Deeper Underdark

To door #8! Grin drags Havoc over to the panel and activates door #8.

Oliver looks expectantly at Brewner who is about to fiddle with the door thingamajig system.

"I would love to see where every single door takes. Perhaps we should try opening them all before you change the number of lights? Just for funsies, though you should get your axe ready just in case. Also, Brewner, did I hear you murmur 'Stee cycle'? I guess you're right, if we want to release the animals, we might want to try to get the thingie to two lights, which apparently was the the number of lights when Stee came in, so it should lead out of the underdark."

Sounds like a plan to me. I'd help barricade a door, but, and he gestures to himself.

Ok, let's do this. Ealdwig pulls his sword and gets ready.

Now that the team has a plan, they get ready. Oliver moves his immovable rod to Doors#12 and completely barricades them. Brewner positions himself by the control panel, and the others spread out a bit so as to have some visibility, or at least hearing, so they can monitor the other doors as best as possible. Yoci takes up position in the middle so has to have the best position to try to detect a path. Once everyone indicates they are ready, Brewner triggers the panel, causing the long groove to be lit. This activates the sixth and final circle. In this configuration, all six circles and the long groove are all lit.

The group does not hear or see any activity at the doors and Yoci tries to detect. She finds that there seems to be some indication from Doors #3. She then moves to the doors and opens them. It opens into a long cavern that winds off into the distance. She confirms that this is a valid path, but the indication is weak, meaning this is quite a distance away. She then closes the doors and Brewner deactivates the panel again.

Returning to their positions, Brewner activates the doors one more time. The moment the groove is again lit, all of the circles except the very top one are extiquished. So now only the top circle and the long groove are lit. Yoci tries to detect again. This time she gets a stronger pull toward Doors #7. However, before they get a chance to check it out, they hear noise at Doors #12. There are obvious attempts to open the door and the sounds are getting more an more frantic. Since you now know that you can repeat the cycle when you want, and since you want to go to the next cycle anyway, Brewner immediately deactivates the panel before anything bad can happen.

Resuming positions, Brewner activates the doors again. The long groove is again lit, and now the top circle and the left circle on the second row are lit. You wait for any activity, but none is forthcoming.

Grin wants to prepare a charge through the Stee-door. He attempts to mount Havoc the goat.

Ride now! Ride to ruin- ahhhh! he falls off Havoc, hard on the floor.

Stee readies his bow and looks at Wreak. Sit and stay. Then watches Grin fall off Havoc and all he can do is smile to himself. Maybe a little more practice is in order before you enter the lists.

Brewner burst laughing when he sees Grinfletch mounting Havoc, but when he falls Brewner quicky help him getting up.

He then turns to Yoci "Yoci does your talisman give you any direction in this cycle? unfortunately we could not linger in the last cycle, but i am aware that you had a strong pull from the talisman"

After Yoci responded, Brewner approaches Stee "Dear Stee, take a look at door 8, does the other side look familiar?"

Will do Brewner, be ready lads. I walk over to door 8 listen for a second before I open it.

If we use the Stee-door to guide the animals to freedom, will we lose our ability to find this room again? Can we just let the animals loose and stay in this room? Or do we need to split up our company and try to find the underground city separately? Hmmm, that sounds tricky.

"We can leave this room, but we need to make sure the door stays open. Unfortunately, I don't think we will find our way to the underground city of Yoci from this cycle, we will need to move once again, after freeing the animals"

"Stee is the city you helped away from this entrance?"

"When I placed the flask of wine behind the door and we toyed around with the lights, I lost total sight of it -ah yes, Yoci, I can magically sense alcoholic beverages-. In fact, I couldn't sense ANYTHING. My wild guess is that when the lights are inactive, this room is nowhere in particular. It makes sense that you can't sense anything with your amulet yet. The question -however- is whether we need to open the door for you to sense something behind it, or just activating the correct number of lights is enough to sense something behind a closed door."

Oliver decides to test that out with another wine flask as soon as they open Stee's door.