[1] The Lower Road

You're forced to stay one more night in the infirmary - although there's not much force about it; you're weary enough that the rest is welcome. The next morning, one of the locals comes to collect you and take you to the complex that's been discovered. It's hidden behind a huge fallen stone that's been hewn out to form a storefront. Behind it, the moss and vines have been pulled aside to reveal a small stone door - much too small for a giant to use. It must be a workers' entrance, and you're again reminded of the giants' dark past. They for centuries forced their drow slaves to build vast underground complexes like this one. Their original purpose is lost to antiquity.

Perhaps you'll find out why this one was built.

As you step into the tunnel, you're met with damp, stale air that's slightly too warm to be comfortable. The stone walls curve slightly inward before meeting the ceiling. Vines hang down between the stonework above you like living stalactites. Some even reach the floor where they've begun to spread out and creep along the ground. Two side passages are blocked by stones that would take weeks to move, but the central corridor is clear.

Occasionally the passageway narrows slightly and elven engravings decorate the makeshift dividing lines. Two sections down, the corridor appears to branch off again.

With the corridor lit up better, you can make out more of the words. That is to say, you can make out that there are more words. The elvish script is more... spiky than flowing, which makes sense as it was carved, not written, but some of the phrases don't really make any sense. It's in an ancient dialect that you've never seen before. The lines you do understand seem more like personal expressions than a historical record or warding incantation.

It has been ten years and I still have not ????? more than once.

---

This area(?) belongs to Nyzik, the ????? of all his group.

---

Soon we will find the ????? and then the giants will all have death continuing. (Maybe that means forever?)

It looks like the tunnelling further on is of a different style. Maybe the drow were searching for something here that they didn't want the giants to know about.

As you progress down the hallway and come level with what appears to be the next intersection of tunnels, it becomes clearer that these are just small rooms off to either side. The thinner interior walls have long since fallen down, leaving only the thick stones of the tunnel walls in place.

Suddenly, a gout of flame rushes out from a small hole in the wall. Before anyone can react, the flame engulfs you and knocks you off your feet. It seems - appearances to the contrary - that there is something down here that someone did not want to be rediscovered.Once you've pulled yourselves together, the tunnel splits in half further on down.

The vines themselves aren't living in the sense that Cualli probably is cautious of, but they are hiding something more sinister - another set of traps. As the stone pushes through the vines, they drag along the floor and trigger the mechanism hidden there. This time, two flames are thrown out from the corners of the inset hallway. The vines are immolated before the fire shuts off. That trick probably won't work again - it's too dependent on the vines - but maybe it can give you clues as to how to check for traps, or where.

The hallway is clear to the split. The left side of the split is filled with webshe other side is clearly a work area, with rotted workbenches and shelves full of long-turned-to-dust items and rusted machinery.

With Cualli in the lead with his wealth of wariness, he is able to note that there are doors set into the ceiling here. There's a mechanism between the doors that probably should allow you to adjust them somehow, but it's just one lever - it's not clear how that would work.

The lever moves, but nothing happens. The system is ancient after all.

But just as you're about to give up on it as out of repair, something behind the wall moves with a thunk, and then the sound of gears spinning follows. The right door grumbles down from the ceiling and settles in place with a small explosion of dust that's been kicked out of the way by its weight. The lever might work again, but you'll have to wait to find out, because the noise has awakened something, and you hear a tik... tikytiky-tik-tik-tik as more feet than you have begin to move on the stonework inside the left branch of the passage.

As Laaesh reinvigorates his light, the creature making the otherworldly echoes on the stone comes into view, slowly extricating itself from its hole. It looks like the spider had grown a bit bigger than the hallway it had made its nest. Or perhaps, just perhaps, it had swollen up bigger from decay and rot after it died - not that its death seemed to bother it overly much. You get a good look into the interior of its dead carcass - dried out flesh and encrusted blood - as it raises itself to its full height, front legs searching for... what? Is it possible it couldn't see you? It doesn't directly attack at any rate.

The long-dead spider pauses for a moment, uncertain whether it heard - or more likely felt anything. But then the rumbling starts behind it, and it turns, quicker than you would have thought possible... quicker than you could have reacted to had it decided to leap at you... and slides back into the passage that it came from, heading for the phantom sound.

