It's midday on the first Taniday of Madrer, 150AV. Most of us are in the rat man warren. Outside, above the warren, more slaves keep showing up. There are now nearly twenty of them. Novalia is on the roof of one of the huts; Goldpetal is organizing the slaves. As she watches, Novalia sees large numbers of rat men escaping the warrens. She takes some pot shots at them, but it's hard to hit fast-moving targets in the midday haze. The rest of us are in the large room of rat men warren. The room is filled with tipped troughs and "food" of the rat men. The walls are made of dried mud and excrement mixed with straw and reeds. The smell is overwhelming.
Novalia is looking out into the swampy haze when she suddenly sees Stone, coming through the swamp, singing an old lizard man drinking song with a lizard man buddy.
Stone: "Sorry I'm late - that Lizard Berry Wine is some strong stuff. This is my friend - they used to call him 'Thinks Like Stones,' but that got confusing, so now they call him 'Drinks with Orcs.' You can call him 'Drinks.'"
Drinks is a particularly dumb-looking lizard man. Stone says Drinks told him he likes to bop rat men on the head with his club. He says they were playing a game last night with mice popping out of holes; as they popped out, Stone and Drinks whacked their heads. He mentions that he's also brought three potions of healing.
Down in the warren, Miriel calls everyone together, joins hands, pulls out Madriel's Tear, and prays to Madriel for healing for everyone, but nothing happens. She suggests that we all leave to rest. Paks and Chuck want to look at the corpses. Suddenly we hear a voice from above: "Hey!" It's Stone!
Stone: "I brought some drinks!"
Paks gives Chuck the masterwork longsword, draws the masterwork bastard sword, and borrows the "shield" ring from Miriel.
Chuck (to Stone): "So, tell me you didn't trade the crown for booze."
We discuss sending Telryn, Paks, Fists of Fury, Swims with Fishes up, walking with Hands of Fire, who starts to stagger out, to ask for assistance. As we're discussing it, four rat men show up with crossbows and shoot at us. One shoots at Chuck, but misses. The second shoots at Telryn and misses. The next shoots at Swims with Fishes and hits. He's unconscious. The last shoots at Chuck and hits.
Telryn runs for the entrance and disappears down the tunnel. Paks runs up and attacks the rat men, hitting one and killing it. The three rat men all shoot at Paks; one hits her and she's unconscious and bleeding. Fists of Fury charges the rat men and attacks one, but misses. Miriel charges another and hits, injuring it but not killing it. Chuck strolls over and swings at one of them, but misses. The viper hits the wounded rat man. Swims with Fishes stabilizes.
As Telryn is running out, he sees Stone running the other way, yelling. Paks stabilizes. The wounded rat man hits Miriel with his scimitar. Another attacks Chuck and misses. Another attacks Fists of Fury and fumbles. It's stunned and off balance and drops his weapon, flinging it backwards and hitting the injured rat man. As he staggers, Fists of Fury and Chuck attack him, and Fists of Fury hits him and kills him. Fists of Fury steps up and swings at one of the rat men, but misses. Miriel stabs at the injured one and kills it. Chuck and the viper attack the remaining rat man. Chuck hits it with both his sword and dagger, killing it. As Chuck fells the last rat man, Stone and his pal Drinks show up. "Hi fellas!" He sees Paks on the floor and pours a potion of healing down her throat; she's awake, but groggy. She gets up and staggers towards the exit.
Miriel tells Stone and the others to grab the unconscous lizard man and head out. Stone throws Swims with Fishes over his shoulder and heads up.
Miriel: "Chuck, guard our backs!"
We make it back up the tunnel into hut #3. Telryn has updated Goldpetal and Novalia about our situation. Goldpetal casts Cure Minor Wounds on Paks and Hands of Fire. Miriel suggests that Red Scale might know of a place nearby where we can rest and recover. After translation, we find that he knows of a place where we could hide, but he thinks there are too many humans here, and the rat men might be able to track them. Paks suggests we rest on the roofs of the huts. Miriel asks if we can have blinds to rest behind. Novalia suggests that we need to help the slaves, and maybe the lizard men could take them to safety somewhere. We all climb up to the tops of the huts, including the 18 slaves.
