"Um, are you okay in there?" Max waits on Kel's lead to go inside.
"Some sort of humanoid creature, not moving," Rex says to the party.
Rex yells into the room,"Hey you!"
Kel stands his ground and waits, ready to yank the door shut if it fires arrows or casts spells in their direction.
The figure remains entirely motionless.
"Hm..." Ever the brave one, Max casts light on a rock or some other loose object and tosses it closer.
Max imbues a small pebble with light and tosses it as close as he can. The pebble hits the figure's foot. The figure doesn't move as the rock bounces off of it and illuminates the entire room. Meanwhile, Deia tries to converse with it to no avail.
The new illumination reveals that the room was something of a dining and common room. A half dealt deck of cards sits on the table next to the remains of a meal, though there are 5 hands and only 4 chairs.
Kel moves slowly into the room.
As Kel moves into the room, the figure remains motionless and silent.
Whatcha see?
"Strange indeed, do you suppose that creature was turned into stone?" Max follows along, looking for magical auras.
A statue as a trap? Tina remembers how they were all so eager to jump to conclusions about the Mongrel chief dying.Or to delay us?
"No magical auras in here." Max checks if the food seems warm and fresh, or if it's been sitting for a long time. In other words, did we interrupt meal time?
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"What the blazes is that thing," as Rex moves into the room with Chief Sull's morningstar in hand.
Tina looks bounces up and down impatiently.
Kel moves up and tugs back on the motionless person's hood.
Kel approaches the motionless figure, yanking back on its hood to reveal... A pile of furs stuffed into the cloak and stacked onto a chair, forming a crude mannequin.
"Decoy. And a ladder."
"I definitely thought I heard someone in here earlier.
Max tries listening at the door .
Let us try the door in the room the distraction is in
"A decoy, sneaky little gits."
Rex continues to scan about the room.
Kel stands guard over the ladder while the doors are checked.
Tina is ready for another room clear.
Kel nods. "Rex, trade me. Make sure nothing comes up the ladder while we aren't looking."
Then he moves to open the door once everyone is in position.
Max informs the party of the smell, and Kel prepares to open the door once everyone has gotten into position.
Kel pulls the door open.
Inside the door you find a narrow hallway that follows a sharply angled descent and ends in what looks like a trash heap. A vile, putrid smell, not unlike that of rotted meat, excrement, and stale urine, emanates outward from the opened door while thick, dark, streaks of something cover the walls and floor. A couple pegs on the door hold two badly stained buckets in place.
Lann curls his nose and looks away from the doorway.
"I guess we've found their cesspit..."
Kel shuts the door looking disgusted and moves back to the ladder.
Send a bomb down in case there is someone down there?
"If there's someone down there, they aren't underneath it. They could be anywhere in the room. I'll just go down carefully and hope I don't get ambushed."
Kel hands his polearm to Lann and swaps out his buckler for his Shield, then he carefully starts descending.
A loud clang echoes up through the shaft as Kel begins his descent down the ladder.
"More enemies - I can sense them." Taking out Terendelev's scale, Max casts Aid on Lann.
Sounds like Kel found something down there.
Rex moves into action with weapon in hand, "I'm going in."
Rex then start climbing down the ladder to assist Kel and staying on the defensive.
Max pulls out his scale and uses its powers on Lann.
Deia's moves beside the ladder and her hair suddenly grows to an unnatural length.
Rex climbs down the ladder, managing to squeeze past Kel somehow.
The mongrel at the base of the ladder swings at Rex as he comes down, landing a very solid hit.
Kel jumps, twisting his body away from the ladder and yanking his sword from behind his shield as he falls, coming crashing down with a brutal overhead strike.
Kel drops down and lands a debilitating blow against the mongrel by the ladder.
The mongrel tries to return the favor, but can't keep up with Kel's movements and swings at empty air.
Lann moves at double-time, making his way down the ladder and positioning himself to join the fight.
One of the mongrels behind the barricades reloads its crossbow and fires at Kel again, but the shot passes by harmlessly.
Anevia moves into the room.
The other mongrel behind the barricades fires her longbow at Kel. Her second shot performs the same as the first, clanging loudly against his shield as it deflects away.
Round 1: Tina starts climbing down!