Now's your chance to do something while it's distracted, but you know it will probably be back, and soon.

Cualli dashes toward the switch, intent on flipping it back to close the door on the spider-thing, but his movement isn't quiet. The spider whirls and skitters back toward the door. One leg reaches out to wrap around Cualli's leg, but as he feels himself start to lose his balance, he manages to pull the lever.

The door slams down on the spider's leg, just before more of him can get out of his tunnel. Cualli's leg is released as the spider tries to pull its leg free. It twitches erratically but it seems that for now, it's stuck.

The other thing that happens when the lever is pulled is that the other side of the passage opens up again. The room on this side is ancient, full of crumbling scrolls and rusted bits of metal that were probably meant to be pieces of machinery at some point in the distant past.

At the other end of the room is another door, and a lever next to it that presumably works just the same as the previous one.

Alas, the vast majority of the items in this room crumble at the slightest breeze, so when Laaesh moves past them, there's a slow flurry of ancient parchments that soon cover the floor. Ah well. At least the machinery is still here. It looks like the sort of gears you'd see in a children's puzzle toy back in Sharn, but at a larger scale. There is one design that survives as well, but only because it was etched into the desk underneath. It appears to be a magical lattice of some sort, but more than that cannot be determined because of the crudeness of the sketch.

The way further into the cavern requires the pulling of that lever at the other end of the room, but thankfully, all it does is open the door. As you file into the cavern, your footsteps echo back off the smoothly carved walls, and the floor--

The floor is a vast, shimmering sheet of ice. It stretches for at least a hundred feet in front of you and forms a massive square, crisscrossed by stone every ten feet or so. At the other end of the ice is a large bell, and inset along the two side walls are two levers on each side. Each has a differently colored crystal above it: purple, pink, orange, and blue.

Below the ice, you can see glimpses of something else, but the ice makes it difficult to ascertain what it could be.

The ice is solid. It's probably at least 10 feet thick. Probably more, if we're honest about it. But not for long...

Laaesh takes aim and fires at the bell. It makes a very small, very hollow tong. And then Cualli remembers his Alchemical Architecture lessons and realizes what's about to happen. He's able to jump to part of the stone grid just in time, and warn the others so that they too can move.

The ring echoes around the room, off the smooth stone and the sheer ice. And every time it does, it grows louder.

tong... tong... tong... tong... tong... tong...

The ice suddenly cracks, splintering under your feet, and then shatters, falling the thirty feet or so down to the floor below.

Verin and Laaesh don't quite move fast enough. They're suddenly caught in free-fall as the floor simply isn't beneath their feet anymore, and they fall...

They splash down into the middle of an underground spring, one that's now full of magical ice and rapidly cooling. They're probably going to want to get out of there quick.There is good news for those down below though. They have not been spotted by the small band of kobolds who are hurriedly rousting themselves from their slumber and aiming their tiny bows skyward in the direction of S'sylin and Cualli, and Rythorn.

There's some chittering in a language that you're not immediately familiar with. Whatever language they're speaking, it's clear that Rythorn's body language - if not his words - has had an effect on the kobolds below. They don't disarm themselves, but they make no further move toward you, waiting on whatever you do next.

The kobolds don't respond to the first question, but they do to the second. They respond a bit too well, really. They go from being standoff-ish to absolutely enamored with S'sylin, bowing down to him and offering him some of the food they'd been preparing, chattering away all the while. Their speech isn't quite Giantish, but it's close.

This keeps them busy enough to let Cualli examine his surroundings for more markings. There are none in the center of the square, but down below, where the others are crawling out of the water, there are markings on the walls, and they seem to be of the same sort as those on the levers above. It's hard to see if they match exactly though.

@gnellson - The light is actually a lot better than it has any business being, and you can't see a source for it.

@majunior @trustyjustin - The symbols top and bottom seem to all be of the same style, but only two sets of them match. For one set, the matching levers seem to already be pulled, which would account for the kobold's hallway being open already. The other matching set hasn't been touched.

