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

Brawl in the Golden Grain Inn, Round four
(this was preceded by round three)

Gagging on his own blood, Reptile struggles to retain consciousness. The struggle is brief, and lost.
Reptile has died.
Having just thrown open the door, Aanbo steps through from the den, Chase right behind him. Myrtha and Theran are probably relieved to see their fellow Dungeon Busters rather than more enemies.



Aanbo crosses the room in a flash, coming up behind Myrtha's assailant (called "H.A." because no one in the party has yet learned his name), kicks him in the back of the leg, following up with a series of punches to the back of the neck and head. H.A. takes 10 damage. It is a beautifully-executed takedown...

...except that H.A. doesn't quite fall. He staggers, and whirls to get Aanbo in his field of view, too. "The dwarf!" he yells in surprise. "I've heard about you!" Then his eyes widen, as he continues parrying Myrtha's sword blows. "If you're here, what happened to Gerd?!?"

Whatever Derek is doing upstairs, the party cannot see or hear it.



Chase runs up behind Aanbo as H.A. is turning to face them and slams his spear into the man's abdomen. From the angle, it probably hits his kidneys more than his gut; H.A. takes 9 bludgeoning damage and falls to the floor with a groan.

---

22 - Reptile (0/15) Dead
16 - Aanbo (16/19)
15 - Derek Gone upstairs
14 - Chase (8/11)
10 - Bertram Dead
9 - Myrtha (6/12)
5 - H.A. (-35) Down
1 - Theran (13/13)

Round four, continued

Aanbo crosses the room in a flash, coming up behind Myrtha's assailant (called "H.A." because no one in the party has yet learned his name), kicks him in the back of the leg, following up with a series of punches to the back of the neck and head. H.A. takes 10 damage. It is a beautifully-executed takedown...

...except that H.A. doesn't quite fall. He staggers, and whirls to get Aanbo in his field of view, too. "The dwarf!" he yells in surprise. "I've heard about you!" Then his eyes widen, as he continues parrying Myrtha's sword blows. "If you're here, what happened to Gerd?!?"

Whatever Derek is doing upstairs, the party cannot see or hear it.

---

22 - Reptile (0/15) Dead
16 - Aanbo (16/19)
15 - Derek Gone upstairs
14 - Chase (8/11)
10 - Bertram Dead
9 - Myrtha (6/12)
5 - H.A. (-26)
1 - Theran (13/13)

Round four, continued...

Chase runs up behind Aanbo as H.A. is turning to face them and slams his spear into the man's abdomen. From the angle, it probably hits his kidneys more than his gut; H.A. takes 9 bludgeoning damage and falls to the floor with a groan.The four Dungeon Busters are not facing an immediate threat at the moment; what do you do now?

---

22 - Reptile (0/15) Dead
16 - Aanbo (16/19)
15 - Derek Gone upstairs
14 - Chase (8/11)
10 - Bertram Dead
9 - Myrtha (6/12)
5 - H.A. (-35) Down
1 - Theran (13/13)

Myrtha uses 10' of rope and binds the unconscious, battered, bloody-but-not-quite-dead thug, H.A. Disappointingly, he does not have any obviously interesting belongings: stained leather armor, his club, worn boots. On the floor (having been knocked to the floor in the brawl) is his heavy crossbow, which still appears to be in working condition. A quick glance around the room reveals that a quiver with a dozen bolts is leaning up against the wall by the front door. Presumably H.A. had set the quiver down by the door when he came in.

As for Bertram's corpse, it wears his rumpled, faded but once-fine clothing and leather shoes. His apron hangs on a hook behind the bar, and the dagger fell from his hand to the floor when Myrtha chopped him down.

Either these guys haven't been robbing people, or they have, but have stashed the loot somewhere else. Then again, it's the middle of the night; they seemed to be having a planning session, and probably didn't grab their valuables for that.

While she's tying him up, Chase drags Bertram's corpse behind the bar. Theran is impatient to head upstairs to find the torturer who stabbed Reptile and whose previous victim was used to frame the party. Aanbo follows, but as she finishes tying the brute, Myrtha hurries after them, trying to get in the lead so as to protect the others with her shield. Chase checks the knots and is satisfied that H.A. won't be going anywhere anytime soon (if he even wakes again), then he hurries upstairs after the others.

The Inn is silent; apparently no alarm has been raised. Either that, or the upstairs is full of enemies lying in wait for the Dungeon Busters.

The hallway upstairs is narrow, so that the party can move single-file. In what order do you want the characters to proceed?

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.

Chase begins to check out the large storage room, setting the lantern on the table so that the room is well-illuminated and not sending his shadow all over the room as he moves. The fireplace is cold, there's no sign that any of the shelves have been moved recently, and checking under each of the beds reveals nothing of interest. There are no rugs to conceal trap doors in the floor, but he could take more time to search if he likes.

