"Maybe everyone can crawl along the floor while my roots are entangling?" Dreya mutters, never taking her attention from the ceiling of the cavern.

"Oh well, didn't the sign at the beginning tell us to 'bow down dogs', I guess we should get low." shrugs Jack as he prepares to stoop and quickly crawl beneath the entangling growth.

Cole follows suit and stoops low to avoid the entangling vines.

Oh yeah. Dreya will wait for everyone to cross over first, and then finally stoop her already short five foot height over and scuttle across under the wriggling roots towards her friends.

Elwood stows away his chain back into his backpack and crawls along with the others.

The party begins its crawl out of the chamber. As the person in the lead crosses in front of the next statue, the statue attempts to lunge forward to tackle the PC into the stream.  This time, the roots around its next tighten and yank the statue to the ceiling.  The process repeats itself with the last statue.  The party safely crawls out of the chamber and down the tunnel to the north, standing upright once everyone is beyond the area of effect of Dreya's spell.

The party's march is uneventful until, after what seems like forever, the party reaches the basement of the Temple of Pain.

To be continued...

Yay! The druid wasn't useless for once!

The tunnel ends at a presumably secret door in a brick wall.  The mechanism to open the door is obvious from your side: a handle embedded in the center of the door that must be turned and then the door pushed open.  You assume the door's mechanism would be hidden on the other side.  The only light sources at this point are the ones brought by the party (I believe just Elwood's shield).  Listening at the door, you can hear faint sounds coming through the bricks.  Your best guess is it is crying or wailing.  You don't hear anything that would explain why someone would be crying or wailing (but, hey, it's the Temple of Pain!).

The door is squat, but wide: about 4.5 feet wide and 5 feet tall.  A crouching super-ogre could easily fit through.  From the quality of the sound coming through the door, you're pretty sure the door can't be more than a few inches thick.

Searching for traps does not reveal anything.

How do you want to approach entering the Temple?  Kick in the door and hack your way through whatever is on the other side?  Run back home in terror?

"Ooh!" Dreya peeps up from the very back of the group with an excited whisper, her eyes of gilded amber glinting almost like a cats at night in the light of the Cletic's shield. "Maybe...uh...I peek in, cast Fairy Fire in there, and then you all bust in? You know, like big heroes."

Anthony's face loses all blood. "Or, better, you cast Faery Fire and I cast Sleep on the inhabitants, and then those who are good at fighting rush in?"

"Are we sure there's someone in there to attack?  Just make sure there's some bad guy there first before letting loose some spells.  I may cast Sound Blast if room allows."

"At least 'Sleep' and 'Fairy Fire' are more," Dreya returns with a whisper, waving a hand about as if trying to grab the right word, "not..." She makes a choking sound while miming falling over. Then the word dawns on her. "Not death. I mean, not deadly."

"Good job with the entanglements back there." Jack nods approvingly at the small druid. "Sure beats the underwater wresting match I had with the first one."

A sense of relief sets in when the end of the tunnel is reached as he sincerely hopes that the various traps are winding down. "There's probably a door up there somewhere, but it may be trapped. Perhaps Seline could check it out for us?"

In hushed tones he adds, If we're quiet, maybe we could listen in case there's anything we can hear on the other side of the wall."

Main game map has been updated.

"Sound idea, Anthony."  Sidling up close to the wall, Cole leans in and strains to hear what is on the other side.

(Cole makes a listen check)

In reply to Cole Hiller (msg # 216):

All you can hear is the crying/wailing.  It's hard to gauge distance to the source of the sound through the bricks.  It could be quite far away if the door is thin, or much closer if the door is thicker.

"What's up with these Painites? Is that their idea of a good time going on behind that door, or is someone in trouble? Maybe we could knock on the door and see who answers."

Jack looks about to the others to see what their thoughts are. "Or we could just open the door and head on in with a sharp axe. " As he looks at the sharp end of his axe, he consider's Dreya's words, specifically the part about being 'not deadly'. "Of course, I'm open to the idea of wizardry, if you think some of your spells could get the job done with less bloodshed. I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunity to use this when we meet up with Oswald."

Seline speaking up breaking her silence"I apologize for my silence I was attempting to gather courage for this next idea as the last battle hit me fairly hard, so the first part of the idea is for me to go first and see if I can scope out the basement and where we are going to need to go to get to Oswald and what we are looking at fighting instead of us just blindly charging forward. Thoughts?" Waiting for the parties response Seline steels herself and begins to try to calm her body

Elwood nods in assent worth Seline's suggestion.

Anthony nods nervously. "Provided that at the first sign of trouble you retreat and coordinate with us., Seline.
 Agreed?"

"Seline, my dear, there is no one better than you to slip around unawares." Cole affirms as he scratches the stubble of his chin with thumb and forefinger.  "Your suggestion is sound, but as Anthony said, make a hasty retreat should you encounter measures beyond your means, and don't stray too far so that we can't find you if you do become engaged with hostiles, and by all means, yell Bloody Murder at the top of your lungs if that ill-event should occur."

We're stalling.  Time for the party leader to pull the trigger on something.

In reply to Castle Keeper (msg # 223):

Personally, sounds like the majority is for trying Seline's idea first of recon mission, then depending on what she finds, if it is badness Dreya and Anthony pop in with some surprise duo casting, and then the brave fighters go charging in with a roar.

I think that is what is happening.

Anthony is in charge through today.  We need him to post.

I know. I was just giving what I thought was a summary of the main plan.