The kobolds respond again - still in Giantish. "We have lived in the Halls of Winter for all our lives and all our ancestors lives, and all the lives of our ancestors' ancestors. We guard the Sentinel of Frost, and wait for his awakening. When he awakens, we must battle him while our elders find a way to put him back to sleep. And now that you have come from the heavens above the ice, the time is nigh!"

There are cheers all around at the last of these proclamations, and they echo down the hall behind them as the story spreads. From the sounds of the cheers, there's at least a thousand or so back there.

This request ignites a furor amongst the kobolds. All at once several voices ring out in answer.

"No! Do not touch the levers!"
"The allies of evil will awaken!"
"Our doom is upon us!"

The lead kobold - or at least the one that's less in awe of you than the others - speaks up again. "Truth be told, we do not know even that there is a door, although if your wisdom says there is, then obviously it is true. But our prophecies say that our great enemies may someday be released to help the Sentinel of Frost."

A few of the kobolds grab ahold of S'sylin's hands, trying to lead him down the passageway. "Come away from the temptation of evil machinery. Come look upon the Sentinel's tomb and regain your resolve."

Following the kobolds, you're led deeper into the tunnels, past untold generations worth of decayed detritus and the abandoned accumulation of the eternity that the kobolds have been trapped unnoticed below the rest of the world. Tattered canvases look as though they'd crumble to dust if they were touched as they hang loosely in front of the tiny insets that the diminutive lizard-people unwillingly inherited from the drow - the only semblance of privacy they've ever had. But these slums are their homes. You pass several communal kitchens where rust monsters and slugworms are rotisseried above open flame, and you can't help but wonder how they could have lasted down here so long.

Finally, you come to a stop in front of a set of huge stone doors that reach at least twenty feet high - clearly gaintish construction. One of the two doors is open a few feet, and you're ushered inside. On the other side of the door, dormant arcane circuits are etched into the floor, but the patterns are seemingly broken or incomplete. In the center of the floor is a magic barrier of some kind, and inside it is an ice elemental that stands nearly as tall as the doors. It is frozen in place, probably by the barrier.

But as you study it, one icy blue eye - over the course of a minute - turns to lock onto you.

Laaesh discovers - with some time and study - that the circuit is complete, it's just out of place. Someone has, at some point in the far past, actually picked up some of the 200-pound stones and exchanged their places on the floor. The question is why? And the answer is obvious. Someone never wanted that circuit completed. So should you complete it now? You've heard stories of spells that had to be finished to be dispelled. But you've also seen what can happen if spells that were never meant to be used are used. The Mournland anyone?

With your minds made up, you begin to head back out, with S'sylin explaining that you must seek guidance on the matter (however you want to explain that). This does not sit well with all of the kobolds, however, and by the time you've reached the entrance to their tunnels, there is a veritable horde of tiny lizard-people surrounding you, yelling and cursing not only you but also each other. When you try to begin climbing back up, looking for handholds or some other way to get back up (Acrobatics/Environment check, DC 12), they begin pelting you with tiny stones, fish bones, and other pieces of trash. "No run away!" "Stay and help!" "Evil-hearted giants!"

Everyone manages to haul themselves up - everything other than Rythorn that is, who's knocked down by a well-placed rock hitting his hand as he tries to grab a handhold. As the rest of the group reaches the upper level of the caves and relative safety, Rythorn is quickly surrounded by a circle of spear-wielding kobolds. "We keep this one to make sure you come back!" One of the kobolds pokes him rather unnecessarily, and does it hard enough to hurt. "Otherwise, we stab!"

You're able to make it back to Professor Alacandra with little issue, and quickly explain the situation to her. Clearly worried about the student who didn't make it back, she pauses her work and heads back with you. "We'll soon put those creatures in their place! Show me where they are!"

The kobolds let Rythorn examine the wall, but the moment he starts to loose his sword, he's surrounded by tiny hissing lizards with spears pointed at him. His sword glows brighter though the closer he gets to the wall, and the kobolds start to mutter amongst themselves and give him some room.

Under the light of Rythorn's sword the runes begin to light up, one by one. The stone around the doorway shakes, and even up above you can feel it as the dust shakes from the walls, probably amplifying Cualli's fears about unnoticed traps. You arrive back at the kobolds' gate as the runes are halfway lit up.

