Jubrayl heads to the door to deeper to the building and waits for the others to come behind him before opening the door. His skin is still noticeably pale.
Good idea on taking the knives
"I hate to leave the good fathers ashes in this foul place but it would be better to pick them up on the way out. I'm sure he'd understand."
He would. We can do it appropriately when we have time and are safe
[Noon, Thistletop, 8th Day After Goblin Raid, Thistletop Level One]
The southern wall of this room is a bank of cells with iron doors, six in all. The rest of the room is obviously a torture chamber; a rack sits against the far wall, an iron maiden stands to the north, and a fire pit smolders below a spiky cage dangling from a chain in the ceiling to the east.
There are 2 more exits from this room: a door on the east wall, and one on the north wall.
Jubrayl looks at the torture tools and shakes his head in sorrow at what one thinking being can do to an other. He heads forward while on the lookout for new enemies.
Lleidr will give the cells a once over before heading over to check out the doors.
cells:
north door:
east door:
Sorry, I missed the spellcraft checks earlier, Jub. The kukris are under the effect of Continual Flame spells.
The cells are unremarkable and this whole area (using Ned's tracking ability), shows little to no sign of use within the past 8 days, at least.
Lleidr finds no traps and hears no noise from either door.
I guess let's finish out the map.
Lleidr will open the north door.
[Noon, Thistletop, 8th Day After Goblin Raid, Thistletop Level One]
NOTE – to keep things moving, I’m doing something similar to what I did with the bedrooms. Let’s open both doors. Lleidr’s checks come up clean.
A dusty nest of rags, dog hides, and straw sits in the northeast corner of this room. To the south, a long workbench cluttered with pliers, hooks, tongs, saws, and knives runs along the wall. Ned can immediately tell that this room has seen no use for about 8 days, at least.
Ned, put an arrow into that nest will you? Lets see what comes out
Ned will shrug then put an arrow into th pile of rags.
Squeaking in alarm at the disturbance, a pair of small grey mice dart out of the nasty straw and run along the nearest wall. Other than that, there's no sign of life.
"Hmmm. A mighty hunter am I."
I am sincerely hoping there isn't a swarm of rats under there or worse, the priest says as he approaches cautiously to prod at the heap and see if there is anything to the heap instead of just trash.
It appears to be just trash.
How prosaic. What's next?
Sorry if your recent exploration has been dull. There's a couple of reasons why this area seems a bit cleared out already, one of them being that you dispatched many of the occupants here the 2nd time you fought the goblin chieftain.
It looks like there are just a couple spots to wrap up this area. Closest to where we are, the unrevealed area west of D10 may just be filler, but Lleidr will check the walls around it for secret doors.
The cleric tries to assist in searching
Nothing hidden found ... the walls appear solid
There are a couple of doors, also. One off D14 and another off D1, but I don't expect much from either.
So, where to next?
The one off D14
Lleidr will move back up to the map room and check out the door on the west wall.
No map provided for this bit:
As you approach the map-room/D14 (you're just coming through D13), you hear something that sounds like a large man snoring.
Nicholae holds a finger to his lips and motions Lleidr to take a look.
Peering around the corner, you see Orik lying on the floor inside the maproom near the staircase, gently snoring.
Also, the west door in the room is opened wide ...
Lleidr will draw 'tugger and move over to the west door as quietly as he can to see what he can see.
[Early Afternoon, Thistletop, 8th Day After Goblin Raid, Thistletop Level One]
A large wooden worktable sits in the middle of this room, its surface cluttered with scrolls, books, stone tablets covered with dense, spiky runes, and fragments of carvings that appear to have been chipped off of statues or bas-reliefs. To the north, a floor-to-ceiling set of wooden shelves sags with picks, shovels, brushes, lanterns, and other equipment one might expect to see at an archaeological site. (NOTE – if you’ll remember, Lyrie originally came from the direction of this room as Lleidr and Ned returned to the fight with the hounds).
A concealed door on the west wall hangs ajar, revealing a glimpse of a descending stair.
Back in the map room, Orik continues his peaceful slumber on the bare floor.
Lleidr will continue moving quietly over to the head of the stairs and keep watch.
Ned looks down at the peacefully sleeping man, "Should we wake him up? It doesnt look like he's on their side anymore, maybe he can lend a hand. Or at least give us a better idea about what's below."
I think we should gently tie his hands and then follow in case this wears off and he blames us
Leave him - it's a magical sleep like as not - go through the door
Ned shrugs, "Hardly seem necessary. He's already disarmd and if we were the ones to put him to sleep we'd hardly be the ones waking him up, would we."
The stairs are steep and turn south into darkness. There is no noise from below.
It sounds like you're yet decided what to do about Orik. I'll hold off on proceeding till you guys have come to a consensus. BTW, there's still a cave on this level you haven't checked out yet. It was near that tentamort monster you slew in the eastern section on this map.
We're getting close to the Thanksgiving holiday. Except for Thursday, I'm going to be home, so I can update most of the rest of the week. You guys OK with that or should we adjourn till Sunday?
As for Orik, Lleidr will say, "If Lyrie put him to sleep with magic, it should be wearing off any moment now. Might as well wake him up and see what he knows. I'd rather check out the last of this level, but if Nualia's being warned, we need to get down there fast as possible."
Sounds like the group wants to wake Orik before going downstairs. Have I got that right?
Sure though I feel embarrassed to be in his armour... on second thought I'll head through the door before the others awake him and guard the passage from the inside.