Stone cuts a hole in the roof of his hut and watches down the hole for rat men, all the while swilling drinks. Miriel and Telyrn lie down to rest, after Miriel suggests that Novalia heal Paks. Chuck sees what Stone has done and also cuts a hole in the roof of his hut; he looks down it every once in a while, watching the edges of the clearing the rest of the time.
Every few hours, we see rat men peering at us from the swamp, or up the holes. We shoot occasionally, but don't hit anything. It seems like they might be planning something, but nothing happens. Several hours pass; it's now about 4pm. Miriel heals Swims with Fishes. Paks heals Telryn and Chuck. Miriel checks out everyone on the roof with her to see how they're doing. Chuck is getting some sort of rash on his arm; she's not sure what it is, but it may be the beginning of corpse blisters. She goes to check the others; everyone else looks okay.
Stone hands out all his food and some drinks to the slaves on his hut. Miriel does the same. The slaves are extremely grateful. Stone asks the dwarf ex-slave to watch down the hole while he naps. Miriel suggests resting until 6pm. Paks heals herself and cures Chuck's disease.
Hands of Fire sniffs the air: "Storm's coming in."
Miriel heals Chuck twice. She suggests that Hands of Fire and Fists of Fury take the slaves to the nearby shelter. The slaves tell us that here are still people missing. We assure them that we'll try to find them. Stone gives Telryn a healing potion to carry. We head back down the same hole in hut #3 that we went down before. Stone and Drinks go first. Chuck casts Magic Fang on his snake. Telryn casts Mage Armor on himself and Miriel. We come into the first small room, which is filled with piles of cloth. Chuck searches the dead bodies.
The rest of us move towards the room where we found the slaves, then continue towards the large room where the big fight was. We get to the small side room; it smells terrible in here - we see a lot of bowls on the floor and decide it must be a toilet. The bowls have been knocked over in the melee; it's a gross mess.
We continue towards the large room. The bodies are all still here. Chuck searches the albino; Paks tries to stop him, but he just hands over the glowing dagger. Telryn searches the priest. He finds silver wire and jade woven into its fur. Chuck lights a torch in the middle of the room. Stone, Goldpetal, and the lizard men watch the various entrances. Paks also searches the albino. It's also got jewelry woven into its fur, this time gold and sapphires. It has a bone scroll tube, but the strange scimitar is gone. Miriel searches the warriors. They are all wearing silver trinkets. The albino's retinue have gold wire and quartz jewelry dangling form their jaws. Chuck detaches five pieces of jade, seven sapphires, and sixteen pieces of quartz. Telryn opens the scroll tube; it's in rat man writing. He slips it in his sack.
We start down the corridor to the south, with Stone in the lead. Miriel grabs Chuck's torch from the middle of the room. Twenty feet down the corridor is another large room, about thirty feet across. There are two exits to the left and one to the right. There are four huge bowls of brass on wooden stands. There are worn rugs on the floor. Stone pokes at the rugs with the ten-foot pole, lifting them up. There's just mud flooring underneath. He walks up to one of the brass bowls and looks inside. He sees a mixture of blood and excrement and mud. He pokes it with his dagger and it swirls. He says it looks like a ritual took place here.
He moves to the first corridor to the left and looks down it. Chuck looks down the next one to the left. Drinks looks out to the right. He just sees a corridor, but Stone and Chuck see that the corridors open up into rooms after about five feet. Stone sees lots of mats on the floor, a bookshelf, some hangings on the walls, and all sorts of murals. The room is about thirty feet around. He tells Paks what he sees. Miriel comes into the room with the bowls and sketches a symbol of Madriel on the wall near Chuck. Stone heads down the corridor. There are two exits, one to the right and one straight ahead. There are two or three sleeping mats. There are many books on the shelves. The murals depict suffering figures, rats chewing their way through tunnels of flesh, and various religious symbols.
