Raqisat pauses before they head out.  "So...  How well lit are these tunnels?" Hopefully asking Elton before he scampers off.  He has a lantern ready to be lit if needed but he'd rather have his hands free.

For once we do set out:

Perception - 11

Stealth - Nat 20 for 28

"Not lit," says Elton casually as he leads you down the twisting tunnels towards your destination.  There is one uncomfortable section where you all have to climb into a raised bit of tunnel with a low ceiling and crawl for 100' but at least the tunnel is dry, if not devoid of debris.

After 20 minutes of travel, he leads you to a small room, guarded by an older woman (the oldest person you have seen down here, by a considerable amount) and another pair of giant rats.  The room has no exit, but for a heavy metal plate on the floor.  Elton addresses the woman, saying simply, "They've come to kill it."  She doesn't respond, other than to stand and move away from the plate, nodding to all of you with a hard look in her eyes.

Elton lifts the plate with a creak of rust scraping on stone, revealing a ladder leading downward.  "That's the way.  It should be down there somewhere.  If you need to get out, just bang on the plate."  He then moves out of the way to allow you to climb down.

You find yourselves in darkness (those of you with darkvision find it functions normally here) until Raqisat lights his lantern.   It illuminates a narrow, empty room.  At the far end, a pocket door is opened... this may at one time have been a secret, but now it just stands ajar in the darkness.  This door opens to a network of stone tunnels.

Green = Ladder

Purple = Secret Door (already opened)

[The radius of lantern light would be wider than this but for right now you wouldn't be able to see past the corners around you anyway.]

     As we seem to be attempting to be stealthy, Raqisat will have the hood lowered on the lantern so it is only spilling out dim light in a 5' radius.  He's not too happy about his limited sight but he's trusting the others will alert him if something jumps out and swallows him.

Rohuzar will step out to peak down the halls

With the hood lowered on Raqisat's lantern, he and Aubrey are left, quite literally in the dark, relying on only the faint glow escaping the lantern's hood.  The others can rely on their darkvision to take in their surroundings in shades of grey... at least as far as 60', where even their senses fail before the utter darkness of the underground.  As a scout, Furvus is limited, for even in the border ethereal he lacks darkvision and can see no better than his master.

Starting their hunt in the room immediately across from the room with the ladder, they come across the corpses of many rats... both common and giant varieties.  All of them are desiccated, drained of all fluid.

Electing to go west next, the come to the first bend in the tunnel.  Grugga offloads Zip and he tinkers with one of his contraptions and drops it at the corner, the object temporarily able to emit light in a 5' radius, illuminating the way back to the exit, if necessary. 

Rounding a corner, the hallway opens up into a large chamber that shares a door with the room with the dead rats.  This chamber is empty but for a round opening with a 1' high lip of stone around it.  In the dark, this would be a fatal obstacle.  The shaft disappears down into darkness, beyond any of your sight.

At the south end of this room is a heavy wooden door, unlocked.  On the other side is a small room, with another heavy door on the other side.  Inside the room is a stone staircase leading upward.  After 10 steps there is a landing, then another 10 steps.  It is not clear just how high this leads.  Water creeps under the door from the room beyond.

The next door to the south is also unlocked.  This room is flooded with several inches of water.  The smell is vile.  Small pipes in the walls dribble fetid water.  If there are drains out of this room, they are blocked by debris.  Two paths lead out of this room.  The southernmost hall is blocked by an iron grate.  Beyond, you see a hall extending 25' and ending at a closed door.  The other path is blocked not by a door, but by a set of boards nailed into the stone wall.  You are able to quietly remove the boards to allow passage into the hallway beyond.

Unfortunately, this hall also ends in an iron grate.  Beyond the grate, you can see another short tunnel arranged perpendicular to the one you are in, with doors at either end.

While the party considers trying to remove one of the iron grates, or doubling back to try another route, there is a sound.  The loud bangs, like two metal bars clanging together.  The sound echoes through the tunnels and is difficult to place.  It sounds like it is coming from somewhere to the north.  The party quickly and quietly retreats back to the corner where Grugga had dropped his light contraption while the debate what to do next.

• Green = Ladder up
• Purple = Secret Door (already opened)
• Red = Staircase up
• Grey = Iron Grates
• Small orange circle = Grugga's first light contraption
• Large orange circle = approx. range of the party's darkvision
• Yellow circle = Raqisat's hooded lantern light

Aubrey quickly messages Furvus to check the ladder up for threats, then waiting for Rohuzar's tactical orders.

