"Maybe. Just go ahead and try whatever you think would work, then."
Lorenzo: You find no traps on the door.
Robert: You do not remember any music in Haven.
As Nareth uses Alec's offered step, he leans forward to look through the hole. His armor barely touches the door, and it slides open, revealing yet another hallway, this one heading north and turning to the east 15 feet beyond the door.
"Much simpler than I thought..."
Alec slowly gets into the hallway and peeks over whatever is to the east on that corridor.
The hallway continues to the east into a set of stairs that travels down. The faint sound of gentle pipe music can be heard coming from that direction.
Alec lifts his shoulder, as if saying whatever.
Robert put his hand on Alec's shoulder. "If we are going down now, I would simply counsel caution. Such songs have led men to their deaths before. Be careful."
"I'm just saying there's not much of a difference. Anything to add Lorenzo? Nareth?"
"It seems our only escape from this hellmaze is to die, so onwards I say."
The stairs lead down into another hall that turns south, east, and then north, leading to another staircase, this one leading back up. Shortly after the second staircase, the hall turns to the west, revealing an iron door that swings open when approached, revealing the all-too-welcome sight of Haven in the room beyond.
Haven seems the same, although the illusory man has a shepherd's pipe to his mouth - the source of the gentle music. When you enter, the pipe disappears and the illusory man smiles at you.
Nareth speaks aloud to answer the man. "Having three healers helped." He scans around the room to test if this is a trick or not; he fears it may be an elaborate trap of the giant dungeon. "So, we can rest and buy and sell items here." He turns to the others. "We need to amass what wealth we have and buy some healing magic, a wand of cure light wounds if we can manage it." Nareth looks towards the illusory man again. "How can we return to Haven after our twelve hours outside, besides by your good will?"
When they see this is Heaven, Alec looks back, wondering if isn't there more they could have done before heading back. They were in a good shape, after all, but now it was too late. He trusted his companions would try to understand the place better by asking the illusion, so he started counting the equipment to sell it and divide the spoil.
Alec begins to sell the stuff to the image, and orders a Cure Light Wounds Wand.
When Alec proffers the various bits of treasure recovered, the illusory man merely waves his hand and the objects vanish, replaced with the gold coins. Similarly, ordering the cure light wounds wand results in a hand wave, disappearing coins, and a thin metal wand appearing from nowhere.
"Hmmm, I like that magic!" The dwarf tries to understand how powerful that illusion can be, but he certainly lack the ways to do so.
"Well, we have a wand, and here is your crossbow bolts, Lorenzo. I suggest we buy another ranged weapon of sorts, or a couple of scrolls." He quickly goes through the coins in his hand and announces. "We still have 110 gold pieces remaining."
Alec takes a careful look around the room, to determine if it has suffered any changes. He specially examines the book shelves.
Otherwise he looks around, having nothing to do. It was clearly a mistake to return here so soon on this second day. "I don't feel like sleeping... Waiting 12 hours here is gonna be tougher than outside...."
Alec: You do not notice anything different from the last time you were here.
"So, should we leave now that our equipment was upgraded or would you like to wait more?"
Robert stepped forward, "There is a real possibility that we won't be coming back here for some time. We should prepare ourselves for a substanial excursion. That means everyone has a waterskin, possibly two. We should all carry a few days worth of rations. And I believe before, you had mentioned something of . . . pitons, Alec? I have but a few, 5, I believe. Perhaps we should use the remainder of our funds to outfit our little group for survival."
Finding a comfy seat, he sat down and pulled out his spellbook and his scroll of detect magic. "I would like to take a little while to copy detect magic into my book so I may better inspect our magical finds. If no one is opposed, I suggest you make yourselves comfy for a least a small while."
"As you wish." Alec moves to the illusory man to finish his transactions while Robert does whatever he must, but then he interrupts the wizard again. "Five pitons are enough, I believe. I have enough food for today and about half our next day. So let's buy what, 14 more pack of rations? Enough for today plus four days? Food is heavy."
Robert murmurs something that sounds vaguely affirmative, waving his hand dismissively as he works over his spellbook.
Nareth tends to the wounds of everybody.
Alec waits until the others want to leave.
30 minutes and 5 gold pieces later, Robert smiles and shuts his spellbook. "There we go, all done. Let me acquire a waterskin and I believe I'm ready to depart.
Robert stood before the image and produced the coins for a waterskin, hoping this trick would work again.
After Robert buys another waterskin, the group leaves Haven behind and continues exploring the dungeon. The next room is bare, but has a rather large crevice in the eastern side of the floor.
"Hmmm... I want to get close to it, but I don't think it would be good for me." Nevertheless he takes a step forward, shield raised, protecting the group if they want to do something with the chasm or just pass to the next door.
"Oh, come now, let's have a look, shall we? Perhaps there will be something of value." Robert strode forward, to the edge of the chasm. Casting light at the end of his staff, as before, he peered down in to the abyss, using his staff to illuminate the darkness.
Alec plants his feed on the ground beside Robert, but away from the chasm. He will get ready to provide some anchoring to the frail wizard, in case something drags him in.
Combat Round 1
Centipede #1 - 5/5 hp - AC 14 T 12 FF 12 CMD 11 (Immune to Trip) Fort +3 Ref +2 Will +0
Centipede #2 - 8/8 hp
As Robert peers into the crevice, he's startled by two enormous centipedes that burst out from the darkness, biting at the surprised wizard. Their attack is uncoordinated, luckily, and only one of them manages to sink it's mandibles into Robert's leg. The wound is relatively minor, but it stings badly nonetheless.
#2:
This combat worth: 400 xp
Next random encounter: 11:15 AM
Ready for the predicted danger, Alec takes a 5-foot-step southeast, draws his honed Longsword, and attacks the beast 2 with a powerful blow, severing the body from the head!
Nareth swings up his spiked chain, wrapping it around the next centipede and drawing it tight to sever the creature in half.
Well struck, gentleman.
"Thank you, Lorenzo."
Alec gets more worried with the wizard and its stiffness. "Are you ok Robert?"
[ooc]Yikes! That's a Dex of 7, now![/dice]
Robert groaned as he limped slowly away from the edge of the chasm. His veins felt like they were on fire. "Well, you can go ahead and say it, Alec. I don't think I'm going to be moving very fast for a little while."
Robert could feel his reactions slow as the poison raced through his body. He fell to the ground, gasping as he tried to catch his breath. His limbs were shaky as he tried to stand up again, and slowly, he found his feet again. He staggered back to the chasm, his breathing ragged. Sticking the lit end of his staff into the darkness, he gave the others a wry look, "Well, lets hope that wasn't all for nothing, eh?"
"I'm not gonna say it, don't worry. It was certainly worth it, as we need experience in different situations if we are to beat this challenge." He also peeks through the darkness of the hole.
The crevice looks to be quite deep. Robert's light provides some illumination, and Alec can see perfectly into the hole with no light. About 20 feet down, the walls of the crevice angle sharply to the east, and you cannot make out anything beyond that. Further examination would require climbing down into the crevice, or a way to project your sight beyond the stone.
Alec explains what he sees to the group. "I do think we have enough to worry about up here... Like that door." He points to the unopened door in the room.
Robert nodded his assent, wheezing through gritted teeth, "Agreed."