Stone goes to the corridor to the right; he looks down and sees a twenty by ten room, which probably joins up with the corridor Goldpetal is watching. There are exits to the right and left. Goldpetal looks down in the light of Miriel's torch. He sees a room with several shallow pits and eight stone blocks with chains and iron loops. Stone sees the same room and goes on down in there, waving at Goldpetal. Goldpetal comes in and covers the other exit from that room.
Looking out from the room with the murals, Chuck sees what looks like a very large room, about twenty feet down the corridor. He can see some tapestries on the walls. Stone comes back to Chuck. Miriel and Telryn come into this room as well; Telryn starts searching the room. Paks asks Miriel and Novalia to search as well, then brings in the lizard men.
Stone walks towards the larger chamber. There are three exits on the far wall. There are lots of tapestries and chests and books, and a pile of skulls in the corner. Chuck follows Stone and Miriel follows Chuck. As Stone steps into the room, four wolf-sized wolf-rats attack him.
Stone: "Found them!"
The wolf-rats attack Stone. One hits him, the others miss. He feels weaker. He sees a large rat man priest in the room who appears to be casting a spell. Telryn walks up behind Miriel and peers past her. Stone tumbles past the wolves and attacks the priest. The wolf-rats snap at him, but miss, and one fumbles. He tries to punch the priest, but misses. Paks heads down the corridor and steps through the wolf-rats, standing back to back with Stone. She hits a wolf-rat. Goldpetal comes in with scimitar drawn, behind Chuck. The priest casts a spell, and suddenly a swarm of centipedes appears around Chuck. The priest pulls out a red pearl with his left hand, points at Stone, calls out "Stone" and mumbles something else. Stone feels waves of pain racking his body. He's very angry. Chuck steps out of the centipedes and attacks the rat wolves. He hits the injured one, but misses the other one. The snake attacks the priest and bites it. Drinks with Orcs comes over to the corridor. One of the wolf-rats attacks Chuck while the other two attack Paks. Two hit Paks, one hits Chuck. Red Scale continues to watch our backs. Novalia starts to watch the other corridor. Swims with Fishes comes in to watch the other corridor. Miriel steps back out of the way of the corridor entrance and blesses everyone.
Telryn casts a Ray of Cold on the swarm and disperses it. Stone aims a flurry of blows against the priest and hits it. Paks swings at the injured wolf-rat, but misses. Goldpetal walks in and attacks a wolf-rat, but misses. The priest steps back and drinks a potion; his skin turns into bark. Chuck swings at two wolf-rats, hitting the injured one. The viper attacks the priest again, but misses. Drinks with Orcs runs down the hall and smashes a wolf-rat, injuring it badly. One wolf-rat attacks Goldpetal, biting him and clawing him. In the process, it trips and falls over, stunned. As it falls, Goldpetal and Chuck attack it and hit it hard. Another wolf-rat attacks Drinks with Orcs, biting him. The last one attacks Paks, but misses. Red Scale, Novalia, and Swims with Fishes continue to watch the corridors. Miriel waits to hear that someone needs help. A wolf-rat attacks Chuck, biting and clawing him. He calls out for healing.
Telryn walks down the corridor into the room and hands Chuck the healing potion. Stone steps up to the priest and attacks with a flurry of blows, but misses. Paks swings at one of the wolf-rats and hits it, killing it. Goldpetal swings at the one in front of him and hits it, slicing its belly open. The priest steps back again and drinks another potion. His mouth grows huge and he gets warts on his face - he kind of looks like he's turned into a giant frog. Chuck attacks the remaining two wolf-rats with his dagger and sword and hits both, killing the injured one, then steps back. The snake attacks the priest and hits it. Drinks with Orcs runs up to the priest and smashes him with the great club, but misses. Red Scale continues to watch, as does Novalia. Swims with Fishes runs in and attacks the wolf-rat, but fumbles and loses his club. The wolf-rat attacks him and bites him. Miriel waits to help someone. The remaining wolf-rat attacks Swims with Fishes and bites and claws him; he's unconscious.
