As they continued down the dark hallway, they came to another larger room with a door to the left and a longer hallway going south. This hallway had 6 doors; three on each side and they guessed that maybe it was a jail at one point long ago.
They went into the large room area and left the door alone for now and looked down into the dark hallway. Ropin, as usual, went to his knees and looked closely at the ground. After a few moments, he turned to the rest of his companions and said: "From what the tracks show, 4 of them went down, but only 3 of them returned this way. Perhaps one of them was killed, so we must be on our toes!"
Ropin then stood up and started down the dim hallway. He stopped at one of the closed doors (three of them were open) and listened. Nothing seemed to be there, so he pushed on the door to open it. As it creaked ajar, he was ready for something to leap out at him, but it was just a thought he had. The door opened to a small cell with dirt and grime and shackles against the back wall. That was it.
By this time, Masiry was near the door opposite Ropin and pushed that one as well, but it seemed locked. He pushed again and this time the door hinges gave way and the entire door crashed down into the small room with a loud smack! They had hoped to move along here as quietly as they could, but now it was too late. But this door had nothing behind it as well except the painful memories of old prisoners cries.
They moved along to the other doors, but before they could open any more doors, something scurried out one of the doors and headed right towards Ropin. Another Dire Rat! It went quickly and bit Ropin on the shin and left him more angry than hurt. Ropin then quickly took out his long sword and killed the rat in 2 strokes.
However, with the sounds of the dire rat's squeaking, more came out of the rooms and soon, the adventurers were faced with 3 more large rats - whose bite was not as dangerous as the disease they carried if they bit through skin....
Soon, all the dire rats were killed, although Ropin and Relord both got bitten. Only time would tell if any disease made them sicker....
They made sure that the other cells did not have any more rats and looked through the dirt and rocks to find some gold and silver. They also found a hand that was partially eaten. Where could that have come from?
They continued further down the hallway and came to another large room with a door half closed on their left. There was another fountain towards the back of the wall and some rubble and rocks on their right. Also, interestingly, they saw two pit traps that were kept open with pieces of rock. Perhaps the others had found them accidentally or on purpose and kept them open to remind themselves of the danger. Masiry looked down both of them and found nothing but dirt, dust and many spikes.
It was the fountain that Kasas was interested in though and he made his way around the traps to the fountain. He saw that it had another Draconic inscription that said "Let There Be Death", and the fountain was built a little bit differently than the previous one. He remembered what had happened at the other one, so he stepped back towards the wall and said the words in Draocinic language. Nothing happened. He stepped closer, but something told him that he would need to be hear the fountain to say the magic words, so he stepped closer to it and chanted the words again.
This time, before he could react, a green mist sprayed out from a series of small holes and would have poisoned him, if he were not so quick, jumping out of the way. He dodged the mist well, but almost landed in one of the pit traps in back of him. Thankfully he regained his balance and did not fall in.
The others were eager to get going and when they started to get to the door, they heard some noises from within. They decided to open the door and then stand in back of the put traps to let whatever it was behind the door come at them. It seemed like a good plan.
Relord and Ropin went to the door and opened it a little and peered inside. They did not see anything and were going to move back....when suddenly what looked like 4 more Dire Rats started to move at once and bit Ropin and Relord. Oh No, not again!
Ropin and Relord were able to move back a little to let Masiry and Kasas shoot with their bows and spells, and 2 of the rats went down quickly. But as the other two rats moved to take their place, a large skulking figure also came out of the darkness. It was a HUGE mother rat! This even looked like the size of a small horse and had a terrible set of dirty broken teeth and large paws....and it was coming right at Ropin.
Backing away more, Ropin and Relord were having a harder time dealing with the smaller of the rats, while the mother rat was going towards them. But finally, after a painful struggle, all the rats were dead and thankfully no one had fallen into a trap or was killed. They decided to go into the room to take a look.
They were saddened to see the body of a dead human on the floor, without a hand. So that was where the hand had come from. Ropin looked around more and found the rat's treasure on a large pile of dirt and bones. They also looked at the human's body and took most of his items; he had 6 daggers, a leather armor jerkin (badly eaten), some gold and silver and a potion of cure light wounds, which unfortunately did not come in handy to him at the time. They also saw a ring with the name "Karakas." This name did not mean anything to them, but they thought that maybe it was one of the 4 people that they were supposed to find. Relord took the ring and promised to keep it safe.
Since the room was a dead end, they would have to return as the others did. But where would they go now?
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