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Behind the door Iso finds the mess hall and the kitchen. The 30-by-30-foot mess hall contains several enormous wooden tables, stained by years of use and abuse. The room smells musty and rotten. The large kitchen holds culinary equipment needed to serve a large number of prisoners. Several dead prison cooks lie here, their bodies slashed and stabbed repeatedly.
The wooden handles scattered about the floor are knife handles devoid of blades.
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Tippy also sees that there is no other metal in this room, all the pots and pans rusted away. No knives are stuck in the cooks backs.
Iso moves on to the other side of the Indoor Market and opens the remaining door on this level. Behind it he finds a big room. This 50-foot-by-35 foot room contains the recognizable trappings of a chapel. An altar dedicated to Abadar rests upon a raised section near the northern wall. The chapel holds a bell.
The bell is more than a mundane chapel bell. It radiates magic.
The bell as a relic.
Unfortunately the bell is too heavy to be just carried away.
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"Iso thinks it is good the bell is so high. Bad monster would have made trip pointless."
He looks up.
"How does Iso know if this is bell?"
He looks around for somewhere to climb up to see if he can make out any markings or etchings.
"Iso wonders what it sounds like. Iso is very muscial. Iso has played flute-chest and also big organ in Absalom. Iso also very knowledgeable about Opera."
The barbarian looks around also for a rope so he can write a piece about the sound of the bell.
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"Iso has good memory. Captain wanted us to confirm this is right bell. Iso was asked to leave it here though. Captain was very clear about that. "
He nods wisely. "When Iso asked how we would know if this is right bell he said"
"Yes, only a very good description. Please don't take it from the prison's chapel. Prisoners skilled in magic swear the bell strongly radiates arcane power from the school of enchantment. I think that's the major hint to identify the bell is the one we are looking for. A bell dating back to the time of old Azlant is rumored to make those who hear its clear ring susceptible to suggestion and some whisper that human hands did not construct the bell, but rather that the aberrant masters of a once mighty empire crafted it. Former prisoners tell tales of the bell’s soothing ring."
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Borrobol and Celentrai carefully study the bell while taking notes. Once they are finished the group continues down the stairs to the lower level.
The first level of Stavian’s Fair contains four large solitary confinement pens reserved for political dissidents. Due to the wooden nature of these cells, the rust monster’s carnage did not affect this floor. Steps are leading further down.
You find a diary in one of the cells, its last passage details the horrific abduction. Several pages beyond the last entry were torn out.
I write in haste. Whoever finds this be warned, the derro
took us all! Look for discarded paper to follow my path.
They are herding the prisoners into the lower cells in
Stavian’s Fair. They have a...
An acid arrow trap is installed on the set of stairs leading down.
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Celentrai takes the diary and reads it.\
"It looks like we have a trail of papers to follow. This fellow left them behind so we could find him. He had indicated they have some strange creature with them but he didn't not say what it was. Lets continue but please look for a trail of papers, I assume they are from this diary."
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Iso leads the group further down. Suddenly he hears a clicking noise, a second before arrows fill the air. Iso sees the arrows coming his way, but is to slow to dodge aside. Several arrows hit Iso and he feels the acid burn his skin.
The second level of the basement is stripped of nearly everything metal, leaving what was once a tangle of dank, solitary confinement cages transformed into a tumbled mess of furniture and prisoner odds and ends.
A collection of broken furniture in the southeast corner suggests a struggle, you find a splattering of blood on the floor in front of the door in the southeast corner of the room. The derros left someone behind here.
The man stands before the wall, contentedly painting a large mural. The mural depicts two large snakes carrying a bell into Cassomir’s sewers and portrays in great detail what is clearly you chasing after the snakes.
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Iso feels the acid burning his skin, but after a few seconds he pours ale over the wounds to wash away the acid.
The Crazed Painter continues to paint, not answering the questions. Suddenly he stops and turns around. "They did not hurt me, they let me go. I followed them through the Ismacco tunnel system. I trailed the derro to a grotto. The derros using the grotto to turn their kidnap victims into strange creatures." he stops to talk and continues to paint.
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"Sure, I'll do everything for my fans!" the painter says. "Unfortunately I lost my paintings book somewhere, I think the kidnappers took it, maybe they are also fans. Groetus has grand plans for me, and you as well. He wants the derros dead." the man says and starts to paint a picture of an undead creature on a single sheet of paper which looks like a pulled page of a book.
"Down, down, deeper, and down, follow my map to the underground." the painter says, points to the door i nthe southeast corner of the room, and hands you a piece of paper with an unintelligible garble of scrawls and pictures on it and says "Understand the map and you find the grotto, but do not disturb the shrine or Groetus’s anger will be swift!"
The undead creature in the paining might be a ghast.
The map the Crazed Painter offers you is actually no help at all. It's just a random jumble of stick figures, letters, numbers, and lines on a piece of paper.
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"More pictures for you, sir. Of course!" he says and leads you to a small room in the corner of this level. In the room is a simple toilet. The Crazed Painter walks into the room and lifts a hidden door in the floor. Immediately the room fills with a distguisting smell of garbage and fecal sludge.
"Down there somewhere. Follow the pages." the painter says and starts to descend.
Refuse rushes by in a stream of garbage carried swiftly through the sewer proper. A five-foot-wide dry ledge sits a foot above the refuse and provides a walkway on both the east and west sides of the sewer. On the west wall, a massive iron door blocks passage beyond. An image carved into the door is of a dispassionate figure holding a gibbous moon.