Telryn casts a magic missile at the priest. Stone walks up to the priest and attempts to grapple it. The priest tries to bite him, but misses. Stone grabs it, but it throws him off. Paks runs around behind the priest and flanks him, hitting him. Goldpetal swings at the wolf-rat in front of him and hits it. The priest pulls out the glowing scimitar that we saw the albino use before and attacks Stone, but misses. Its tongue whips out and tries to grab Stone, but he dodges gracefully and it misses. Chuck drinks his potion of healing and moves behind the wolf-rat. Drinks with Orcs swings his club against the priest, but misses. Red Scale runs into the room to see what's going on. Novalia steps back to guard the rear. Miriel comes down the corridor into the room and pulls Swims with Fishes out of the way to try to heal him. The wolf-rat attacks Chuck, but misses. Swims with Fishes bleeds.
Telryn casts a Ray of Frost against the priest. Stone punches the priest and hits. Paks swings at it and misses. Goldpetal attacks a wolf-rat and hits it. The priest attacks Paks with the scimitar and hits. It is shocked to see that it has no effect on her other than to injure her. She yells out to Goldpetal for healing. The priest's tongue whips out towards her and grabs her. She's now wrapped in a sticky tongue. Chuck attacks the wolf-rat and hits it, killing it. He picks up the club. Drinks with Orcs swings at the priest, but misses. Red Scale comes over and swings his great club at the priest, hitting it and braining it. Dead. With its last gasp of breath it says "Chern is coming". Paks takes a rag out of her bag and picks up the scimitar. Stone stomps on the priest's head. Goldpetal heals Paks. Miriel stabilizes Swims with Fishes.
Paks loots the priest's body. In its left hand is still the red pearl, which she takes. Chuck goes to look down the middle corridor. Paks also finds obsidian and silver woven into its fur. She points this out to Chuck. Goldpetal looks at a chest against the wall. Novalia continues to cover the entry corridor. Stone looks down the nearest corridor. Drinks with Orcs looks down the last corridor. Red Scale goes to look at the chest with Goldpetal. Each corridor is about five feet long and they open into small caverns. Stone sees a bunch of bookshelves and calls to Telryn that he sees more books. Chuck sees some statues. Drinks with Orcs sees lots of chests and baskets heaping with loot. He heads down this corridor.
Goldpetal and Red Scale open the chest and find that it's filled with coins. They are uninterested, close it, and move away. Miriel calls out for healing for Swims with Fishes - he's now awake, but weak. Drinks with Orcs gets into the small room. He sees baskets and rough chests; there's a ton of treasure there. There is jewelry, gold bars, and piles of coins. Stone turns around and shoves his pole into the skulls. Looking closely, he sees that they look like elf skulls. Chuck heads down the other corridor and finds another small room. In it, he sees fifteen or more life-sized, waxy figures of humans and elves, in what seems like torment. They appear to be magically preserved bodies, with various diseases. He yells "Ewww!" and calls for Miriel. Paks goes to cover the corridor to the treasure room.
Stone goes into the room with the books, listening at the door to be sure he doesn't get attacked. The room is lined with bookshelves; he calls out to Telryn again and grabs one off the shelf. The room is remarkbly dry for being in a swamp, and the book is in very good shape. Drinks With Orcs drapes himself with gold chains and jewels and comes back. Paks suggests looting that room, calling back to Novalia to watch our backs. Goldpetal goes to look at the books. Miriel follows Chuck's call. She determines that the figures are all dead; it's sort of a museum of diseases; it may be a study hall. Telryn comes into the book room and inspects the books. Most are in Slytherin, but some are in human languages and some are in elvish. Nothing jumps out at them as a wonderful book, but there are over two hundred books, and many of them could be valuable. Goldpetal tries to see if any of the elvish books are particularly old; he finds one that does look unusually old. Telryn searches and picks two books that look particularly valuable, maybe a hundred and fifty gold pieces each.
