Considering the damage one trap can do based on the will of a disgruntled-faced statue, she decides it's best to go ahead and disarm the trap on the middle door.
Shiv takes another swing at the crossbow, undeterred by the damage he sustained. He slices into it again, dealing some more damage, but sees that it's still functional.
Lash runs over to the middle door, pulling her tools out as she goes. Kneeling at the door knob and focusing on the wire, she works at it, but can't quite disarm it. However, nothing bad happens.
Believing it is best to simply wait for the trap to run out of bolts, Sim stays out of way.
Marcos steps to his right, staying in the gap of the wall. "Guys! There are gaps in the wall that communicate with the other alleys!" He shows his heqad carefully and spots whether there are crossbows also in the other alley.
Marcos, careful to not pass into the next hallway, peeks his head in and sees a familiar sight: a torch-lined hallway like the one he's in with a crossbow at the far end trained at the door Lash is currently behind. He also sees more gaps in the walls from the middle hallway to the right hallway (E5 to E6, I5 to I6, and O5 to O6).
A glint of light draws Marcos' attention to the floor beneath him, and he sees a wire running across the gap at about shin height. He feels he could easily step over it, but is glad to have noticed it.
The crossbow trap Shiv is staring down the barrel of finishes reloading and lets loose a bolt.
Reeling from the pain from the last bolt, Shiv is unable to block this one, and it pierces into his stomach next to the other bolt.
Hearing cries of pain each time he is shot, she wonders what in the world is going on down that hallway. She peeks back and sees that Shiv is injured, falling to the ground.
Taking a knee, Lash will pull her bow and try to finish what he started. She can see a hole through the arms of Marcos, Kahli, and Shiv's body.
Move: Doorway
(+2 to ac vs Ranged)
Sim continues to follow Lash, intending to protect her as she moves around disarming the traps.
With Shiv's scythe cutting through the string of the crossbow, rendering it useless, the reloading mechanism continues to run, jamming itself as the bolts fall on top of each other before stopping completely. The party counts and the crossbow would have fired 10 bolts before running out.
Lash refocuses on the middle door and, after a little work, manages to jam the wire and cut it, before safely opening the door. Lash lets the party know she cleared the door, but Marcos fills her in on the wire at his feet.
Not wanting to take one of the crossbow bolts in her stomach, Kahli drops to the floor with Shiv, using her wand again.
"Thank you Kahli- that did not work out as I planned." Shiv retrieves his shield.
With a moment to breath, the party can take stock of the situation. Lash has successfully disabled the middle door and opened it. She can now see to the far end of the hallway and is staring at a, what she believes, is a non-functional crossbow. Marcos points out the wire at his feet and his concerns therein. Kahli and Shiv begin to return from their mission at the far end of the first hallway as Sim and the croc wait patiently at the entrance to the doors.
The party can see glimpses into the third hallway through the gaps in the walls. Like the one Marcos is standing in, they're from the floor to the ceiling and are wide enough to easily walk through. The door to the third hallway remains locked and trapped.
"Thank you for sticking close by me, Sim" she quietly speaks to the halfling in a tone that reflects deep appreciation.
She will slowly retract her tools from the trap and open the door to show it disabled.
When Marcos warns about the traps in the middle, she nods as if that would make sense.
"You all should come back down here and see what the faces do as I disarm this. Are you alright Shiv'Raston?" she calls out in question down the hallway.
"Does anyone need a crossbow with multiple bolts? I imagine this one could be pulled from the floor if you are so brave as to travel down the hallway?"
She will peer down the hall to see if anything lies down that hallway different from the first.
"Well..." says Marcos, carefully stepping back from the wire. "I wouldn't mind firing some bolts next time you guys need a hand." He walks the now safe way to the wall and tries to extract the crossbow for his own use.
"What puzzles me is... there's nothing at the end of the alley... Why these doors then? I'm itching to check the other ones."
Sim slightly bows to Lash. "I'd be ashamed if I did not so. It is my duty, as a knight." It is clear that Sim is indeed pride of being a knight and fully believes in what he is saying.
To Marcos, he gives his opinion about the place. "Considering what we've seen so far, searching for logic in this place is the same as searching for teats on a chicken."
With the trap broken Kahli takes a moment to access Shiv's wounds. "Let me help you up. Are you alright or should I use another charge from the wand? It's not a waste if it keeps us all vertical and breathing!"
"What happens if you set off the trap without opening the door?"
From her position, Lash doesn't see any dangers in the middle hallway. Feeling confident she disabled the crossbow, she moves up to investigate the wire Marcos discovered while Marcos walks around to the middle hallway and makes his way to retrieve the crossbow. Noting it looks the same as the wire she saw at the door, Lash calls out to get Marcos to hold up, as she feels this may be a secondary trip wire to the crossbow, but for the left or middle, she's not sure.
Her question is answered, however, when whoever returns to check on the faces and sees that the second face is still quizzically looking at the party. The leftmost face has now changed to appear as if it were crying, it's bottom lip pouting. The rightmost face matches the second in its expression, one eyebrow raised, as if it were waiting for the next move in a game of chess.