Professor Alacandra is visibly alarmed. "Someone get him away from that gate. If it's not too late already. We have no idea what those runes are set to do."

The kobolds appear to have more knowledge though, even if they have far less sense. As the middle rune begins to glow, they start to mill about, screaming and running in every direction, so they clearly understand something, or think they do.

Alacandra nods approvingly at Verin. "Right as always, Ms. Moore. If there's someone who they understand and trust, it might help to ask about their myths or religious stories." She examines the sword along with Laaesh. "Yes. I can see why the Silver Flame would have wanted it. These are protection and banishment runes on the hilt. That magic is probably far too old to use ever again, but the Silver Flame is very taken with their good luck charms."

There's a good amount of muttering that washes through the gathered kobolds before one turns back to answer him. "There are some who believe that we were put here by a shadow people who once enslaved us, but that they died when the world was sundered and the great fire was lost. But why do you speak of the shadows?"

"Was it not left by you, oh Lord Dragon?" Their faith in their beliefs is strong, but you sense that if you say the wrong thing, their faith in you might falter. And when that happens, they'll have to figure out why you aren't who they think you said you were. There's probably no good outcome there.

Alacandra seems to feel it too. "We'd better figure something out. But I can't help you to much, or you'll invalidate your grade. What I can do, though, is to listen to your ideas and rule the worst of them out."

Laaesh recognizes the runes as being the same ones on the floor near the elemental back at the center of the kobold settlement. It doesn't take much to come to the conclusion that if the floor matches the switches, something will happen. Whatever that is, it is true that the kobolds don't want it to happen, but from talking to them, every kobold family has its own version of events.

While Laaesh and Rythorn are so engaged, S'sylin talks the matter over with the Professor. She agrees that the approach is solid from an anthropological standpoint, but they should be careful not to make the kobolds expect much until they know for sure what the results will be. "When the time comes, cooperation from the kobolds will be essential. But kobolds are flighty. If we begin to encourage them in the wrong direction, even unknowingly, it might be hard to get them back in line for something else."

All this time, Verin has been studying the text on the wall. Much of it is an ancient giantish dialect, but in one section, scrawled in between the larger runes, is something that looks like Elvish. The syntax is odd, but she manages to make out the greater part of it... or at least what seems to be the translation...

We develop elements by feeding to them the powerful crystals of energy. When they grow up, they escape it and bring itself to the river which opens upon them. The elements when mixed will be of the city center of destruction. We run away from chaos.

The reaction to S'sylin's speech is uncertain at first, but then a very ancient kobold steps forward, his head full of piercings and bangles. He nods at S'sylin's story. He speaks in a form of draconic. "What he says is true. It matches the old stories, the ones passed down by the priesthood. We will help you if we can. But how will you remove it without it awakening?"

For a while, the rune placement goes smoothly. Between the two of them, Verin and Laaesh are able to assemble the supporting runes into what seems to be the proper configuration. But then, just as they're finishing one side, Laaesh instructs S'sylin to place a run upside down. He notices his mistake, but it's too late. As the runestone touches just the edge of the one next to it, a powerful blast of invisible energy bursts forth from the runestone and it throws itself back out of the hole meant for it. The blast of energy knocks everyone backward, but the worst is to follow, because as everyone is lying flat on their backs, the blast ricochets off the ceiling, cracking a number of small stalactites above you and sending them hurtling down toward you!

wip

After the near disaster, you slowly and carefully re-align the runes the right way. As you get closer and closer to completing the pattern, the cavernous room you're in starts to tremble. dust falls from the ceiling in ever-increasing quantities, but thankfully, no more sharp bits decide to detach from the ceiling and live their brief lives as stone-faced assassins of anyone who happens to be underneath them.

For Alacandra, this is promising. She yells to you over the heavy, pulsing sound of building magical power. "It seems that we've got things lined up more or less correctly. There's so much power coursing through the room now that we should be able to cast... well, anything really. If we're going to cut this thing's summoning line, we should do it now! Who's going to help me?"

