"It's the chandelier!"
As Dirk calls out the message and Fyird tries to regain control, a crash from outside the room indicates more company as a trio of mindless zombies, wearing aprons, crashes through the door and enters the room, obviously bent on serving you as dinner.
Seeing the apron-clad zombie lumbering towards his blinded companions, Dirk spins to attack while doing his best to block the other two zombies from further entering the room!
Elven sword above his head, Dirk shouts, "Blades of Hell!"
Initiative
"Fyird and Armand! Drop to the ground!" Thantos requests as he points a fist with his familiar toward the Zombie .
Fyird, panicking, and unable to see trusts his companion, and drops to the ground.
Initiative.
Initiative:
Lash surges forward charging past Dirk to strike at the slower of the two creatures, slipping on the disgusting ichor dripping from the monsters and ruining her strike.
Dirk runs up to Zombie1 and takes a swing, his blade cleaving from shoulder to sternum and out the side, the zombie crumbling to the floor, quite dead.
Fyird flattens himself to the ground trying to get out of the way of any action that might be happening.
Zombie3 sidles forward toward Dirk and takes a swing with a rusty cleaver, the rending of metal on metal as Dirk swings his shield up to block.
Lash lunges at Zombie2 but slips and trips, actually falling past the zombie and out the door of the room, falling flat on her face just outside the door. A quick tuck and roll and Lash is coming up to her feet.
The second Zombie (Zombie2) turns and takes a swipe at Lash but the trip actually helps her as the cleaver whistles just over her head.
Mird throws his cloak over the Chandelier mostly covering it.
From within the cloak a small light winks and Selena cries out and drops prone to the ground.
Armand also drops to the ground at Thantos's call and doesn't move.
As Dirk is rending his ichor-stained sword from the halved zombie, he hears, more than sees, Lash go flying by, skidding and flailing on the slippery muck before disappearing from sight out the door.
"Lash!"
Once again, sights and sounds of the present fall way to the instinctual warrior training. The crashing sound of the chandelier behind Dirk causes only a slight bump in his focus.
Turning toward the Zombie attacking Lash, Dirk launches a powerful overhand chop!
With his outstretched arm Thantos focus on a zombie . With a crack from his fist a magic missile zooms forth toward his target.
Magic Missile Damage:
As Dirk strikes the zombie from the front Lash rises with a thrust at the creature, her back foot planted.
Attack Sneak attack
Mird's hammer strike on the chandelier causes a chain reaction of sound. First, the hammer hitting the hanging light source causes crystal and glass to shatter and break in the distinctive tinkle of broken glass. The strike hits the chandelier so hard, however, that it is knocked loose from it's bindings on the ceiling and comes crashing to the tabletop. The crash of metal on wood is followed by more broken glass and shards splintering and flying in all directions to further break and shatter against walls, chairs, and armor. This sound is quickly followed by the sounds of pewter and silver plates, knives, forks, spoons, and goblets scattering off the tabletop and onto the floor with all the various clatters, clanks, and crashes that would accompany half a set table crashing to a stone floor. The cacophony of all this had to have been heard all the way up and down the hallway. All that is left is a twisted metal frame and several thousand glass and crystal shards scattered literally throughout the room, along with at least six full place-settings laying in some kind of disarray scattered all along the back half of the room.
Your momentary surprise is quickly overcome as each of you go back on the attack.
Dirk's overhand swing again takes the nearest of the two remaining zombies and almost cuts it in half as well, the remaining part simply falling limply to the ground oozing some colorless ichor from what was left of it's rotting body.
Lash's thrust sends her blade straight through the zombie's chest ahead of her, while Thantos's magic missile takes the zombie in the face, dropping it to the floor as well.
As the last zombie falls to the ground and the last sounds of the shattered and completely destroyed chandelier fade away in echos down the hall ways outside, each of you takes stock and stops to listen to the sounds around you, determining if anything else is coming your way or not.
Several moments pass as the prior silence of the laboratory descends upon you as if nothing happened. The chandelier was obviously the cause of the blindness as the strange attacks have now stopped.
Fyird stands shaking his head to clear out any slivers of glass "Boy! I wouldn't want that to happen again". "It's amazing how we take our senses for granted".
Fyird will then step to the zombies, and try to determine anything unusual about them or their possessions.
Stepping back from the gory mess, Dirk turns to scan the scene behind him. Noting that everyone seems unscathed and that no other attacks seem pressing, his intensity subsides with a grin.
