Quote from RippedRhinoVikings >>

BIlyur sees the bodies on the ground, and he sees that they have died of an unknown toxin. He will shift into his werebear form before crouching down to the bodies and taking a deep sniff, seeing if he can discern what the toxin would be. As he shifts, he says, "Might as well make use of this."  

 Bilyur shifts and nears the corpses, being careful not to disturb the bodies or any of the numerous grubs writhing upon them. He tries to pick out the scent of lingering toxins amongst the carrion. As he deeply examines the foul stenches, he remembers that, in these conditions, a body would be fully bone in just 10 days, and from the looks of these corpses, it’s been about a week since they died. He finally picks up on an unfamiliar, lingering odour amongst the filth that smells similar to the nectar of a rare orchid which Bilyur’s monastery used to grow in their herb garden; the Crescent Blush. Whilst Bilyur is no expert in poisons, he roughly remembers hearing that when extracted and refined, the nectar of the Crescent Blush, called Midnight Tears in that form, is an incredibly deadly poison that only acts at the stroke of midnight with a lethal dose. Clearly these adventurers sat down for a feast just before midnight, ingested the poison and then immediately died before they had a chance to act when the clock struck 12.

[Got it Shiver, temp hp removed]

Sly is skeptical. "Wouldn't that lead to an inevitable exchange of violence? The crawlers will surely turn upon us after ascertaining that the lights pose no threat."

But the wizard sees that Xarkris is practically itching for a fight, so she wouldn't complain too much if the plan goes ahead.

Bilyur stands back up, bumping his head, unused to his new height. He says, "The Crescent Blush, a rather magical plant. It's nectar, when refined, becomes a lethal poison, however, it only kills at the stroke of midnight. This food had clearly been tainted with it. These bodies have been dead for more than a week." 

Nature: 11+0 = 11

Eggo Lass tries to think of if it would be possible to try extracting some poison from the scattered remnants of the feast.

Eggo Lass unfortunately identifies that it is incredibly unlikely that she'll be able to remove any poison from the food, not only because the Crawler is still watching over the feast, but because the toxins have likely lost most, if not all, of their potency by now, and so extracting any poison, let alone enough for an effective dose, would be borderline impossible, even with some more sophisticated equipment.

Meanwhile, Sly tries to carefully peek into the room to the east.

With the hopes of getting poison dashed, Eggo Lass is willing to move East like Sly.

Sly and Eggo creak open the door and peak into what the eastern rooms hold. It starts with a long dingy passage, but it eventually seems to come to a small, empty room dedicated uniquely to being a crossroads of sorts. Both of them don't see any threats anywhere.

Sly looks to the others and makes a head motion indicating that they should follow. "Let us march thither, for it seems presently vacant."

The wizard moves along the passageway, tiptoeing the best she can, then arches her neck to look north and south. [Stealth: 17]

Sly creeps down the hall and into the adjoining room, closely followed by Techi and assumedly the rest of the party. Once she's in the room, she can fully identify what's within, or what isn't, seeing as the room is entirely bare. Whether this is because it has been picked clean by adventurers or because Solshere never bothered to furnish it is unclear. However, what is notable about the room is that the northern door bears a large iron doorknob and keyhole, with the doorknob designed to look like human skull, sporting short ram horns and a gaping mouth, which is engulfing the smooth metal sphere of the actual knob. The design reminds her of something but she can't quite put her finger on it. What's more, is that previously all the other doors in this dungeon (being the three she saw in the dining hall and the southern door here) are just simple, shabby wooden doors in a frame which can simply be pushed open, albeit with much creaking from the hinges. This leads Sly to conclude that the northern door is likely locked, and for a reason, since a lock has been given to it especially.

Xarkris joins Eggo and Sly and uses his powers of perception (NAT 20,7) +2 for a result of 22, same as Passive Perception.

The big dragonborn looks around the room, looking for danger. 

If Xarkris' examination turns up nothing dangerous, Sly has a closer look at the skull. Is it a tiefling skull, or perhaps some devil? [Nature: 15]
Once this is done, the wizard will try to turn the doorknob with her arcane hand, just to see what will happen.