     Raqisat waits but is a bit impatient.  Scouting is smart, he knows, but if we huddle up for every random noise…  Still, having no idea what is actually down her it is smart…  that doesn’t sate his impatience though.

The ladder room is clear, as is the dead rat room.  Sending Furvus ahead to scout, Aubrey looks through its eyes and guides the familiar using his own Devil's Sight.

[A map of his findings was sent to Aubrey in discord.]

"Listen up team, I have located our target, no other threats noticed. Distance 130 feet right now. To get to it we should continue this corridor east to it's end and then turn left, then 20 feet to a door, leading to a partially flooded room where there's a broken steel door to the right beyond which is a short flooded corridor where our target is currently banging on another steel door with a piece of iron. We should be able to sneak up on it if we quicken our step gentlemen...and lady." Aubrey says quitely but firmly, smiling at Cosette as he finishes.

     "It looks as described?" Raqisat asks, trying to confirm it is the same target.  "Any idea why it is banging on the steel door?"

     And with there being no other threats detected, Raqisat feels comfortable unhooding the lantern.  For now at least.  No reason he should need be so blind if the target is several turns and a door away.  He will be prepared to hood it once again when they are closer though, to try to maintain the possibility of surprising it.

"Yes, I'm quite sure it is what we're looking for, and I believe it is trying to break down the steel door hoping to get out of here." Aubrey answers Raqisat quietly. "There are chambers to the north and south of it's current location, but the south chamber is a dead end."

"Well done, Aubrey and Furvus." Grugga says "If this thing is down the end of a flooded corridor, perhaps we should try to lure it out - for one thing, so we can surround it, and for another thing so we're not standing in water when it shoots electricity at us."

He looks around at his companions in the darkness seriously. "Does anyone have any ideas? Perhaps one of us can pretend to be a snack and lead it into an ambush." He pauses a moment, perhaps for dramatic effect or perhaps to reconsider, before saying: "I volunteer."

     "From the description it didn't seem this thing was likely to worry about being outnumbered, but if you insist on being bait..."  Raqisat shrugs.  

Grugga nods, "True, it probably hasn't been threatened before by the likes of us." (He means non-aberrations). "But I meant more so that if we try to fight it at the end of a flooded hallway, we'll be tripping over each other and firing over each others heads."

"But," he concedes with a nod of the head to Raqisat, "perhaps it would gladly chase after all of us, and I wouldn't need to separate from the group."

((moving discussion to discord))

There is another cluster of loud, metal-on-metal bangs.

[Take all the time you need to come up with a plan.]

     "Eye-boy has percussion handled.  If Cosette brings out her flute and we have Audrey sing we'll almost have a band..." 

Rohuzar is frowning and drawing a map in the muck. "Vhat is beyond metal it is hitting? Furvus cannot go there in Ethereal?"

At Rohuzar's suggestion, Aubrey sends Furvus further, past the aberration and past the heavy metal door.  

Aubrey is able to report back that the door does not conceal an exit... on the other side is a small complex of rooms full of statues, including a large carving of a minotaur.  In addition to the statues the room is filled with stone cutting and shaping tools, displayed and hung as if in a museum.  And in one room, an octagonal stone structure on the floor resembles a sarcophagus. 

As soon as Furvus passes through the metal door into the first of the chambers beyond, tiny yellow gemstones mounted in the walls begin to blink on and off with light and a disembodied voice repeats a phrase in Old Imperial over and over again; "Alarm."

Finally, passing back through the door, Aubrey sees through Furvus' eyes that the monster has set down its piece of metal and is pressing its tentacles against the metal door.  It appears to be listening to the disembodied voice.  While the sound is faint on this side of the door, Furvus can tell it stops once he leaves the chamber.  With the voice quiet again, the monster takes its tentacles off the door and looks at it in the darkness, wondering with alien thoughts.

"Ah. I think maybe this is guardian beast. Our new acquaintances set off alarm gathering more treasure, monster gets out. Maybe he can get door open and put it back vhere it belongs? Harder to lure it avay I think." 

     "You think?" Raqisat asks.  "I thought perhaps there were alarms on the rooms that detected Aubrey's friend, despite it's concealment. Did he not say the voice left once he left the chamber?  Perhaps just not audible that far away but... We shouldn't jump to conclusions.  It may still be able to be lured away..."