The group seems to come to a consensus that losing a tooth is the least dangerous path forward. Aralah volunteers to go first and steps forward as one of the fly fey laughs maniacly, waving its large set of pliers in front of her. "Open wide! Hold still now. Almost have it."
The tooth fairy sticks the pliers into Aralah's mouth, setting its sights on a big pearly white. With practiced precision, it extract the tooth by ripping it free from her mouth with a quick tug. Holding the bloody tooth up high in the air, all of the fey cheer.
Meanwhile, Aralah's mouth throbs in pain as blood fills her mouth. The pain and bleeding do not seem to be subsiding and it's clear she's going to need some form of medical attention. As she turns back to face you, her hand is on her mouth as she groans in pain. Pulling her hand away reveals blood pouring out of her mouth and all over hand.
The fairy that pulled her tooth flies back up to join the others while another one flies down asks excitedly, "Who's next?!"
Laurel grimaces. "Very well." After Aralah has her tooth pulled, however, he steps forward. "Enough, you require a tooth from each of us. I will provide that for you." He goes to stop Aralah's bleeding. "I've had to remove rotting teeth to prevent the spread of infection. Removing healthy teeth can't be much different, if anything easier since it's sturdier."
Sarela looks at the tooth fairies. "Is it acceptable if we pull the teeth ourselves?"
"Ugh...." Aralah lets out a deep grunt as the fey pulls one of her teeth with no care whatsoever. As the pain radiates in her face and the blood pools in her mouth she turns back to Laurel as he recommends helping to pull the teeth instead giving him a 'Really you couldn't have suggested that earlier' look.
She pulls out an arrow and uses it to cut a strip of cloth off her clothing before balling it up. She spits the blood from her mouth and then puts the balled up cloth in place to stop the bleeding.
"We just want the teeth with fresh blood on them, I don't care if you pull them or if we do. No trickery though!" the flying would-be dentist proclaims. "We will watch to make sure!"
Laurel gives Aralah an apologetic look.
Laurel softens a little. The fey creatures were still malicious, no doubt, but at least they were honest and weren't trying to be unnecessarily cruel. "Yes, of course. I will do it right here and you are welcome to watch."
"If Aralah can do it, I certainly can," Mithralline says, though she looks a bit irritated the group is choosing to go this route instead of a more martial one. Still, she's not going to let herself be shown up.
She open her mouth wide.
Once Sarela had taken a tooth from each of the other four, with Laurel's aid, she turned to him and said, "You will have to take one from me - I'm not sure I can do it myself."
Laurel nods, and after watching Sarela do it a number of times he has a good feel for it and removes her tooth cleanly.
Safely and Laurel are clearly practiced at the art of removing teeth. Not only do they do it in a way that seems to be as painless as possible (if such a thing is even possible), they are successful in minimizing the injuries and bloodless and not letting blood gush from your mouth like Aralah had.
The fairies take their newly prized teeth and cheery gleefully, coveting the pearly whites with admiration. After they get a tooth from each of you, they all zip off up into the air and disappear out of sight, laughing the whole way.
You are left alone in the courtyard with several different options. A closed pair of double doors lies to your north. In the southwest a door is locked with two locks, one that is natural and looks very strong and then a second one that has clearly been added haphazardly. The door to the southeast is open and slightly ajar, a rather unpleasant odor drifting from the room beyond. Thirty feet above you a swinging wooden bridge hangs motionless connecting two upper portions of the castle.
As the fey fly off, Aralah watches with a confused look then turns to the others "Uh... aren't they suppose to give us some stamp or seal of passage or something? Or is there someone else here we have to see?"
Sam winces in pain as her tooth is extracted then shrugs. "That wasn't so bad! See! Everything is fine! Ooh!" She winces as her tongue touches the socket.
Wincing from the molar extraction pain Rose concurs with Aralah, "Wait? Wasn't there supposed to be passage beyond here?"
Laurel levels a frown at the departing fairies. I was hoping to talk to them for a moment. Perhaps I should have leveraged the time while taking the teeth better.