Xarkris scans the room intently with his extremely perceptive senses. He doesn't hear or smell anything, but finds two things when analysing the lock in particularly. Firstly, there are minute scratches and scuffs about the keyhole; this type of wear and tear wouldn't come from any ordinary day-to-day use, it clearly indicates that this door has been in use for many years, and that confirms that there is definitely still a key within this dungeon for the lock. Secondly, when peering at the key hole, he notices that he can't see through it at all. At first he thinks the room beyond might be pitch black, or perhaps there's something covering the other end, but as he stares closer he realises that it is truly just...black. It isn't the coiling, shadowy darkness of the Shadow Weave portals either; the interior of the lock simply seems to contain a void, the pure absence of anything else.

Sly then takes a think on what the depiction of the handle might be. She thinks it over but comes up with no answers. It certainly isn't a creature, magical or mundane, as the mouth seems too unnaturally spherical and agape to be a representation of an actual creature. Even if it was artistically changed to the blacksmith's whims, it's riddled with inaccuracies compared to the species Sly is guessing it could be, which is odd seeing how detailed it is. The horns are far too short and stylised for a tiefling, and it certainly doesn't match up with any fiends. Even when she considers a satyr, inspired by the ram horns, she just can't see the comparison clear enough for it to be a match. She then gives it a rattle with her mage hand, but it's locked, which although annoying at least answers one question the party had about all the mysteries surrounding the door.

After Xarxis finds nothing but blackness, Eggo Lass too takes a look through the keyhole to test if it's magical darkness. After doing so she asks, "Any of us good at picking locks?"

Eggo Lass takes a peek through the keyhole but even her incredible darkvision can't penetrate this darkness, if you could call it that. It's less the absence of light, and more the absence of anything at all. 

Arcana: 1 + 0 + 4 = 5

She wonders if it's the same kind of void as her new spell Hunger of Hadar.

Eggo can certainly see some potential similarities between her new spell and this curious void; however the keyhole is lacking any of the eldritch noises which her spell creates, and also seems fairly harmless, having no apparent innate temperature to it. But, she can definitely make an association between the inky darkness of the cosmos and this void. She can’t quite recall the wording of the spell’s generalised definition in the popular wizarding dictionaries that Sly has likely spent hours pouring over, but thinks there’s another closer comparison that’s she missing. 

Sly crinkles her nose at the lock as if it had offended her personally and replies to Eggo.

"I have developed an incantation to deal with impediments such as this, but I shall need some time [short rest] to prepare it."

Does the spell seem the same as the darkness that Eggo and Sly can conjure? [Arcana 18]

The tiefling turns on a heel and heads to the other side of the room, poking the door there with a spectral hand. If the door isn't bothered by the poking, she will open it slowly, trying to see beyond. [Stealth 18]

{OOC: might not be the best idea to let everyone within 300 feet know we're here, as much as I would like to get through that door. Bilyur and Xarkris attempting to beat it down is probably quieter...lol}

Sly analyses the void kept within the keyhole and quickly confirms it's not regular magical darkness. Rather, the passage which Eggo Lass had forgotten within the Hunger of Hadar official definition (verified by the scholars in wizarding colleges that Solshere himself may have attended) comes to her mind almost immediately, as she considers the option that this darkness may be a 'warp in the fabric of space'. This possibility indicates that the keyhole contains a localised distortion which could transport inserted objects somewhere else; warp teleportation is the quickest transport method, after all, but hardly easy to set up and still contains it's many risks and unknown factors. In fact, the school of magic focussing on the more physics based side of magic is a rarely explored and overall abandoned topic; some ground basics about it were established and discovered before the majority of the high-ranking mages deemed it 'was far too boring and mundane', before going back to shooting fireballs and seeing who could blow the best ring of smoke from their pipe. 

After this mental tangent, Sly turns to check the southern door. She gives it a light press with her mage hand and it shifts ever so slightly to show that it's unlocked, so keeping her hand near the hinges of the door and pushing back slowly in order to mitigate any creaks, she reveals that the passage beyond the doorway abruptly descends into a rather long and dingy flight of stairs, with very little of the room below it in sight.