Against the Cult: Meet Me at the Bar Fight (1.9)

As the party makes their way up the stairs (the others racing to catch up to Theran), there are three considerations:

Which door does Theran wish to enter?

What are the humans going to do for light? A little illumination shines up the stairs, but as soon as Myrtha turns the corner on the second floor, she is greeted by darkness.

What will Aanbo do in the meantime? Theran is clearly not waiting for the others and will soon disappear from view. Does Aanbo want to follow to keep an eye on where he goes, or does he want to hang back to help the other party members navigate?


Note: the greyish areas are the areas that Theran and Aanbo can see with their darkvision.

Theran slams open the first door on the left. The room has a rug on the floor, a bed, a table with four chairs, and a footlocker. At first glance, it's much the same as when he saw it the first time, as a spider, except that there is no sign of the man who was being murdered or the man with the scarred face: his murderer, Derek. The room has been slightly rearranged from before: the rug is laid flat and the table is no longer pushed against the wall to keep it away from the bloody mess of the victim in the corner. Theran can just see the edge of something that has been pushed back under the bed. Aanbo is right behind him, and Myrtha and Chase are following them out in the hallway from the stairs.

Out in the hallway (right next to where Aanbo is in the picture above), there is another door on the north/right wall opposite this room's door. A little further west, the hallway turns a corner to the right/north. It is the middle of the night, but so far there's been no obvious reaction to the sounds of fighting downstairs earlier or Theran's slamming the door open just now.

Aanbo glances into the Torture Location room over Theran's shoulder, but seeing no one else in it, he continues forward, turns the corner, and then carefully peeks around the next corner as the hallway turns left again.

It is a long, dark hallway. There are three doors on the right and four doors on the left. He does not see or hear anything to suggest that this is anything other than a quiet Inn in the middle of the night.

Theran quickly crosses to the bed and crouches down to get a better look at what he spied from the doorway. Under the bed is the small lockbox that he saw Derek using before; it is closed now. The box is not quite a foot tall and a bit less than two feet wide.

Myrtha and Chase move forward around the first bend in the hallway. Myrtha listens closely but detects no sound other than her companions; listening at the northern door yields no different results.

Pulses thudding in your ears, struggling to breathe quietly, none of you hear anything else.

Chase opens the door to reveal a large room that has not been used as a bedroom for some time, despite this being an Inn. A large table with several chairs dominates the space. A storage shelving unit stands against the east wall, north of a cold fireplace. Several beds have been pushed up against the north wall while not in use. On first glance, there is no one in this room at the moment.