A desk sits to the south, covered in alchemical equipment and supplies. A cot with an extra padded mattress rests against the far wall, a small chest at its foot.
Brin quickly realizes there’s enough alchemical gear to constitute an entire alchemist’s lab (40 lbs of equipment and materials). A logbook sits on the table among the pieces of laboratory equipment. The logbook lists the members of the guild through the use of nicknames, detailing criminal specialties and assignments. It is unhelpful for disclosing the true names of the guild members, but does indicate how organized they were.
The small chest is locked, but Myth makes quick work of the simple lock. Inside is an unusual construct called a clockwork spy. It is a mechanical construct that obeys anyone who winds it up—or at least it would, had it not been broken during the attack on the ship that captured both the device and the brothers. The bottom of the chest is littered with tools, that could be used to repair the clockwork spy, but the brothers tell you it would take hours to render it functional—something that’d be best to do in a much safer locale. But they do reveal the secret compartment on the bottom of the device, where the key to wind it is located.
where to next?
A padded cot sits to the south, with a platter of chicken bones picked clean sitting on the floor next to it. To the north is a large, empty crate. The stale scent of body odor permeates the air. Myth and Wisp cry out a warning as a female skulk seems to materialize out of nowhere right inside the doorway and she lashes out takes a pathetic swipe at Mythryndyr.
Myth and Wisp manage to injure the Skulk, but she remains on her feet, so Patros-bot steps up, studies the skulk and attacks. He resists the urge to smile smugly at his compatriots as the skulk crumples to the ground.
On the skulk you find a short sword, dagger, and a key that Myth readily volunteers appears to fit the locks of the cells, having spent a fair amount of quality time studying those particular keyholes. There's little else of interest in the skulk's depressing, dingy quarters.
You move to the door inside the skulk's room, which is unlocked. Inside This room is bare except for several tall stacks of crates and boxes. Many of them are labeled to addresses and ports of call other than Ilsurian. . Several of you notice on top of a stack of crates, a lockbox bearing the symbol of Erastil...likely the donations box that had been reported stolen by the acolytes of Erastil.
Inside this storage room, there is also a steel door that appears to have a high quality lock on it. The key on the skulk does NOT open it. Mythryndyr begins to tinker with the lock, but finds it frustratingly complex. He settles in, pulls out his masterwork tools, and after a few minutes , he's able to open the steel door to the guild's vault. Inside you find a large chest containing 1,600 cp, 640 sp, 300 gp, and 40 pp. There is also a small pouch with four uncut peridot gemstones. There is also an ornate silver chalice bearing Erastil's seal, as well as a key and a haversack that radiate magic.
You figure with the chalice, lockbox and freed prisoners, you certainly have enough evidence bring down the guild, but there still remains a couple of unopened doors, and no evidence of how the first few murders were commited.
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Taking his wayfinder out, Brin passes it over the key and the haversack, noticing a glimmer of magic coming from the two items.
Unable to discern what specific magic function the key serves, he moves on to the haversack and is happily surprised by what he sees.
"From what I can tell, this haversack is a very handy thing indeed. Through magic it is able to carry much more than it's outside dimensions would suggest, and at no further encumbrance to the person carrying it." he says, his smile beaming.
As his face turns more serious, "Suffice to say, we have the evidence we sought to validate our theories about a thieves' guild, and now we only need to root out what remains of this band of hooligans." he turns to the door directly behind him, and listens for any sound on the other side...
"Oh, I apologize for being in your way Myth. Have at it." and he steps aside for the adept half-elf.
There is nothing inside the haversack, though Leppin is delighted to discover that if he puts in several items, when he thinks of a particular item and sticks his hand inside, that's the item that immediately comes to hand.
Inside the large chamber, you see stuffed training dummies lining the south wall, crude faces drawn on their heads. Along the east wall are pegs mounted at eye level, some of which have a change of clothing hung on them and nicknames scrawled on the wall above--nicknames that correspond to the logbook. Three doors lead east, west, and north. A rope ladder hangs from the ceiling by the west door and goes up through a five-foot-wide shaft to the floor above...even the non-dwarves can easily suss out that the rope ladder must go up to the trapdoor you discovered in the storage closet.
The room to the north has a long wooden table sitting in the center of the room, surrounded by chairs. Covering the surface are several maps and diagrams. A hand-drawn, poster-sized map of Ilsurian is nailed to the north wall. The wall map is of Ilsurian proper, with many of the prominent homes and business marked. The diagrams on the table paint a grimmer portrait of the guild’s activities: sketches of Archivin Walder’s path home from the circus, notes on who should work the pickpocketing distraction at the carnival, and ideas on where to string up the body of Filton Legg. Lastly, there is a list of names:
Leppin: fire-haired gnome who's very observant
Wisp: strange wayang of delicate constitution. Rig sheep's blood trap?
Brinshandyr: human alchemist. Be sure to take all his gear to Robella
Myth: dangerous half-elf archer. Approach with caution, but close quickly
Patros: Brutish human--easiest to frame?
