Ben:

””Come on, Elkhorn, we are out of time—pop this grate open!” encourages Ben.

Titaani puts on the gold gloves which Nib gave her. They dissolve into her skin and seem to vanish. Using the little paring knife that Matilda failed with, Titaani manages to spring the lock. The girl, Mishka, is free. "If Granny comes in," she whispers, rubbing her ankle, "push her in that oven and burn her up!"

The grate, meanwhile, refuses to budge. "It's no use! The hag has the key on her ring!" shouts Elkhorn from his water-filled cell. 

Titaani grins gleefully and moves on to Elkhorn's grate. "Let me try!"

Sleight of hand: 20

Matilda gathers up any implements that look like serviceable weapons to replace her lost craft knife.

Titaani is on a roll with her invisible magic gloves and her newfound lockpicking skills. Using the same little knife, she manages to pop open the padlock on the grate as well.
"Hurrah!" shouts Elkhorn. "I knew you had that in you! Now give an old dwarf a hand out of this soup." He raises his hand, hoping for a boost.

Meanwhile, Matilda finds herself in a veritable knife shop – she can find every type of sharp cooking implement from smaller paring knives (daggers, darts) to huge chef's knives (short swords) to huge skewers (spears, javelins) and hefty meat cleavers (handaxes).

"Granny might be back soon," warns Mishka, looking anxious. "Although it's almost time for Inspection. But if Cradlefall warns her first..."

Ben:

Reaching down, Ben hauls Elkhorn out as he says, “Thank you, Titaani, you are amazing!”

Looking around and seeing that everyone in the room is free, he says, ”Let’s get out of here unless you know of any more prisoners or a trapped unicorn” as he helps the soggy dwarf towards the exit.

"Have you seen my shield and sword, perchance?" asks Elkhorn, looking around the kitchen impatiently. "I don't even know how I got here. I woke up here. This little sweetheart and the others kept me alive with food scraps," he adds, nodding with appreciation toward Mishka. "There are many children here. They must be freed and returned to their families."

"Yes, there are more kids here," agrees Will, delicately touching his black eye. "Probably in the Sewing Room, or maybe the dormitory. I dunno. Do we press our luck?"

The cauldron continues to bubble, the hot oven occasionally grumbling as the coals stir within. Looking around for knives, Matilda also sees shelves laden with gnarly cookbooks, bizarre fungi, animal skulls, brass egg cups embossed with the faces of crying children, strange cooking utensils, and other odd items, together with cabinets and drawers and coffers of all sizes and shapes.

Ben:

Handing Elkhorn his shield and spear, Ben says, “This will get you started until we run across your equipment.”

He turns to Will and gently touches his brow over the swollen eye (Lay on hands 10 hp) and says, “This may be our best chance to free everyone—Let’s keep going and save who we can.  Where to next?”

Matilda piles as many weapons as she can into her bag ( " dagger, shortsword, handaxe") and then the cookbooks.

" I already got three kids from the weaving room....they're on their way back with Fluffy."

Ben:

"Then the dormitory it is...Lead on, Will," says Ben.

Titaani smiles shyly at Ben's praise. "It was nothing, really..."

As the party goes to leave, Titaani turns to Mishka. "Don't worry, that dragon isn't going to go running back to Granny anytime soon. I tricked him into thinking that she wants to kill him."

Matilda takes four daggers, a shortsword, and two handaxes (or their culinary equivalents.) She also takes two cookbooks – a well-used one that contains candy recipes and uses a 1-foot-long piece of gnarled root as a bookmark, and a second that contains formulas for various types of arcane potions. 

Will, shyly grateful for Ben's healing, tries the southern door, but it's locked. He turns to Titaani. "Can you open this one, too?" 

Elkhorn, carefully examining the quality of his new shield and spear, continues to rattle on. "My four companions and I entered Prismeer to confront our archenemy, the League of Malevolence – a coalition of vile villains, you see. We are known as 'Valor’s Call' – a noble adventuring party founded by Strongheart, our resolute leader. We are committed to destroying evil wherever it rears its ugly head! We confronted those wicked fiends in their new evil headquarters and fought a mighty battle... during which time I think I was knocked out... I don't remember what happened after that."  

" League of Malevolence......have we heard that before?  I feel like we have...", mused Matilda.

( Help action to Titaani.)

Horatio would secure several pots, pans, and long knives hastily stuffed into bread loaves or wrapped in kitchen linens (the short sword ones) - as many as he could stuff into a potato sack quickly (going for iron or steel items here). "Okay, but if we see Granny we have to all agree to run away as fast as possible. What is our escape route? Also, if everyone would please keep an eye out for iron or steel. We need it for what comes next."

"I can definitely try!" Titaani replies to Will. 

Sleight of hand with help: 26

Horatio stuffs a sack full with three short swords and a lot of heavy metal kitchenware, including the six disturbing brass eggcups. (If we're playing by Encumbrance rules – which I don't generally pay too much attention to – Horatio can carry about 20 more pounds of metal before he is going to slow down a little bit, or 110 more pounds before it really slows him down. How much does he want to take? 20 pounds of pots and pans are readily available; more than that may require some searching and an Investigation check.)

Titaani tries her magic gloves and her little paring knife on the southern door, with Matilda's help. (That was with neither advantage nor disadvantage, right?)

The door pops open. Within is a circular chamber with two more doors and a wood-carved staircase that ascends to a higher level. The walls are a dense tangle of tree roots and brambles, nestled among which are five animated portraits: one of a svelte, dark-haired woman and the others depicting hags.

" Animated paintings.....do we burn them....the Hag ones at least?"

The five paintings are unlabelled. They depict: 
- A truly ancient and terrifying hag.
- A toadish hag (whom you recognize as Bavlorna Blightstraw)
- A skeletal hag wearing a black, theatrical contraption resembling a dress.
- A hag with a wind-up key in her back, one empty eye socket, and a wooden eye held in her hand (whom you recognize as Skabatha Nightshade)
- A svelte, dark-haired woman with a commanding presence (who looks oddly familiar)

Each portrait magically animates to create the impression that the subject is looking around and shifting uncomfortably, but the animation has the quality of an old movie. The moving images are silent.

"That way," whispers Will, pointing to the southernmost door.

Matilda attempted dragging her cleaver across the picture depicting Bavlorna...

Make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or be pricked by the thorny brambles, which thrash out at Matilda as she tries to damage Bavlorna's portrait.