Eowithe nods as Araton reminds all of what the squire had to say about the dangers beyond the door, "Shrieker....shrieker..." she mutters to herself, trying to remember aught about such a creature.
She watches intently as Araton opens the door, anticipating anything.
Tawg ambles down the hallway to the door, taking his own look at the next barrier to see if there's any danger to opening it.
He chuckles at the words above the door. "I'm probably the fool of us, because I have no idea what that means. Unless I can punch smarts into to things, I might not be much help in this next room."
He lines up directly behind Araton, ready to defend his friends.
The door is opened to reveal another stark room, furnished with a single podium in the center, on top of which is displayed a silver and sapphire pendant.
There is no exit to this room that you can see except for a flight of stairs leading upwards to the east.
The room is also occupied. By the podium leans a small goblin (regular sized compared to Tawg) that is dressed as a jester of all things. It holds a little puppet head on a stick in one hand and its other hand is chained to the floor by the pedestal so that it can barely move more than a few steps in any direction.
It laughs a crazed laugh. "What do you know Hilley, adventurers have come to finally rescue us." He says to his stick puppet.
Then he turns to you. "Hello tall ones. Would you care for a joke from Jake?" Whether you respond or not, he asks, "What do you call an adventurer with no arms and no legs?"
Ugh. The fool was literal, it appeared. Although...deception was a tool. What if the goblin wasn't actually crazed? What if this was a cunning deception, and the goblin possessed some information. Killing it outright would surely be stupid. Perhaps there was a way to find out more...
Sarela smiled at the goblin as he began his joke, her mental influence undermining his Will even as he began to speak, and she wove thought and emotions of subservience into his mind, making him see her as a friend as she said, "I don't care much for adventurers, Jake. Why don't you tell us how you came to be in this room?"
Tawg's eyes grow even bigger when he sees another Goblin, but his brow quickly furrows when he realizes the outfit the Goblin is wearing. "You...," he takes half a step forward. "...you are the fool! You are not a fighter, not a Goblin!" Tawg pauses as the "goblin" tells his joke. Tawg bares his teeth. "I call it my next meal!"
He holds still when Sarela asks her question and casts her spell.
Jake the goblin grows a more genuine smile as he looks at Sarela and can't help but finish the joke. "Matt!" He laughs crazily...
"Can't you see? Jake is prisoner in this dungeon. He commits no crime. Old grey one is cruel. Now that friend is here, you save Jake, take jewel and escape."
"A prisoner? How terrible for you. Can you describe the old grey one for me? Did the old grey one have a name?"
"Tall. Old. Grumpy. Accused poor Jake of stealing! And then chained me here. No name. No talk. Most unfriendly one I ever met. You're friendly. Get me out of these chains and lets get out of this crazy place."
"Did he accuse you of trying to steal anything specific, or just stealing in general?"
Eowithe observed from the doorway, arms crossed , waiting for Sarela's questioning to run it's course; waiting until the moment was right to subject the 'fool' to her fearful presence.
As she does her piercing gaze settles on the foolish goblin, intuiting the truthfulness of it's responses.
"I'm telling you I didn't steal anything important! Only a few shinies that they would never have missed!" He seems about the average intelligence for a goblin. Perhaps less than average.
You sense that the goblin is lying about his activities that landed him here, he is an unrepentant thief. He also seems quite insane but why or how that came about is a mystery.
"You spoke about a jewel. Tell me more about it." Araton asks, remembering their task was to retrieve such a jewel. "Do you have the jewel?"
"Oh, yes, what jewel is is that you spoke of. It's alright, you can tell me."
The goblin looks up above his head to the top of the podium he is chained below and points.
The door is opened to reveal another stark room, furnished with a single podium in the center, on top of which is displayed a silver and sapphire pendant.
He is chained in a way that he cannot move away from the podium and also has not enough length to climb up the podium and grab the pendant.
"Please friends help me escape and I will share it. You can have the silver. I just want the shiny rock. We can escape up the stairs over there."
From the doorway, Eowtith drawls, "The fool lies...and we the greater fool to believe it! Plus it seems quite deranged, more reason to discount it's tale."
