Broderick fiddles with his analyzer, hoping to catch those Cavian saboteurs with his vision. "You say there should be no one else down here Abram?" He whispers to the skittish Archivist.
"No," he whispers back. "There's no way down here but the stairs we just descended."
Amon tries to open his senses to any disturbances.
perception long shot
"It is as expected." Kon-Tao says calmly. "There is a terrible draft down here. Moisture can easily creep in and foster the growth of black mold."
With nothing else to guide him, Master Parisos steps forward into the stacks, lantern held high to see what may be seen.
The group files down between the stacks, with Master Parisos reaching an intersection about 20 feet away. Looking left and right, he sees more rows of shelves leading off in both directions. Small lamps are affixed to the ends of every other shelf down the row.
Kon-Tao discerns that the draft seems to be coming from somewhere ahead to the left. With the lamps on the shelves unlit, your single light source flickers and casts strange shadows among the stacks, leaving deep pools of shadow down the rows that could hold anything.
"Well, which way is the draft coming from? Odd that there is a draft with no circulation and only one way out...." As Broderick readies his crossbow to his arm.
When Kon-Tao points out the draft and it's probable origin, Master Parisos makes his way ahead and to the left.
Heading left, Master Parisos leads the party along the high shelves to an area on the far left wall where pigeonholes line the walls, with scroll tubes occupying the niches. Several of them lie scattered about the floor, open with paper scattered about. A sudden clatter and crash sound to the right, just outside of the range of the light. Master Parisos whirls, but sees no sign of whatever made the noise.
Master Parisos whirls and looks for what made the crash.
Then he uses Prestidigitation to start lighting the lamps on the shelves around him as he moves towards the noise.
As he moves forward, lighting the oil lamps as he goes, Master Parisos leads the party along in a growing amount of light. Ahead, a section of shelving seems to have fallen from the wall, leaving scattered scroll tubes and loose papers on the floor. The loose leaves shift gently in a current of air. Beyond the clutter, the group find a hole in the wall.
The hole is about three and a half feet high and irregular. However, it has an odd look about it. There is no debris to indicate either tunneling or a natural collapse. The edges of the hole are smooth, as if worn down by water or melted in some way.
Parisos glances around looking for debris which isn't there. He leaned down to inspect the hole itself.
The hole seems to have formed due to exposure to some sort of corrosive substance. There are also tiny tracks on the floor here, more visible on the papers that litter the entrance near the hole.
"Hm. Some kind of ... acid perhaps? Oh look, there are tiny little tracks here."
He looks around at his companions.
"Say, can anyone here track? This would seem to be right up your alley if so."
The hole, as previously mentioned, is about three and a half feet high. It appears to open up into a natural cavern or tunnel. Squeezing inside shouldn't be a problem.
Abram frets and fusses over the mess, but holds back tidying things up until the party is done with their investigation.
Parisos cautiously poked his head through the hole to look around.
"A hole sized for a giant rat... or a ratman, curious what sort of saboteur we may have found!" States Broderick as he puts his back to a wall, crossbow pointed towards the archives while he looks for the source of the noise.
Master Parisos notes that the hole in the wall seems to open into a natural cavern area. It is littered with shredded paper, but he doesn't note much else from there.
"Hmmm sloppy construction" Kon-Tao muses.
Parisos frowns at the shredded paper. He picks up a few scraps for testing later.
"I truly hope our documents aren't in shreds underfoot."
He peers into the hole.
"I wonder what this leads to..."
He crouches down and enters.
Abram fusses over the destroyed documents. "Oh dear. Looks like some kind of vermin. We'll have to get some cats in here once this hole is dealt with. Ohhh, these are beyond saving..."
Master Parisos navigates his way into the passage beyond the hole, finding a cool, damp, natural cave, about 12 feet wide, that extends away and to the left, bending out of sight some 20 feet ahead. A cool draft of air moves through the passage, fluttering a few scraps of paper on the cave floor.
Parisos brings the lantern close to the wall and examines the natural cave closely.
"Hm. I wonder how old this is..." He muttered.
Once a couple more of his team crawls in, he will proceed down the tunnel.
Parisos traced his finger up and down the wall.
"Hm. Old. And water carved over time."
He looks down at the floor and taps on it with his foot, then rubs his fingers together.
"Seems dry enough here, but there's dampness on the wall. There must be a water source down here somewhere."
He motions to the others.
"Come along gentlemen! I know it's not strictly to our orders, but we should find out where this goes at least..."
Abram shuffles his feet.
"If it's all the same to you gentlemen, I'll stay here in the archive and await your return. Should you need assistance, shout, and I'll summon the guards upstairs."
