there are some old iron rungs fastened into the masonry as well. It will be another very tight squeeze for Grubgullet, this one a much longer journey.
You all puzzle at this extravagantly sealed shaft deep into the earth in a simple shack.
The kobold squirms excitedly at the prospect of hidden passages and mysteries.
"Maybe it's some dwarf's hidden treasure, and they had to hide it under their shack! But then they got killed, and their children aren't able to decipher the clues he left!"
"Or maybe it's a king's safe house, in case assassin's come after him!"
"Oh! Oh! What if it's a -"
Aury is interrupted by whoever speaks next.
"Big hole?"
Shaeyl is all for a little exploring. This could be a bolt hole, or supply drop for future use. It could have benefits now, especially since we are rather lightly equipped for dealing with giants.
Grubgullet, as usual, will just follow the rest of the group's lead... even if it means squeezing into an uncomfortably small hole.
The tiny kobold scrambles down the ladder and looks around with her excellent night vision.
Aury drops down the ladder, the long, long ladder. The rungs continue for a while as she goes down them about twenty to thirty feet, and they keep going well beyond the range of her extensive darkvision. Someone wanted this hole deep. You wonder if it was an ancient well of some sort. It doesn't quite seem like it, but its possible. It is damp, but you don't smell water.
Shaeyl gives Aury about 20' of room before following him down. Shaeyl will stop to check out the shaft itself, anything to suggest who may have built it? He seems to recall that dwarven work is usually pretty distinctive.
Grubgullet waits until the other three have gone down first, then goes in after them... and immediately gets his massive gut stuck in the hole.
Having gotten stuck in the hole Grubgullet grunts and his feet wiggle above Sly, hanging in the air as the remains of the masonry ring around the hole hold Grub's form in place.
Sly, using his tail to prop against the opposite wall, is able to use both hands to reach up and pull hard on Grub, who sucks in his gut as much as he can.
Sly and Grubgullet struggle and eventually pulling the huge ogre through the hole. Even in the shaft it is a tight squeeze and he barely has to hold on to the rungs, merely letting himself put his feet on them and sort of leaning back against the other side and lowering himself. This lets him hold his arms over his head more to narrow himself. Very awkward to be sure and hopefully nothing attacks in this precarious situation.
Shaeyl examines the work of the shaft.
It is definitely not dwarven. Though well fabricated, nothing special has been done to the shaft other than to make it well crafted. No artistry per se has been done. Sometimes a mason will put their initials in a brick or mortar but nothing of the sort is discovered here.
Aury ponders the situation below her.
"Wait, wait, wait." Aury says to those above her. She awkwardly adjusts herself to balance on a rung, legs wrapped around the ladder so she has a free hand. "I want to see how deep it is."
Taking an arrow from her quiver, she invokes a short incantation and the arrow begins to glow with a pale blue light. Leaning over to watch, she drops it down the long shaft.
The arrow drops, point down and descends for a bit. You count and try to do the math but decide to just call it about 300' or so. You see the arrow far below at the bottom of the shaft a faint glow. You were able to see rungs the entire distance to the bottom as the arrow passed them on its way down.
Grubgullet keeps squeezing downward, grumbling all the way about how small it is.
"Woops!" Aury continues moving down the ladder as the others catch up.
"It's pretty deep!"
It might be worth hanging around... get it? and casting a spell on Grub's stomach. I told you that you shouldn't have eaten all that fish...
Shaeyl continues down after Aury.
The group descends the long shaft taking a while for Grub to make it to the bottom. Once at the bottom the shaft opens in a room about 15' square and as tall. The ladder descends to about 4' above the floor on the west side of the room. Able to finally take a deep breath, Grubgullet rubs his sore and chafed stomach. Aury retrieves her arrow and you all examine the large solid iron door set solidly in the east wall of the room. The walls are a thick solid well formed masonry. The door has a large metal handle and appears to have a locking mechanism. You hope perhaps naively so that the door is unlocked.
Such a small shaft for such a large door. It took some work to get that here.
Shaeyl starts studying the area around the door, then the door itself, before approaching.
Reaching into his pack, she digs around until he finds the small bundle of tools he had managed to acquire from the dwarves.
Head cocked to one side Shaeyl considers the lock before selecting a couple of thin picks. Let's see what's behind door number 1...