While you hesitate, your professor doesn't have such a luxury. She's already attached to the spell, and it's going to be cast through her, with or without anyone's help. "Come on! Someone! Anyone!" The rune she's standing on glows brightly, and flows of magic spike up through the floor, wrapping around her legs, slowly covering her lower body.

There's a lot of power here, probably more power than one person can handle by themselves, even an accomplished mage such as her.

The professor is yelling so loudly, trying to be heard over the cavern's shaking, that she doesn't hear Laaesh's incantation of the secondary lines. In fact, the cavern is so close to simply blowing apart that even Laaesh isn't certain that anything is happening at first. He's sure he read it right, but is it going to make a difference?

Flames erupt from the spellshield surrounding the elemental, and it seems as if it's going to fall -- no, going to shatter -- but then just as the inevitable is ready to happen, the elemental seems to stretch inside the shield, to warp... and then... silence. It is vanished, gone back to Fernia where it belongs, and the cavern is once again still.

Outside the chamber, the kobolds are in a full-on panic, but the sudden silence causes all of them to freeze and look curiously toward the inner cavern.

The elemental is no longer a threat, but can anyone safely explain to the kobolds why it's a good thing that their god is gone?

The kobolds are but a simple people - at least this tribe is - and so the pronouncement that was strengthened by Laaesh's impromptu hyping makes quite an impression. After the initial uproar, the older kobolds sit down with S'sylin and try to ascertain when their new god would want. In the end, an agreement is reached that they will bring you any interesting baubles they find in exchange for medicine and clothing. To cement this deal, they place is S'sylin's hands a ruby that is at least 40 carats. After you subtract what the kobolds need, it doesn't leave much in terms of living in Sharn, but it should give you a fairly comfortable amount to live on in Stormreach.

Professor Alacandra is not entirely pleased by this turn of events, but even she is forced to acknowledge that if you want to get out of these tunnels without trouble, a god is certainly a convenient thing to be.

After taking your leave of the kobolds and their tunnels, you consider your options. Do you really want to be in charge of a bunch of kobolds? If you do, that's great, you'll get a little extra money every month. If not, what are you going to do about it? There are probably others that would like to take the trade deal off your hands, the dwarves of House Kundarak probably primary among them.

Their tunnels go far, S'sylin learns, but they rarely venture into them. They have heard strange digging sounds down some of them. From their descriptions it seems that perhaps the Stormreach sewers intersects them somewhere along the way.

The Professor needs a couple days to recover, so you all have a short break to go do what you will. There's a myriad of shops in the central part of the city, a vast chaotic marketplace full of stalls and roving salesmen. There's certainly the chance to find a few scrolls.

Oh no, you heard rumors. It's just that you heard so many of them and so many were contradictory, that you can't possibly tell which are true. There were three that stood out.

You've heard that an adventurer is gathering a party to drive an ice dragon away from an island village not too far to the west. You've also heard that it's not a dragon but an ancient warforged that somehow predates House Cannith's invention. There's apparently orc tribes to the southeast of Stormreach that are pushing villagers out of their homes. One of those villagers is wealthy enough to be able to pay someone to retrieve a few old documents he wasn't able to bring with him. Only someone said it wasn't documents that he left, it was spell tomes, and someone else said it was his daughter. Something strange is going on at the local Church of the Silver Flame as well, if a certain friar's stories are to be believed. He wouldn't go into detail - and looked sort of like one of those people who believe that House Kundarak financed the experiments that made the Mournlands and then set them off on purpose - but he said that if you'd meet him behind the church he'd tell you more. S'sylin has also received an orison sent to him by the kobold chief priest (yes, it's just a communication spell, but the kobolds think they're praying to him). There's a troglodyte that's taken up residence near their main encampment and they need a bit of help with it. As in they need someone else to take care of it entirely. Why not have their god do it?

While Laaesh wanders Stormreach's marketplace, he finds two shops with magical scrolls. Although neither of his preferred spells are there, he does find a good variety of scrolls.

At Vankel's Magic EMporium, an ostentatiously named shop that has little more space than his own bedroom, Laaesh finds these scrolls:


The second shop, a group of wagons circled together with a tent over them is call the All-Bazaar, and if full of cheap scrolls:

Normally, Laaesh couldn't afford it, but the shop owner is willing to let him pay half, as long as he pays the other half in one week. It seems like a good deal...