"Can anybody pick those locks? Or perhaps just shatter them off?" He says with a glance to Mith. "I don't think we have any way to get up to that bridge, so if we can't get through that locked door then I think our only option is going into that door." He says, pointing to the southeast door with the unpleasant odor.
"I imagine those double doors to the north are the ones leading onward for the Dead Roads, but we also need to find a place to rest. I am...hesitant...to break the locks on a door that may be keeping something in."
"I'm pretty sure I can take down a door," Mithralline says with a touch of sarcastic superiority, "but I think Sarela's right. Let's rest before we possibly let something out. That room stinks, and that one's locked, so maybe we just find a corner of the courtyard? I can keep first watch..."
Aralah moves over to the locked door and looks it over for any immediate threats. If she doesn't find any she will bang loudly on the door twice and then cup her hands and move to listen for anything on the other side before examining the locks to see if she can pick pick them.
Aralah doesn't find any traps on the door. The haphazard lock she is confident she could pick, but the other lucky is going to be extremely difficult and may just be beyond her skill.
After banging on the door, Aralah hears what sounds like bone scraping on the floor in repeated fashion. The sound only lasts a second and stops.
Aralah nods to the others "Yeah, we may not want to go in there just yet sounds like something may be on the other side and with those locks there may be a good reason it is sealed." She moves over to the slightly ajar, smelly door and at least peeks inside to make sure there aren't any immediate threats if the group should attempt to rest in the courtyard.
Aralah peeks inside of the smelly room and sees that it is a stable just large enough for one or two horses. Pegs on the wall hold a few decayed leather straps, the floor is covered with dried grass, and a pungent animal smell pervades the room. A large canvas tarp is rolled up on the back wall, something clearly inside of it.
Sam walks forward curiously and tries to tug open the tarp to take a peek inside.
There isn't anything stopping Sam from pulling on the tarp and she quickly unravels its contents. The source of the smell becomes immiedatelyly clear as a dead corpse with a mastiff's body, a ruff of dirty feathers and a crocodilian skull for a head rolls out of the tarp. The creature is missing all of its teeth and the stench from the decay is overwhelming.
Laying in the tarp with the corpse is a short piece of wood in the shape of a wand, a pair of slippers and a small white bead.
As the mutilated, bizarre body rolls out from the tarp Aralah can't help but vomit from the overwhelming stench of decay. She steps away from the door as she retches on the floor nearby.
Sam rushes out the door, turning slightly green, and vomiting outside next to Aralah. "What is that!?!" she asks incredulously.
Laurel barely manages to hold his stomach. What kind of abomination is that? His eyes catch the trinkets near the corpse.
Assuming nothing shows off as too dangerous, Laurel grabs the treasures and takes them outside, away from the corpse.
Laurel detects magic from the wooden stick, the white pearl and the slippers.
Sarela had seen far worse during her time in Nirmathas, and so the decomposing corpse wasn't a problem for her.
"This used to be an esobok psychopomp. They are the brutal and vicious predators. They typically hunt undead, but due to their viciousness, are not trusted to shepherd the souls of the dead," Sarela says.
She, too, takes a look at the items with detect magic.
After a moment and her stomach settles, Aralah wraps the creature back up in the tarp and drags the corpse in the tarp outside the castle walls, tossing it off into the mist. After the stable is cleared out and has a bit of a chance to air out she motions to the others "If we want to rest, this might be the safest place. Should I check the double doors before we do?"
Sarela makes quick identification on all three magical items.
The bead is as a bead of healing from lesser strand of prayer beads.
The slippers are feather step slippers.
The wooden item is a wand of cure light wounds (22 charges remaining).
Aralah checks the doors to the north and find that they are unlocked.
Finding the double doors unlocked she will cup her hands and listen and the door for anything on the other side.
No matter what she finds she will turn to the others and ask "Rest first or should we see what is on the other side?"
"Our group has incredible endurance, and there are outsiders seeking our destruction. I say we press on."
Mithralline clenches her jaw at the sight of the dead creature, but otherwise shows little reaction, mentally sizing it up to see if it was something she could have killed (it was, she's sure). She is curious if it's obvious what killed it. If it were the little faeries, they might be more dangerous than she's expected.
"We've been needing a rest since we woke up. I think here's the place to do it."