Miriel and Chuck come back - she tries to gather people, saying there's too much disease down here and we should get out of here. She asks Chuck to help, and he also tells everyone we need to get out of here. Paks asks why, what did we see, and Chuck explains. She asks if they're carrying the diseases, and Miriel says it just looks like training. Telryn goes into the treasure room and looks for the best stuff. Stone also goes in and starts grabbing jewelry and gold. He fills his sack, fills his canvas, then takes off his shirt and fills that with gold, too. Drinks with Orcs helps, but Telryn asks them to stop for a minute while he detects magic on the room. He finds a small silver ring and a wooden ring with silver wires wrapped around it, both of which are clearly magic, enchantments.
Paks asks Telyrn to identify the red stone and scimitar at the table in the main room. As he does, he also identifies two potions on the table as magical. The scimitar has some sort of necromancy on it and the pearl is a conjuration. Miriel looks at the vials on the table and determines that five of them are poison and three are glitter ink (Telryn is very excited and grabs them). Chuck takes the poisons. Goldpetal is still looking at books.
Miriel starts trying to get people to leave again. Stone comes walking out, fully loaded. Paks says we should burn the study room with the figures with diseases. Telryn and Miriel think this is a terrible idea. Stone suggests laying a trail of books out to the entrance, then lighting it on fire. Paks wants to know if we want to go back above ground or finish clearing the warren out. Paks remembers that we haven't found the slaves we came down to rescue yet. Miriel agrees to go look for them. Telryn looks for acid on the table and finds two vials, which he takes. Paks asks Goldpetal what was in the chest. She opens the chest and looks to see if there's anything under the gold coins. There isn't, but she sees that the coins are unusual; they're from all over the land, they're just Veshan. There are some that none of us recognize, and there are over ten thousand of them.
Miriel says if we're fighting we should go before our spells wear off. The Blessing is gone, but the Mage Armor is still going. We go to clear the rest of the dungeon. We go into the room with the pits and tables and see a ten foot corridor leading off into another room. About five feet down it branches off to the right. Stone stops and listens. He hears some moaning coming from the room. He walks up to the branch and peeks around, but can't see anything, so he goes to the room and peeks in. It's about thirty feet around. There are fifteen slaves in there, manacled and caged in reed cages. They look extremely sick.
Stone (loudly): "Found 'em!"
Stone walks in. The sick people don't respond much; they seem apathetic. Stone calls for Miriel. Drinks with Orcs follows him in. Chuck looks down the branching corridor. Paks comes in and guards one of the exits. Miriel looks at the sick people.
Miriel: "Oh my God! This room is filled with people nearly dead of slimy doom! Don't anyone touch them, or anything else. In fact, since it's airborne, stay out of this room!"
Around the room we see bowls and tools and grails. Novalia covers the back.
Miriel says we should get out of here right now. Paks says we should kill the suffering slaves. Miriel tells her to do it, as she's immune. Paks asks her to administer last rites, which she agrees to do. Stone looks down the far corridor and sees a small room with a big pit in the center. He goes down to look more closely. On the outside of the pit, he sees slime and scraped-off skin and gore. He drops his bag and goes to look in the pit. As he looks into the pit, eight tentacles suddenly come up and grab at him. He dives out of the way, leaps back down the corridor, and warns the rest of us.
Stone swings at one of the tentacles, but misses. Paks waits to see what the monster is. Miriel stays back and warns everyone else to stay out of the disease room. Chuck moves down the branching corridor, but still doesn't see anything. Novalia covers the rear. Something like a cross between a centipede and a Chthulhu monster crawls up out of the pit towards Stone. It grabs at him with all of its tentacles and hits him with three of them. He is paralyzed. Paks charges it, yelling for help. She fumbles and loses her weapon, hitting herself. It grabs at her with one of its tentacles and hits her, paralyzing her. Telryn pulls out a scroll and runs through the disease room. He casts Flash at the monster, but it is not stunned. Drinks with Orcs grabs Paks and Stone and pulls them back down the corridor. Swims with Fishes stays back.