She moves into the room, "My guess is it serves to distract us from that, " she says, pointing at the stairs, "no doubt picking up the jewel will set off whatever trap lies here."
She transits the room to stand before the stairs, taking a look up...
Sarela's mouth turns into a pout, but as she speaks, her voice is tinged with a hint of cruelty, "You lied to me, Jake. That isn't what friends do. I'm hurt. We will definitely have to leave you here unless you tell us the truth."
"No, friends! Jake doesn't lie. Ok maybe I did try and steal something important. But then he hurt me and chained me here! I'm the real victim here. He said, 'Freedom for you is up those stairs'. And then he laughed at me."
"No, jewel not trapped! Jake best trap finder. My brothers died in a spike-pit trap but I saw it and got out of the way."
"I promise never to steal again if you get me out of here! I swear on my brothers!" Hah. A lie if you ever heard one.
Eowithe walks over to the stairs. Jake stares over, fear in his eyes at being left behind. It's true he thinks that's the way to freedom. Your eyes tell you the opposite. The first step is slightly off-coloured and not quite right. A false step. So often a trigger for a larger trap. Stairs? Something nasty could easily be hiding in the darkness at the top of the stairs. Crossbow trap? Fire? Examining the walls and floor for traces shows grind marks where something large has scraped past. A giant boulder!
"And what did you try and steal?"
"It was a diamond big as my head." His outstretched to emphasize how big.
"Thank you for your honesty, Jake. It's always best to tell the truth to your friends."
Sarela gave the necklace a closer look.
As far as you can tell this is the pendant that the Cardinal sent you down here to retrieve.
"This appears to be what we were sent to find, but we've only completed 6 lessons. Eowithe, what did you find over there?"
Eowithe grunts at what she sees in the stair way and turns back, "The stairs are trapped, at least the first step is....big rolling stone I think."
She takes a few steps into the room, "Perhaps another lesson waits for us at the top of the stairs....with the amulet of course." she suggests.
"A boulder trap then. Perhaps...the listen is believing him. He believes that the necklace and jewel are authentic but we know that Timeon's mentor lays somewhere in here. Let us move up the stairs, see what awaits, and then decide from there." Araton says, looking between his cohorts. His attention is stolen for a moment as he narrows his brow, his head tilting for a moment.
"Is that so? You think so, uncle? Very well." The man clears off a space in the room, looking to the others again. "Give me a moment. I will commune with the others for guidance."
As he sits there, the tiefling's movements grow less and less. Eventually, he becomes as still as the dead. The torches flutter with an unfelt wind, a chill growing in the room. Voices play on the edge of one's hearing and if you look away from the antipaladin, it was as if the shadows formed shadowy figures whispering into his ear.
You hear a long drawn-out whispered Wooooooooooooooooooe
As Araton communed, Sarela eyed the wall opposite the stairs. "Didn't Timeon say there was a secret door opposite the way out?"
She went over to the wall and began examining it, looking for a secret door.
"He did. Do not take that jewel to the cardinal. It would go...poorly." Araton says, standing up and brandishing his blade.
"The boy in the torture chamber could be useful. This goblin...doubtful. Should we cull it?" Araton asks with a mirthless smile, looking down at the little creature.
Sarela inspects the opposite wall and finds a small hand-sized imperfection. Pushing on it triggers a hidden door, revealing another bare stone hallway.
The goblin stares. "Wow a secret passage! Imagine what treasure could be hidden down there!" When Araton looms over and he realises what may be his fate, his delight changes to horror.
"Please! No need to kill! You... you are heroes! And I... I'm a poor little goblin that made a couple tiny bad decisions. Please have mercy! I can... I can be your own personal servant. Your jester!"
Without any voice to interrupt him otherwise, Araton puts his foot down hard on the chain of the goblin to force him down towards the ground. Spinning the longsword around in his hand, the vicious smile grows across his face.
"You served your purpose well, goblin. We thank you." And with that final measure, he brings the blade down upon him.
The crazy goblin jester dies, its round head rolling a short distance across the room.