Patros' name has a red star in front of it, and is circled.
All of this is clearly hard evidence that could exonerate the Umbra Carnival. There is one remaining door...
You see a roughly hewn underground tunnel filled with an earthy, damp smell. While the dwarven brothers lament its crude construction, they begrudgingly consent the work is sound enough, if primitive. There's a door immediately to the east, and one to the south. The passageway running north continues on as far as you can see.
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Patros' nostrils flare as he reads the list. Someone is going to pay for that...we are being set up...me in particular. Time to remedy that. Myth, open that door...I'm goibg to find out who is behind this. Gather all this info. You two...bear witness to this... he points to the two dwarves. He moves beside Myth and waits for the all clear to go in after Myth opens it.
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With one brow raised, Brin comments quietly to Myth, "A partner. That does make quite a bit of sense. Perhaps we can use that to our advantage if we meet this Robella. I am certainly not above exploiting a relationship of any kind in this situation."
Thinking further, he continues. "Based on the notes they made and the alchemical supplies we found recently, we can also assume this Robella has at least a passing affinity for alchemy, and even more likely they are an expert. We should be prepared for explosives and spread out when we can."
Turning to Patros, "The sooner you can close any distance to an alchemist, the better. Don't let them throw their bombs, and don't try to dance with them at range, unless it is extreme range."
As Myth checks the door for traps and such, and is quietly testing the door to see if it's locked, he overhears a human-sounding voice say, "Hey Lark, wake up, someone's comin'!"
Myth throws open the door and you see several cots are arranged in this room, along with a small card table and chairs. 1 human is standing up next to a cot, and another is awake but still lying on a cot. They are both armed (leather armor, throwing daggers, short sword), like they were just taking a little catnap, perhaps while they were supposed be on duty. Along the south wall there's the obvious back side of what appears to be a secret door (i.e. it'd be a concealed secret door from the other side of it)
The blue dude slumps unconscious onto his cot, while the green one shouts out in indignation, "Hey! Why'd you do that to Bob? Bob, are you okay? Bob!"
He stands and pulls out something out of a pouch and takes a 5' step, trying to keep an eye on Myth lurking in the hall.
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Leppin moves just inside the hallway door and invokes a quick glamour.
"What? We take out all of the important folk and all that's left is the lazy grunts?," he projects. "Oh, sure, now the guards show up."
The sound of several people clamoring down the shaft can be heard form inside the thieves' room.
Ol' Mythryndyr Deadeye steps back into the room, says, "Aren't you finished with him yet? Quit playing around..." He then calmly puts an arrow through the rogue's eye, dropping him like a ton of bricks. In his hand, you find a glass capsule containing something that is putrid green in color. You find a similar capsule on the blue fellow. IN total, You find:
10 throwing daggers
2 short swords
2 leather armor
2 green capsules
2 potions
along with some mundane clothing of local fashion.
Brin is able to readily identify both potions as being Darkvision potions (CL3).
He's fairly certain the capsules contain a poison gas and are meant to be thrown, but there's no way for him to identify exactly what the poison might be...short of cracking them open, something he does NOT recommend, unless he's got his full lab set up and is taking his time.
A closer look at the secret door reveals a sliding panel at about eye level that is closed and latched on your side. You listen at the door but hear nothing. You open the panel and see an empty room. Just before you turn away, one of you notices the ceiling is a bit strange, and then you recognize that it's the bottom-side of a pit trapdoor. There appears to be a mechanism that keeps it currently locked and prevents it from dropping open. The mechanism is connected so some sort of cable that disappears into the ceiling, heading north.
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Myth takes one of the capsules and one of the darkvision potions...looking at the secret room, he ponders for a moment...
"Must be a trapdoor...from the looks of the door we just came through, this must be some kind of room where Bob and his friend could observe whomever 'dropped' in...
"It's locked from above...so this is a dead end...we can either head further north through the tunnel our south through the door..."
He ponders again for a moment...
"I suspect the door is an exit...we should probably examine the tunnel a bit further before leaving here...if we find nothing, we can always come back..."
If light is an issue, Myth will activate his Wayfinder...
Myth slowly continues north, eyes sharp for hidden foes, traps, or secret doors/passages...
Myth locates a secret passage to the left. When he opens it, he discovers a rope ladder leading up about 20' to a trap door.
A quick look around reveals a storage room, with shelves lined with boxes and crates, some open, some closed.
see new map
The rest of the party: you have a great view of Myth's boots, as he's 20' up a rope ladder, opening a trapdoor.
As Brin reaches the top of the ladder and enters the storage room, a harsh female voice calls out from beyond the double doors to the south.
"Who's back there?!? Come on out....slowly. I scream, and the town guard will be here in seconds!"
After the rest of the party acts, Leppin sighs, the unopened door making his scalp itch with curiosity. Then he shrugs and heads up the rope ladder covering about half the distance to the doorhatch.