Meebo blasts the stirge attached to Utsuri, leaving nary a scorch mark on the monk.
Tek squints. His eyes trying to pierce the smoke and flames in the room. He can hear the whisk of wings on the far side of the small chamber. The tip of a knocked arrow moves back and forth following the gnome's gaze. The taut bowstring practically humming with anticipation as he waits for a clear shot. Finally. A swirl in the smoke. The snap of the bowstring. Tek takes the shot.
"Blast and Damnation!" He exclaims fiercely hearing the slap of the arrow against the far wall and the Dark Lady's chuckle in his ear.
Utsuri rushes out but the creature along his back drains more of his vitality. Meebo quickly incinerates the creature, giving Silas a moment to step over and run his hand along the metallic skin of the monk.
"You still have much to do. Rest as the sun does when the evening comes." The chill that Utsuri's drained body had would become calmer now, warmth returning to it as the call of the grave was halted in its track.
Myev charges back into the room and swings at another stirge, hoping that this is the last one...
Myev takes a deep breath and rushes back into the smokey room. Reaching the back wall, she finds the last of the stirges and proceeds to smash ot into the wall.
As Myev destroys the last if the stories, Bahewra makes a brief flourish with her hand, sniffing out the fire.
Baheera tries her best to snuff the flame, but it had grown too large the first time she tried.
A few moments and a few tries later, the flame is finally extinguished. The thick smoke clings to the ceiling and slowly begins to dissipate from the room.
With thw smoke clearing, Tek cautiously ventures into the room to see if anything of interest might be hidden beneath the dust and grit.
Myev, coming down from the high of battle, waves her hand in front of her face, tears streaming down her face from the smoke. She leaves the room, desperate for some semblance of fresh air.
She sees Utsuri on the ground and kneels down next to them, wiping the tears from her eyes. "Silas, got anything that could help Utsuri?" She asks, her voice a little rough from the smoke.
Tek searches the room focusing on the sparkling bits in the dust on the room's floor. He digs through the now oil laden dust and sand and finds four gemstones - two pieces of amber worth approximately 100 gold each, a blue spinel that he estimates to be worth 500 gold, and finally the prize of the bunch a yellow-green sapphire that could be worth as much as 1,000 gold pieces should you ever make it back to civilization.
As Tek gets back to his feet, he notices a faint outline in the southern wall that looks a fair bit like the secret door that you uncovered to get into this room in the first place.
"I can try. Lathander, help me." Taking his holy symbol in hand, the cleric's eyes closing as he takes a slow breath. "By the Morninglord's light, rise like the morning's glory. Breathe in and be whole." A warm light began to resonate in Silas' free hand as he places down his hand upon the monk's chest.
Once the light leaves his hand, Silas lets out a shuddering breath and wipes the sweat from his brow. Shaking slightly, he lifts up his shield and wraps the chain for his amulet around his hand.
"That...that is all I can do for now. I cannot channel more of Lathander's greater miracles, only his minor gifts. I apologize."
"To pull one back from the brink of death is no small miracle Silas, there is no need for apology" Baheera says in wonder.
"People like you are the reason I'm still standing, Silas. Don't sell yourself short." Myev grins and claps the smaller man on the back, a little harder than she probably should have. "We should probably take a few and rest soon. For Utsuri's sake."
Meebo watched with relief and fascination as Utsuri was healed and rose back up. Then she frowned as she looked back in the smokey, charred room. "Wonder what they've been feeding off of all this time..." she mused idly, soon lost in thought over the matter.
While pondering the question of what the stiges had been feeding upon, Meebo finds herself looking upwards toward the ceiling of the chamber. As the smoke dissipates, she sees a small hole in the northwest corner of the ceiling...apparently the stirges had been comming and going as they would please.
Tekumbray lets out a low surprised whistle as he picks up and examines the gemstones.
"Not bad." He says holding them up into the little available light. "Not bad at all."
"Found a few gemstones in here. One is probably worth a fair bit if we ever get out of this desert." He says to Myev and Meebo as they enter the room while dropping the gems into his pouch. "And it looks like there might be another hidden door over there." He adds pointing to the southern wall.
Myev puts a hand up, a gesture indicating she'd like a pause, leaning on the handle of her maul as she thinks. She gazes on the group, looking at everyone individually before speaking. "It's clear that this place is built to keep folks like us out. We should tread carefully, scouting as we go. We have limited resources and people are already hurt." She speaks with confidence and authority, bred of lots of training and several years of military service.
"I'm all for checking out the secret door. We just need to proceed with caution. I'm speaking to myself here, too."
The widest imaginable smile spreads across Silas's face and he is thankful for the soot and exertion that hides the terrible blush that spreads across it.
"Awww...I...It is Lathander's gift, I am just his vessel. A small tithe when we reach civilization is all I ask humbly for. Without each of you, I do not think I'd have even made it this far." The cleric is interrupted by the strange being's awkward hug. While Utsuri may have been used to others being unsure about...everything about them, Silas turns into the hug and squeezes the monk back. "It is my pleasure, truly. Thank you." The flower is tenderly tucked under his armor and vestments before he turns to look at the room before them.
"Tread carefully where light has yet to touch, the scripture suggests. We can explore further but we should be especially wary. I can salve the most dire of wounds and prevent you passing onwards but I cannot heal another like I did a moment ago." Hefting his shield, the cleric would nod from beneath his armor with a big smile. "Ready when you all are."
"Well..." Myev looks around at everyone. "Secret door number two or go down this hallway?"
"Might as well continue trying the hidden path." Tek says pointing toward the secret door as he leans against the wall waiting to see what his companions prefer.
Having decided to see what lies beyond the second secret door, Utsuri pushes on the slab of stone, and much like the previous one, after depressing slightly, it recedes into the wall.