Sarela shakes her head at Laurel. ”No, we need to rest. I know moving can help us avoid facing what’s happened to...to Roslar’s Coffer, but we are at the point of exhaustion. We need to rest. We have a safe place, and we should use it.”
Laurel inclines his head. "Very well, but we must set a watch. I can take first." He offers.
The group finally decides that rest is more important than pushing on. Setting up the first watch, the majority of the group quickly collapses into a deep sleep once the preparations for camp have been made. If one thing reminds you that you are not back at home, it's the silence. Other than the occasional thumping sound coming from the locked door to the southwest, there are no sounds of insects or biting bugs and the air is eerily void of sound except for the snores of the party.
The watch shifts transpire one after the other until everyone has had a chance to rest and morning finally arrives. You do not wake in the comfort of your own bed nor do you awake to the wonderful smell of food cooking. Instead, you are disheartened when you open your eyes and stare out to the Palace of Teeth with the horrible stench drifting out from the psychopomp's corpse in the stable to the south.
After having rested, even if it was in such an eerie place, Aralah felt quite a bit better. She pulls out some of her trail rations and snacks on them as the others wake up. Once everyone is up she looks to the group "So, want me to try and unlock that door or should we just leave it and try to get out of here?"
Laurel taps Aralah with guidance. "Another attempt doesn't hurt. We must know what options lay before us."
Assuming no one protests she will go to work on the locks on the door, working on the more difficult one first and the easier one second.
Rose is weakened from the tooth extraction and nearly loses her lunch over the dead body. After sleeping and feeling infinitely better, she notices she has a new tattoo, that of a flying reptile of some sort. After some experimenting she finds that she can cause it to fly off of her body and become a real flying reptile, then she can make it turn back into a tattoo. She uses even more on her heritage and the power that lies in her lineage.
She adds to Laurel's sentiment, "Or what lies behind."
The shoddy lock pops easily, clearly just need a fresh look at it.
Despite Aralahs rest, she's still unable to make progress on that very sturdy lock though. It seems whomever put this hear REALLY wanted to keep people out, or something in.
"I can smash it..." Mithralline suggests.
The lock is probably to keep something big out, but that's just what the warrior woman wants. A challenge for her to surmount -- especially if whoever made the lock didn't think she could -- is the perfect way to get her morning started.
Sarela, having rested, still has red-rimmed eyes from bouts of crying last night. She feels better, though, and is able to commune with the mysterious voice who taught her magic.
As Aralah takes a crack at the lock, she says, ”Perhaps we should just press on instead of opening the locked door? Leave whatever’s there be, instead of possibly fighting some vicious monster?”
Aralah hesitantly nods to Sarela's suggestion and adds "Plus, it might not be good to bust down a door in this castle and piss off some other powerful creature that wants to hunt us down and kill us in this place. We already have one of those, don't need another."
Giving up on the more difficult lock she moves over to the double doors, having already checked them the night before and tries to quietly open them to peek inside.
Sam wakes up refreshed, stretching and yawning. "I just had a wonderful dream about us all sleeping in giant feather beds. Sure it didn't happen but we did get to sleep and that was nice!" She smiles happily.
When the topic of the door comes up, Sam agrees heartily. "It was hard enough to get on those tooth fairies' good side in the first place..."
"The other way for now, hopefully that direction has what we seek."
Aralah tries to enter the room quietly, but the old door is in bad need of oil and protests loudly as she opens it. Loooking north she sees an ornate room that spans the entire width of the palace. The north end consists of a floor-to-ceiling stained-glass mural of skeletal knights with halos surrounding an angelic figure. Globs of metal and bits of teeth affixed to the stained-glass angel give it a repulsive appearance, with a mouth far too wide and teeth attached to its fingertips. On either side of the stainedglass mural are two delicate archways. From the room beyond comes the faint sound of flowing water. The southern wall of the room contains two alcoves and a double door.
Aralah winces as the door loudly squeeks open. She pulls out her everburning torch and uncovers it so she can get a good look inside. Seeing the open archways to either side of the mural she makes her way to the right one keeping an eye out for any traps along the way. She will peek around the corner before beckoning the others to come move up.