The catch is that if you don't pay it back, you don't owe him anymore, you owe the Coin Lords. They'll distribute your likeness to all the reputable shops (and some of the sketchy ones too!) and you'll get charged a surcharge until you pay back what you owe. There's also interest and servicing fees involved, of course.

When Laaesh gets back to the group's lodgings, he adds his information to the other options. Verin is not interested at all in talking to the Silver Flame, which leaves you with two removal jobs (the dragon/warforged, and the troglodyte), and the rescue mission, although whether the rescuee is inanimate or not is somewhat up for interpretation.

Helping the kobolds out won't lead to payment, at least not directly, but the other two jobs do leave you with questions.

With vetoes on the church and the dragon, that leaves S'sylin and Cualli to weigh in on the remaining two options - the troglodyte removal or the rescue/recovery.

With the rescue still on the table for later, then, it's decided that - at least while Professor Alacandra is still resting, the closer of the options, the one more in friendly territory so to speak, is the more prudent, and so you set off into the ancient tunnels once more. The kobolds tell you that they've managed to chase the troglodyte a few times, but they either lose him in the many twists and turns of the tunnels, or they fall prey to traps that have been set. This tells you two things: Firstly, the troglodyte in question isn't stupid, and secondly, he's probably not alone. So, with the kobolds' help, you track the troglodyte through the tunnels, until you finally lose the trail at the end of a tunnel where it runs into a much older tunnel that runs straight left and right. Here, brackish water pours down from somewhere above; you're either underneath a stream or part of the more modern water-delivery system Stormreach has put in place.

The bricks that pave the tunnel are underneath at least a foot of sludge here, but in some parts the sludge has built up enough over the years that the higher parts have mostly solidified, giving you - at least mostly - a safe place to walk. The walls are made up os much larger bricks, no doubt the work of the original inhabitants of the city.

There's not much to see, or find here. The water has washed away all trace of the troglodyte. The right branch of the tunnel is almost immediately gated off, and locked. The left-hand path is clear, almost invitingly so. But you're in the troglodyte's home territory now, so it would behoove you to be on your guard no matter which way you go.

Verin strikes out in front, moving carefully through the tunnels, on the lookout for potential dangers. The tunnels weave back and forth through stone, and along the way there are small alcoves, barred off long ago, and you can still see the remnants of old crates and barrels behind the rusted iron.

As you navigate the third sharp turn in the tunnels, Verin halts. Something about this section of tunnel isn't right. There's two insets along each side of the tunnel, just like every other section you've passed through. But the wear on the barrels and other detritus here isn't quite the same. It's something you know you should be able to put your finger on, but it's just not quite coming... There's a series of old pipes running vertically here too. They're the same pipes as the rest of them that jut out from the stone every now and again, but they don't run horizontally with the tunnel. They're transfer pipes maybe? But transferring what? In two sets of the pipes, one close to you and one on the other side of the alcoves, are two valves. The one nearer to you is pretty corroded, but the one further away looks a little betgter, though it's also rusted and worn...

Laaesh realizes at the last second that the stuff on the barrels is not growing, but corroding. It is the result of years of intermittent exposure to acid over many years. He manages to leap back in time, but his cry of alarm isn't quick enough for Verin.

As she examines the insets, she feels a subtle movement beneath her feet. One of the stones moves and she realizes too late that this is a trap. Acid bursts forth from a hole in the wall, spraying her all over.

As you recover from the sudden incident, you realize that you don't know how many other stones may be similarly trapped.

There's a lot of information here for those looking for it, more than Laaesh might expect, even.

Firstly, when you look closely at the valves, you can see that the nearer one was opened and lodged open with force that is probably beyond what a mere human could do. There's fingermarks in the valve. Not fingerprints, mind, but the actual indentations from someone's fingers as they squeezed the brass while they turned it. You might be able to get it closed, but it'll be difficult. Maybe two or three of you together?

Secondly, you can see several trails of troglodyte tracks here. The first one leads out into the middle of the room and stops dead there. After that there's just a smear that leads away from the tracks. Maybe that trog was dragged away. There's more tracks near the edge of the wall, though, and along that wall, there's acid damage as if the acid were splashed back at the wall. Perhaps the troglodytes built something that protected them from the acid, or perhaps they held something up to guard against the acid jets and it splashed it back against the wall.