Noting Mird covered in glass and still wielding his hammer, Dirk says,
"Mird gets credit for slaying the chandelier."
Walking over to Armand he sees his friend look up and follow his approach - indicating his vision has returned. Sighing with relief, Dirk says, "Paralyzed then blinded... you always were starved for attention." Clapping his friend on the shoulder, Dirk will move back towards the door and take up guard once again as his friends continue their search.
As he passes the ichor covered Lash, Dirk smiles and whispers, "Nice footwork."
Each zombie is carrying what looks like a well used (and shiny) butchers cleaver and is wearing a (now ragged) apron and very think leather gloves (assumeably to keep at least SOME hygiene).
You shudder to think about it but the evidence seems clear to lead you to believe that these zombies were cooks for Kavorquian. The whole concept of rotting mindless zombies cooking food for Kavorquian's guests which would then be served in this very room makes you all just slightly Ill.
At least half of the place settings are either bent or somewhat broken and lay scattered around the floor. What's left (4 settings), while tarnished and a bit under utilized could be polished up and sold for somewhere around 25 gold each (100g total, but they weigh in at 12 lbs encumberance, 3 lbs / place setting...they are made of pewter, copper and other heavy metals, are significant in size, and each place setting has MANY pieces to it).
Not much else of value is in the room that is immediately visible.
Lash gives Dirk a good natured dirty look as she mutters, "Oh shut up."
You're relatively certain your search was thorough and turned up no secret doors, niches or areas.
Experience Award: Conversation with Kaerin and Dungeon Till now.
Noticing that the search seems to be wrapping up, Dirk says, "Shall we move on? Our host is on a bit of a schedule."
Looking over at Thantos, Dirk asks, "Where to?".
"There is a door connecting this room to the next. I suggest we go through it. Any objections?"
The door in the north wall is hinged to swing both inward and outward, allowing obvious ease of access to the largish room beyond the dining room.
As you enter the room you see many wooden work tables, some covered with dried blood, others rotting food and finally others utensils, knives, cleavers, and all sorts of cooking implements. Copper Utensils, Pots, and bowls are strewn all over the room including hanging from overhead racks Some of the cooking implements are clean, others covered in grime, mold and other unsanitary stuff.
A stove sits against one wall and is still producing heat: another of the ever-burning fires like the one in the lounge lit inside it, allowing the stove to be used for cooking (even still). The room is MUCH warmer than the rest of the complex.
Surprisingly, for a kitchen that looks in a bit of disrepair, it is not COMPLETELY unsanitary: particularly considering the obvious evidence of the zombies you just destroyed having been the cooks for the complex. Most of the surfaces seem clean, and those unused recently are fairly spotless. The mold and grime all seem "fresh" to your inspection and could easily have come from a few days to a couple weeks of Kavorquian's absence. All indications are that, while Kavorquian was in control down here, the kitchen here may not have been as "unclean" as you would think. While you are all still somewhat nauseated by the thought of undead rotting corpses cooking food for guests, you can also see where, perhaps, ingesting that food wouldn't be a fast trip to a shallow grave either.
The door leading east stands closed.
"Is it just me or does this place look nothing like a laboratory or work shop? This guy must have been living down here. Not much of an existence if you ask me."
"I have heard stories of such wizards", Fyird states. "They get so involved with their research they don't want to leave it...still it is unusual to have such formal arrangements". "Usually in the stories I have heard, the living conditions were much more...well...subtle". "These arrangements, look like he never left the sub levels". "Maybe there is more here than meets the eye".
Fyird walks around the room peering into various pots, and opening drawers.
perception.
Dirk enters this room like the others. Wary eyes moving to areas of possible attacks. He will position himself near the door on the east wall.
"This place is a bit disgusting!"
Thantos starts going through all the drawers and cabinets in the Kitchen.
Perception:
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"That Oven gives me the creeps, it seems something that I will have to use my little fellow against" Says Mird looking at his Earth Breaker.
"Let's do something different this time" - He says taking his Bow off his back - "While you do the search I will shoot the next, freaking aberration that will come in our way"
Mird is with and arrow in his bow ready shoot, if anything moves he wants to notice first and shoot if needed.
Perception Check:
Attack (if needed):
"Good thinking, Mird", says Thantos with a complementing tone. Thantos jokes, "Watch out for all these flying pots and pans."
While they are free which is good, all my other games in real life and in cyberspace use the final rules, which means I don't have to go back to the beta to see how things are handled. I don't know if everyone has the Pathfinder rules, but I would certainly love to convert/upgrade...In addition I can use my Hero Lab software for character creation, and running.