Outside of the door you find yourselves in another ten-foot wide corridor. Twenty feet east lies a stone door that you can easily assume leads back into the room in which you "fought" the giant fire beetles. The passageway also goes off twenty feet to the west before turning south.
Myev shrugs a tad and just points forward. "Unless anyone wants to backtrack, let's just move ahead slowly. Keep an eye out for any traps, monsters, whatever...who even knows, in here." Myev will wait for a consensus, and then take point with whoever would like to lead with her down the hall.
Tekumbray sneaks down the hall and peers around the corner wary of possible traps and more dangerous vermin.
Meebo hangs back and is careful to step where others step. Or at least, where she thinks they stepped. She doesn't want to be the one to step on the secret floor panel that kills them all. For once, she pays close attention.
Baheera also follows, letting those with more skill at finding hidden passages and traps lead.
Following the western portion of the passage, it turns south after twenty feet. Some twenty feet down the now southward bound passage you see another stone door in the south wall, also you see that the corridor turns back eastward - should you continue to follow the hallway rather than go through the door.
Going further down the hallway towards the door, Tek looks down the eastward passage and sees that after ten feet, the hallway turns south again.
"Leave nothing behind us unsearched through, right? Just in case there are other dangers here?" Silas says, nodding towards the door in front of them.
Myev grins and claps Silas on the back again, albeit a tad more gently than the last time. "I like the way you think. Never give the enemy an opening," She says. "Every time we open a door, something bad's there - anyone willing to check the door itself for anything shady before I head in first?" She cocks an eyebrow, looking around the group, and hoists her maul up over her shoulder to be at the ready.
Nodding at Silas' wise advice, Tek walks back to the southern stone door and gives it a check for traps and before opening.
Tekumbray searches the door for any traps or tricks and finds it lacking in either. Pulling open the door, Tek reveals a winding stairwell heading down further into the ruin.
Seeing the stairway descending into the depths, Tekumbray pulls the door closed and uses a piece of charcoal to mark the lower left corner of the door with a small x.
With a nod toward Silas he shrugs. "As our good healer said, best we finish exploring this current area before venturing deeper, eh?"
He takes a piton from his pack and jams it into the seam between the door and floor. "Keep someone or something from sneaking up behind us." He says quickly before moving up the corridor and checking around the next southerly turn.
Turning the corner, Tek leads the party down the corridor. After the corridor turns south, some twenty feet further down the hall you see a bronze door in the eastern wall of the corridor.
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Silas nods in agreement, holding tighter to his holy symbol. As they move down the hallway, he carefully watches the walls, floors, and ceilings for any other nefarious traps. Too easily could a glint of light in the distance distract you from the sights beside you.
Myev regards the bronze door with a slight bit of exasperation, and then inspects it.
If she or anyone else detects nothing dangerous and there are no objections, Myev opens the door carefully, maul still at the ready.
Studying the doors and walls, and keeping a close eye out for any symbols or iconography that might give her more information on where they were, Baheera follows the more partially inclined members if the group.
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It is unclear what actually triggered the reaction. One moment Tek is walking down the passage his small, soft soled boots making only the slightest of sounds upon the dusty stone floor. The next he simply stands staring at the bronze door. Sweat beads on his forehead and his hand grips and releases the pommel of his short sword repeatedly.
In his mind, another door stands before him. Also made of bronze. But metallic barrier is engraved with the ancient flowing script of Sokkar and the relief sculpt is the double pyramid and fiery eye of some long dead wizard. Or at least that is what they all thought. That the wizard was dead. But in Sokkar nothing truly dies. They lost Donal, Malaki, and Vorkic in the depths beyond that bronze barrier of doom.
Tek could hear Donal's screams as the horned, black clad lich fiend seared the poor warrior's flesh from his bones with the very fires of hell itself. The gnome feels the wave of power washing across his tiny frame. The gnawing dark shadow that devoured his courage and caused him to flee with Elias and three of the other members of the expedition. Malaki and Vorkic stood firm, but they paid the price. Malaki's head was spiked to the exterior of that bronze door, now once again closed, while they encountered the mindless, undying remains of Vorkic the Bard of River Bend, when the shuffling corpse attacked their camp a fortnight later. Elias was the one to deliver the killing blow, his bright steel and enchanted blade severing the broken head from shoulders but not until after Agatha had been infected by the monsters diseased touch. She died two days later.
Tek helped dig their graves in one of the few patches of solid earth around the back side of the ancient Hippodrome where the chariots used to race in the long ago.
It isn't until Myev walks up and gives the gnome a shove with her large hand that Tek is able to shake himself out of the unfortunate flashback.
"Wha? Oh! Right. Uhhhh! All looks fine. Go ahead." He says shakily, wiping the sweat from his eyes and forehead with his kerchief.
Myev pushes open the bronze door to reveal a room sparsely furnished with rotting furniture. This includes a bed, a chest, and a desk with a wooden chair. All of the furniture is covered with a thick layer of dust. On the floor lies the desiccated body of a dead hobgoblin. The gods only know how long the hobgoblin's dried out body has lain in state in the room. The one notable oddity to the body is that its left arm is oddly colored compared to the rest of the corpse. There is another bronze door in the wall opposite you.
Myev peeks into the room and takes a cautious step inside, moving a little to allow others to follow if they wish.
She points at the hobgoblin's corpse and glances around at the others--perhaps others who might be better at identifying why the arm might be oddly colored--and says, "Something weird with the body."
She looks around the room, trying to spot anything that could cause such a death.
"Hmm, that is decidedly...odd!" Moving closer to stand beside Myev, and blowing the accumulated dust off of the body with a simple gesture, Baheer studies the desiccated corpse, paying special attention to the discolored arm in an attempt to determine the cause.