Shaeyl, the hinges are on the other side but you you tap around near where you suspect they would be and listen carefully to the sounds made and determine that although the door is metal there are pockets in the door there somehow and more likely than not they are not useful in any way to open or close it, nor likely attached to the lock, so you surmise that it is a trap. You don't see anything on the door itself that looks deadly, and fail to find anything in the room but are wary. You are pretty sure though that you can tinker with the lock safely. You try your best at it, but it is rather tricky and fail to pick it.
The lock is old, it may take some time.
Shaeyl starts again on the lock, glad that he hasn't tripped a trap.
Y'all might want to stand back, just in case. I have a feeling the door has some deterrents for unwanted visitors.
You successfully disable the lock.
Upon hearing the thunks and clicks of the locks Shaeyl was working on, Aury leans over to ask "Do we open the door then, or is that the trap?"
Grubgullet grumbles. "Don't wanna go back up the tiny hole..."
The door is metal and so is the frame it is set in, but that is attached to the stone somehow. It is not obvious from your side how it is attached since it is closed. Possibly the frame itself has long metal spikes or bars that fasten horizontally into the stone opening. This would create a pretty strong barrier. You have even heard of doors where they have bars set in the door that slide sideways into the frame giving it even more reinforcement and strength. You doubt or hope that is not the case in this one.
As Sly steps up and pushes the door open, there is a clicking sound at each of the hinges, you hear within the stonework the sounds of old gears grinding and a thunk of a counterweight, a second later a hail of bolts from hidden holes shatter their thin caps and pepper the room with death.
The hail of bolts strike with significant force, although it appears that many may have malfunctioned with age and not fired at all.
After the screaming is done, the door does swing open to reveal a long 10' wide corridor leading into the darkness.
Grub just plucks the bolt out from his flesh, barely noticing it. He notices that the others are wounded, and prepares to use his healing magic.
Shaeyl had started towards Sly but couldn't intervene before the rain of death shattered their peace.
With sadness and anger, ignoring his own grievous wound, Shaeyl lifted the arrow that had shattered the life of his familiar, Ptery (-2 HP).
With no small amount of anger, Shaeyl glared at SLy, having been told that the door was trapped, you foolishly threatened all of our lives?! Is this what Goodwin taught you? Impatience? Disregard for others?!
Shaeyl grasped the shaft stuck in his own shoulder and angrily yanked it out, throwing it at Sly's feet. A souvineer.
With his one good hand, Shaeyl tries to staunch the blood flowing from around the arrow in Ptery. I can't stop the bleeding!
Grubgullet nods, and leans in to help, careful not to crush the tiny thing.
"Yeowch! At least give us warning next time! We could have gotten on the ground or something."
Aury picks Wyrwin up and tries to fix the feathers he lost from barely dodging a bolt.
"Well if it's already open we might as well find out what we got shot over."
After some tense moments and a lot of healing on the group and their fragile familiars, the group prepares to move on down the hall. The door is open and the tunnel lies ahead. With your darkvision you can see it goes about 40' then there is a side tunnel that branches off and the main tunnel continues on for another 20' before stopping and going left.
Retcon:
After some tense moments and a lot of healing on the group and their fragile familiars, the group prepares to move on down the hall. The door is open and the tunnel lies ahead. The tunnel goes a ways and then branches into two parts. A quick jaunt down each direction reveals each direction leads to further tunnels. With the group's dark vision there are a multitude of options. (see map).
While Aury and Shaeyl are comfortable in the tunnels Grubgullet is squeezed into a narrow 5' hall. While it clearly is large enough for him to stand and hold his girth, he has no room to maneuver (squeezed rules apply) and the tunnel height of 10' is scant enough to contain his height. Even Sly feels a smidge claustrophibic.
The stone tunnels are worked right from the solid bedrock. Very little adornment or architectural artistry has gone into this new section.
It is cool and damp down here, very musty and somewhat hard to breathe as there appears to be no ventilation and what little air there is seeps down from far far above.
Grubgullet starts crawling on his hands and knees to better fit in the tiny tunnels. "Uh... which way now?"
Aury looks at the very squished ogre apologetically.
"Well, uhm. Lets check this way, it looks like theres another hallway, maybe it leads to a room that's a big bigger."