@Mizzug/Toot/Aventail(/Bumbo): You move along the wooden platform, the stone floor beneath you approximately 10 feet down. The walkway leads into another stone hallway level with the wood (and the previous rooms). The edge of your vision shows it appears to open into another room before fading into the darkness.
@Razkiv: Down at ground level, you see that all of these small cells are still shut and locked tightly. Some few contain skeletal remains of their former prisoners, and the one directly to your left (south) has the back wall missing and leading into the tunnel you came up when you first entered this complex. The suffering here must have been intense.
@Dol: All you see is the statue, un-moving, standing mute watch over this place.
@Aventail: As well as this walkway seems to have stood the test of countless centuries, it creaks loudly under your heavy build.
Raz slowly backs up the stairs, weary. "This all seems much worse then goblins."
Toot moves on and to the edge of the room, snorting out breaths as he looks inside. Toot, wait for the rest of us. Toot holds steady, showing some sense after his last misstep, and waits for the others to come up behind him.
Loth follows along with Aventail. In response to Razkiv, Loth says "I agree. Seems to me that whoever is masterminding all this is using the goblin tribes as a mere means to an end."
@Dol: It is not. It seems to be collected in the corners as you would expect from a place that simply isn't cleaned, but the main areas seem to be well trodden (probably by these creatures you keep encountering).
@Bumbo/Toot:
This room contains several ancient relics of what appear to be torture implements, although their function and style seem strange and archaic. In one corner sits a spherical cage with spikes protruding inward from its iron bars. In another stands what appears to be a star-shaped wooden frame, its surface studded with hooks. And in the center of the room is a long table covered with leather straps and a number of cranks that seem designed to rotate and swivel.
In addition, 2 doors exit this room, one to the east and one to the south. Both are closed.
Moving into the room, Mizzug looks around...pic in hand. "Huh...any ya rec'nize dis stuff?"
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When the party has moved forward enough for him to get a look, Dol glances through the room and shudders.
"Horrid, evil, filthy things. Tools designed for causing pain, Mizzug. Not to kill, only to cause agony in prisoners." Saying a blessing of protection, he looks around some more.
"Pick a door and let's keep moving. This room is disturbing."
Bumbo looks around in wonder, seemingly interested until he recognizes what these items are for. Then, he shudders, and averts his eyes from them as if he'd somehow be cursed for viewing such implements.
Nodding to Dol while still keeping his eyes down, he points to the Eastern door. Toot, if you will, please accompany Mizzug over there.
Toot doesn't even snort as he moves that way; the eidolon is seething, furious at such instruments as these. In his mind, there's the challenge and fair battle; things like slavery and torture go against everything in which he believes. He would like to stomp his hooves through much of this equipment, but there's no challenge there. Better to find whatever used these things, and stomp that.
Toot waits by the door for someone with digits to operate it.
Aventail moves as carefully as she can on the wooden structure, mindful of her weight and the platform’s relative structural integrity. The torture devices are in and of themselves unremarkable, beyond their grim function they are nevertheless well-fashioned mechanisms and highly efficient. The adamantian waits with Toot for Mizzug to lead on...
Loth follows along with the others, giving the instruments of pain little more than a passing glance. True, they were horrible, but as far as Loth can see they're also little more than relics of a bygone era of brutality.
Moving towards the closest door with but a nod to her companions, Mizzug listens closely. Glancing back for a sign, she opens it when all seem ready...sharing anything she hears.
@Mizzug: You place your ear up against the seam of the doorway and listen, hearing only your own breathing and that of your companions behind you. Opening the door in the southern wall, you see:
The crumbling remnants of several chairs and a long table clutter the floor of this room. To the south stand three stone doors, each bearing a strange symbol that resembles a seven-pointed star.
Bumbo moves in and pokes his head around Mizzug to look at the stone doors, trying to decipher what these symbols may be.
Raz is getting nervous, he leans towards Bumpo, "What was that quasi..whatsit, how big are they?"
”Quasiwotsit? Where?” Aventail looks around searching for the deformed wotsit.
Bumbo considers for a second. Well, see, there are several different types of quasit but largely...the quasit's are quite small. In fact, they are often used as familiars.
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Moving closer to peer past Mizzug's shoulder, Dol eyes the doors and shudders.
"Based on their proximity to the torture room, I'd guess these are more cells. Much more elaborate than the outer cells. Perhaps for special prisoners or perhaps more of those things were kept inside.
Open one, but be prepared."
@Bumbo: This would be K(History), actually, but of the women with the ransuer in the previous room remembers seeing this symbol on that statue.
@Bumbo 2: Fair assumption. They tend to range from small to tiny in size.
@Aventail: You see nothing else of interest in these chambers, and also hear nothing. A reminder, every time previously you've encountered one of the creatures down here, it was preceded by a scarping sound (presumably its long claw like feet on the stone). You're not hearing that here.
