The Gaming Den

Grobnar sees only inky blackness through the northwest door, until Lodin scurries up behind him with the lantern. Its light reveals the further doorway and downward stairs that Norda's darkvision showed her moments before. The eastern door opens onto a chamber strewn with rubbish, and another bedroom beyond.

In the room north off the passage, Grobnar sees a chest with what appears to be a log suspended above it by a rope. Vorbar peers down the steps, which lead down to a room with a statue of a man facing the stairway.

It takes a little time to form and cast a serviceable loop, but the chest is soon retrieved from beneath the menacing timber. Lodin examines it, and finds it unlocked and untrapped. Within is a small trove of coins, mostly silver. "Not worth the carrying further in," says Lodin. He combs through the coins with his fingers, seeking for anything buried within them. "Nice bonus on the way out, though."



(I've shuffled Vorbar onto the actual stairs so I can display what he sees below.)

The log rests with one end on the ground, and the other end raised above where the chest used to rest, like a cudgel poised to crack a walnut. The suspension is the result of a rope, attached to hooks embedded in the log. This rope runs through several other hooks set in the ceiling, then passes through a small hole to whatever remains of the floor above.

In the next room is a life-size statue of a reptiloid like the ones you saw outside. It stands in the center of the room, holding out a crude stone sword.

The statue room shows no signs of anything but the statue and the door in the northeast. Lodin joins the others by the stairs.

"Yeah, this is a hunt. I want to go after the fox until something's actually in the way. If we hit a door or something we can't shift, then we can start poking around aimlessly."