Verris shakes her head at her poor shot but then nods in agreement with the others about storing the prisoners here. She grabs one of the captives and brings them inside the room, looking for something robust to tie them to.
Securing the prisoners in the room Gurk moves to continue scouting the next available path before moving down the southern hall. Taking the eastern hall the group resumes their normal positions while Gurk scouts ahead he eventually comes to an open door. Peeking inside he sees several crates, barrels, and sacks lie here, stacked in an orderly fashion in the middle of the room. A closed door is in the southern wall of this larger room.
Gurk immediately begins looking for shinies among the many boxes with a big grin while the rest catch up.
Gurk checks the supplies but quickly realizes there are no shinnies. Instead it appears to be various foodstuffs here. These consist of
barrels of salted fish, dried beans, and stale bread, sacks of rye flour, casks of Varisian whiskey, and boxes of traditional Varisian spices. Nothing of any particular value, but enough food and whisky to last several people a few weeks.
Gurk's eyes go wide at the treasure horde, and he quickly begins filling everything on him with the food, including his mouth. Gurk be rich! Gurk be most rich in world!
"No Gurk! BAD Gurk!" Lexi scolds squeakily as she follows the goblin into the storeroom. "No dessert 'til you've finished eating all your raw rats!" Sniffing one of the casks, the aasimar lass crinkles up her nose, sticks out her tongue, and then quietly announces, "Yuck! Whiskey!"
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Bixby investigates the room with the others, and is glad to see Lexi dressing down Gurk.
For once, it's not me lecturing him! Let someone else bear this burden occasionally!
Looking warily at the supplies. "It's probably poisoned. Or spoiled. Or both," he sniffs.
I'll cast detect magic, just in case.
Temmer frowns at Gurk's gluttony. He should be sharing, not that they need food right now. There are far more pressing matters. If they were to have to stay here, though, those supplies might be useful.
He waits for the goblin to finish, not sure it's his place to remonstrate him in this situation but ready to move on to see what other areas they might find.
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Davor adds rye flour, salted fish and whiskey to the list of his belongings. "Why would this be poisoned Copperpot? that would make no sense! although... why take the chance?"
Davor raises his holy symbol up high, "Hanspur! bless this food so that none of us choke, get sick or poison themselves with it!"
Gurk starts chowing down on the food. He doesn't seem to meet any ill effect but it is hard to tell whether that is because the food is actually safe, or it may just be a delayed effect, or simply because he is a goblin that can seemingly eat about anything. Either way after Bixby raises the concern of poison or spoilage Davor goes to work cleansing the food with magic. Bixby does not detect any magic from the supplies.
Verris grins at Gurk's antics with the food. Typical Gurk, she thinks to herself.
She'll keep an eye towards the direction they came from while the rest of the party search around the room.
At the scolding, Gurk protectively covers his horde and stuff the rat meat into his mouth as well. As he edges on to the southern door, he snatches a few more bits to replace the rat meat. Gurk be king now. Longshanks no have such big goods.
After hoarding some food and his mouth already full Gurk moves up to the southern door. He checks while he chomps on the rat meat in his mouth not fiding anything concerning. Opening the door it appears that the room is completely empty.
Curious, Gurk moves over and pushes one of his dogslicers into the cold wall to test it.
Lexi totally misunderstands what Gurk's doing.
"Walls are inedible, Gurk," she says with a sigh.
Gurk sticks his blade into the wall and it goes right on through it.
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When Davor questions why the food might be poisoned, Bixby elaborates for several minutes about potential uses of poison, various organizations and individuals who had been known to employ poisons, as well as the onset and eventual effect. Eventually, Davor is probably sorry he had asked.
When Gurk's dagger goes through the wall, Bixby abruptly stops.
"As a dedicated illusionist, I can tell you we are dealing with one," he says.
Bixby is certain there is a moderate illusion aura over the wall.
"So what's beyond it?" Temmer asks.
If no one else can give an answer, he'll carefully stick his head through it to see for himself, though he tries to expose as little of his face as possible.
With no one else immediately volunteering to check what is on the other side Adistan moves up and sticks his head through, still half expecting to hit his head on solid stone. Instead his head goes through and he finds a small room. The eastern wall depicts a fresco of a tall, redheaded woman with a ranseur standing over a short, hunch-backed man—the ranseur is impaled in the man’s belly, and his twisted demonic hands clutch at the shaft as black smoke wafts up from his face and wounds.
He reports back: "There is some mural in there. It's hardly appropriate for you, Lady Dusk, though I fear I'm unable to recognize anything in it other than it's horror."
Lexi nods in appreciation of Adistan's protectiveness but then steels herself and steps through the false wall to take a long look at the fresco. When she reports back to the others, she seems crestfallen.
"That redheaded woman in the fresco looks familiar--I think I've seen her pictured in another book I once read--but the 'Who,' 'Why,' 'When,' and 'Where' of her escapes my recollection. No idea who the poor fellow she's killing is, though."
"You did your best, I'm sure. Perhaps we can tell Lady Heidmarch about it when we get back to land and she'll know," Temmer suggests.
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Bixby also sticks his head through the illusion after the others had, but has no additional information to share about what they have seen.
"Curious that the illusion would conceal--this?" he says, jotting some notes in his journal and drawing a few arrows and question marks, possibly linking this to other conspiracy theories.
"We should continue on--I see nothing else here."
With nothing else of note and Bixby suggesting the group move on Gurk goes to work scouting ahead down the last hall, leading to the south.
