GM Granta's War for the Crown (Inactive)

Game Master Granta

"This could be fun, if most of us weren't just almost slaughtered like lambs a few moments ago. The direction doesn't matter much to me, but while we 'adventure' through this dungeonesque place, we need to remember that the danger is very real. I insist on taking point until we are all safe again," Tiber asserts. He then steps to the front, makes sure his shield is strapped securely to his arm, and takes a deep breath. Let's hope we didn't just get magiced out of the pan and into the fire.

Delena looks at Pavo, then Ayalina and Thalasou. "My my, you are so eager to find new weapons swung at you, this time with more pain", she says wickedly. She breaks the peacebond on her dagger, takes the book of magic in her hand, and walks next to Thalasou, in the back line.

"Whatever happens, at least this isn't boring. Let's go ahead and cause some trouble."

Ayalina, Delan, Thalasou, and Tiber all confirm that the hallway is indeed empty, the oddly so.

To save a day of just Perception rolls, I'll tell you: nobody finds a secret door in the dead end.

"How strange," Ayalina mutters, frowning. "There's nothing secret here, but... why is this room here? It's obviously not being used for storage and it does appear to be for anything unsavory..."

She wanders back into the room they'd originally entered. "Let's try the other, shall we?" She pauses before stepping through, remembering that Tiber had wanted to take point. "Er, after you!" she chirps. "But do you think there's anyone else down here? This place is caked in dust..."

"It's not that I'm eager," Pavo says, "But I would prefer to not sit in an empty room and wait for something to happen to me. Especially an unfamiliar room with no exits, food, or water."

Shuddering, Ayalina nods. "You've got to admit that even the prettiest of people don't exactly look wonderful when their corpses are starved."

"It's a room for people, in the middle of the city. Even if abandoned, it isn't especially hard to get out", Delena scoffs at the discussion.

She walks with the others to the other door. "What I am expecting is some of those axe-crazy brutes finding their way here. Who even allowed that raging lunatic in the senate?"

"Pardon me, I'm used to talking to, ah, let's say adventurers," Pavo says with an amused smile. "I spoke imprecisely: I prefer to not be a room with one exit that is occupied by a raging lunatic who has come looking for me."

After confirming the second hallway is just as boring, Tiber opens the door on its east end. In the dimness beyond, he can make out stacked wooden crates covering the southern wall, and more crates occupying the northwestern corner. Wooden shelves fill much of the eastern half of the room, each tier filled with dust-coated bottles, crockery, and glass jars.

Thalasou moves with caution into the dusty room. The light from Pavo and Ayalina casts strange shadows in the room but he can at least see the shelves. He closes his eyes and tries to attune himself to the magic energies that might be around him.

"Well, it seems like we've found the storage after all," Ayalina says, amused. She sends her lights ahead to fill the room with some light. Glancing around, she pauses to consider the door and then the objects in the room itself.

"Well, if we are worried about lunatics, should we see if there's anything useful in here? At the least, we might find some marbles to throw." After a moment, she adds, "We can always return anything we take to whatever residents we encounter."

Another pause. "Er, assuming they're not friends with the barbarian."
--

"Haha, do you always think out loud?" Tiber says with a smirk as he searches through some of the contents as well. He periodically eyes the Northern door, especially after talk of the "raging lunatic."

"Adventurers, Pavo? Have you done some of that sort of work before?"
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Delena walks in behind the others, then notices the bottles and jars on the shelves. She again lets the viper crawl on the shelves, and herself goes through the containers stopping on anything that seems unusual and not empty.

"I'll shout if I find marbles for you, if you lost yours. Disriana, try to find something interesting", she says as she gently brushes her fingers along the bottles and jars.

"Dried peas, maybe," he comments to Ayalina as he passes to press his ear against the door, listening.

"Me?" he says to Tiber with wide, innocent-appearing eyes. "Nooo. I just listened to their tales."

Assume that search took 10 minutes.

Under Tiber's direction, the party is able to find quite a few mundane goods: clothing, condiments, pickled vegetables, preserved delicacies, salted meats, and a well-stocked toolkit. The southern stack of boxes is too cluttered to search yet though, and would take a while to clean up first.