"Well then, let us carry on, shall we?" Araton says, wiping his blade off on the goblin's corpse before moving to the wall to examine it.
Sarela shows no concern for the fate of the goblin - she'd intended to do the same, after all. "Agreed. Let us continue learning our lessons."
Eowithe watches the execution of the fool without expression. Then, she moves over and searches it's headless body, "Let's see if in death the fool has anything to aid us...."
Unfortunately the goblin had nothing but his poorly-fitting jester outfit and stick puppet. Nothing of worth.
Moving forward, the hallway goes south for a short distance then turns to the left to reveal another door. As expected, there is yet another inscription above the door.
Secrecy is our greatest ally. Exposure brings death.
Sarela studied the words for a moment. Isn't that the truth to things? she thought, as exposure was what had led her to Branderscar and death - before the Cardinal had given them the tools to escape, and a second chance with revenge thrown in.
Sarela pressed her ear to the door, frowning, as she carefully listened for any sound of something on the other side of the door.
You don't hear anything beyond the door.
Cautiously, quietly, Sarela opens the door and peeks inside, seeing if anyone or anything is in the room.
The room inside is completely dark, though from what little light you are letting in you can see vegetation filling the area. Plants and bushes, vines covering the ground, a dirt floor instead of the usual stone. In the centre you can see a faint glow coming from a large mushroom, as tall and round as an adult human.
Araton moves quietly behind Sarela, looking over her shoulder to see the large mushroom that dominates the center of it. He studies it for a moment, analyzing it.
Sarela lets Araton take a look and study the mushroom before she quietly closes the door so the group can talk. She says, "Well, I didn't see Sir Balin in there, so from what Timeon told us, that room contains either the 'shrieker' - whatever that is - or the drowned men who rise when it cries. I didn't see any water in there, either, but the drowned men could be buried in the room, and then rise up when we enter. Of course, there may be other threats he didn't know to tell us about."
She looks at the lesson above the door again, then at the other two and says, "I'm capable of moving quietly and avoiding notice, although not as good as I thought, since they caught me. How are the two of you at it?"
"My...mentors...have taught me how to be silent. Alas, the armor I wear does not make it easy for me to be quiet though." Araton thinks for a moment, placing his shield on his back and securing it firmly. "I do not have any magics that may help me either. I will move as quietly as I can though."
With darkvision you can easily see into the room. A soil garden occupies the centre of the room with a singular large glowing purple mushroom in the center with smaller brown mushrooms scattered around it. Outside the strange garden, vines grow over the dirt covered stone floor and up the cracks of the walls.
"How about seeing in the dark? A light will give us away, and the darkness within may cause issues for those who cannot see in it."
"Now that, that I can do." Araton says, taking a breath. "I will try my best to be quiet and lead the way. Follow if you can." With that, Araton would begin to make his way through the room, skirting around the edges to try and avoid the large mushroom with the uncomfortable name of "shrieker".
Skirting the edge of the room in the dark seems to work and you arrive at the next door without issue. It is unlocked and opens to another short corridor.
Above the next door is an 8th inscription.
Beware the fallen, for they may rise once more to threaten you.
Once everyone's through the room, Sarela makes sure to close the door behind them so that nothing is disturbed.
She then studies the inscription before whispering, "Is this a reference to the legends that some Mitran priests could supposedly restore life to the deceased?"
Eowithe sneaks through the odd room with the others, nodding to Sarela as she sensibly closes the door behind her.
"Or, Eowith opines, " the inscription means beware those that were slain that are called back to serve after death....otherwise known as the undead. "
She reaches out and pulls or pushes the door opens slowly...
The door opens slowly to reveal the next room. Another stone room lit by a solitary lantern, this lantern however is a weathered ship's lantern. There are small puddles of water around the room as well as clumps of sand. In each corner of the room are 2 coffins, wet and with patches of sand clinging to them and around the base as if these coffins have been dragged out of the sea and brought right to this room. Across the room is another wooden door.
"Undead are real?" Sarela asks incredulously as Eowithe prepares to open the door.
Once the door is open and they enter the room, Sarela attempts to quietly approach the nearest coffin, examining it.