#66 - False Floors and Moving Cubes

As told by Magnus of the Island of Seren.

I’ll bleed to death before I let that half-man cure me of anything.

He sat and thumbed through books while the party was fighting and bleeding and getting beat up in the witch's house. During the battle, he saw that I was a blood-soaked mess and he healed me, which is something clerics do.

At the end of the battle, he asked me to pay for his spell. I was still bleeding and coming out of my rage when I threw a coin on the floor and called him a merchant. His goading me to fight his armored dwarf set me up for another rage and likely an attack on his person while he mumbled about his mighty house. BAH!

Cypher and the rest of the party sent me outside to cool off. Good thing. Clarion came outside to walk and talk for a while while we recovered our horses and found the two war ponies the halfling and dwarf must have ridden here on. We put them in the partially collapsed stables attached to the house. After cooling off and some words from Clarion, I was ready to head back into the house… the party was, of course, fiddling around with treasure…mostly books. Ugh.

The main floor of the house was mostly empty, but set of stairs went down into unexplored darkness. I told Clarion that we should clear the lower level before we could feel safe here. This house has been under evil’s sway for a ling time and I thought the library and a family portrait were not the worst of it. Clarion went for help upstairs.

Eventually, the rest of the party came down and that damned halfling introduced himself to me as if nothing has happened. Then I saw it, he was beginning to walk the ways of the old ones. His senses were leaving this world and he was preparing to depart.  He was not clear on what passed here. I will stand away from him.

The whole gang went down the stairs, finding an old smashed up wine cellar. I kicked around through the bottles and broken trash looking for anything interesting, maybe a trapdoor? Cypher searched the walls for a secret door. It wasn't too long before a worn path through the dust led to a secret door and Cypher found that we could open it by pushing. In the meantime, he was again reading something.

The door led to a passage and the passage to some kind of workroom. The old halfling went right over to some glass- and jar-filled tables while Clarion and Alea went over to a strange metal table. Cypher walked straight across to to investigate a large chest. No apparent monsters meant I would stand guard.

But as I watched, Cypher and Rungo both drop through the floor, leaving no trace. A split second later I heard Cypher hit a ground I could not see. Warforged and their dogs make very loud noises when they fall. I headed over, using my mace to scrape the ground and find the edge of a pit, concealed with magic (not the leaves and branches we would use on Seren, but still a pit trap). Clarion also approached, scattering chalk dust to guide his steps around the pit.

I threw down a rope, and soon Clarion threws his rope as well. The new druid (Dar, I think I heard her say her name was?) suddenly transformed—like worked clay but faster—into a giant and hairy spider (I can’t do that!) and skittered down into the floor, heading down into the pit I still couldn't see. Aleae surprised me by slipping down Clarion's rope with little hesitation. I could hear sort of scuffle ensue down near the bottom of the pit.

Cypher called out that there was a gelatinous cube down there with him! I remember that it was one of those that held the Governor and his skeleton and his armor when we first encountered him. (He is still a problem for us, though we don't know where he is now.)

Soon enough, I see Clarion strain as his rope goes taught, I whip my rope out of the pit and lend a hand with his load—the bottom of my rope appeared to have been dissolved by the cube.  Next, Aleae, Rungo and Cypher scrambled up, just as Clarion's rope breaks under the straight of three (two heavyweights, one lightweight). Right behind them came the giant spider—curious to see such a creature on our side.

In the meantime, the metal table had heated itself up and was white hot... More magic.

Without missing a beat, the spider turns back into Dar. This newcomer doesn't seem to know what she (he?) is. She spoke the words of a spell—doesn't like a wizard or a priest—and a shaft of moonlight shone out of nowhere and down into the illusionary floor. I suppose it could burn the cube....do cubes climb? This one never did.

With falling and fighting over, the party resumes its search and I resume my guard station… we should close or seal that hole before we try to rest here…

But then other matters present themselves as the dwarf female—who had been standing guard at the top of the stairs—calls out that the house was no in fire. That is less strange than our new companions.