Juniper holds the wheel in place to allow the others the time to escape through the portcullis. Once through the gate, there is no other option than to run back up the stairs, leaving the cursed sacrificial chamber behind.

With Juniper bringing up the rear, the group finds that walls are now covered with roaches and centipedes, which fall down onto the group, getting tangled in their hair. The group comes to a fork and finds themselves with a choice of which direction to head in.

Emma shakes the bugs that fall on her. Those disgusting things would usually stir revulsion in her, but the threat of the collapsing ceiling takes her attention.

"Wait! Don't go over there!" Emma calls after Kal in the lead. She's already breathless, but she forces herself to keep running, before the ceiling falls on her. "That's where the pit lay, let's go the other way!"

Although Juniper now begins to come to grips with the fact that Walter is dead, she continues to carry the infant’s little body, taking great care with it. When she steps away from the portcullis, her front paws land on the ground, and she keeps her nose pointed upward so as not to drag the bundle. In this snobbish posture, in contrast to her actual mental state, confusion and terror at the thought of being crushed alive, the brown bear bounds away after Kal.

But when Emma shouts, the bear skids to a halt on the rough stone floor, the memory of the pit flying back to her, for she is unsure if she could so easily leap over the trap with the baby suspended from her jaw. Juniper wheels awkwardly around in the tight quarters and heads the other way, toward the room with the well.

‘And then, through the eating room, and then up the stairs,’ some part of her thinks. ‘And then, I’ll burn the mansion down if I must, to escape this house of horrors!’

Kal brushes the bugs out of his hair as he moves down the tunnel, more focused on getting away from the collapsing room behind them.  He freezes the moment he hears Emma call out for him to wait.  "You're right," he calls back, chagrined.  "Hopefully the other fork leads towards a way out..." he adds as he turns and heads down the other fork.

Everyone heads down the snaking corridor. Echoing off the walls the sound of a rabid snarl is heard. Then eventually the stench of rot fills the air.

(Someone make an Athletics or Stealth check.)

Juniper Athletics in bear form: 17

Juniper barrels down the corridor knocking a ghoul over on to it's back. With the creature on the floor, it allows the group to continue on without fighting.

Juniper transforms back to human form when she reaches the stairs, and she heads up them, holding Walter’s form carefully in her arms, shielding the tiny corpse from further tragedy. Her face, wet, smudged, and exhausted, yet burns with anger and only thinly veils her desire to enact payback, in spades, for her last two days in captivity and more infamously, the deaths of three children. 

With Juniper now leading the group she rushes out into the dining hall. Suddenly the room is filled with the sounds of screams. Screams for mercy. Screams for help. Screams for a quick end. Then a man is spotted chained to the other side of the wooden table. He thrashes about, the chains shaking around him. A gash runs the length of his stomach, from which blood pulses out to the beat of his heart.

The screams hadn't been heard previously. Everyone in the group is certain of that fact. Nevertheless, in the distance, the sounds of chanting cultists echo through the passageways.

Protecting Walter's cold, motionless body, Juniper gapes in horror at the chained, screaming man. Does she recognize him from the family portrait?

The man does not look like anyone has seen before.

Juniper ignores the gruesome apparition and runs to the front door and tries again to open it.

(You're still in the basement, you haven't made it up the stairs out of the basement, and the stairs you took to the basement take you back up to the attic.)

(Oops, I forgot!)

Juniper shields the baby from the apparition and runs past, shouting to the others, "Come on, we've got to get out of here!"

 Making it past the making screaming for help, the ground thunders up the stairs. As the sound of the group's footsteps echoes up the secret stairway, the sounds of wailing can be heard through the walls. The mortared walls pulsate with hordes of spiderlings, all fleeing downward. Out from the abyss, a spider, the size of a boar, climbs up the stairs behind the group. Its mandibles gnashing as the group's heels. The beat unleashes a glob of web.

The web wraps around Star, restraining him as he falls to the steps beneath him.

Juniper turns, looking over her shoulder in horror as the bard is smothered by and stuck within gooey spiderwebs. Somewhere deep inside, the young druid wants to help, but her heart is frozen by fear and exhaustion, and all she can do is clutch the form of Walter’s cold infant body and keep running.

Kal's eyes linger on the screaming man for a moment as they race through the room, but he knows there is little he can do, assuming the man is even real.  He continues to follow Juniper.  He does stop though when Star is wrapped up in webs by the giant spider.  He shudders at the site of the creature, but draws his dagger as he kneels beside Star to try to cut the webs away and free his ally.  He shouts after Juniper as he sees her continue to run, "Wait!  We can't just leave him behind!"

(Kal, make an athletics check.)

Athletics 14

By making use of his dagger, Kal frees Star from the spider's web.

The group carries on up the stairs, and they find themselves exiting into the attic of the house. The area seems quiet and still. A small reprieve from the chaos that has taken over the house.