Dirk adjusts his armor and looks amused as Mird threatens yet another appliance.
The room search takes several minutes.
The pots and pans are all copper or iron, and are in a somewhat state of disrepair...many are dented, some are warped, and you see many scratches and burn marks. You're pretty sure even if you managed to carry all of these things out (each of the larger pots and pans weighs in at several pounds) you wouldn't get more than a few silver for the entire lot.
However, as Fyird is searching around the back of the room he finds on a peg in the wall behind where several blood stained aprons are hanging, a ring of keys (some 20 in all).
None of the keys are marked specifically, most of the keys are pretty evenly shaped (the "tines" on the keys obviously are different but the keys themselves are mostly the same shape/size and manufacture), and there are no markings on any of them to indicate one from the other.
The most interesting feature of the room, however, is the fact that there are obviously footprints in the dust settled on the floor of the room.
The footprints in this room are clearly visible in the dust and do, in fact, seem to come into and out of the room by the east door (not the door leading into the dining room). Looking into the hallway in the east, you see some dust settled on the floor just outside the room, but there are no "tracks". You assume the air movement in the main hall of the complex is enough to scatter any conglomeration of dust on the floor making tracking someone like that hard to follow. However, it is very clear that someone has been in this room, and "recently" (though there is a scattering of fallen dust in the footprints, we're not talking "within the hour" kind of recently...somewhere maybe within the last couple days).
Dirk says, "The footprints stop right at the threshold... odd...", pausing in thought he continues, "Can any of you determine if there is an enchantment on this doorway? If not, I suggest we exit the way we entered - back through the dining room. I've about had enough of this wizard's tricks."
Finishing, Dirk looks expectantly at the magic users in the group.
"I think we just go back through the door by which we came and avoid any dangers with this one."
Close examination seems to identify two different sets of footprints: both are somewhat human sized, but there is a distinct difference between the two different sets of prints: The first have been made by what looks like a bare foot, a couple of the tracks even seem to be missing toes. The movement of these tracks indicates that the creature was moving more by dragging his or her feet than by actually "walking". The second set of footprints are obviously of a booted/shod person, somewhat smaller than your average adventuring man. These footsteps start just inside the threshold of the door in the east wall (the one leading back out into the exterior hallway) and continue into the room. From there they go all over the place, to the stove, to the tables and work areas, to some of the pots and pans, even to some of the dry goods areas. They are very hard to track, however, as they are continually criss-crossed by the other set of prints.
However, you can make out two things about the second set of prints: first, the footsteps never get close to the back corner of the room where Fyird found the aprons and the keys...this leads you to suspect that the person moving through this room was not or was unable to actively search it (as you had done). Secondly the footsteps never lead to the door into the dining room.
You also realize that the reason the footsteps probably stop at the door to the east exit is because the main hall way is not overly dust lined. It's possible the simple answer is the footsteps stop at the door because beyond it, there's nothing to make footprints in, unlike this room.
"I say we see what's in here", Fyird states standing near the unopened door. "It would be our luck that what we are seeking is in here".
Dirk looks curiously at Fyird, "This doorway can only lead to the hallway...". Noticing that Fyird is fingering a set of keys he says, "Maybe we should bring those with us..."
Swiveling his gaze over to Mird, Dirk comments with a smile, "Your victory over the chandelier has you feeling bold. But to some degree, I agree with you. Anyway, the door seems innocent enough. Let's keep moving."
Dirk will open the door (if it is not already open) and step out into the hallway.
"Thantos?", Dirk asks looking up and down hallway while awaiting a direction.
"Let's move out this door and down the hall to the left ."
As you exit the kitchen door, a darkness looms up in front of you, as the passage across the hall from you descends down a set of stairs to a "lower" level, looking down the side hall/stairwell, you see a closed door at the bottom.
Forming up and moving farther down the north/south hallway, you pass another closed door on the right and continue, carefully, down the hallway to the west. The sounds of your echoing footsteps and clanking armor increase as you enter the short west/east hallway and come to the end of it, the door leading into the small room here is cracked partially open.
A small, fresh, scrape mark in the dirt and rock of the floor shows you that the door here was, in fact, closed at one point and has "recently" been opened.
You hear nothing coming from the room beyond and a quick glance through the crack between the door and the door frame reveals nothing.
Lasciel studies the door searching for any indication of a trap.
Perception