The doorway opens on up into another hallway (no traps, no lock), this one still has cobwebs along the ceiling, but there's less dust on the floor here.
"There's less s$+@ on the floor here, let's go this way," Torrak grumbles, gesturing to the path with less dust. BOTH were empty? What the hell is this place?
Merritt finds no traps, and the door is unlocked. As he carefully opens it and looks inside, he notices a curving wall of glowing green that bulges out into this chamber from one corner. A stout wooden table stands along the wall opposite it. On the table lie three rotting human corpses and the remnants of a strange spider with chitinous plates covering its body.
One of the human corpses has had all of its extremities severed, and its torso has been opened to reveal the internal organs. Another dismembered corpse has chitinous spider legs sewn onto the stumps in place of the removed limbs, all of which are neatly arranged near the rest of the chitinous spider.
A bucket full of reeking, old blood sits on the floor under the table, and needles with lengths of silken thread attached are stuck in a hand-sized block of bloodstained wax atop the table.
"What sorta freak lives here? Unnatural," Torrak asks in disgust, spiting on the floor. "First a goblin den, now this wretched s~%+."
"Gross, but I suppose we still should give it a once over. No need to reopen the door to this sick place twice."
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Zelphar cautiously moves into the doorway and scans the room with detect magic.
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Tseghet starts detaching the spider limbs from the bodies and returning arms and legs to their owners. "May your spirits find the peace in death they were denied in life," he prays as he works, then turns to his companions. "When we return to the surface, let us bring these with us for cremation. They have suffered enough."
As Torrak begins his search of the room, Merritt following beside him, the floor wiggles a bit where he steps and a heavy cage falls from above.
The cage slams into both of them, dealing 10 damage, and though Torrak is able to jump out from underneath the cage before it meets the ground, Merritt isn't so lucky.
Tseghet is the only one to notice the presence of a skeleton within the cage.
The skeleton swings its rusty scimitar towards Merritt.
It quickly slices into the unprepared alchemist, nearly knocking him unconscious.
Initiative Order - SURPRISE ROUND! The bold may act.
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Skeleton
Zelphar
Tseghet
Torrak (-10)
Merritt (-14)
Tseghet manages to patch up Merritt before the skeleton begins attacking again.
The skeleton's scimitar yet again collides with Merritt's skin, reopening a wound across the tiefling's chest just closed by Tseghet. .
Initiative Order - The bold may act.
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Skeleton
Zelphar
Tseghet
Torrak (-10)
Merritt (-10)
Battlefield conditions
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The skeleton has soft cover from all but Merritt (since he's in the cage). I'll factor that in, as it's TECHNICALLY an AC increase.
Torrak cradles his head with one hand as it rings. It's like a church at noon on a Sunday, but my head is the bell! The unmistakeable sounds of combat, however, draw him back out of his daze. "What the hell is this sorta thing?" is all his surely concussed brain can churn out while he swings. How many skeletons are in there? Three? It made more Merritts too!
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"Nine Hells, I need help fast!" Merritt calls out as he retrieves a bomb, leaning back into the corner of the cage behind him. Pressed as hard as he can into the corner, Merritt tosses the bomb carefully against the bars of the cage just beside the skeleton, hoping the splash is enough to fend it off. He retrieves a dagger, and waves it menacingly in front of himself.
Zelphar concentrates for a moment and suddenly another eagle appears opposite Torrak.
As Torrak's ball and chain collide with the skeleton, it collapses momentarily before reforming outside the cage, eyes still glued to Merritt. Merritt can throw the bomb now IN the cage and catch the skeleton. It dies from the fire.
"Damn traps, makes fighting needlessly harder," Torrak complains. "I like ah good challenging fight, but because what I'm about tah kill is so mighty!"
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*BEEP BOOP* Everbody resumes the actions they had attempted upon entering the room. This time a bit more carefully. *BEEP BOOP*
After searching the room, the party finds 2 potions, and a scroll case with 3 pieces of parchment in it.
The green "wall" is the spire itself. It's quite magical, and obscures any auras within the room, so Zelphar's detect magic catches nothing in particular. Not even the scrolls above.
Doing his best to retrace the steps he has already taken, Torrak heads out of the room. "Let's keep pushing forward, no sense in waiting around!" he says once the items have been identified and his wounds have been healed.
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"These potions fortify both the body and soul - even more effectively than the blessings I can channel from the Inheritor," Tseghet declares as he passes one to Torrak and puts the other in his backpack. "I am uncertain about the spells contained on those scrolls, but this last one appears to be some sort of sigil similar to the one we found above. Perhaps Iomedae will bless us with the knowledge of their purpose when She sees fit." He nods resolutely and follows Torrak further down the hallway.
"That's all well and good, can we get on with it now? We've only found the skeleton and ah didn't even get tah smash it right," Torrak grumbles.
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Merritt looks at the two scrolls, and gives them a thorough look.
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"Magical writing isn't my expertise, but this one here is a doozy... it's a fireball, clear and simple." He holds it out to Zelphar. "Nothing I can use, but I think you might manage it. This other one, I don't know." He holds the other scroll out to Zelphar as well, hoping the arcanist can fare better determining what it does.
After Zelphar has had a chance to examine the remaining scroll, Merritt leads the way to the door at the end of the hall. He searches it thoroughly, opening it if all looks good.
Oh boy. You just walked down the hall. Didn't even check for traps. Let this be a lesson.
