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I might-could get that door open. Ablesforth taps his converted setting maul on the locking mechanism..

crossing fingers about traps here...

Ablesforth brings forth his setting maul and smacks the lock mechanism with it. The lock snaps open and the door swings on its hinges. Black, greasy smoke billows forth as the door opens, along with the overpowering smell of charred meat. The room beyond is choked with a haze of thick smoke drifting around the ceiling. The walls are marked by soot and fire-marks. The floor is covered with the ash and bones of one to two dozen humanoid creatures, but the bones do not stir - you feel a sense of peace, as if these bones have been put to rest. The room extends 30' to your right and 50' across to the far side. There are two chimneys upward in the ceiling, each about 10' square. You see another door on the right corner of the far wall, also sturdy and with an obvious lock. Beyond the mounded heap of burned remains, the room is completely devoid of furnishing - just decayed, unburned older bodies of goblins, rats, lizards, and the like, lying where they scratched at the now-sooty walls, long ago rotted to leathery remains.

Dolph looks dubiously at the room. "You don't want to use that second stick of incense?" he says, more as a suggestion.

Date: 02 September 2021, 12:20pm
Light: Torch (until 12:50pm)
Effects: Protection from Evil (All); Invisibility (Pendleton)
Injuries: Ablesforth (moderately injured); Dolph (moderately injured); Jacques (moderately injured)

"What happened here?" wonders Pendleton. "Is this whole room a crematorium? Or a trap? Or perhaps both?" He takes a closer look at the nearby bodies, trying to discern whether seem to have been incinerated all at once, or at different times.

The bodies around the walls are unburned, just decayed. The mound in the room's center appears to have been burned within the last hour, and consists of one to two dozen overlapping charred bodies.

Is the fresh pile positioned as if the bodies were brought in through one of the doors, or are they under one of the chimneys (or neither)?

Under one of the chimneys, mounding up directly towards it. Before they burned, they likely would have reached it. Now, they are charred, collapsed roughly human-sized remains.

Or they could have been dumped into the room from the chimney, I presume?

"Well, do we try the next locked door with that fancy mace of yours, or move somewhere else? We should move quickly either way, since this appears to be a place of frequent use."

Oh. Duh.

Rusty Tincanne wrote:is the pile of charred bodies big enough to be the pile we just burned and blessed?

Yep. Looks about like it.

a rare moment I was able to play a high WIS character appropriately.

The maul only works 1x/week, unfortunately. All out of charges for now.

Able points out that the bodies are likely the bodies they had just torched and blessed. Well I'm right-glad we dealt with 'em then, 'cause that would've been a nasty surprise to open this door and get rushed by that lot. Let's search the bodies. I reckon there's a few Gaulish soldiers missed up in there. But let's make sure the door don't swing shut on us. And if we do get rushed by some Sniffers, let's try and lock them in here an' leave em. Able asks Molay to stand guard for the group as they enter. He check to see if the door stays unlocked when he enters. Then he inspects the other doors.

He explains to Dolph that the incense can't be extinguished once lit, so they would need to go on no matter what. And that last time, it led the Sniffers right to the party. And then to town. In essence, Able wants to hold off for now. Let's find a secure spot to rest first, in case we need it later.

Molay holds the door while the others enter. Ablesforth inspects the lock - his maul retracted the mechanisms rather than snapping them off, so he believes that he can relock the door manually once they're ready to close it. The other door is much the same - very sturdy and very locked.

Ablesforth explains the risks of the incense to Dolph. The large man shrugs. "It's our fourth trip to these same rooms... they're not getting much safer."

The group searches the bodies. The mound of sniffers promises little discovery and provides even less. Their vile, burned forms yield nothing of interest. There are, however, more promising corpses around the room's periphery - human and goblin sized, rat-sized, etc. Some are now also burned by the firey immolation, others appear to have been looted by those who fell in later in a continuous string of looting and the starving to death. Amogst the long-decayed bodies and ashy remains you find:
40 gold pieces
700 silver pieces
An obsidian ring etched with a running rat motif

Date: 02 September 2021, 12:40pm
Light: Torch (until 12:50pm)
Effects: Protection from Evil (All); Invisibility (Pendleton)
Injuries: Ablesforth (moderately injured); Dolph (moderately injured); Jacques (moderately injured)

Pendleton inspects the ring with interest. "Fascinating symbology. What do you suppose the running rat signifies? The ability to command rodents, perhaps? Is this a Ring of the Pied Piper? Hmm. The traditional manifestation of such a device is usually a musical instrument, however. I am not aware of it having been imbued or created in a ring. Or is it the running that is significant, not the rat?"

Or mebbe it'll just turn a feller into a vermin.Able shrugs.Anyhow, seems we hit a dead end, if you'll pardon the expression. I could try 'n force the door, but I reckon most folks have already, when they was hale. But it don't add up that we've been set upon from this d'rection if there wasn't no way t'get outta this room. This place vexes me somethin' fierce, brothers. He uses a sack to gather the other valuables and asks Idriss to carry it.

Able shrugs, looking to the others for input in a direction. Maybe Dolph's got the right of it...

Sure. Just remember that the gate's trapped with a crossbow bolt aiming across the room, 'kay?

An' that statue might give us away again, what with it's caterwaulin'. Hey, d'you think it's more alive than it's letting on? He looks to the others for their thoughts on the matter.

I really want to crunch that thing, but have a huge fear that it is an evil stone statue that will absorb Able's maul and kill us all...

Or we could light up the incense and see if it leads through the other door here...

"That one also has an arrow trap?" asks Pendleton. "I thought that was the north portcullis from the smashed furniture room. If you're right, perhaps we should see what trap the east door of the smashed-up room holds? I hold little optimism that it is untrapped."

Able apologizes. Right. I was thinkin' of the smashed up room. You meant where we holed up for a few minutes a couple days ago. Sure. Let's go there.

Pendleton updates his map. "Hold on a moment. There's an empty space here that just might be big enough for a small room. We should all check the north wall for secret doors before leaving. I don't expect to find one in a room in which all other exits are locked, but it is probably worth checking nonetheless."

"And when we do move on, let's go around the room with the loudmouth statue."

Updated map:

I'm at the edge of my virtual graph paper. The dungeon isn't allowed to go any further south.

Well, the incense only led north, anyway.

Molay considers the map and frowns. "How shall we go around the statue, then? It seems we must pass the statue, open the bloody-room, or explore the other branch from the stair."