Red Scale runs in to help drag them out. Goldpetal readies his bow. Miriel steps over to the corridor and calls for Chuck to come back and get his bow ready. He walks into the room and shoots his bow at the monster, hitting it. Novalia runs in and shoots at it, but misses. The crawler leaps forward and bites Stone. Telryn casts a Ray of Frost and injures it. Drinks with Orcs drags Stone and Paks back. Swims with Fishes stays back. Red Scale grabs Stone and drags him back. Goldpetal punches the ground, but the Shockwave misses. Miriel waits to see if anyone gets injured. The slaves in the room are cowering away and look very disturbed. Chuck shoots at the carrion crawler and hits it twice, killing it.
Miriel: "Let's get the hell out of here. Stone, pick those guys...oh..."
Drinks with Orcs picks Stone up off the ground and carries him out. Telryn drags Stone's sack of jewels. Telryn suggests that we go rest in the library. We all pack ourselves into the library. We wait while Stone and Paks recover from their paralysis. We discuss what to do. Miriel and Telryn suggest resting here. Miriel wants to stay and recover overnight, but Goldpetal says we should stay just a short time. Chuck agrees, and says he can explore while we rest. We agree to rest for four hours.
Chuck meditates to learn Alarm. The spellcasters rest to regain spell points. After an hour, Chuck casts Alarm. He sets the password as "Goldpetal sucks." After another hour, Paks heals herself and Goldpetal heals her, himself, Stone, and Chuck. Novalia heals Chuck. Chuck searches the room again. After almost another hour, Chuck's alarm rings. He goes to look down the corridor. Stone sees five giant rats scurrying around.
Stone: "Fellas, got rats over here."
Chuck asks for space to shoot, and Stone says "Go ahead" and steps back. Chuck shoots twice; he fumbles once and hits once, pegging one rat to the ground. The snake slithers forward and attacks another rat, but misses. The rats scatter and run. Chuck calls his snake back. He goes into the laboratory and searches, but doesn't find anything. After another forty minutes, the alarm goes off again. Stone sees seven more rats. Chuck steps over to shoot at them again, but they see him and scatter. We agree to rest for two more hours. Paks heals Miriel. Goldpetal heals Telryn.
Chuck meditates to memorize Magic Fang again. After forty minutes, the alarm goes off again. Stone looks down the corridor, but doesn't see anything. Novalia stands up and nocks an arrow. Stone heads down the corridor and peeks down another corridor. Paks, Goldpetal, and Miriel rest. Chuck follows Stone with his bow drawn. Telryn listens, as does Red Scale. Drinks with Orcs follows Stone. Swims with Fishes looks into the treasure room. Suddenly dead eaters come up out of the ground at Chuck, Stone, and Drinks with Orcs.
Stone (yells): "Dead eaters".
Chuck: "Oh, good, dead eaters!"
The dead eaters try to grapple them. Two attack Chuck, he attacks one and hits. Stone tries to hit the one attacking him, as does Drinks with Orcs, but they miss. The two attacking Chuck miss. The one attacking Stone fumbles and is stunned. Stone swings at it and hits it. The one attacking Drinks with Orcs grabs him, but fumbles and can't hold on to him.
Goldpetal draws his scimitar and heads for the melee. A dead eater hits Drinks with Orcs with a claw. Another leaps at Chuck, clawing him and fumbling. It's stunned. Drinks with Orcs swings at it but misses. Chuck and the snake hit it. The next dead eater attacks Drinks with Orcs, but misses. Swims with Fishes runs in and attacks a dead eater, hitting it with his club. Paks runs out into the main room from the library. Chuck attacks the two nearest dead eaters, hitting both and killing one. The snake tries to hit the first one, but misses. Red Scale waits. Telryn continues to rest. Novalia waits. Stone tumbles past the dead eaters. One dead eater claws him. He punches this one, but misses. Drinks with Orcs attacks the same one and hits it. Miriel continues to rest. Goldpetal slides in and attacks the dead eater that was stunned, but misses. The dead eater that never fumbled attacks Swims with Fishes; it bites him and fumbles. Stone hits it and kills it. Swims with Fishes moves back. Paks moves in and attacks one of the two remaining dead eaters, but misses. Chuck swings at the one in front of him, killing it. The snake attacks the last one and hits it. Red Scale waits. Telyrn rests. Novalia waits. Stone aims a flurry of blows at the last dead eater and hits twice, killing it.
