Grey marks the secret door with chalk.
The secret door reveals a corridor heading south before ending at another door. A quick check of this room reveals a nasty surprise: The entire ceiling is covered in a greenish slime.
dissolving metal. Bright green, wet, and sticky, it clings to walls, floors, and ceilings in patches, reproducing as it consumes organic matter. It drops from walls and ceilings when it detects movement (and possible food) below.
Raaz Al'Zuul follows the group carefully, trying to stay out of the way but ready to jump in when needed.
Realizing the danger, Raaz Al'Zuul shouts out to the group:
"That is green slime on the ceiling, stay back or it will drop on you."
He stays out of the room and readies for combat.
Sneering, Keil acknowledges Raaz's warning, "Preach on Raaz. And don't forget the part about it eating through metal." Adjusting the brim of his hat Keil peeks into the slime covered room, his yellow eyes looking for anything of interest. "There ought to be something...why put a secret door to slime filled chambers?"
Brok doesn't want anything to do with the slime room.
"I think we should go back and try another way."
Keil peers into the room being extremely careful to avoid stepping inside the room. He sees nothing of interest in the room as it looks like it was scrubbed clean.
Ignoring his companion's trepidation, Keil steps into the room.
Hearing Malzii's interpretation gives Keil pause for thought. The fetchling turns his head slowly to look back over his shoulder toward the others and with a false chuckle remarks, "Heh, funny."
"IS there any particular reason why we don't simply burn it away?" - Grezzor inquires.
"Arlok has no fire to burn away. Do others?
"I don't think the tunnel that his worshipfullness, the great devil lord Komm, sent us to look for is in that room." Brok says, glancing about nervously as if he expects the devil to be listening in on their conversation.
Changing his mind, Keil steps back into the corridor. "If it is fire we need, there is kindling in the other room." Keil is referring to the barracks discovered earlier. Filled with wooden beds, they could be disassembled and ignited in this chamber.
Brok backs away from the door and will watch over the hallway as the others engage in mortal combat with slime.
"Arlok have idea, wait little dragon. Burn if not work. Arlok need many legged bugs and Arloks rats."
He sobs at stating his rats as he expects not to get to eat them now.
"Goblin Brok, Grab Arlok blankets from sleeping place."
He proceeds to spear the rats on one of his javelin out toward the end and the centipedes on another. He holds them out right extended in his hands.
"OK Goblin Brok, wrap blanket on Arlok's hands. Oh warm hands. That's nice. Ok Let Arlok fish for slime. Keep out of Arloks way."
Arlok slowly enters the room holding the meals out in front extending them toward the ceiling. If he can reach he will even scrape at it attempting to clear a path. Once loaded up if it works he will run them back to the green flame room and throw them in unless he feels it eating through the blanket too quick and needs to throw them off to a corner.
Arlok puts his plan into motion and sees the green slime fall in front of him, covering the rat remains and quickly devouring not only the rat but the javelin itself!
There is now a small clump of the green slime in front of the door in addition to the slime on the ceiling. Clearly the slime will eat through whatever you use to scrape it off much too quickly for the godling's plan to succeed.
Keil clears his throat loudly and repeats himself, "There's plenty of wood to burn in the barracks..."
Arlok stands scratching his head holding just a small piece of javelin left in his hand.
"Arlok thought Arlok plan good. Green goo strong. Keil right. We bring lots of wood, make big fire. Get hard to breath quick. Fire underground bad. Takes air from Arlok."
"I also possess the ability to produce arcane fire - it is one of the strongest spells at my command" - Grezzor offers - "Let me know if it is needed"
After a couple of trips to the barracks room, you gather enough wood to create a couple of makeshift torches and after a brief struggle you manage to light them. Touching the lit torches to the patch of green slime on the floor causes it to *WHOOSH* up in a flash of bright hot flame that soon gutters out, with the foul smelling smell lingers afterward.
Encouraged by the results, Arlok leans forward and sets the patch of green slime on the ceiling aflame. It takes a few moments but eventually all of the green slime is burned away, save for a few lone puddles still clinging to the ceiling. Now that you can see the actual ceiling, you see the center of it slightly sags downward.
With the room cleared of the deadly slime, Keil moves into the room and is soon able to find the secret door in the north wall.
no.
no.
This room has not been disturbed in a very long time. The fetchling sees three chests in the room. All of them appear to be locked.
Grey carefully watched the others solve the problem of the slime. He was becoming more and more impressed with their capabilities. When it was done he nodded to himself, satisfied behind his mask, and followed them.
"This may well be worth our effort, and makes more logic the presence of such entity in this room" - Grezzor ponders, casting a minor arcane spell to observe the chests from a distance.
Rubbing his hands together Keil practically drools over the prospects of having not one but three chests before him. With the smell of gold filling his nostrils, the fetchling is giddy. Removing his backpack Keil gets to work visually examining each chest, "Brok, your goblin eyes will be of use to me here."
When convinced the slime is gone, Brok enters the room and looks the chests over for danger.
Keil looks over the the first chest and easily finds the poison needle trap on it.
Brok discovers the second chest is also trapped, this one with an alchemical bomb set to trigger when it is opened.
The last chest is not trapped but it is locked (as are the others).
Grezzor and Praetor do detect magical auras coming from the last untrapped chest.
I'll let Keil decide if he wants to try his hand at the traps, but Brok stands ready to help if he does.
Keil's eyes widen with Brok's discovery. Uttering several curses to himself the fetchling finally remarks to the goblin, "I must be blind..." then stares at the two trapped chests in disbelief. News of magical auras from within the third chest snaps Keil back to reality however and, deciding to play it safe, Keil chooses to warm up his fingers on the last chest. Removing his trusty leather clutch of tools, the shadowy man mumbles to Varg to go ahead and try his luck with the poisoned chest if he liked, Let him test his immunity... Kneeling beside the chest, Keil wrings his hands then cracks a few knuckles. Selecting a pair of oddly shaped picks he gets to work on the lock.
Keil is able to open the chest by taking his time. Inside he finds a scroll case which contains a single arcane spell. and a milky white vial.
"Useful items" - Grezzor nods, waiting for the remaining chests to be opened.
"If Varg is immune to poisons, then we should have him just open the needle trapped chest." Brok responds when the duergar speaks up.
"I don't want to get stuck, and I doubt Keil wants to risk it either."
|
Although it might be a poor decision, Varg decides to see whether his resistance to poison is universal. So, he walks up to the chest allegedly trapped with poison, examines it for a minute, and then simply pops a piece of metal into the keyhole to see whether the poison dart comes out.
Varg will attempt to set the trap off. I assume nobody else is standing looking over his shoulder to see what happens.
Raaz Al'Zuul continues to be impressed with the abilities of the scouts and the resourcefulness of the group. While Varg, Brok and Keil work on disabling the traps and opening the chests he will keep a watchful eye for monsters heading this way:
Vargrenz easily triggers the poison needle trap and feels it strike his skin. The poison does not have any effect on the duergar as can be expected. Inside the chest is 220 gp.
"Never doubted you would be immune for a minute ...." Brok says to the gray dwarf.
To Keil he says: "How ya feelin' about that bomb trap? It looks kinda tricky ...."
"Maybe Varg not hurt by bomb too" Arlok smiles.