Theran hefts the lockbox with a grunt; it weighs at least two stone and has no handles for easier carrying. He shifts his grip, getting his arms under it, and then hurries out the door, squeezing past Myrtha. He heads around the corner and squeezes past Aanbo to head further down the hallway. He shifts the lockbox to one arm and then opens the first door on the left. Since there were signs that someone was staying here when he visited the first time, Theran had steeled himself for encountering a potentially hostile Inn guest, but there is no sign of the sword, the knapsack, or their owner this time. Other than that, the interior is the room much as he remembered it from his previous arachnid visit: two beds with their heads against the western wall on Theran's right, and a desk against the southern wall. Perhaps the owner checked out in the last two days? The crack in the wall that he noticed as a spider is much less obvious now; he might not have seen it if he didn't know it was there. It's on the other side of the further/southern bed, which is a boot and a hand from the that wall.



Theran, roll a WIS (Perception) check (you're the only one who hasn't rolled one upstairs yet. As it was for the others, this is for hearing).

Theran shifts the southern bed so that he can get at the wall, and sets the heavy lockbox down on the bed so that he has his hands free. Knowing where to look, he finds the vertical crack in the wall again, which is cleverly concealed in a join between two vertical wood panels. Feeling with his fingers, he is able to find the right angle where that crack joins with a horizontal one which is even less obvious. Theran has confirmed that the crack he saw as a spider is probably a concealed door, but it's unclear how to open it.

Chase rejoins Myrtha out in the hallway, and moves a few paces beyond her so that he can see Aanbo, too. Those three can each see at least one other Dungeon Buster; none of them can see what Theran is doing from where they are.

Curious to see what Theran is doing, Chase continues down the hallway and around the two corners, moving past the eagle-eyed watchdwarf Aanbo and into the first room on the left. There, Theran has moved a bed to the side, put a large lockbox on it, and is feeling the wall. "There's a door here, if we can find out how to open it!" Theran calls, loud enough for the others to hear.



Myrtha is left in the dark. Aanbo hears someone call from the first door on his right, loud enough to be audible through the heavy wood: "What's going on? It's the middle of the night!"

While Chase looks for a button or switch, Theran surmises that there is no way to open the door on this side, but they knows that it's there. Why would there be a concealed door into an Inn's bedroom that couldn't be opened from within that bedroom? Who is using it, and what are they using it for? On the premise that its secrecy is its strength, Theran's guess is that the door could be smashed open pretty easily.Myrtha and Aanbo stand ready in the hallway. As Myrtha grimly comments on the status of their Dungeon Busters mission, they can hear Chase and Theran murmuring as they search. The fighter is able to faintly see the monk in the indirect light coming from Chase's lantern in the room, but it is Aanbo whose eyes are able to penetrate the dark length of the hallway. He sees the far left door open at the end of the hall just before everyone hears the yell:
"HELP! HELP! THEY KILLED HAMIFF! THE KILLERS ARE HERE!!!" The door slams again, and all four of you begin to hear voices clamoring in the rooms.
"What?" "Hamiff?" "Get up!" comes from the end of the hall, while "Oh no!" comes from the door to Aanbo's right.

---

Aanbo (16/19)
Chase (8/11)
Myrtha (6/12)
Theran (13/13)

Everyone, please roll initiative.

The shillelagh smashes into the wall and part of it splinters and breaks off, sagging away from Theran into an empty space on the other side of the wall, a couple of paces deep.

---

Aanbo (16/19)
Chase (8/11)
Myrtha (6/12)
Theran (13/13)

Aanbo's voice of authority seems to settle the person in the closer room, but the distant voices continue at the far end of the hall. People are going to start coming out of the rooms momentarily, both in response to the shouting and to investigate the sound of the secret door getting smashed.
Myrtha does not recognize the voice, but on reflection, she realizes that she never actually heard Derek speak. The scarred man had remained silent while he stabbed Reptile and ran upstairs.
Theran, however, recognizes the voice well: it is definitely the torturer, Derek. The space beyond the smashed secret door is probably larger than what he can see at first glance, and even that is enough for a person to stand and move around.

---

22 - Chase (8/11)
16 - Myrtha (6/12)
15 - Theran (13/13)
15 - Aanbo (16/19)
13 - Others
1 - Derek

Round One
(this is followed by round two)

Chase sets down the lantern in the hallway and then rushes forward with his magic spear held in front of him, his shadow running ahead of him as he passes a few doors. He pauses for a moment outside of the last two doors in the hall. Both doors are closed; no sound comes from the slightly-further door on the left/south, but there is clattering and thumping coming from the right/north.Myrtha follows her companion down the hall, hands gripping sword and shield firmly. She pauses when Chase does, a couple of paces behind him, and eyes the closed door on her left/south uneasily. If someone were to come out of these doors, they'd cut her and Chase off from the others...Theran loudly smashes the remains of the one-way door out of his way as he steps through into a long, narrow, secret hallway that parallels the hallway where the others are. From this side, he can see that there are latch mechanisms every few paces along the right/northern wall and in the east wall behind him; these are probably the ways to open secret doors into each of the bedrooms!