As Marcos acknowledges Lash's warning, he continues to walk down the hallway and carefully poke his head into the third hallway and sees yet another long hallway with a crossbow at the end. However, he does notice something different: a door on the right side by the crossbow.
There could very well be a special trap for the last door. She proceeds to ignore the third door and will move down the hallway to make sure the crossbow is properly disabled for Marcos. She will need someone there to make sure if it is set of it won't kill her. Once ready, she will work on the trap to ensure their safety.
She will then move to the split between the second hallway and third hallway and undo any trap placed there.
Lash squeezes past Marcos and looks over the crossbow and the automatic reloading system. She sees the mechanism that runs the whole thing and manages to disable it without activating the crossbow.
She gives Marcos the all clear and proceeds to kneel down in the northernmost gap between the second and third hallways. She tries to clamp the wire and cut it, but she pulls away at the last second when she feels like it's not quite going to work.
"Thank you." Marcos starts studying the crossbow and gathering some bolts, but then he notices Lash has done technical difficulties.
"May I help you with that?"
"Oh... I didn't know that piece went through there... Wait... Na, that's to complex for my old brain..."
With Lash disabling the middle crossbow, Marcos is able to pull it out no problem.
Now that she is further down the hallway, she decides that instead of going down the middle doorway, to just disarm the trap in between the 2nd hallway and 3rd hallway.
Not finding success on her first try, Lash moves to a new wire and tries again, but can't quite figure out the final step to lock the wire safely in place.
With the middle hallway trap disabled, the middle stone face shifted from the questioning face to the sad, pouting expression.
Seeing Lash looking a bit perplexed at the trap Kahli stays out of the way, but calls to Lash, "If you can't disable the trap and recover parts, couldn't you just break it? Or take all of the bolts so it doesn't have anything to shoot? Then set it off for kicks!"
Shiv frowns, "Sorry, I'm not much help with this sort of thing."
Lash takes a second to step back and give a look over the whole situation. From where she stands in the middle hallway, she can see that the door in the northeast corner is unlocked and opens outward, though she can't make out if it's trapped or not from that distance.
Regarding the wire, she sees that it's low enough to the floor that "a medium size creature" could carefully step over, but "a small size creature" may need to "make an Acrobatics check" or get some assistance to make it over without tripping it.
"Well, there are certainly more traps than they have invited monsters in this place. Frankly, I'd rather take on the traps."
To Kahli, she responds, "Well, that's essentially what Shiv'Raston just did. It can be costly. I think in this instance, the bolts are harder to get at. They rigged it quite well. We could always just set off the trap and let it fire until it's done, but it may be a magical trap this time, and instead of arrows, maybe it shoots fireballs from a hidden wand? Rogues are tricky."
She will attempt the action again, gently sliding her tools into the wall to hopefully dislodge the tripwire.
Lash's tool slips and the wire snaps and quickly retracts into the wall with a loud whirring sound. Anyone still back at the faces sees the third face begin to contort from its quizzical expressions, as stone grinds on stone, and land in a similar angry expression. The door at the south end of the third hall opens at the same time the crossbow fires a bolt. The reloading mechanism begins to pull the string back and load another bolt...
Hearing the crossbow in the other area start firing.... "Everybody over here. This one is broken so let's see if it runs out of ammunition."
"Well, there were... about ten bolts with the other one?" Marcos points out once in a safe place. "Plus the ones that were fired, and the ones that could have been fired before we arrived. But, with the place being intrinsically magical, and probably magically created, maybe the bolts reset every time. So yeah, between 10 and 15 bolts." He shrugs. "This shouldn't take too much time."
Taking Kahli and Marcos' advice, she'll restrain from going into the room until the crossbow stops firing. They check the faces in the meantime and she will chuckle at their frustration.
"That's a far cry from what they were when we entered."
Once done, she will wait a short time to see if it reloads itself and fires or if it is finally done.
"Does anyone else desire a crossbow?"
If so, she will remove it, otherwise, she will check the right side doorway.
"We have experienced so much in here. How much larger is this dungeon? Is there even a way out? Up? Down?"
"I have a crossbow. But until we get out of here we may need to conserve ammunition. Once it is done firing let's see if any of the bolts are still usable."
The party hunkers down as the crossbow fires another bolt that smacks off the wall and flips down the hallway. The reloading mechanism continues to whir as it loads the crossbow and fires again. This continues over the next minute until the bolts stop firing. The whirring continues for another 15 seconds before slowly coming to a stop. Lash pokes her head into the hallway to make sure it's clear before stepping over the wire and makes her way to the crossbow.
She tries to remove the crossbow from its mount and the reloading mechanism, but cracks the body of it.
She moves on to take a look at the northeast door and doesn't see any traps on it. Listening through, she doesn't hear anything and cracks open the door seeing a hallway that immediately turns left where it becomes a small 10x15 room with a small metal chandelier hanging from the ceiling with a handful of small candles in it. She can see a metal door on the western wall.
