Scene 1: Inn Plain Sight

Miet excitedly flies closer to the sparkles at the end of the hall. She stops and squints her eyes when she realizes the sparkling is light reflecting off the plaque and pictures on the wall. She snorts aloud, annoyed at the lack of treasure and looks about for more. There are doors on either side, but they are all closed and she must wait again for someone to open them.

Hindle feels through the bag and realizes it must be the rice flour sack that Merry had put their chicken wings in. He dumps them onto a plate on a nearby counter. They still smell deliciously, but they are covered in leftover rice flour.

As he reaches up and opens the cupboard, he is carried away by sneezing from the rice flour left on his hands and jerks the doors open. One bottle of hot sauce tips over and spills some into Hindle's eyes! He takes 1 point of damage.

#@!*

After wiping the hot sauce out of his eyes, he notes 5 bottles of unopened hot sauce lined up in the cabinet. It must be what is left of the famous Inn Plain Sight wing sauce. Finally, he carefully leans over the barrel to sniff the tangy sauced wings. They seem to be magically preserved, still smelling delicious with no signs of decay or mold. It would be tempting to eat one if Hindle hadn't already had a face full of sauce just a minute ago.

As Leana leans in closer to look at where her fox is paying interest and where the rats must have escaped through, she can see there is a brick that seems to be quite scratched up by a claw. She pushes on the brick and a secret door pushes back, revealing a dark rocky passageway!

As Merton peers into the dark passageway that Leana reveals, he is at least relieved there are no obvious traps around. He can hear skittering in the darkness that appears to be getting louder...

The ice wall sparkles and solidifies, faintly blurring what may be beyond. The fox elegantly passes through the water wall before it solidifies and Leana can see it sniffing around the passageway. As the skittering gets louder and louder, the party readies itself for the worst and the fox growls low and crouches.

Those with darkvision see the spiders first as they dash around a corner in the dark. They are almost as large as the shadowy fox and skid to a halt once they reach the edge of light from the torch and see the myriad of obstacles. They ready their bodies to spring, but surprisingly spring backward instead of forward. They seem to pause almost as though they are not sure whether to move forward or retreat back into the darkness.

Brickowsky waddles up the stairs, Roaring Kitty energetically winding about him as he ascends. He meets Hindle at the top, ready to traverse the Inn. Nothing of danger appears. He can see the rice flour-covered hot wings spread on a plate, the spilled hot sauce and lid removed from the barrel. As he peeks into the dining room, Brickowsky sees nothing changed, even the lute he found behind the bar still in its place.

As Brickowsky goes up to the second floor of the Inn, he sees a dusty corridor of doors. Most of the rooms are empty. One is even under construction. The last door on the right, of course, is locked and must be the interesting one. He sees the pictures and plaque Miet noticed earlier on the wall as well.

One of the spiders behind the ice wall is quick enough to skedaddle back up the corridor it came from. The second spider is still shocked, turning its body to the fox.

Having followed along behind Brickowsky, Hindle has a look at the plaque and images ah the wizard checks the doors.

Flinching at the shout, Hindle squats down to see how big a space there is under the door. "Think you can squeeze under there, Miet"?

Miet gives Hindle a funny look, but gently lands on the floor and crouches down to look at the space between the door and the floor. She sneezes a bit like a kitten, but soon lies prone and army crawls through the space. As she gets up to dust herself off, she looks about. This room contains a bed and a closed chest. Above the bed hangs a family portrait: two dragonborn parents with an unhatched egg. One proud parent has light-green scales; the other has golden scales.

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While Miet is checking out the locked room, Brickowsky and Hindle glance quickly at the plaque and pictures on the wall. One picture depicts a harp nestled between the horns of a crescent moon. Another is a green-scaled dragonborn in a heroic pose. The plaque has a mountain scene carved into it.