Rosa will now assist

8 Athletics

Rosa grips the portcullis and pulls, feeling the stress shoot through his body. Slowly, and with a definite screech of metal on stone, the portcullis raises up, and up, and up. As it gets about shoulder height, an audible click sounds and Rosa can clearly see a shiny silver pin on each side slide out to hold the portcullis open.

The chanting stops as you peer into the forty-foot-square room. The smooth masonry walls provide excellent acoustics. Featureless stone pillars support the ceiling, and a breach in the west wall leads to a dark cave heaped with refuse. Murky water covers most of the floor. Stairs lead up to dry stone ledges that hug the walls. In the middle of the room, more stairs rise to form an octagonal dais that also rises above the water. Rusty chains with shackles dangle from the ceiling directly above a stone altar mounted on the dais. The altar is carved with hideous depictions of grasping ghouls and is stained with dry blood.

Trimmed Ongoing Map:

(Is there anybody in the room that Rosa can see?)

Perception 10

Once he feels the portcullis is safely held by the pins, Muirdan woudl also like to scan for any movement in the room (or water)

Grythek will keep an eye on their backs.

(Bump)

(Time to investigate why I'm not getting alerts about posts! *grumble*)

As you enter the room slowly and begin to inspect, you see no people and no movement. It is eerily empty.

Tengen calls on her angelic benefactor and looks with her enhanced eyes, looking for any magical emanations (Detect Magic) as she slowly moves into the room, just far enough to see the main areas.

"What do we have here, seems like an alter or something, an not a nice alter, do you see all those engravings?" 

Muirdan goes up the stairs to his right (upon entering the room), examining the floor and walls for any additional markings or inscriptions.

Rosa will back up and look down the alcove next to the one he's just opened. Is it another portcullis? Can he see down the passage?

Milamber Moves over to the Altar with curiosity and examines it trying to determine what exactly the nonexistent group was attempting to do in the room around the altar. 

Arcana: 13

Muirdan, you head up the stairs and don't immediately notice any markings of any kind.

Rosa, the other passage in the previous room has no portcullis and goes ten feet before taking a sharp right turn. It's dark inside, as most of this place has been.

Milamber, as you walk onto the dais to inspect the altar the chanting rises once more as thirteen dark apparitions appear on the ledges overlooking the room. Muirdan, there is one about ten feet from you on the ledge you were approaching from the stairs. Each one resembles a black-robed figure holding a torch, but the torch’s fire is black and seems to draw light into it. Where you’d expect to see faces are voids.

One must die! they chant, over and over. One must die! One must die!

Milamber, while not arcane in nature, mixed with the chanting and your general knowledge, it becomes very clear that the group would sacrifice creatures on this altar to something. If you had to guess, they expect you to do the same thing.

Muirdan turns his attention from the altar and scanss the other parts of the room for any activity or hiding beings, thinking that if the chanting started when Milamber stepped up, something else corporeal might have been standing there moments ago when they were in the hallway.

Aside from the 13 figures now standing along the ledge, you don't see anything else.

Tengen, didn't mean to leave you out earlier! From where you were, no, there was nothing that Detect Magic would have picked up.

The ranger looks to the figures and say

"We should get out of here. this place is full of ghosts..." 

Milamber, now full of curiosity looks around at the figures in the room before speaking. "They performed many sacrifices on this altar. I wonder what would happen if this altar was consecrated with holy fire instead?" 

Rosa casts light on his greatsword. What's in the room?

Rosa, are you inspecting the other passage in the previous room or are you with the others in the room with the water?

(The other passage at the entrance to it)

Rosa moves his sword around, taking in this new room.

Muirdan completes his circuit of the walls, stopping briefly to cast Light on his hammer and look into the cave with the refuse, taking care not to approach the refuse itself if possible.