Desra steps back over to the pit where Karga remains circling, but other than a pause and a shrug, she gets no real answer.

"There have been noises, yes, but nothing that has drawn my interest from guarding this area.  Torture or not, it would be none of my concern."

Little information comes from the inspection of the doors.  Guelph and Haaj take the keys over the the footlockers on the balcony.  The keys open two of the four, revealing a bunch of goblin clothing, an ivory figurine (you guesstimate about 50gp) and a set of opal earrings (estimated 100gp) and 12gp in loose coins.

Guelph points down the stairs to th eoperating room and the two doors in the southern corner. "We should open those, see what is inside," he says as he moves towards them.

  "Let's!" Desra cheerfully replies.
She motions after Guelph and makes ready to open the door.

Scalesa readies her cross bow, loads a bolt, and steps in line behind the others...

  Haajrayn moves up too, bow at the ready, just incase.

The group, looking much like well-practiced shock troops, pull open the doors and aim their various bows inside.

In a very anticlimactic moment, the door opens into a much smaller, plain room.  On the southern side of the room is another set of burnished copper doors, except these have a wooden bar placed through the handles, crudely locking the door.

In reply to Game Master (msg # 333):

"Really, we need to rest." Mina remarked. "Unless you expect me to dazzle the next monster with parlor tricks, I am useless without time to rest."

Guelph points at the barred doors. "We should open this before we rest," he says and gets into position once again to perhaps belt whatever might come rushing out from the other side.

   Haaj nods in aggreement with Guelph. "Judging from what we've seen here, there may be prisoners behind those doors," he states.

In reply to Haajrayn (msg # 336):

"Or something nasty..." Mina said under her breath. The mage moved to where she wouldn't be in the direct line of fire if anything did happen.

Once again, Scalesa is in agreement with Mina.  Then, suggestions are made to open the new door... "Uh-uh." Blue eyes widen.  "I'm with Mina on both the 'something nasty' and 'I'm fast becoming useless' part.  Let's use our heads and our ears, and listen for possible danger before we go leaping into it."

Scalesa strides towards the door, lays her left side against it, and listens for any trouble.  Or troubleds.

Nothing is heard.  Her cross bow is lowered in her hands, and she gives a look to her companions that says "your move".  Eyes once again drift to her fellow Arcanist.

Listen at the door.

18:05, Wed 28 Jan 2015: Scalesa rolled 20 using 1d20+4 ((16)).
This message was last edited by the player at 03:04, Thu 29 Jan 2015.

 Desra follows in silence, having paid little attention to the opinions of others. She was excited, and eager to find out what the build-up of copper doors was about...

 Unless the others protested, she would press forward. And open the doors.

OOC: 3 to 2...onward!

The group readies themselves as Guelph prepares to open the doors.  He carefully slides the wooden bar out of the handles and pulls on the doors...

As the doors open, flame ignites atop six tiny copper braziers resting in holes cut into a number of short partitions jutting from the eastern and western walls of this dusty room.  In the illumination they provide, you see that roughly parallel scratches run along four sections of the floor, perpendicular to sets of copper doors - one you entered through and another across the room.  The ceiling has four dark slots cut into it along matching paths.  You can't see into the slots, which are about 3 inches wide and run the length of the room.

OOC: It might be a few days before I can upload the map, which will help visualize the room.  Facing out from the door (south), the room is 15' long and 20' wide, with a similar set of doors directly on the other side of the room.

Otherwise, initiative is in order front-to-back from the door:
Guelph, Haaj, Desra, Scalesa, Mina

Guelph looks nervously at the passage. "Is this a trap?" he asks, looking to the others.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 05:02, Tue 03 Feb 2015.

   "I dunno," replies Haaj, "but there doesn't seem to be much of interest in there: Let's close the door and get some rest."

Guelph looks about at the others and nods. "I can rest. Let's go back to the platform near the guardian. Does everyone agree?"

  "Aww come on... Is that all your thirst for discovery? I'm not nearly tired enough to think about resting right now."
She eyed her comrades for a second and started perusing the room and specifically its peculiar ceiling features.

After some trepidation on the part of Haaj and Guelph, Desra slides past them and into the room.  As soon as she steps into the room, three huge scythes swing down from the slots in the ceiling.  Fortune favors the brave, however, and no blade of death falls from the slot in the ceiling above Desra.  The three blades that did fall swing back up into the ceiling.


Desra searches the room and from where she's standing she can see that the dust in front of the other door has been disturbed.  She can also see that the two center scratches have a brown stain near them.

Desra can also see that the six braziers on the wall are removable and might be worth some coin.

At this time, Guelph's club returns to a normal size.

Updated map!

Desra was shocked and thanked the Holy Justiciar for her survival. She dropped to one knee and prayed for a moment until the others caught up. She stood up and cast her light towards the ceiling to understand what had happened, how the mechanism was triggered and how it would be rearmed.
  "That was close..." she commented, still pallid.

The experience had tuned down her eagerness to press on... She was still curious to discover what was behind... But not so bold as to go onwards by herself.

  "Should we fall back on the loft area and rest there for a few hours?"

Desra looks up into the ceiling, but cannot see much.  It looks as if the slots are filled with dark clouds or smoke.

   "That seems like a good idea to me," Haaj replies to Desra. "Although the balcony further back on the other side of Karga might be even safer, although less comfortable, should anything decide to come through the doors by the beds. And I think these doors here may correspond to the ones where we fought the goblins around the table: I seem to remember Scalesa saying those doors were marked 'danger'."

Guelph nods and follows them back to the safer area to rest.

Scalesa gives Mina a nod and a smile, and follows Guelph.