Once it seems like the trap is done and the team is ready to move on, Kahli checks all of the fired bolts to see if any are worth keeping. Then she follows the group to the next room.
Kahli inspects the bolts and finds five more bolts able to be scavenged and sticks them in her bag (or gives them to Marcos?).
When she enters the new room, she points out to the group that the metal door is unlike the others they have encountered so far. This one has intricate scrollwork engraved into it around this symbol and is secured by a metal bar across the door.
Kahli calls Marcos up to take a look at it and they determine it to be the symbol of Lamashtu.
After Kahli and Marcos finish studying the door, Lash moves up to her spot and puts an ear against the door. She hears a large fire burning and two creatures speaking in a language she doesn't understand. One creature has a deeper voice and laughs a lot after it says something to the other creature.
She then notices the door is unlocked and opens inward, but moving the metal bar could cause some noise if not done carefully.
Lash will signal that there are two small creatures, and one bigger, regardless of whether that was true or not.
Before they attempt to unlock the door, she'll pull out her gear maintenance kit and the oil within it. She will attempt to identify where the iron bar may be caught on if they were to try to open the door. She'll then dabble oil over the offending areas, as well as the tracks they are about to follow when the bar slides open. Initially, it may make a tiny bit of sound, but hopefully not much.
She'll make room to let the front-liners to go into the front. She'd pull away and pull her bow. It seems that - based on everything else they've experienced in here - another series of enemies are in front of them.
Although she is curious about what the creatures ahead would be, Kahli steps back for the combat leaders to get ready.
Marcos nods to the signals, ready with a story for the incoming fight. As always, he plans on staying behind, this time supporting with the crossbow.
With a gentle tug, she will slide the bar back and once all the way returned and out of the way of them opening the door, she'll step back and let the others through.
Shiv waits for other, less clumsy of his fellows to go first, holding his breathe nearly and holding as still as possible to avoid the distinctive clanking of the stone lammellar.
His shield readied in position, Sim nods to the others, ready to enter the room and set a defensive position for his companions.
Sim takes his spot at the front of the group, shield ready in a familiar formation. But before he can pull the door open, a deep, gravely voice calls from the room. "A new batch already?" It sounds as if his mouth is full of saliva as he talks, with an excessive amount of lip smacking. "You're not as talented as you think. I know you're there. Why don't you just turn around and go jump in the acid and save us both the time. I have a meal to finish." He lets out a deep belly laugh.
Sim pushes the door open with his foot. "Boasting before a battle shows insecurity, perhaps a silly attempt of discouraging or angering an opponent and thus gaining an edge."
His shield ready and his blade drawn, Sim looks defiantly at his new enemies. "If you are indeed worried about time, then get this started with!" Sim might not be tall like most knights, but his spirit is certainly not smaller than of his former peers.
Lash will follow Sim and the others inside. As she does, she thinks, "All the bones that ghoul had eaten. Piles of them. All the goblins that had some bodily foul soup...and now his words. How many have come here and died? How many have come here and died just recently!?"
This was all some sick murderous factory or game to these evil beings. Send people you want to die to this dungeon. Have them come across this gravely voiced being, and then toss them out like trash to be gnawed on by some undead and goblins? Not on her watch. Not anymore. She would die fighting this injustice. Her hand readies to pull her bowstring like it never had before. Her companions may see her knuckles go white in the strength of her grip.
Kahli follows directly behind Lash, ready for.... Well, unsure about that!
Sim pulls the door open slightly and swings it open the rest of the way with his foot. Looking into the room, Sim and those standing directly in front of the door see a 45' x 15' stone room with four pillars along the north and south walls. There's a large stone bowl on a pedestal in the middle of the room with a raging fire in it, lighting the entire room.
Beyond the fire on the far side of the room, the group sees the source of the deep voice. You see a fat balding bugbear wearing what amounts to a dirty soiled sack covered with stains. He sits on a wooden throne on an elevated stone platform with steps leading up it. He is eating what you could interpret to be a leg of...something.
He sees Sim and the rest and smiles a greasy smile. He takes a final bite and tosses it to the floor before pushing himself up off the throne, grabbing a falchion as he does. "I suppose I can work up a new appetite!"
While the rest of the party doesn't see it, Lash barely makes out the knee of what she figures is the second creature she heard sticking out from behind the stone fire bowl.
Round 1 Turn Order
Lash (23)
Sim (20)
Marcos (19)
Bugbear (19)
Shiv (17)
Kahli (16)
Hiding Creature (11)
"Come out from behind the bowl, you little sneak!" she will announce to the party, letting them know what is going on in regards to another enemy.
Seeing it has clearly set itself as an enemy, she moves into the room and will take a shot.
Move: To B9
Target: Bowl Boy's Knee
+2 to ranged AC
"Here's a sample of what we have to offer you for a meal!"
"Ah, a small'un hiding behind a big'un! That's a classical story tool. Don't let yourselves be fooled, friends, for the small'un is usually the smart'un, and wields power far more formidable than meets the eye! It was the case with the mischievous goblin Skarsnik and his squig companion, Gobbla..."