"Uh, uh?"

"Right, well the poof will get on well with the elf. Call it settled."

Motsognir glanced at the new human. His shirt was... poofy. Motsognir was not intimidated. Garrmondo clearly was not interested in women. His plans were safe.

Argumentus opens the door leading east in the room where Brigid just recently lost her life.

I awoke feeling greatly refreshed to find the Horde deep in what could only be called conversation with a gaudily dressed human. It seemed as though he spoke the same unfathomable dialect as the others and I sighed deeply, despairing of ever meeting someone living I could converse with in this part of the world.

I picked myself up, dusted down my robes. The Horde had managed not to start a fight with the newcomer yet so I assumed he would be coming with us.

I waited for one of the others to pick a door.

Though he can't tell east from west, Argumentus flings open the last of the doors in the sarcophagus room.

The chamber beyond is choked with rubble. A single lonely cask sits in the far corner, the tap gradually dripping the contents onto the filthy floor.

I peered over the big guy's shoulder, hoping that my religious training would give me some insight into what was going on in the room.

Motsognir went north to examine the room those spiders came from.

Bob searches the rocks and cask for the sinister religious undertrappings they must surely have, but discovers nothing concrete.

Motsognir wanders back north, exploring the spider room now that the occupants had been dealt with. A large brass gong squats in the middle of the room, and a plaque is affixed to a wall nearby. The plaque reads:

ONE MAN SLIDES ACROSS THE FLOOR IN ONE DIRECTION. ANOTHER STARTS SLIDING THREE SECONDS LATER AT TWICE THE FIRST’S SPEED. WHAT IS THE LIKELIHOOD THAT THEY WILL COLLIDE ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE ROOM?

DECLARE YOUR ANSWER AND RING THE GONG TO BE REWARDED

I like riddles, but goddam... thought Motsognir. He finds a rock and walks to the entrance to the gong room, standing just outside. "SOMEWHAT LIKELY" he shouts out, then throws the rock at the gong. He wasn't going into this without knowing the consequences first.

Motsognir's rock strikes the gong, and the battered instrument lets out a meager clank, having been so thoroughly dented and battered as to render its resonant qualities nearly moot. Motsognir squints at the thing and hesitantly takes a single step forward when a massive stone abruptly drops out of the ceiling. The heavy rock smashes into the floor, sending out a ripple of cracks and fissures.


100 XP (20 each)

Feeling brave, I pushed past the big guy into the room, bracing myself for a sudden impact or plummet into a pit, with a mind to properly search the room if there weren't any lethal traps in it.

Check for traps. If I don't find any, go into the room and search for treasure/doors/anything else not immediately apparent

"Well, Mister Alkatraz, I'm no expert in these matters but my papa always did tell me that if'n somebody didn't say no it was just as good as them sayin' yes. I reckon you just do whatever you please until one of 'em whomps you with the cookery and then you'll know where to draw the line."

Bob creeps into the rubble-filled room, searching for any lurking traps.

He finds none.

Bob then seeks any cleverly-hidden passageways.

He finds none.

Secure in his surroundings, Bob then peers about for anyplace a wondrous treasure might be hiding.

He finds nothing.

There is only the keg. The keg and the rocks. The rocks and the keg.

What can it mean?

What does it mean?

There must be something vile and underhanded about this room. It can't just be a little room with a keg in it! It can't be!

Ol' Soggy figured that one out pretty handily the Dwarf laughed to himself as he strolled back into the gong room, looking to examine the western door.

Well it seemed like a normal enough room so I relaxed slightly. The only thing of interest was the cask so I examined it closely, hoping I could determine what the liquid was without having to drink any of it. I also checked to see if anything was concealed beneath the cask.

Smirking with the satisfaction that only a man who has outsmarted a rock can understand, Motsognir sallies up to the door up past the gong. Nothing about the door seems suspicious and it hangs slightly ajar, so Soggy gently kicks it open and then quickly ducks against the adjacent wall to avoid the monstrous trap attack that must be forthcoming.

When nothing appears, he creeps back to the doorway and peers into the new room. The chamber is clotted with statuary; a burly human in peasant garb wrestles with a lion while 4 armored figures look on.

Bob examines the cask for any indication of its contents. Though the branding on the battered wood is worn through and unreadable in most places, enough of the lettering remains intact to piece together part of the label:

L XIR OF AC U ACY

OP N ONL IN EM RGE C

Bob tips the cask over slightly to see if anything might be underneath, but discovers nothing. The cask is entirely too easy to move. Whatever the contents, not much of it remains.

The dwarf wanders into the room with the cask, eying up the female wizard for a moment before he sighed, took his axe and took a chunk out of the top of the cask to see what was inside.

"Too long."

Weird shit. thought Motsognir, trying to recall what statue rooms like this might mean.

Arcana check

I grabbed the empty vial of anti-venom I had drunk during the earlier fight and filled it up with the contents of the cask which the ugly dwarf had now opened for me.

I then hurried to join the other dwarf who was so much more pleasant to be around.

I found him admiring a series of statues. Still nervous of any traps, I gingerly edged into the room, looking around for any clues or inscriptions that might tell me if this was something important or just a bit of decoration.

Motsognir tunes into his newly-sensitive sense of the arcane, but finds nothing magical about the statues whatsoever.

Bob creeps into the room, looking the statues up and down. The base of the lion statue is inscribed:

SUCCESSION RITES OF THE THRONE OF HARGASTUS

On the back of the human figure wrestling with the beast are etched the words "heavy lies the crown". This engraving is significantly more ragged-looking.

Motsognir was bored of statues. He wandered back to the group. "Alright, kids, we have two options. Option A, we go fuck up some rats. Option B, we go back to that first room, but this time head west. I say we ignore the rats, but hey, you people surprise me sometimes."