Against the cult: the Forest Ruin (1.5)

As Ogbar mutters to himself and ascends the stone steps, the rest of the party is considering the thicket of brambles. While the others talk about weapon choices, Albertus barges past them and throws himself into bashing a way through the thick, interwoven canes. The thorns snag and pull at the links in his armor as he crashes and smashes his way through, pulling at the sleeves of his mail as he protects his face. Xana casually demonstrates her magic for Kragga's amusement while the paladin stumbles, stomps, punches, and bashes the plants with his shield. Albertus ends up with many stinging scratches on his arms and takes 1 HP damage. The others call encouragement and directions so that he doesn't get turned around once he's buried in the thicket over his head, and with their help, soon enough he arrives at a stone wall: the sides of the veranda. Everyone can see that the path the paladin smashed through the brambles will be easier to traverse now, though Albertus has thorny vines and leaves wrapped around him like barbed wire and some of the canes that he pushed down are springing back a little. Anyone using the path through the brambles marked with the dotted line must succeed on a DC10 CON save to avoid taking 1 HP damage.

Pulling thorny vines from his hair, Albertus can now peer unobstructed into the dim recesses of the area. There are several pillars supporting the roof here, and five statues of naked humanoid figures with their arms upraised in greeting, praise, or worship. But none of them have humanoid heads. Instead, they have the heads of different animals: a ram, a raptor, a serpent, a stork, and an insect of some sort. The skeletal remains of some creature lay at the base of the insect-headed statue, the most southern statue and the one closest to Albertus. The floor of the veranda is about five feet above where Albertus' feet are standing on crushed canes; he can climb up onto the veranda easily, but he can also see that two sets of broad steps lead down from the veranda to the east, descending into vegetation just as thick and thorny as the thicket he just squeezed through. If they led somewhere once, the path has long since vanished. Albertus can also see what he believes to be another stone door, mostly overgrown with vines, in the middle of the eastern side of the ruined building.Looking closely at the rusted ring in the first stone door, Ogbar sees that there is a hinged and rusted metal arm, very small, extending out from the place where the iron ring is mounted into the stone. It's the remains of an ancient spring-loaded trap, and Ogbar can tell that it was set to activate when someone lifted the ring. It's clearly been triggered already. Looking around, the barbarian quickly spots the needle that was on the arm, now broken off and lying by the base of the door.

Albertus crashes and smashes through the thorny thicket and then retraces his steps as part of the same move.* Joseph, Xana, Theran, and Kragga follow his path, and only Theran is able to navigate the brambles without getting snagged so badly as the others. Each of them get snagged and pierced by dozens of thorns, creating superficial scratches that itch like crazy (Joseph, Xana, and Kragga each took 1 HP damage). Kragga looks and realizes that the statue he had glimpsed from the other side of the wall, earlier, was the snake-headed statue. With the head angled forward like that, from behind it didn't register that it was supposed to be a snake. The wizard then creates a vision of a dwarf standing over the skeleton of the animal at the base of the bug-headed statue. Nothing happens. Joseph clambers up onto the veranda, and examines the image of the dwarf, the skeleton, the statue, the rusted scythe blade that is nestled within the skeleton, and the various vines that are growing over everything. An expert in such matters, Joseph recognizes a sprung trap when he sees one: it appears that the bug-headed statue had a spring-loaded scythe blade concealed in its base, about 2 feet up off of the "ground" of the veranda. Theran hops up next to Joseph and immediately identifies that the skeleton is of a bear...judging by its size, probably a black bear. The forest creature probably triggered the trap accidentally and was killed; it looks like the blade may have severed one or more of its limbs. At any rate, the bear has been dead for a long, long time, judging by how the bones have settled and scattered, and been grown over by various vines. Xana scrambles up onto the veranda, too, and sees the various other statues, as well as the stone door set into the center of the building's wall. As neither his illusion or the presence of any of the others provoked any sort of reaction or attack, Kragga grabs one of the pillars and easily pulls himself up onto the veranda with the others. Joseph points out the trap on the bug-headed statue, and Kragga looks at the other statues from a safe distance. There is no sign that anything animate other than growing vines has been on the veranda for many long years. Seen without the screen of the bramble thicket and vines hanging from the roof, the four can see that the statues are carved from a pale marble, and all somehow each depict the animal heads and humanoid bodies in poses of exultation, victory, and delight.

Aanbo carefully picks up the needle, and wraps it up, noting that there is a bit of dried blood on the tip, and a very faint trace of a residue of something else, which he can't quite identify.

Ogbar grabs the ring and hauls on the door, which resists for a moment and then, with a loud snap! the door swings open easily, rusty chunks of an ancient iron bolt dropping away from the jamb. There is no light inside, but the light from the door illuminates the first several body lengths into the room. From the doorway, Albertus, Ogbar, and Aanbo can see a dusty entrance hall with tiled marble floors and a sculpted and curved marble staircase rising up on the right. It will be a few seconds before Aanbo's eyes adjust to use his darkvision (or he can retrieve the torch he dropped earlier, which is still lit and sputtering on the ground). The rest of the party heard the loud snap of the door's bolt breaking, and the three PCs on the step know that there is more that they could see of the room if they venture inside.