The Brink [of Madness] Act 1, Scene 1

[Styrius]

As Ke'sha lifts his armpit to sniff, Axid lets a decidedly dwarven fart rip in Ke'sha's general direction. He then proceeds to the hatch closest to him and pulls some rope from his haversack. He ties the rope to a handle and moves back a few feet. He waits before pulling on the rope.

[BishGada]

"Deary, it's coming to that anyway, so they can get used to it before I animate their corpses." But he tries his best to be more polite, "Kind firbolg..." failing to understand how much creatures appreciate their names, he thinks what verb will serve best, "Do you.. THINK! .." he shines with happiness finding the right wording, "Do you think that it would be a good thing to check the huge snake mouth and the hand mark... After all, not all snakes have hand marks on their noses... It is very unique and may be of importance." He does his best at a smile, and it is obvious it's a strange composure to him, and surprisingly flushes out a perfect set of teeth, completely opposing his dirty turn cloths and his general attitude of not caring about anything.

[chris107]

Jack slips from the shadows towards the closest hatch (a). Having already checked for traps he cautiously tries to open the strange snake shaped portal. Twisting, pushing or sliding in several directions; all the time ready to dive away from danger.

[Nocturno]

Jag will decidedly stay on the opposite side of the ladder of any of the actions.
(Like it will protect him! lol)

[TristenC]

Jack moves over to one of the lids while Axid rigs another up with a rope. Twisting the snake-handle doesnt seem to do anything, nor does pushing, but when he pulls the lid comes free [like a modern sewer-cover]. Pushing the heavy disk to the side he finds a circular opening that drops about 6 feet into a circular room about 30 ft wide.

The floor of the chamber below is covered in bobes, bone fragments and skulls. Allikhain brings the light ober. Upon closer inspection he can see that all of the bones have been severely gnawed upon, and some appear very old. Something seems to be carved on the walls but details are difficult to discern without entering the room. There appears to be an arch-way on one side that leads elsewhere...

[Rainshadow]

"That looks like a tight fit for me," 9-foot-tall Landro says. "But I think I can squeeze through."

He offers to go first but would be happier if it were checked for traps.

[TristenC]

[Indeed, the hatch-opening is only 3ft diameter. It will require a dex check for Landro, the zombie bear or the zombie ogre tonpass through; or some kind of magic to make it possible such as 'reduce' or some other creative solution]

[BishGada]

"Hmm..." Ke'Sha eyes shine with interest. He comes closer to peek at the expose opening "Before you squeeze in... You wouldn't want to get stuck there, right? Such a bulk of good flesh." Ke'Sha looks at the firbolg appraisingly consider the wonders he could make with it. "Can you fly or levitate, or the mages teleport you in case of trouble? I can send a skeleton there or Allakhain could kindly send her Talented pet flying there before you dive in." with his telepathic bond with Gur, his own Quasit knows Ke'Sha protects him from taking the hit.

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(OOC: Does the danger sense tingle when Ke'Sha looks at the floor? And is it possible to open a thread for DOTOs and plans of the team that will stick and not be lost such as messages might in OOC? We have in this room 4 openings and strange marks on the big snake that we wanted to test, so since each opening may take few weeks of real time posting, I will probably forget what we wanted to check.
BTW, I'm glad we are back on. Hope everything is good for everyone.)

[Rainshadow]

"I would appreciate any help, but I'm also okay with being the vanguard of this leg of exploration," Landro says cheerfully. "Also, I can reduce myself about once a day, so I'll happily use that to squeeze through here. But it's a one-way trip for me, at least until tomorrow where I can do the shrink again."

OOC: His Giant-kin race is able to do Diminution once per day, as per The Complete Book of Humanoids pg. 27. I'm okay if that's off the table but I thought I'd just say that he could for the sake of moving forward.

PS: If the DM rules he can't my plan is just to have Landro say, "Yeah, I am prone to exaggeration."

[TristenC]

[Ooc]He can definitely use that to get through if he wishes. We'll say since it is innate he can choose what % reduction he wants and can take the max duration which is 5 turns (50 minutes).

However, he may want to at least attempt the dex check first before expending the daily ability.[/ooc]

[Nocturno]

"Is anyone going to tempt fate and put their hand in the impression?" Jag wonders outloud to the group, without wanting to give orders, but also does not want to let something go undiscovered.

[Rainshadow]

OOC: Yeah, did a die roll at Unseen Servant. It was quite bad! At first I was excited by the natural 20...
Landro's Dex is 11.
[1d20]=20

So he will shrink down to 6 feet in height in order to fit through.

[chris107]

Jack checks the opening for triggers or trip wires then if all looks clear and with his burglars lantern in one hand drops the short distance onto the bone strewn floor. (Oops. Following the shrunken Firbolg.)

[Styrius]

Axid pulls the rope on the hatch to open it up.

[TristenC]

Jack searches the opening for hatch a and finds no traps. As he does so, Landro closes his eyes and concentrates. The giant-kin slowly begins to shrink in size until he stands merely the height of a tall man, rather than towering over all of the others. The Firbolg fighter and the human rogue hop down into the circular room, boots crunching on the dried bones litering the floor. The walls are decorated with leering, horrific faces of humanoids mocking and snarling at those within. The walls are painted with now crakced and dried blood... Peering through the arch they see a spiral staircase descending further into darkness.

Axid pulls the lid off of a second hatch (b) nearby to reveal a cylindrical shaft no more than 8 feet wide with a metal ladder attached to one side descending into darkness beyond the range of his infravision.

[The entrances to eacn of the hatches is the same 3ft diameter but the passage beyond opens up to the size described]