Kon-Tao looks about shaking his head at the dampness keeping on hsi one track road as he unfolds a large metallic spear from a sheathe on his back. With a click it springs out both ways with a menacing electric hum. "Such dampness combined with wood pulp all but guarantees the presence of toxic black mold. I will have to have words with the maintenance men."
Double-checking his loaded crossbow, Broderick ducks down into the rat-man-hole. "When you say toxic mold... you mean the bad kind?" He asks, hesitant to touch any of the walls, "Then again... is there a good kind of mold?"
The group makes its way down the passage and around the bend, here the cavern splits, the path to their right descending a shallow slope into darkness, while the other ends in a cul de sac about twenty feet away, where you see a large mass of shredded paper crammed into a hole in the wall, about three and a half feet wide and two feet high, just above head level on Kon-Tao.
Parisos approached the cul de sac, curious.
There's a definite odor that suggests an animal.
As Master Parisos approaches the end of the cul de sac there's a sudden rustling in the paper and a furry form, the size of a small dog, leaps out of mass, hurtling towards the Prymidian. The thing has a distended jaw filled with needle-like teeth, which tear through Parisos' robe but are turned by his mail.
As the party prepares to move to his aid, a second rat-like head pokes out of the nest, giving a warning squeal.
Initiative Order:
Creatures
Master Parisos
Timbre
Kon-Tao
Broderick
Amon
The creature snaps at Master Parisos again, but he quickly sidesteps. However, as he is distracted, the other one leaps out of the nest and nips a gash in his forearm.
Round 1____________
"Rats! Defend yourselves!" Called out Master Parisos as he spun his staff into action.
for a possible crush damage.
"Simple vermin." Kontao says stepping forward and stabbing into the rats with his buzzing spear. "The Impaletron 10,000 is a self guided mechanism. It will make short work of these."
Swift: Expend one charge to grant Weapon Focus to Kon-Tao
Attack
Damage
Nodding to himself at the appearance of giant rodents I knew I was onto something!
Taking a moment to respond to Kon-Tao, "I don't believe simple vermin grow this large, more credence to the Cavian Conspiracy!" before loosing a bolt at the rat who bit the prymidian!
Master Parisos snaps his staff at one of the creatures, but it darts aside.
Timbre stands by, awaiting to see if her allies need aid.
Kon-Tao steps forward and impales one of the beasts on the end of his spear. It writhes, unrodent-like teeth gnashing at the weapon, and then falls limp.
Broderick raises his crossbow and fires, catching the rat in the midsection. The force of the hit drives the creature away from the party, sliding it up against the cul de sac wall beneath the nest.
Amon likewise waits.
End round 1.
Round 2___________
for a possible bludgeoning damage.
Spying an opening, Timbre finally decides to act. .
The P'tan steps up next to Master Parisos, taking advantage of the distance provided by Broderick's telling shot. Invoking the powers of the Kaga, she magically inscribes an invisible rune in the five feet of space between her comrade and his assailant. Baring teeth, her demeanor grim, she holds a clawed hand to stay the Prymidian's blow. "Wait for the beast to charge..."
Timbre quickly scrawls a rune on the ground in front of Master Parisos. As the thing regains its footing and runs forward to the attack again, it passes over the rune and is encompassed in a blast of flame, falling with a final squeal.
Stepping forward (yet still hesitant to touch any of the walls), Broderick queries "Do you think two giant rats could do all this damage? The papers sure, but what explains the hole in the wall??" As moves forward to further inspect the papers.
While the creatures physically resemble rats, the mouths full of long, needle-like teeth are definitely not those of rodents. Neither are their small, multifaceted eyes.
The paper used to make the nest appears to be a lost cause, shredded nearly to illegibility. However, the creatures appear to have hoarded some of the fittings from the books out of which they tore some of the paper. Most are brass, but there are also corners and fittings fashioned of silver and gold. There is also a pile of pink, fist-sized infants within the nest, six in all.
Parisos winced at the presence of the verminous infants. Despite the crime visited upon the records room (as close as it was to being a true Library), the Prymidian hated the thought of what would likely happen to them. Fortunately for his conscious, it would not be his decision.
"Yes, I do." He replied to Broderick shortly.
He turned and made his way past the others to the other passageway, and descended into darkness, trailing a cloud of fragrant pipe smoke.
While sorely tempted to crush the rodents underfoot, Broderick helps himself to the gold and silver fittings. No sense letting good money go to waste!
After stuffing the twice ill gotten gains into his pockets he takes one last look through the nesting material hoping to find a title that matches the list.
Before hurrying after the prymidian, whispering "Anyone have something we could stuff those rodents in? In case we need evidence of course!" as he reloads his light crossbow.
All told there's about 250 gp worth of precious metals here. Nothing amongst the nesting material appears to be what you were sent to acquire, thankfully.
Out of habit Kon-Tao stuffs the excellent electriity conducting precious metals in his bag.