However, one last set of tracks is more interesting, because there is acid scoring all around the footprints, but the footprints never stagger, never falter, almost as if the creature were immune to the acid altogether.

Looking away from the troglodyte tracks, you also see a small gutter that runs along the base of the wall opposite the acid jets. Upon closer examination, the floor also appears to be slightly off-level in the direction of the drain. This probably explains why the acid isn't simple standing on the floor and wearing it away. And half a thought strikes you. How much acid can really be left in those pipes, anyway?

That is an intriguing idea. The web wouldn't hold the acid for long, but it might get one person through. I think that can work. I'll let you go ahead and play that out and send someone through if you want to. if nothing else they'd have a shot at that easier valve on the other side.

Verin eventually finds a long heavy piece of iron sheeting. It should withstand the acid for long enough... should. But it's so old it's hard to know for sure. There's only one way to find out for sure.

The webs hold long enough that only the very end of the metal square is hit at all, and even then, it's not with enough acid to really do anything. On the other side of the acid showers, Verin is able to get a closer look at the valve on that side. It is very free from rust, unlike the one on this side, and while at first that seems like a good thing, Verin quickly realizes it is not. The lack of rust is one of the signs of acid washing, and is, in fact, something they learned about in her General Research (aka Dungeon-Diving) course. Using the metal sheeting as a shield, she's able to turn the valve enough to cut off the supply of acid to the hallway, and then leap back just in time to avoid getting sprayed by the loose seal on the valve.

Everyone else should be able to come through now, as long as they don't get too close to the still spraying valve pipe.Beyond the acid, there's a wooden door that stands partially open, probably because a child could push it in even if it was locked, and beyond it, a large room, probably thirty or forty feet wide and almost square, but not... quite. You're not sure if it's the angles or if one way is just a bit longer than the other. Either way, it bothers you. There are two doors here, one leading straight on and one heading off to the north. There are also five levers positioned seemingly at random around the room. We'll call them east, southeast, southwest, northwest, and north. There are no handles on these doors, so whoever designed this was clearly - at least in their mind - trying to be security-conscious. There's no indication on which hallway is the correct one.

Behind the walls, gears grind into motion, the sound moves slowly, invisibly, traceable only by the dust that shakes off of the ceiling as it follows the sound until it reaches the north door, where a wheel turns until a spring-loaded lock shoots out and binds the wheel in place. Now that your attention is on the doors, you can see that each of them has three locks. Two more levers will open the north door. Three of them will open the east door. There are only five levers, so one of them must operate both doors.

This time, the lever and its invisible moving parts lead to the east door, where a lock snaps open.

The southwest lever apparently connects to the eastern door as well, as another lock spins open there. As soon as the lock opens, however, there's a rapid series of clunks that pass overhead, shooting back to the west, and door you came in slams shut!

Pulling the southeast lever causes the final lock on the north door to pop free, and the door starts to rise. You're immediately struck by how much dust flies into the air from this door opening. This can't be the route the troglodytes used. It hasn't been opened in decades - maybe centuries. There's a small antechamber directly on the other side of the door, with hallways stretching in either direction. But unlike the rooms you were in before, these hallways are massive, easily four times your height. These must be actual giant-built tunnels, making them far older than the tunnels you have found so far.

Tempting, but is exploring it worth it? Do you really have any other choice?

There's tiny slivers of light that are coming from something up above. Perhaps other tunnels criss-cross through the ground underneath Stormreach. The city isn't that old but it sits on the site of at least two previous cities, so it's possible. Lighting a torch will definitely make it easier to see though, so torch in hand, Laaesh leads the way into the giant-sized room. The light only illuminates about two-thirds up the tunnel itself, leaving the ceiling in shadows.

The room itself is about 45 feet wide and 120 feet long. It doesn't take much of an effort to walk it, even being careful, and after a few moments, it's clear that this sort of antechamber is empty, but there are actual cuts that score the walls, as if a battle played out here. More than one of the cuts is still stained with ancient blood, once red but long since turned to black. There's two stone doors, one on either side of the room, and they are also massive, but counterweighted, so that they'll swing open easily if given a good push. The door to the left has seen a bit more use it seems than the one on the right.

