The murderhoboes
Bleu, droning elf wizard
Zaber, suave and debonaire man
Logan, wolverine
Polly, cute and deadly elf archer
What happened
We heal up, and Hugin commiserates with Polly about missing limbs, but hers regenerate. And so back to Castle Whiterock. Logan looks menacingly for the last bug as he goes back into the room. He doesn't see it, and scowls, angry.
The room is mostly free of dead bodies, so I swim up to check out the light coming from above. I find murky scum and beyond it a span of air of about three feet or so between the surface and the ceiling. Floating in midair, radiating brightly as if full strength Continual Light, are four two-foot-long. They give off no heat, only light, and I prod one with a sai.
Nothing happens.
Polly swims up. "Hey, that glowing thing is magic, Zaber."
Garreth blinks at Polly. "Ya don't say?"
Polly says, "Well, it coulda been alchemical or something like your glow vial."
I prod it again. "Seems odd that someone would be lighting this room."
Polly says, "The light feeds the algae and scum to make oxygen for the bugs!"
Garreth chuckles, "So someone placed them there to keep the bugs healthy and present? Someone was feeding the bugs. Those were someone's guard dogs. We may have offended that someone."
I bring Logan up to the air pocket. "See if you can sniff out the bugs, boy!"
Polly asks, "Are they really dogs, like ant kittens?"
Not this again. "We're not doing this nature crap this time! They're someone's killer bugs and Logan will kill any still left!" Polly looks somewhat concerned by this line of reasoning, so I go on. "Logan is nature. His side is nature. Be on his side and you can't go wrong!"
We swim down and go to the door. Something doesn't seem right, so I beckon Bleu, then check the door for traps. I pick a little at the plaster, and find that the door has a compressed air bladder behind it. Opening the door without first separating this, especially by shattering it, will be explosive and fragmentary fun times. So time to turning off the air bladder. After a minute or so, I can hear the bladder split away. I crack the cement, and lift the bar on the other side, opening the door.
Beyond is a small room, about 15-by-15, and it has nothing but a stone door on the far corner. In the middle of the ceiling about 15 feet off the floor is a sealed metal trapdoor about 3 feet square. Its metal surface is gouged and scratched. Hanging from the trapdoor’s handle is a small net filled with several large rotten fish carcasses. Water from the bug room sloshes into here as I open the door, and after a minute or so, both rooms have water a few feet deep.
I grab the net down and give Logan the fish. On the right side of the room there is a door hidden in the wall, with lots of rubble. The door on the other side is a simple stone door, not watertight, as water is coming from around it.
Garreth hoists me up and I see the trap door is locked. I pick the lock, and try to open it. It does not move, much like the rods. Garreth sighs, sets me down, jumps up, and grabs the handle. The door stays put. He puts one foot on each side of it and focuses his chi. He stretches and strains, then it flies free, magic smoke puffing out. He falls down, and the door falls on him. He shoves off the 725 lb. door without much work. "See, proper application of strength and will can defeat magic!"
Polly says, "Whoa, it's like Bleak Theatre part two!"
Garreth gazes into the newly renovated the hole, and sees a ceiling up and above the hole. We climb up, and find a small room, maybe 10-by-10, with a ceiling only inches above Garreth's head. It is still dry, although the air is thick and damp. Many weapon heads, their wooden shafts rotted long ago, litter the floor. A stone chest, perhaps seven feet long, is pushed up against the left wall. Above the chest, sunken into the wall, is a pair of metal plates, each one foot wide and about three feet high. To the right of these plates is an iron lever, rusted in the upright position.
I check the plates. Something is odd about them. Garreth asks her, "Bleu, are those magical?"
Bleu says, "No, but the chest has a Lightning Rune upon it, though."
I sigh. "You could have said so earlier, you know. Can you get rid of it?" She casts Resist Lightning on me, and I open the trunk. The zap does nothing, and I look inside. Inside are three shiny suits of mail, a shiny buckler showing a a fancy leaf pattern, a shiny mace, and two shiny heavy throwing knives and a long thin box. These are magical, and can get into the details later.
After pushing on the plates and Polly shooting them, I pull on the lever. I can't unstick it, but Garreth pulls on the lever. It doesn't budge at first, but after a few tries the lever breaks free of its rust and moves! The plates pivot inwards revealing arrow slits, and beyond the arrow slits a great blasting torrent of water as they open into the Castle Whiterock Lake. Garreth slams it shut before the water can do more than spray us.