A room splits off to the west. Two tables of planks and trestles have been set up in here, and a large alcove holds the ashes and soot stains of many recent fires, along with a stone statue of a beautiful woman wielding a ranseur, the same woman from the mural in the previous room. A hooded lantern burns atop one of the tables. It appears this was a common room for the gang.
Checking the hall there is little else of interest so the group moves on continuing south, the hall turns south east. Eventually there is another room to the north, but this room is completely empty. Contiuning down the south east hall you eventually come to stairs. Descending the stairs for a bit you eventually come to another hallway heading west, that ends in a closed door.
"If they're not here, it means they're probably up ahead, waiting for us," Temmer observes. "Careful at the door, Gurk."
He holds his quarterstaff over his shoulder so it can provide light, while his short sword rests more comfortably in his hand.
Moving up to the door, Gurk will check it closely before unlocking it and backing up. What Gurk be here for now? Gurk be full of food now, so Gurk be done. Are there more shinies? But how will Gurk carry them with food?
Gurk checks the door and finds it is neither locked nor trapped. Opening it he finds a large, well lit room on the other side. A massive pair of double doors dominates the western end of this spearhead-shaped chamber. These doors are made of a silvery metal decorated with images of burning eyes that look inward toward two sets of runes carved onto the face of each door. The walls bear the remains of complex mosaics that once covered much of them, but which has crumbled and collapsed in heaps of colored tiles and debris around the edges of the room. Across the room from the double doors are two normal doors, both closed.
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Bixby studies the room from the doorway. "This place is much larger than I had anticipated," he says. "It has proven a well-concealed base of operations for the Tower Girls. No wonder their band has not been apprehended."
Looking ahead, he says "Gurk, there are some more doors to open. Perhaps there is gold beyond."
Lexi moves forward quietly, staring wide-eyed at the crumbling mosaics. Not quite trusting the doors with the burning eyes on them, the aasimar casts detect magic and begins scanning the room for auras.
Moving on, Gurk checks the next door, now having no clue what their job was. Maybe Gurk can make this new big hut. Need more burn burn in here, though.
Lexi notes that the large doors radiate with magic, having a strong evocation aura as well as moderate abjuration and conjuration auras.
Gurk checks the southern door finding it free of traps and unlocked. He opens the door to look inside. Several pieces of furniture decorate this room, the modern furnishings clashing with the ancient carvings of Thassilonian wizards crafting deformed monsters from dead bodies decorating the walls. Luxurious crimson Varisian drapes have been pinned up in an archway almost directly east from the door.
Temmer follows along, ready for anything to leap out and attack the group's scout, hopefully the last mistake that enemy would ever make.
Copperpot is right, though, that this place is bigger than he'd expected. He looks around, trying to make more sense of it. Why was it here?
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Bixby follows along, examining the carvings and making notes in his conspiracy book.
His familiar Ripley peeks out of his backpack and looks on, while his illusion, still looking like a Tower Girl with a red bandana, eyes Gurk warily.
"Gurk, you are doing an excellent job staying in front where I can see you," Bixby says.
Verris looks at the now ruined mosaics with interest and a subtle hint of sadness. She eyes the large silver doors suspiciously, burning eyes not usually being associated with good intentions.
Lexi stares at the magicked doors for a long while with her big, unblinking eyes. Then she makes her report to the others.
"By way of explanation, there are four general classifications for the power of a magical effect: Piddling--that'd be a spell that someone like me could cast; Moderate--that's an effect someone two or three times more powerful than me could muster; Strong--that's the knid of magic that can kill a piddling person like me fairly easily; and Overwhelming--that'd be super wizards and mighty otherworldly beings, a.k.a. Really Bad News."
"I advise against touching the doors until we learn more about them or have no other choice."
Lexi follows Gurk, Bixby, and Not-alia into the next room, gawking at the fine drapes a moment before peering elsewhere.
While the others take a look around the larger hall, Gurk steps into the room after opening the door to continue scouting. He is promptly met with a crossbow bolts flying toward him.
The first misses, but the second connects and draws his attention to the one tower girl who got away plus another woman, standing in a hall to the northeast holding hand crossbows.
HP 20/20
AC 17, touch 12, flat-footed 15, CMD 17
Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +1 (+2 vs. emotion spells, effects)
Tactician (5 rounds): 0/2
Effects: Studied target (blue)
Temmer moves into the room, and realizing he can't get to the nearest Tower Girl, instead sizes her up, looking for any advantages he can use.
Adistan and Bixby advance into the room to help Gurk out.
Verris moves past the others into the room while getting her longbow ready to fire. She glares at the Tower Girls as she begins to lift her bow to fire.
Gurk quickly dives against the wall and hides by the chair, taking advantage of his small size to disappear.
Gurk moves across the way and does his best to hide behind a chair. Verris follows the others into the room while Davor moves in and casts a blessing on himself. The three women filter into the hall, the one you had let escape drops her crossbow and pulls out her shortsword as she rushes Verris. One of the others moves out and reloads her crossbow, while a third, you hadn't seen until now steps out and shots her loaded crossbow at Verris.
The one tower girl you let flee calls out "Now!" and the curtains just behind Davor open as you see a well armored, rat-woman holding a bladed scarf emerge to attack Davor.
Two rats come out as well to assist their master in attacking Davor.
While the rats miss, the rat-woman slices into Davor with her exotic weapon.
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Bixby enters the room tentatively, his Tower Girl illusion in front of him and looking much more menacing than the diminutive gnome.
"A trap!" Bixby exclaims. "Of COURSE it's a trap!"
Seeing the group taking damage, he causes a curtain to descend from the ceiling that exactly matches the one that just opened, blocking the group from the sight of two of the Tower Girls.