"Well. Nothing magical in here. I guess that's good. Let's see what's on the other side of that door. Pavo, maybe you can just crack it open a little bit and peek?"

Delena takes a bit of meat, and feeds it to the viper that crawls back on her shoulders. She gently strokes the viper's head, and says: "Disriana can go sniffing around if we need a scout. She isn't very talkative, but I can feel it if there is something truly dangerous around that she senses.".

She walks closer to the door, the book of spells ready in her hand.

Tiber holds his position at the door and cracks it open to let Disriana slither onward. Never had a snake scout for me before...

"Remind me again how the snake is going to tell you about danger?" he asks, with a skeptical eyebrow raised. "I'll give it about 20 seconds to do whatever snakes when they're alone, then open the door. Either it sees something or it doesn't," he explains before counting under his breath.

Tiber holds his position at the door and cracks it open to let Disriana slither onward. Never had a snake scout for me before...

"Remind me again how the snake is going to tell you about danger?" he asks, with a skeptical eyebrow raised. "I'll give it about 20 seconds to do whatever snakes when they're alone, then open the door. Shouldn't take too long to locate danger, even for a snake," he explains before counting under his breath.

"I didn't hear anything," Pavo says, drawing his rapier and refreshing the dancing lanterns over his head. "It's probably safe."

"We have a mystical connection. I can feel Disriana's feelings if she's not too far, in the same village or so", Delena answers. The viper crawls down Delena's arm, and she brings the viper to almost touching Tiber's face, before letting it pass through the door crack. "Witchcraft, you know", she says to Tiber, smiling wickedly.

"Go my dear, listen, smell, see what is there" she whispers to the snake when it slithers ahead.

If the walls are 'typical building wall' or 'brick wall' Disriana will stay on the wall with climb speed take 10, otherwise on the floor.

Delena senses a mild feeling of frustration, or maybe annoyance, from her familiar, but nothing else. After half a minute, Tiber opens the door fully, letting some light into the darkened hallway, at which point Delena loses the feelings of annoyance.

"Well, that was rather unrewarding", Delena says as Tiber opens the door and the empty corridor is revealed.

"The architecture is peculiar, as if someone had too many corridors and nowhere else to put them. Anyway, Disriana can continue sneaking or we can just stomp away and trust our luck", she says.

The viper is quite good at stealth and can scout, but it slows the pace down. Maybe we should use it only when there aren't so many doors around.

Tiber reflexively shies away from the viper as it comes all too close to his face. Does anything really stop that lethal creature from biting someone?

"No kidding, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot around here. Disriana as our vanguard is valiant, but I fear we don't have too much time to spend here," he comments. Giving Pavo and his lights a nod, he cautiously looks around, while stepping into the next room and making his way to the door.
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Perception: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (12) + 6 = 18

Pavo follows Tiber down the hall.

"I'm a little concerned that Martella hasn't contacted us again," he comments.

"Yeah, you're right Pavo. That is a bit odd. You tried to talk back to her, right? Maybe something happened to her too."

I forgot something in the storage room, so including now.

Tiber doesn't find anything in the hallway besides dust, but he does notice a line of light shining underneath the next doorway. And as Thalasou is walking into the hallway, he notices a panel behind some boxes, just like the one Ayalina found in the bedroom.

"I hope not," Ayalina admits as she keeps pace. "She seemed to be really capable, so if something's happened to her, I can't imagine we'll have an easy time of it."

When Tiber opens the next door, he finds a well lit room where heavy wooden bookshelves line the walls of an opulent bedchamber. A posh chair sits in the northwestern corner alongside a small circular table. A massive bed and an adjoining table rest along the eastern side of the room. An open bathroom fits into the southwest, with a bathtub matching the room’s opulence, but adding an ignoble odor. Doors exit to the west and south.

Delena chuckles as she moves to take a look at the room. "So, to get to the servants' quarters, you have to go through the master's chamber? No wonder this place was abandoned."

