The light headed feeling Grenk has from the stench passes quickly as the last two creatures go down. The stench of rotting flesh wafts from the room.  Inside is a small space that is beyond disgusting. A small copper pipe stick out from the wall that looks like it originates on the far side of the door you want open. What looks like blackened dried blood stains the wall beneath it as if blood has been poured down it.  Then below, it looks as if the undead were smearing the blood everywhere.  You gag, holding your breath as you back out of the room.  The only other feature was a chain, caked with dried rotted blood hanging from the ceiling.  You pull the chain and hear a loud "clang" from somewhere in the ceiling, but nothing else happens. 

Mal sighs, shakes her head and then goes back into the room to look around, seeing if there is something that was missed from the cursory look.

Perception: 9

Grenk steps out, "That, is not how blood is suppose to be used," he comments.  "And why I hate the undead.  Let us be out of this room."

Despite the fierce battle just nearby, the four creatures in the sunken part of the room continue to wander around doing their creepy artwork. There is nothing else of interest in that secret door.  The chain pulled seemed to trigger something, but the main door is still closed.  There is a mirror secret door that remains closed (with no apparent way to open it) on the other side of the hallway still.  

Silas turns and questions, "Still have an location on that key?"

Sickle can sense the key, he'd figure out this door, and then to the left, maybe 100 feet? 

"I have my doubts about opening that second secret door. Badger can you open the main door with that spell of yours so we can go grab that key before it goes any further from us." Mal suggests.

Repulsed at the state of the room the ghouls are in, Badger resolves in his mind that when he eventually claims this dungeon for his own domain, this will be the very first place he sends the cleaning maids. Glancing behind again into the large room with the throne, Badger also contemplates whether that particular throne is too big and whether he should consider constructing a more gnome-sized one. A big throne does make a statement, but then can also make a small person look smaller. Decisions, decisions.

Turning his attention back to the business at hand, Badger inspects the central door. I can unlock it, if it is simply locked, Badger patiently explains the workings of his mysterious arcane power. However, it will only open of its own accord. I suppose its worth a try... Facing the main door, Badger casts Knock.

Once badger casts knock Mal will try her best to open the door.

STR check: 8

 [OOc: Of course...sigh]

Silas will try his hand at opening the door, "This is chain of exhausting events for sure,"

Strength 21

The loud knock issues from the main door.  It doesn't move, but together, Mal and Silas lift the huge stone thing up into the ceiling.  Beyond a passage stretches away. Jutting from the wall on either side of the door are two matching bronze sculptures-each the head and neck of a serpent with fangs bared. On the lintel above the door is inscribed the following message in Common: "Warm like flame, cold for the cruel, still for the dead, gruel for the ghoul."  Knowing a copper pipe reaches from there through the wall, you note dried blood and holes at the mouths of both statues. The door is heavy, and the group moves through so that Mal and Silas can lower it.  It thuds closed, but remains unlocked. 

Forty feet down the wide hallway there is a smaller hallway to the left (leading the way Sickle feels the key must be at).  Another forty feet beyond and the hallway opens up into the main stair way room, and a small balcony overlooking the four golems by the access hole down. You take a left at the small hallway. After ten feet, this dusty corridor becomes a staircase that descends fifteen feet to a lower tunnel.  Walking forward and looking down, you see, resting on the floor at the bottom of the staircase is an old treasure chest with a rusty built-in lock. Just beyond the chest, the tunnel opens up to a huge, dark chamber that you can't see into because of the angle of the stairs and hallway. 

Badger shudders to see the elaborate and grisly contraption for opening the doors, although he still fails to see why feeding blood to ghouls would cause them to pull the chain to open the door, or why the door didn't open when they attempted to pull the chain themselves. Deciding some questions can wait for another time, he follows the group into the hallway. Failing to see into the room beyond, Badger offers to conjure his Arcane Eye again and explore the area beyond the stairs.

The arcane eye slips down the stairs, past the chest, and into the large room to look around. Four marble columns support the ceiling of this grand tomb. Twin staircases ascend to an upper gallery, where a carving in the form of a giant maze adorns the wall. On the floor of the tomb stands an opaque crystal sarcophagus that is constantly changing color. Minotaur murals adorn the walls on the lower level of the tomb. The eye sees no immediate sign of the skeleton key, though Sickle insists it is somewhere in the room, based on the pull from his spell. 

Mal will creep on down the stairs to the chest and give it a once over before opening it, unless of course she finds a trap.

Stealth: 26

Investigation: 16

Mal creeps down the stairs ahead of the others.  They watch from the top of the stairs as she attempts to open the chest.  It's locked, but doesn't appear to be trapped. (Picklocks check if you wish.)

Mal Dex Check: 25

The rusty lock clicks open easily under Mal's nimble manipulations. The lid opens easily enough. Inside the box is empty. A loud click is heard from behind her. 

Those at the top of the stairs hear a loud "CLICK" from above and look up as a latch falls open.  A huge, 5 foot wide stone ball comes crashing down just in front of everyone, smashing into the top of the stairs making the ground shake and then plummets at high speed down the stairs threatening to crush Mal. 

Mal, you look up to see a stone boulder, round and smooth, come crashing down the stairs towards you.  You're ten feet from the large open room. 

Actions? 

Badger is stuck between looking at the boulder from his actual position at the top of the stairs, and looking at the boulder from below through the arcane eye. It is a bit disorienting, and he fails to come up with any helpful intervention.

I swear this place will be the death of me, Mal thinks as she quickly looks at the boulder and then looks at the room and then ducks into the room just around the corner to escape the boulder.

Mal takes a few quick steps to get her into the room and around the corner.  As she steps into the room, the stone tiled floor beneath her gives way.  

(Dex 15 saving throw with disadvantage please). 

You see a large patch of floor stretching off ten feet to both sides of the room collapse. Beneath, a glass lined pit is below, filled with a turpid green liquid. As the stone blocks fall into it, they pop and hiss, as the deep vat of acid begins to consume them. Mal is falling into it, while desperately spinning and reaching for the lip of the pit.