Any of you can declare what you're doing with the rest of your turns, and Aanbo can take his turn now.

Ready for action, Chase pauses by the two last doors; the one with all the angry sounds getting louder on the right and the silent door a little further on the left. "Was it the last door on the left?" Myrtha nods, saying "Follow me," and steps up to that door, prepared to throw it open.

Theran rushes down the dark corridor, passing several latches corresponding to hidden doors into other rooms. For some reason, he thinks that Derek has used the last door. Theran manages to figure out how to use the unlatching mechanism and swings the door wide. The angle that he can see of the room is much the same as he remembered: an elegant, fancy room. The luxurious bed is directly in front of him, blocking the doorway so that anyone entering this way has to climb up and over the bed if they want to enter (very much like the other room, come to think of it). An elegant table and cushioned wooden chair stand on the other side of the bed, and in the far corner is the ornately-carved wardrobe. The only thing he can't see from this vantage is the fireplace with the artistic mantle. Right behind him, Aanbo has a similar, but narrower, view of the room. Both the druid and monk can see that the bedclothes are rumpled, as if someone had laid on the coverlet...or had rolled over the bed.



Just then, the door in the northern wall next to Chase begins to swing open (these doors open outwards into the hall). Chase gets a view of some brutes in robes much like H.A. on the other side; their eyes widen as much as his, and then Chase instinctively tries to shove the door closed again. He plunges his spear into the floorboards, effectively spiking the door closed. The door vibrates in its frame as the people on the other side hammer on it.

OOC:

If you wish to keep the door closed, roll a STR check for Chase to hold the door It doesn't take an action for him to do this now, as he is standing in the space that the door has to use to open.

Derek, wherever he is, does his actions unobserved for the moment.

This concludes round one.

---

22 - Chase (8/11)
16 - Myrtha (6/12)
15 - Theran (13/13)
15 - Aanbo (16/19)
13 - Others
1 - Derek

Round one, continued

Ready for action, Chase pauses by the two last doors; the one with all the angry sounds getting louder on the right and the silent door a little further on the left. "Was it the last door on the left?" Myrtha nods, saying "Follow me," and steps up to that door, prepared to throw it open.

Theran rushes down the dark corridor, passing several latches corresponding to hidden doors into other rooms. For some reason, he thinks that Derek has used the last door. Theran manages to figure out how to use the unlatching mechanism and swings the door wide. The angle that he can see of the room is much the same as he remembered: an elegant, fancy room. The luxurious bed is directly in front of him, blocking the doorway so that anyone entering this way has to climb up and over the bed if they want to enter (very much like the other room, come to think of it). An elegant table and cushioned wooden chair stand on the other side of the bed, and in the far corner is the ornately-carved wardrobe. The only thing he can't see from this vantage is the fireplace with the artistic mantle. Right behind him, Aanbo has a similar, but narrower, view of the room. Both the druid and monk can see that the bedclothes are rumpled, as if someone had laid on the coverlet...or had rolled over the bed.



Just then, the door in the northern wall next to Chase begins to swing open (these doors open outwards into the hall). Chase gets a view of some brutes in robes much like H.A. on the other side; their eyes widen as much as his, and then Chase instinctively tries to shove the door closed again.

Derek, wherever he is, does his actions unobserved for the moment.

Assuming Chase does hold the door shut, this concludes round one.

---

22 - Chase (8/11)
16 - Myrtha (6/12)
15 - Theran (13/13)
15 - Aanbo (16/19)
13 - Others
1 - Derek

With Myrtha's help, Chase is able to hold the door long enough to wedge his magical spear point to spike the door from opening. The men behind it batter hard enough to rattle the hinges, but the door does not move yet.

Round two
(this was preceded by round one)

Chase defers his turn until after Myrtha, as he holds the door shut and waits to see what happens when she opens the other door. Myrtha throws the door open and can't see much inside the dark room, though she hears some scuffling. It's strange that the door wasn't locked - whoever was inside must have really been in a hurry to do something else. She tenses, expecting an attack. Chase, meanwhile, hears "Just you wait until we get this door open - we're gonna kill you!" from the people slamming on the door he's holding shut, as well as a bunch of clomping boots and banging. It occurs to him to wonder about the floorplan that Theran told him about...

For his part, Theran slams the bed and scrambles across it. He immediately sees what Myrtha was hearing: the feet of someone in the fireplace, shimmying up the chimney! Aanbo waits in the dark wings like a coiled spring.

---

16 - Myrtha (6/12)
22 - Chase (8/11)
15 - Theran (13/13)
15 - Aanbo (16/19)
13 - Others
1 - Derek