Paks: (to Stone): "I have never seen somebody punch for as much gore as you generate." She goes to clean off her armor.
We continue to rest, with Paks guarding Miriel and Telryn. We make it through the next two hours undisturbed. Miriel and Paks go back to the room with the slaves with slimy doom.
Paks: "May the people who are dispatched with this sword have Madriel's mercy on them."
Miriel performs last rights.
Paks piles the bodies and leaves the short sword with them. Paks goes to investigate the other rooms, starting in the room with the pit. The floor is covered in bloody slime; she can tell that the rat men scrape all the loose material off the bodies. The pit is thirty feet deep and filled with rotting flesh and bones. There are symbols written on the floor around the pit with glitter ink. Paks tries to erase them, but they are unaffected. She comes back and asks Telryn how to remove glitter ink; he says it's not possible. She takes some chalk from Miriel and draws Madriel's symbols around the room. The pit smells rotten; there's a charnel gas coming up from the pit. Paks invokes Madriel for last rites for the people in the pit. She looks down the next hallway and sees that it's very long; she goes about 15 feet down and sees that it ends in a thatched doorway. She comes back and checks the last hallway. It looks into another very small room. She goes to look in; there are many nets hung from the ceiling and hundreds of stoppered bottles. In a rack on the wall there are lots of scraping tools, and there are dozens of empty bottles and stoppers. There's also a table with scrolls and ledgers. She grabs the scrolls and the ledger and brings them out. She takes the empty bottles and destroys them, after yelling to the rest of us that the noise is okay. As she's breaking them, she sees that some of them are quite old, from before the Titan's War and some of them have labels from places she's never heard of; it's a weird assortment. She keeps ten small empty vials, then takes the stoppered bottles and flings them into the pit. She comes back and describes it all to the party and says she'd like to go through the door. Miriel says that it's not a good idea to go through the slimy doom room. Telryn is practically weeping at the thought of the loss of the potions.
Stone and Novalia agree to go with Paks to check out the thatched door. The rest wait and listen. Stone goes up and peeks through the thatch. He sees the swamp. He calls for Chuck, who rushes through. Stone asks Chuck to look at the tracks to see if the rat men went after the slaves we let go. He doesn't see any tracks at all. He's on the east side of the hill, where the garbage dump is. It smells so bad that he almost passes out from the smell.
They come back and we go down the long branching corridor. It's about eighty feet long. The room at the next end appears to be someone's personal quarters, full of personal effects and equipment. A large sleeping area is in one corner, and there's a box against one wall. In a small hutch there are weapons and other effects. It's decorated with rugs and tapestries. Chuck calls "all clear" and the rest of us come in. Stone and Drinks with Orcs watch two of the three exit corridors. Chuck looks around but doesn't see anything. Paks looks in the box and finds some parchments in the box. She takes these. Goldpetal guards the last corridor. Miriel comes in and looks around for anything that might be magical, but doesn't see anything. Telryn looks through the weapons for a sturdy sharp knife and takes one.
Paks calls Telryn over to see the scrolls. Miriel looks at the hutch carefully, but just sees random rat man effects, including a human skull ashtray. Goldpetal asks Telryn if there are any arrows in the weapons. Chuck kicks the throw pillow, but there's just mud under it. He cuts the pillow open; it's filled with human hair. Paks searches the bedding to see if anything is under it. She looks at the weapons rack, but doesn't see anything interesting here. Chuck pulls the tapestries off the walls, but there's nothing there.