Pushing open the left-hand door reveals a long passageway. It was probably a tight squeeze for a giant, but for you it's fairly spacious, fifteen feet or so across, and close to two hundred feet long. There aren't many marking in the section of hallway, but from far above, you can see sunlight filtering down, and water drips slowly down from the hole. It's enough to make the air musty here, but not enough to form puddles bigger than a few inches across. Further down there is water staining on the stones, but nothing on the floor. A broken rope lays half-coiled near the small puddle. That probably explains how the trogodytes got here.

About halfway down on the left is an opening. It leads to a large room full of remnants of over-sized furniture. Most are old and decayed, but on top of a pile of chairs is a glass box, the type used for showcasing valuables at museums. It looks like it's just been thrown up there. You'd have to climb to get it back down.

At the end of the hall is another room, smaller, and it is empty but for the carcass of a dead troglodyte. It's been here long enough that moss has started to grow over it.

The glass case is slowly levered out of the pile of chairs, and set down on the floor. Any hopes of finding anything interesting here are dashed, however, as the glass case is empty. There is an indentation, though, in the red velvet that covers the bottom of the case in the shape of a key. Someone's taken the key. It looks like the trogs did find it first, but if they're lairing here, they haven't left much sign of it. From what you know of trogs, even a temporary living space of theirs should carry an identifiable odor.

There's no real way back that you can find, so you continue on down the main passageway a bit, where you come to another room right as the passage turns south(ish). Inside the room is a stench so bad you could be forgiven for believing it was some magical spell, but it's not. It's a dead trog. He looks to have been stabbed to death judging from his wounds, and long enough ago that moss is starting to cover the body, but...

He's holding something, clutching it tight like he was trying to hide it when he was killed. It's hard to tell what it is from the doorway, but it's going to be hard to walk over to investigate too.

S'sylin was as quick about it as he could be, but still, the stench was horrendous. It was something of a joke in more 'civilized' society that troglodytes smelled worse alive than dead. Well... S'sylin could definiately put that lie to bed. Even the rag wasn't enough and he emerged from the room coughing and hacking, but holding the object the trog had clutched in his hands. It was a key that matched the dimensions of the velvet-lined box perfectly.

He did have several stab wounds. Trogs are not nice creatures, even to their own kind, so most likely, he got in an argument with another of his group and was killed for his trouble. To fight over a key, he must have thought he knew something about it that would make it important. If you accept that the trogs came down that rope you saw earlier - down through the crevice from far above - then whatever he discovered about the key he must have discovered here in these rooms.

There's two more circular rooms along this hall before it turns back to go west again, making a third leg of a square. One's a bit bigger than the other, probably because it's got a font in it. There's a light source from somewhere under the surface of the water that makes the waves glisten, sending waves of light along the ceiling as the water ripples gently every time you step. The other room has a metal crate against the far curve of the wall, and it's locked (DC 20 STR check to break the lock, or DC 15 DEX check to pick the lock if you have appropriate tools), but with a key far smaller than the one you just found.

The side of the crate crashes in under S'sylin's efforts, and a pile of gold coins spill out. Some are covered in dry blood and other... fluids. It's enough to give your personal wealth a significant boost. The rest of the contents are unfortunately ruined. They were simply too fragile for the crate to be forced open the way it was. It looks like the remains of an ancient shield and some sort of long-bladed weapon. They might be repairable, but not here. In the bottom of the crate, under the gold, is another key. It's identical to the first one, with one exception - the rune etched into the key's handle. It looks like the two keys must be a matched set.

There's not much more to see in this room. After you gather up as much of the gold as you can carry, you can either head back to the room with the pool or continue on around the corner. If you do that, you'll come to the original hallway again, approaching the first room from the opposite side from which you left. There's a small alcove before you get there though, and in the alcove is another rotting trog - this time decomopsing naturally, and not as far along, so with any luck, he won't be as... potent - and a door - with four nearly-matching keyholes. Two of the keys you already have.