Ashley calls out over her shoulder, "Just knock him out like we did before, I hate his voice and he's tied up."  she heads over to the bookcase and uses the mechanism on the bookcase to open it back up and hopefully hold it as well.  "Samir, did I do this right?  I don't want it closing and locking us in."

"Let's go find this madman's lab.  Hopefully the people aren't too far gone." and she heads into the passage.

At the mention of knocking him unconscious again, Razmus’s eyes begin flitting around. As Ashley begins down the passageway, he gives Vilus a venomous look and says “I’lll killl you alll!

He closes his eyes and begins chanting in some strange, foreign tongue.

Waking slowly, and only after the noise in the room escalated and the light got much brighter, Marion isn't entirely sure exactly what is going on as she forces her eyes open. Realising that everyone is awake and active the first thought that goes through her head is the shock of being caught off guard in such a manner. A split second later it occurs to her that she also slept through without anyone waking her to take a turn on watch. These flustered realisations are quickly forgotten about, however, when she realises that the innkeeper is in the room with them and that a Minotaur is towering over him and pressing a bolt into his ribs.

Getting up she quickly grabs her hand axe from the floor as she tries to get a grip of everything happening around her. Watching as Ashley begins to set off into the passageway and the innkeeper makes his maniacal threat to kill everyone before chanting she does her best to take stock of exactly what is going on. Without hesitating she decides that only one thing is certain, the man who lured them into his trap cannot be trusted, and so she steps forward as he begins to chant she strikes him in the head with the haft of her axe in an attempt to interrupt his chanting.

If the chanting stops and Rasmus is knocked out, with Marion's strike, then Vilus will hoist the tied man over one shoulder, pick up his torch and follow after Ashley. Whilst casting a glance back to the group groggily coming to their senses, he states "come, he'll answer for his sins once we have taken stock of them all. The runes he is using aren't flowing through him, it's difficult to explain... They are wrong, not like evil magic 'wrong', more like shouldn't exist 'wrong', does that make sense?"

As Marion strikes Razmus, he does indeed go quiet. And limp. Vilus has no problem hoisting him. The round, dim passage is illuminated in the orange glow from the torch. It seems to be roughly hewn, tunnelling through the stone, with support beams at sporadic intervals whenever the stone gives way to dirt for a time. Its narrow confines impose a single file upon Ashley and Vilus, though there is room to squeeze by and it is high enough that even Vilus doesn’t have to stoop.

Joren is ready to follow the group, but he speaks one consideration that is on his mind:

"Should we be searching the rest of the Inn first?  Covering our rear?  I know we do not wish to leave the other captives down the passageway to suffer for any longer.  But we have already made them wait 8 hours.  This madman was having 2 other ears on his necklace beyond the 6 for the ones that attacked us.  I am not wishing to be surprised from behind.  It may be worth an extra few minutes to be checking up there."

Malachi awakens slowly, blinking his eyes and clearing his vision as the sound of angry shouts fill the room.  He drags himself out of his cot, rested but not fully refreshed, just in time to see the argument between Ashely and Razmus and Marion drop the innkeeper.

“What is that on his chest?  Is that how he controls the creatures?” Where did it come from?”  Malachi peers at the strange tattoo.  He nods to Joren as he suggests searching the rest of the inn.  “I say we explore the passageway first.  It is just as likely that the other two wait ahead of us than back in the inn.  We can always keep the other door barred and blocked until we return.”

He moves to follow Ashley and the others down the passageway behind the bookcase, a little apprehensive about what they may find.

There was a retort, an admonishment, on the tip of Samir's tongue, but he choked it back as Marion rose. Whatever he had felt before concerning Silas, it had been tempered by the display he had witnessed. Ashley's question pulls him from his momentary train of thought. "Oh, um, yes, it seems to be correct to me. If it does close while we are inside, then there should logically be another switch we can access from there." 

He nods as Joren speaks, finding the logical sense in the man's suggestion. "A quick check seems like it could be a good idea, Joren. I will accompany you, if you wish. I would prefer not to have something take us from behind.'

Splitting up briefly, Joren and Samir head back through the previous room. Joren steps through the dried residue from Samir's grease the previous night and looks up through the cellar door. For a moment there are two of him, one above and one below, and then Samir finds himself alone in the room. That is until Joren, having done a quick 360 scan to make sure there are no immediate threats, reaches his hand down to pull Samir up. Both on the main floor now, they have a moment to look around. Everything looks much the same as they had left it, just as pristine as before. No sound comes from behind the bar or the floor above.