We head down the first passageway to the left. Ten feet down, there's another huge room, about forty by twenty feet. There are two exits, one at the end and one to the right. There are a lot of sleeping mats, and Stone surprises four rat men who are digging through the stuff in the room. Stone steps in and attacks one from behind, hitting it twice and killing it.
Novalia runs in and shoots at one of the rat men across the room, hitting it. Telryn yells "Take one alive so we can question him!" Drinks with Orcs charges the furthest rat man, smashing it dead with club. Paks watches the two remaining corridors. Goldpetal moves past Novalia and tries to hit the injured one with a scimitar, killing it. Red Scale continues to watch a corridor. Swims with Fishes watches the other one. Stone punches the last rat man for subdual damage, but misses. Chuck comes and tries to hit the rat man with the pommel of his sword, fumbling. His snake bites at the rat man, but misses. The rat man bolts. The snake bites at it again and hits it. Stone hits it in the head, knocking it out. Telryn comes in and, thinking out loud, says "This might work, this might work." Then he shakes his head, takes out his dagger and kills it. Stone looks disgusted.
Paks and Chuck search the room and the bodies. Stone and Goldpetal look down the exit corridors. Stone sees another exit to a thatched door, about twenty feet down. Goldpetal sees a smaller room about five feet down. He sees a nice clean dry room, about fifteen by twenty feet, with wooden racks on every wall. They hold lots of crossbows, bolts, and scimitars. Telryn and Stone take a bunch of crossbow bolts. Stone peeks through the thatched door - it goes outside. Chuck comes to look for tracks. He's in a marshy area, with lots of ferns and broken reeds. It looks like a lot of creatures might have gone through here in a hurry.
We go through the armory room and down the next corridor. The next room is about fifteen by fifteen, with an exit straight ahead, one heading back and to the right, and one heading off the right. This is another nest, with lots of mats and rags. There are weapons lying around, as well as some knicknacks and trophies (ears and such). Goldpetal comes in and throws up when he sees the necklace of elf finger bones and elf ears. Telryn comes on in.
Paks heads down the corridor that leads back on the right. She comes into a low-ceilinged room, full of reed baskets and wooden weapons; it looks like practice equipment. Stone goes up another corridor, about ten feet long, ending in a thatched door to the outside. He calls this info back to Chuck, who comes out and looks at the ground. He sees lots of rat man tracks, heading off in all directions, a few hours old. They appear to have deserted the sinking ship. Paks continues down the exit from the practice weapons room into a large room, twenty by fifteen, that connects back to the nest room that the rest of us are in. There are two other exits to the right. It has lots of reed mats on the floor. There are nicks and gouges in the wall. Goldpetal follows Paks and looks down one of the exits to the right. He sees a corridor going off. Miriel, Swims with Fishes, Red Scale, and Telryn follow them in. Telryn asks Swims with Fishes to check out the other exit.
Swims with Fishes sees a curving corridor and comes back and says he can't see any more. Goldpetal lights a candle and heads down his corridor; it goes back to the room with the four brass bowls. We keep searching the warren. It takes about two hours. We see a few giant rats, which scatter when they see us, but we don't find anything else or any other creatures. We find a larder filled with hams made from humans. Everywhere is full of filth. In one of the slave areas we find five listless slaves in manacles. Miriel checks them out; they're not diseased, but they're very listless. She asks Stone and Chuck to break them free. They try, but the manacles are very strong. They grab weapons and try again. As they free the first slave, he suddenly becomes lively.
Slave: "How long have I been down here? Get me out of the swamp!"
Stone and Chuck break them all free. Every time we break them free, they seem to wake up from a stupor and they thank us for saving them. Apparently the manacles are enchanted.
Chuck wants to test the manacles; Stone puts them on him and he gets apathetic. Telryn takes a pair to study. When Stone takes them off of Chuck, he says "Excellent!" and takes the rest of them. Stone collects the treasures. We leave the warren; it's dawn. Red Scale leads us to the hiding place of the other slaves.