Chapter Four: The Manifest of the Harikan Squall

"I can't read this, but it's wards and curses," Zora says. She rolls her eyes up toward the ceiling. "I know you weren't keen on breaking that upstairs door down, but there weren't any wards or curses on it. You sure you don't want to...just...get out of here?"

"We have to go up to get out. That looked like the best way out to me."

There would be a file that can slip through the door crack, hard to say if it'll give you the leverage to lift the bar off until you try it, though.

Does anybody want to stick with the warded/cursed door, or is going back upstairs the general consensus?

Felor can't read this language, but it fits a general pattern of woe-to-whoever-disturbs-the-eternal-rest-of-they-who-etc etc etc anti-graverobber boilerplate.

Upstairs, Mordred is able to get his file through the crack between the door and the frame and can feel some give on the bar on the other side, but he doesn't quite have the leverage to lift it all the way off.

Any way to embed the handle of the file in something longer to get better leverage? A torch or maybe someone else has a quarterstaff or similar? Other ideas?

I have a spear but I don't know how that could be usefully attached to a file. I don't think the spear tip would fit in the gap? I have a fishing rod and line if that would be useful?

It'd be a tight fit, but you could probably jam the catchpole blade in there.

With some effort, Mordred manages to wedge the catchpole blade into the crack, shaving some wood off the door in the process, and lift off the bar on the other side.

Strangely, nobody hears the bar clatter to the ground on the other side of the door.

The door can be pushed open now, if anyone dares.

There's some resistance, but the door gives way, opening to a cluttered, dusty basement. The locking bar rests on bolts of fabric that had fallen to the floor. Stacks of broken furniture and piles of old clothes and linens loom to the right, boxes and bins and more piles of cloth to the left. There is a narrow trail through the mounds of junk leading to wooden ascending stairs at the opposite end of the basement.

The stairs lead to another closed door. A normal wooden door, with a bronze handle.