@Dol: Are you opening a door? If so, which one?
With a silent nod, Mizzug moves to the side door and takes a moment to breathe...quickly, she tugs the door open.
Toot prepares to pounce...
Loth moves into the corner of the torture chamber, ready to ambush anything if Mizzug takes it with her into the room.
@Mizzug: Opening the far left door, a small 5' by 5' by 5' room made entirely of stone (sans the aforementioned door) reveals its single occupant. A as it crumples and clatters to the ground around your feet.
Opening the next two doors reveals two additional humanoid skeletons, one with an enormous, misshapen skull and another with ribs that go all the way down to its pelvis and with strangely stunted leg bones.
A quick search of the room nets you only a single scroll of flaming sphere amongst all of the decayed papers and journals on the table/desk.
What happens next? A more thorough search? Move along?
”Experiments?” Aventail muses...
"AACK!" shrieks Mizzug, swinging instinctively. "Oh...it a'ready dead."
"Jus papas and stuff."
Moving to the next door, she pauses. "All gud an ready? O need to look more?"
Loth takes a peek for a more thorough search.
Bumbo nods, though he glances back at the pile of bones with a bit of concern. Toot seems nonplussed and moves forward with Mizzug.
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Dol sighs with relief when the skeletons appear to just be dead monstrosities.
"Definitely seem to be experiments of some kind. Seems odd that they would be here next to a torture chamber."
Still hoping to get out of the torture chamber, he watches to see what is behind the eastern door with his crossbow ready.
Razkiv nerves grow tenser with anticipation, flames seem to dance on his hand and the tattoos on his arm seem to sway like smoke trails.
Aventail stomps to her usual position by Mizzug at the door, halberd in hands.
@Loth: You come across several papers, almost all of them crumble at your touch, no matter how delicate. The only thing that stays intact is the leather cover of what appears to be a small journal. The pages are ruined, but the cover is imprinted with the same 7 pointed star symbol that adorns the doors.
@Everyone/Anyone: Whoever took the scroll of flaming sphere, it is CL 5. Who has it?
@Mizzug: Bravely opening another door, you see a narrow stairwell that descends at a slight angle, opening into yet another large room. Your light fails before it can reach the walls, so its dimensions aren't clear, but you can see what appears to be pallets of wood on the floor.....
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Bumbo looks down the stairs from behind, and whispers. This place is huge! Toot doesn't seem to share the sentiment, and heads down towards the room, not passing the edge of the light.
Moving down the corridor, Mizzug stops just short of the next room. Attempting to peer in, she whispers back to her companions any findings.
Approaching the next room:
The ceiling of this strangely cold chamber arches to a vaulted height of twenty feet. The floor contains eleven wooden lids strewn haphazardly over eleven five-foot-wide pits in the ground. From the darkness within these pits echo up strange shuffling sounds and, every so often, a low moan.
Loth follows Mizzug into the next room. Seeing the lids and hearing the sounds, Loth becomes somewhat concerned. "Are there... Are there people in there? Should we take a look..?"
”Unless it is the strange song of the earth you hear emanating from the bowels of the firmament, I urge caution.” Aventail advises, moving up with Mizzug.
Toot trots up with Dol, quite excited at some new enemy being found within the pit. Bumbo sighs and charges after.
As Dol moves forward, apparently while giving a stirring rendition of the well known (but not very effective) Dwarven Stealth Song, he goes to move one of the wooden coverings from the whole and finds it a bit to heavy to lift. With the startling words of Koruvus will help. A pair of oddly shaped green hands join Dol's on the wooden pallet. Looking up at the body they're attached to, you see a three-armed, hunch-backed goblin that had been sitting quietly in the corner, apparently eating a small rat (the remains of which are clutched in his third arm). Its eyes are over-sized and glow red, his jaw is distended, and his arms are roped with muscle.
Aventail freezes.
”Thank you Koruvus. That is very helpful.” she says, emanating calm.
Bumbo leaps forward as quickly as his plump and short frame will allow. He knows that Toot will have trouble recognizing this for what it is. Toot, hold! Toot, for his part, seems immensely confused. He was more than prepared to tear this goblin into pieces, and the lack of aggression by the rest of the party has him snorting at them in confusion, and disappointment.
Glancing over the hole, Mizzug stifles a gag. "What be dat? Is normal fer ya types ter be so ugly?"
Loth attempts to chime in with support but is somewhat taken aback by the goblin as well.
Pushing the slate of wood to the side, the mutated goblin responds in a guttural voice, Korovus is Korovus. Korovus serves. He cleans, he protects, he makes sure that the shufflers don't get out. Korovus serves well. All the while, he is absent-mindedly switching weapons back and forth from his hands as he scratches, adjusts his clothes, rubs his nose, etc.
Filled with curiosity, Loth asks. "Who do you serve, Korovus?"