---

Barlo commented, "The trail goes on for some distance, should we investigate here or would you rather backtrack the creature to see where it might have crawled from?"

"I think it would be best to ensure there are no more of those...things crawling about, and then we can continue to track the goblins."

"Zoblins; Gombies; I am here to support you."

"I lost the goblin trail but the zombie thing's backtrail is easy to follow. Let's go find out if we need to deal with some kind of necromancer." Barlo looked at  his companions to gauge their level of consent and cooperation before loping along the back trail to see where the zombie thing had originated.

Arn shrugged. He had no problem going along if the other wanted.

"Yes," spoke Annya, concurring with Zaryk and Barlo.

"I think it well we learn the origin of that crawling cadaver, if possible. And put an end to any more of that."

She then went off in the wake of Barlo.

Barlo looked incredulously at Annya for a moment, face drawn in concentration on the trail. He stopped. He started to snort, then chortle then a full belly laugh escaped the normally placid Ranger. "Crawling Cadaver? Gods! perhaps we should call it that!" After a couple of minutes of mirth, he composed himself and returned to tracking but a wide grin was pasted on his face.

Following the trail of the "crawling cadaver" was a simple enough task.  The creature had not had any inclination toward concealing its pathway, and the body (or at least the majority of it) had been covering a large bit of territory compared to what it might have done on two feet.

After following the trail for some time, they came to a place where the ground fell away from the bleached limestone which formed a veritable wall, pockmarked with what looked like a number of caves, with scrub trying to gain a foothold in various cracks.  Here, too, the path of the "crawling cadaver" was lost as there was too much bare stone for a proper trail.

Barlo couldn't track but he could still smell. He moved towards the caverns a bit to see if he could catch a whiff of carrion and perhaps pick up the trail once more or isolate a cave in which the CC had left the rest of itself.

"Grave or cave, be careful around those." Makaniua said to the Ranger.

"Do we explore the caves? Now that we are here, it would seem a waste to not take a look."

Given the proximity of the openings, it did not seem that there was enough for smell alone to isolate one opening over another.  Still, it seemed with a more studied look that the openings that might lead somewhere numbered only a half-dozen.  There was, however, certainly enough of the odor to suggest that they had either encountered a poorly covered battlefield of some sort or a source for the "crawling cadavers" to be given sufficient false-life as to move about.

Barlo looked at the openings big enough to fit the bill and said, "Only six. We can check them quickly I suppose. The odor should lead us to the right one fairly quickly. I'll get a torch going and start checking." Barlo took out his flint and steel and struck them, sparking a torch to life before checking the nearest opening, torch in one hand, longsword in the other.

It was on the third such passage--the first two petering out to a dead end within ten to fifteen feet--that Barlo noted something perhaps a bit curious.  At a distance about fifteen feet in from the stone face, there was something that looked like a door.  Even more, there was a round hole that seemed to have been drilled through the stone at a height of just shy of four feet from the ground.

Barlo examined but did not touch the hole and the seeming door. He looked back to the others, "Anyone care to take a guess about this?" he said. He checked again to see if there were any scratches around the hole or any indication that it was some sort of keyhole.

"Arn has some expertise with doors and locks! But be careful, that does not have the look of a typical door."

Zaryk nocks an arrow, and stand to the side and about ten feet back from the door.

"A keyhole or perhaps peephole," Arn says quietly, joining Barlo. Arn places on the mask he received from the goblins and starts examining the stone face/door area.

OOC:
Check for traps. Also check for any hidden compartments in the area.
What is the diameter of the hole?
Can he tell how the doorway might open, if there is indeed a door there?

---

"No traps," Arn says quietly after his survey. "I'm pretty confident that is a peephole to a door though Idon't know how to open in. The opens inwards, I think, and it looks to me that the hinges are on the left if that helps."

He tries pressing against the right side of it.

"Hmmm. A peephole at goblin height."

If Arn is unable to open the door on his own, Zaryk will sling his bow, and join him in trying to force the door open.

The door opened, a heavy stone but a door that seemed to be in reasonably good repair, so that it was only the weight of the door that made it difficult to move--there had been no bar closing it at the other side.

A worked stone passage led deeper into the face of the stone, unlit and dark beyond the small reach of the light from outside.

Barlo brought his torch closer, sword drawn in case any of the suspected goblins were lurking about. He peered down the tunnel to see if it were high enough for him to navigate without hazard before asking Arn, "You think it's safe? Considering the pit at the other location, these goblins seem to favor underground areas, maybe this is theirs."

"I have no idea," Arn says.

"I can go down to the intersection and take a look if you want and report back what I see?" he quietly offers.

Makaniua looks uncomfortable at the thought of an extended underground stay. She doesn't say anything, however.