Isletta, magically empowered, is easily able to lift even the largest of the party members and flies each of them across the shaking room and into the next room over. The hallway is thin, and curves around before opening out into another hallway. Stairs descend down, and when they stop descending lies a short hallway. About 20 feet down, the hallway branches three times.
Garret and Ferrek move carefully towards the intersection, checking the hall for traps as they go.
Shadassa politely declines the flying ferry option and remains aloft on her own wings of flame. She absently mumbles the bits of Acerak's wall writing. "I don't suppose that shaking room counts as 'trembling hands'. Ah, well, bring on the next trap."
Isletta follows, flying, and helps look for traps.. Being in a new place she'll bust off another detect secret stuff on Ferrick..
"It could be 'trembling hands' because the slime makes you frailer, too..."
Ferrek peers around as they traverse the new hall, and especially takes the time to examine the intersection before walking into it. After he clears it , he turns his gaze down each corridor in turn.
Ferrek's detect spell detects the telltale signs of a secret door to the north.
There are three passages here, and each is only about 25 feet long before ending. To the east and south are regular doors, while the north passage appears to be a dead-end, although truly is not.
Ferrek's finely-tuned eyes are able to see the signs of pit traps in the hallway, and his incredibly dexterous hands are able to easily disarm them.
As he wedges, flags, and otherwise renders harmless the pit traps, Ferrek actually starts whistling quietly before he catches himself. The normally dour dwarf actually seems to be enjoying himself as he goes about his life's work.
Once they're all taken care of, he stands up, dusts off his hands, and then asks, "Well, which way next? Through the hidden door? Or is it too obviously hidden? Does the riddle have any advice?"
Garret looks to Shadassa. So far she'd been the best among them and remembering and interpreting the riddle.
"I think the trembling hands could have been the last room.. I certainly got mauled by that dam slime.. If so the next line was if you find the false you find the true.. That would indicate trying the secret door don't you think?"
"I think everything on that wall could have been a lie," snorts Shadassa.
"I agree."
"The hidden door first...we are bound to open all of them. I don't think we are at 'left and left again' yet," says Shadassa.
"Easy for me to suggest; I'm in the back healing people," she mutters.
Isletta follows and waits for the melee to go first..
As usual, Garret goes first..
"Well, the riddle is definitely leading us somewhere. Whether it's where we want to go is still an open question. There's probably one wrong direction buried in there somewhere, to throw us off after we've started to trust it."
As he approaches the hidden door, Ferrek gives it the once-over (or the twice-over, as the case may be), then gives Garret the nod to push through it.
Garret opens the door.
The secret door glides open on oiled hinges to reveal...a blank stone wall.
This some Matrix s&$% right here.
"Cute." Garret says. Carefully, he reaches out and touches it to make sure it's real.
It's definitely stone, and it's probably a wall.
Garret looks to Ferrek. "Thoughts?"
Ferrek eyes the wall as if it personally insulted his clan. It's an expression rarely applied by dwarves to stone, but clearly he thinks this not-a-door deserves it. "This does seem to be a false door, but if "the true" from the poem is near it, it should be triggered from here."
He carefully inspects the "blank" wall all over again, now that there isn't a "door" in the way.
Garret takes a few swings at the wall with his trusty axe, just to make sure it isn't a false wall or something.
After the axe swinging and dwarven tinkering Isletta will step up and peer to the otherside of the wall, using her gloves to do so..
Ferrek is able to determine, though much groping and prodding of the strange, misplaced wall, that the wall is actually another secret door. A moment later, he is forced to stagger back when Garret runs at the wall with his axe, creating several large gashes in it. Nope, definitely not a real wall.
Isletta touches the wall with her gloves, detecting a simple hallway, with a branch most of the way down the hallway turning right, ending in a staircase going up.
"There's something on the floor on the other side of this door.. Some lines/creases or something.. I would guess its a trap.."
"Very cute. Trapped secret door behind a secret door, disguised as a wall." Garret says pulling his axe free. "Might as well put up a big sign telling us we're headed the right way."