(You may each make me an investigation check, or one of you may provide help to the other, or you may choose to do something else instead. If you describe what you are looking for and where, the DC targets for certain things may be reduced)

Down below, Malachi quickly ascertains that the bookshelf would indeed be easy to open from the other side, just as it would be easy to jam.

(Does anyone in the main group hang back, move ahead, or move ahead slowly so the others can catch up?)

(Joren will help Samir's Investigation check upstairs, removing disadvantage... he'd suggest looking behind the bar and at the rooms on the upstairs floor).

(Samir will follow Joren's suggestions and check behind the bar first before moving upstairs, looking for any evidence of what Rasmus has been doing or the presence of any further threats.)

Not wanting Ashley to run into something dangerous alone, Vilus darts after her, the bartender's limbs swinging as he goes.

"Ashley, wait up! Hey" he notes the changes in the tunnels composition, he ponders, are they descending? As he reaches Ashley he slows and slides a dagger out of his cloak sleeve, "be ready... Whatever we find there it's not going to be pretty" He makes sure he doesn't act threateningly toward Ashley herself, instead nodding toward the unexplored remnants of the tunnel.

(Investigation: 18) Moving around behind the bar, Samir begins looking through the drawers built into the back of the bar, hoping to find something informative. The first few just seem to contain spare bar rags, a corkscrew, cloth napkins, and other such bar supplies. But in the fourth drawer, Samir finds several coin purses of different makes and materials. Looted off other poor adventurers, Samir suspects. Razmus must not have had too much need for the gold, however, since they all seemed to still have their original contents. There seems to be 24 gold pieces in total between the coin purses. Underneath, Samir finds some personal trinkets. A few lockets and rings, along with a bronze cloak brooch fashioned to look like two small suns connected by a thin chain that feels oddly warm to the touch. 

It's at that point that Joren finishes inspecting a different area and comes over to check on what Samir has found. As he approaches, both of the notice a red glow shining out from the edges of the bottom of the drawer. A false bottom? Samir grabs a thin, curved metal implement from his things and slides it between the bottom of the drawer and the side. Angling it and pulling up, he lifts the false bottom out and finds a palm-sized Silver talisman of some sort with  a small round crystal set in its center that is emitting the red glow. Strange runes and glyphs are finely carved into the talisman.

Joren looks at Samir, feeling out of his element.  He scratches his head.  "I am thinking the others will want to see this.  Silas for certain."

(Heads downstairs to catch up with the group if their search is done).

"Yes... undoubtedly...." Samir's lingers for a moment, studying the brooch and the talisman, puzzling over them as he looks them both over, feels their weight and other facets. Whatever they are, they could prove valuable or dangerous. After a moment, he realizes that Joren has headed back and hurries after. 

Joren's brief investigation of upstairs reveals 6 empty rooms, doors ajar with no furniture or objects besides a few clumps of rat hair. It appears Razmus wasn’t lying when he said he had no free guest rooms because he never intended these rooms for anything other than a place to store his mousetrocities. 

Meanwhile, Samir takes a closer look at his find. (Arcana/History 14) At first he is thrown off by the warmth of the chain. Having been hidden away in the drawer, it should be the same temperature as the atmosphere, and unless an enchantment had been placed on it recently, or by someone far more powerful than he would expect to find in a place like this, it shouldn't carry any magical effects (because as anyone as educated as Samir knows, magic requires a will and couldn't possibly just exist in an object) He realizes quickly, however, that he actually recognizes the designs used to depict the sun. It is a design typically used by the Sanctuary of Solmon, a small religious group obsessed with the wild idea that the sun is God. While they largely spend their time travelling alone from settlement to settlement, trying to spread the Radiant Word, their one Temple is located just south of the Smoking Sands, just a two day's ride from Nos'Argo. They are one of the few people to engage in direct trade with the Genasi, who they hold a barely tolerable reverence for. With that realization, Samir quickly pieces together that the chain, by its density and luster, must be an alloy of copper, tin, and they unique metal dust found within the sands that gives the Fire Genasi's homeland its name. The stuff is colloquially referred to as fire-iron. It is a material with special properties that stores a great deal of solar energy that is released as heat when exposed to lowered temperatures. Samir has never been able to work with the material himself, but he has certainly learned about its properties and applications.

Woven through the chain also appears to be a thread made out of gold, a material that Samir is quit familiar with from his time at the academy and from his own tinkering, as it is an excellent medium for conducting will through an object to react with its properties and produce magical effects. Attuning to this cloak brooch would likely draw out the fire-iron's natural properties to produce some sort of heat-based effect that seems like it may have been used to aid the wearer in getting through the shield pass. Which also means there is likely a Solmon devotee among the victims of Razmus's vile deeds, sadly They are an eccentric sort, and often considered obnoxious, but are still fine folk in general.

