Wow. You're on fire today! Rabon would have recommended not getting the water until next time we camp, since we have water and food for now. I believe boiling the water will be a call chore. Still, a good find. Other than the useless corpse.
Rabon tries to focus on keeping watch, per Thag's recommendation. It is easier to focus once he sees the corpse has nothing of value. Not even a couple arrows so we can try out the crossbow? Too bad. He waits to find out what Berry prefers to do with the body.
Berry looks solemnly at the body, cringing at Allric manhandling it. After he is done, Berry reaches into his pack, pulling minor clerical items out. May I deliver last rites? We don't have a shovel but I can at least bless this body.
Let us go to check that secret door. We can give this poor soul, and the halfling in the tower, proper burials when we have secured this site.
We have a map, so we can go directly to the armoury where the secret door was. When we reach it I will do my usual scouting check using the 10' pole. Before I open the door, do I see anything? Footprints, marks of things being moved/dragged, etc.
Back in the armory, Thag checks for anything suspicious. He does find a three-toed track in the dust in one corner of the small room, but that's all. Likewise, poking at the secret door with the pole reveals nothing new, only the hollow echo from the chamber on the other side.
I listen at the door, if I don't hear anything I will open the door slightly, then use the pole to push it open. Once it's fully open I will use the standard method of checking: scanning the room, using the pole to check the door frame and the floor around the door. Before I step in, what do I see?
Not hearing anything through the door, Thag levers it open with the pole, keeping his distance.
Inside is small corridor, barely longer than this room. The corridor ends in a blank wall, but there are four cramped cells in the south wall, barred by rusty prison gates.
The early morning light trickling in from the high windows does little to pierce the dimmness of the room, and the air is noticably cooler.
The floor and door frame seem sturdy and unexceptional.
Rabon offers to hold the lantern. He advances slowly, well behind Thag to keep his companion in full light as he about the new area for traps. Good luck. And don't break my pole.
I enter the room, using the pole to test the floor, and the area above the door. If I find no traps then I'll look into the four cells, noting if there appears to be anyone/anything in them. Are the cells locked? If there is anything piled in any of the dells, and the doors are locked, I'll stick the pole through the bars to prod the pile(s).
The door and the floor do not respond to Thag's tap-tapping with the pole. As he moves farther into the corridor, he can see into the individual cells, where a dusty dwarven skeleton lies in each, sprawled on the floor or in a cot.
The gates look locked, but eaten away with rust. Huge, orange flakes fall off even as you tap the floor.
Allric rolls his eyes at Rabon, then turns to Berry. "You did a good thing with those last rites on that fella. What's your church say you should do for these dwarves?"
Well the church would have some very specific words to use concerning "demi-humans" but I think it may be best if I perhaps use a more general prayer... Berry clears his throat and intones as if he is preaching in a temple May the Lords of Life and Death guard these souls into the land beyond our mortal ken, and may these forms of bone and meat remain untainted by the foul touch of dark magic and fell intentions.
Berry then returns to his less sure tone and let's the party know he is done with the intonation.
Berry's invocation, while heartfelt, does little to lift the chill gloom of the hidden prison.
"Mi pensas, ke mia simio metis sian piedon en vian trinkaĵon." Neniam dividu la adventurgrupon. "Ĉu vi volas koboldojn? Ĉar tiel estas kiel oni akiras koboldojn!"