"Go ahead Ferrek."
"This is the worst place to live, ever. If I were a lich I'd have a completely different setup. A few hundred miles of coral maze, aboleth guards...or perhaps I'd just travel. He probably doesn't set foot outside of his room and plays dice by himself all day long. No freedom at all," says the merfolk oracle.
"When you build impenetrable walls, you become a prisoner of your own devices." Garret agrees with a shrug.
"Of course, insanity isn't known for making a lot of sense."
"Well now, I'm not entirely sure that's a fair assessment, Garret and Shadassa." Says Aviel with a thoughtful expression. "It may very well be that for a warrior such as yourself it would be dull and boring, and I'm not entirely sure about the nature of Shadassa's abilities but for a true practitioner... no... master of the arcane arts; boundless possibilities." He allowed a wistful moment for himself before his expression sobered a bit. "But I suppose fracturing one's soul is likely to cause insanity, so who can say but our lich."
"Me. I can say. He's crazy, dangerous and evil, and I intend to bring him the death he's cheated for so long." Garret said grimly.
"Well what are we doing about the door/wall/trap thing?"
"Ferrek is opening it. Give him a minute to work."
"I can always summon something, so as to minimize danger of getting our dear dwarf obliterated..." offers the oracle, perhaps a little late.
"Save your magic. So far Ferrek has been more than capable. Just keep back and off to the sides, just in case. I'll keep him out of hot water of he makes a mistake."
The surly dwarf strokes the stone door, almost lovingly, with his hands for a moment. Then he turns, a scowl on his face, and says, "It's uh...not locked."
Then he just pushes on a latch and pushes the wall open, revealing a stone hallway beyond.
Garret sighs and steps through the doorway.
The floor beneath him (you know, the part that Isletta pointed out with creases and lines and such) supports his weight and doesn't drop him to an untimely death.
The hallway continues for 40-50' before heading to a stairwell. Just before the beginning of the stairwell is a door on the right-hand side of the hallway.
Garret and Ferrek carefully move down the hallway, searching for danger, and stopping at the door.
The hallway is free of explosions or teleporting baddies or sudden conflagrations of flame or the floor dropping out beneath them as Ferrek and Garret travel along the hallway. The stairwell at the end does seem to be fake, however, with a solid wall topping it. The door at the end of the corridor is a wide double-door to your right, and appears unlocked.
The dwarf has apparently been ruminating, as he resumes the prior conversation while walking down the perfectly boring corridor. "For my part, I could actually enjoy living in a place like this." He frowns. "At least, if it weren't full of undead monstrosities and other unnatural creatures."
When the reach the base of the stairs, he tentatively puts a foot on the first one and says "I'll go check the wall, in case it's another hidden path. Then we can try the door."
There are no traps on the staircase, nor is there a false wall atop it.
When he investigates the door, however, his rogue-y senses go off. There's a trap!
"Hmm. Better stand back. This door's protected."
Ferrek is significantly clumsier than he usually is, and when he reaches into the secret recesses around the door that only trapfinders ever see, he touches something sensitive. There is a light hissing for a few moments, and then suddenly, a light blue fog billows out of every corner to fill the hallway, and it extends into the hallway beyond.
Garret, Shadassa, and Aviel manage to steel themselves just as the poison fills the corridor, and they remain unaffected, but Ferrek and Isletta fall to the ground, their eyes lidded and heavy.
Shhhh, only dreams.
Not only that, but as Ferrek falls to the ground in front of the trapped door, it opens to reveal a lumbering, clay-sculpted figure. The figure is exquisitely shaped, and seems to resemble a withered, undead spellcaster. A book is sculpted into its chest and its "face" is tightly-pulled and its "eyes" sunken. It fixates on the conscious intruders and steps forward, raising its arms in preparation for an attack!
Initiative:
Aviel - 12
Isletta - 10 (unconscious!)
Golem - 10
Garret - 8
Ferrek - 8 (unconscious!)
Shadassa - 5