Assuming you start to reenter marching order and let Torrak go first...
Torrak (poor, poor Torrak) finds a spot on the floor that, well, doesn't hold his weight.
As he falls into the 10 foot deep pit (labeled with a red outline) he takes falling damage. Too bad there's spikes at the bottom.
From the fall and the spikes, Torrak takes 7 damage. Too bad he's not alone in the pit.
Initiative order - the BOLD may act
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Torrak
Spider
Zelphar
Merritt
Tseghet
Conditions: The spider has cover from anybody not in the pit. Scenario says so.
In the pit appears a pale and round-bodied spider the size of a large dog. It crimson eyes glitter with malign intelligence.
he shouts as the floor gives out and he subsequently gets skewered. His anger is but brief as his grumbled prayers have been answered. "I found something, let's kill it!" he cries as he swings his Dorn-Derger at it.
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Torrak swings his Dorn-Derger at the spider, squishing it into the spikes, but it still stands.
The spider, quickly realizing what just happened (and apparently having a suicidal urge), quickly climbs to the top of the spiked pit and shuts the trap. It then webs the trap shut. (I'm going to rule this doesn't provoke, as it's all melee range and 5 foot steps and stuff. The module doesn't say one way or the other).
The door is now shut. Opening it will require a DC 15 strength check, but opening the door from above means you automatically fall in.
Welcome to the second level of Emerald Spire. I hope you enjoy your stay in the trap-and-spider-infested level of the dungeon.
Initiative order - the BOLD may act
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Torrak
Spider
Zelphar
Merritt
Tseghet
Conditions: The trapdoor of the trap itself is blocking line of sight and effect to those in the pit. Any attempts to open the door require a DC 15 Strength check, and you automatically fall into the pit.
"THIS'LL BE YER LAST, YA EIGHT LEGGED GIT!" Torrak roars as he continues bashing the spider with his Dorn-Derger. "Just a moment half-breed, gimme some silence to enjoy this, HAHA!" he shouts up, covered in spider grime.
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Unsure of how to help right now, Zelphar waits to see if Torrak can kill the spider.
Splat.
The pit is still closed, but the spider is nothing more than, well...you all know what it looks like when you squish a spider on the wall right? Yeah that.
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"Merritt, can you hold on to this for me?" Tseghet asks as he pulls out a length of rope and ties it around his waist. "I don't see a way to cut through the foul creature's webbing and open the door without falling in myself - but if you can support my weight, perhaps the Inheritor will not see fit to call me to her Crusade just yet."
If/when a rope appears, Torrak grabs a hold of it and tries to climb up as best he can, using the wall for assistance. "Tha lot of ya missed a right good smashin' ya did, HAHA!" he calls up.
________
Using a combination of ropes, pulleys, and levers wits, Torrak is able to be pulled out using the rope. There is no secret bypass to the trap, and now that it's open without a spider underneath, it's just a pit.
Merritt doesn't come up with any way to keep the door closed.
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"Torrak!" Tseghet proclaims joyfully as he heals his companion's wounds. "Praise the Inheritor you were not harmed!" He looks down at the pit, his brow furrowed. "Would you, um... consider going back into there to grab that spider?" he asks hesitantly. "Perhaps enough of its silk glands remain intact for us to close the trapdoor like it did."
"Oh, yeah, ya missed me so much, ya want me tah jump back in tha hole," Torrak grumbles with the closest thing to a smile you've ever seen as he climbs back down to hoist the spider corpse back up. The half-breed isn't all that bad, I'll give him that!
As Merritt expertly maneuvers the corpse like a damned glue gun, Torrak chuckles a little. "We are a grim lot, haha!"
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Zelphar stays behind his companions, nodding at their creative ingenuity.
The group finds no more traps down the hallway and no traps on the door.
Upon opening the door to the next area, you notice the walls and ceiling of this room are hidden behind a thick, grey-white forest of spider webs that blocks all vision beyond ten feet. Webs are everywhere, creating a maze of vertical sheets. Gray, furry dust clings to the sticky white webs. The desiccated shriveled corpse of a long-dead man hangs spread-eagle across one of these layers of webbing, and rusty swords, daggers, and axes hang securely from others.
The webbing here is absolutely obnoxious. It has 10 hit points and DR 5/slashing. The webbing requires a DC 13 Reflex save to avoid entanglement as per web (without the anchor). A second failed save leads to the grappled condition. A web that's on fire takes 1d6 damage until destroyed, dealing that damage to anything caught within the web as well.
EACH SQUARE OF THIS ROOM IS COVERED IN WEBBING.
"This looks like one o' those "nope" rooms I keep hearing about," Torrak remarks grimly. "I say we light the place on fire and close tha door, while we go see what's on tha other side."
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Merritt retrieves a bomb, and lightly inserts the catalyst, not triggering it yet but making it easy to do so. He gently tosses it up and down in one hand as he looks at the webbing. "Wouldn't be hard, Torrak, but look at all that shiny gear up in there. If we burn the webs out, we burn that stuff, too. Sure that's the way we want to approach this?"
"Fine, fine, fine, we can burn it all in moderation. Fine," Torrak grumbles sourly. As the fire won't be coming from him, he keeps his weapon at the ready. Now let's see if something wants to get smashed in defending its lair...
Zelphar just keeps back and watches. "Burn it up as you see fit."