She catches the viper climbing the corridor wall on her arm, and lets it to the shelves in the new room. "Maybe there's something fun left here"

Before leaving the hallway Thalasou stops to investigate a panel he spotted. "Hey guys. There's something here."

Pavo turns back to Thalasou. "What did you find?" he asks. Simultaneously, he sends the rotating lanterns just into the bedchamber.

Not wanting to blanket them in darkness, Ayalina shifts her own orbs of light to compensate. "Anything interesting?"

Delena continues searching through the bookcases with her viper. "Nothing yet, what did you find?" she shouts to the others.

In the interim, Tiber gives the bathroom a search and then does the same around the bed. This is quite the room... Who lived here? "Let me know if you need me over there, I'll stick to this room."
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Pavo dispels his magical lanterns with a snap of his finger as he returns to the previous chamber, inquiring as to what Thalasou found. He examines the panel, looking for a way to open it.

The wall panel doesn't seem like it's supposed to open, and nothing happens when Pavo touches it. His allies have more luck in the other room, though.

Tiber finds a scroll case hidden in the bathtub's railing, as well as a circular, coin-sized niche on the outside of the bathroom wall. Delena notices an ornate gold key just lying on top of the round table, but her quick search of the bookshelves reveals nothing.

Roll Appraise for the key.

"Well, that is clever," Pavo says. "Touching this panel caused the western hall to illuminate."

He leaves the magical light switch and heads into the bedchamber. Finding it being scoured by his compatriots, he goes to the large door and presses his ear to the door to listen.

Satisfied that nothing else appears to have changed, Ayalina continues on with the others, examining the rectangular table on the other side of the bed for anything interesting or telling.

"Has anyone seen a lock? Or is this just an ornament?" Delena says as she picks up the key and waves it.

She walks up to the door behind Pavo. "At a book collection this size, there must be something worth reading. Would take quite a while to dig through it, and I guess Martella wouldn't be happy if the Princess lost her head while we are reading romantic novels. Let's get out first. Anything interesting there, Pavo?"

I forgot to mention it again: room three has a panel just like the first two rooms.

"Light? That is clever. And wasn't there another panel like this in the other room?" Thalasou runs to the other room and touches the panel there then comes back. "Interesting!"

Thalasou joins in with the others searching the room. He drops to his hands and knees and searches under the bed.

”Found a scroll tucked away,” Tiber says as he walks out of the bathroom. Offering it to Lady Delena, he looks closer at the coin sized recession. ”Will that key fit in here? Looks like something is supposed to.” If the key doesn’t work, he fishes a coin of his own out of a pocket and inserts it into the slot.

”Very clever, haha I’ll add this to my dream house plans!” Certainly more than it appears to be! He then checks the bed. ”Cliche, but a bed is usually a decent place to hide things.”
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The western room lit up when Pavo hit the eastern switch, not the hallway. I can't tell which one Thalasou meant to activate, so I'm just going to assume the northern switch, since the others have all been touched.

Neither Ayalina, Thalasou nor Tiber finds anything further in the room. However, when the oracle hits the panel there, light floods the storage room to the south. And neither Delena's key nor Tiber's coin fits into the coin-size niche.

"I don't hear anything on the other side of the door," he answers Delena.

Noticing Tiber fiddling with something in the wall, he steps over and asks, "Something puzzling you?"

He takes a look at the coin-sized niche and tries to discern its purpose.

With the light in the south room, Thalasou goes back into it and searches more carefully.

Do I need to specify exactly where I'm searching?

Tiber graciously backs away for Pavo to take a look. "There is a slot for something, but I'm not too sure what!"

While Pavo fiddles with the slot, he stands ready by the door. "Unless we find something soon, I say we keep pushing forward." Shield at the ready, he places a hand on the handle and waits patiently for the others.

Delena looks over as Pavo examines the circular niche. "This doesn't improve my opinion of this place. Getting weirder all the time. I agree, let's just get out", she says.

Once everyone is ready, Tiber opens the door into yet another unremarkable hallway. He and Pavo notice light shining underneath the door at the end of the hall.