Looking at the talisman with the glowing red crystal and its glyphs, Samir pulls out the staple he pocketed it and compares the two. He can't be sure, but some of the markings appear to have similar components to the rune on the staple. The crystal loses its colour and shine as Joren moves away, however. Samir finds himself with no answers as to how the glowing crystal functions. Is it simply a non magical property that caused it glow, or does it have something to do with the runes? The lack of a clear answer, given the circumstances, doesn’t sit well with Samir.

Assured that there are no enemies behind them, and that there was no more information to be gleaned at the inn, Samir and Joren lower themselves back down to the cellar and hurry to catch up with their companions.

Ashley waits a moment for Silas to catch up, then continues on at a normal pace not wanting whatever they are looking for to wait any longer.  A soft shimmering glow appears all around her as she casts mage armor in anticipation of what they might find.

Perception  17

With the innkeeper silenced, and the most immediate threat dealt with, Marion clears her eyes as best she can, trying to shake off the remnants of the long sleep she has just awoken from. Barely able to piece the whole situation together she doesn't get a chance to even strike up a conversation as the others are already delving into the mysteries of the inn.

As the others begin to move in different directions she is immediately torn about what to do. Briefly following Joren and Samir into the first room she retrieves her dropped longsword, before returning back to the other room. Her first instinct is to follow after Ashley, Silus and Malachi into the passageway without hesitation. But Marion has been trained well and she knows a warrior of the order is more often than not a burden without being properly prepared.

Despite the growing tension caused by being unaware of how the others are faring she pushes such worries to the back of her mind and begins donning her armour. Carefully she straps each piece on, ensuring they are fitted correctly - neither too tight nor too loose; testing her range of movement as she completes attaching the armour to each limb and adjusting the fit where she is not satisfied with how much freedom she has. All the while she quietly recites her morning prayers, though she is not entirely sure exactly what time of day it actually is, while listening out for any sign of trouble from the others elsewhere in the building.

Joren is thoroughly embarrassed that he had not donned his Chain Mail upon waking up.  Seeing Marion doing so, he sets to it, with far less solemnity and dignity than the knight errant of the Blue Lady exhibits.  He gives her a rueful, apologetic smile if she is glances over.  This takes near 10 minutes, so at this stage, he may be well behind the group when done.

Malachi heads off not far behind Ashley and Vilus. Marion hears Samir and Joren rooting around upstairs as she gets prepared, but doesn’t hear any cause for alarm. About halfway done when they rejoin her, she finishes up and hangs back a moment to allow Joren time to prepare. The three of them head off down the passage with Marion in the front and Joren in the back. Samir, between the two, notices the talisman glowing once more, but this time the half closer to Marion is glowing a bright azure blue.

Though they had a late start, they are able to move at a decent pace down the linear tunnel since it seems unlikely that any threats could pop up between them and their three forward companions. After about 40 minutes of moving down the gently winding passage, they can start to make out the echoes of Malachi, most likely, up ahead.

At that same time, Ashley up at the front rounds a soft bend and sees that the passage seems to open up into a larger chamber. Vilus, easily looking over her head from behind, sees it too. Ashley hesitates, listening for more of those rat-men, and then cautiously moves up to the opening. In this time, Malachi is able to fully catch up, though the others are still a minute behind, moving at their current pace. 

(Perception 17) Ashley takes a moment to take in her surroundings. The tunnel opens into a large man-made chamber, perhaps 30 feet by 30 feet, though the stone ceiling is no higher. Directly across from her opening, Ashley can see that the passage appears to continue on, heading further to the… Ashley tries to recall the orientation of the inn and which way they should be facing now… the west, as far as she could tell. To her right, the chamber walls are lined with shelf’s and a long desk with scattered tools and sheets of paper takes up most of the northern wall. Not far from the desk is a large black cauldron positioned over an unlit fire pit.

To her left, Ashley can immediately see a long metal table with four leather straps to serve as restraints attached. Beside it is a smaller wooden table with a pile of discarded cloth bandages, a scalpel, and several rusty metal syringes. Behind the tables, on the south wall, Ashley makes out a row of short cages in six stacks of three. Humanoid figures seemed curled up and hunched over within. She has a hard time making out details because it seems that they had shied away and tried to shrink up against the backs of their cages at the first sign of light from around the corner. Besides the figures in the cages, Ashley can see no other creatures, alive or dead.