"Yeah, that didn't work, so plan B.  Give me the keys and I'll stick them in the holes." Grenk says.  He holds his hand out waiting for all the keys to be given.

Badger looks stunned for a moment. To fail at a spell is bad enough, but to fail at a divination spell - oh the shame! Wordlessly he hands the mirror back to Silas, but as he does he catches the cleric's reflection in the surface and shudders again as he thinks about what they are about to encounter in the very next room...

Badger rummages in his pack and hands each of the skeleton keys to Grenk one by one, checking to make sure they are all there. Maybe have your faithful and powerful servant insert the keys for you... he suggests, glancing at the genie.

Mal will move off to the side away from the group and try and blend into the background.

Stealth: 16

"And miss out on the joy of unlocking a door?  No... but I'll be careful," Grenk responds.  He heft his shield up infront of him and then puts the keys in their appropriate spot and turns them.  

They keyholes are downstairs....not up here.  The path to down below is an open stairway, which Grenk boldly strides down. His ....faithful?....servant?...hovers along behind him blocking the view for the rest of the group.  Eventually though the stairs open up into a large room.  Grenk, then his servant, then Badger, Sickle, Silas, and finally the commoner step down the last step to look around. Mal, a few steps up, is crouched in shadow, but no one seems to be looking for her at the moment.

Green smoke billows out from a bronze cauldron in the middle of this twenty-foot-high vaulted hall. Barely visible through the haze are three rocking chairs, several work benches heaped with haberdashery, a spinning wheel, and a rusty iron cage containing a prisoner. A walkway on either side of the room stand ten feet above the floor, the stairs to reach them at the far end of this smokey room.  Five wooden doors are set into the walls of the two walkways...three on the left, and two on the right, each carved with a geometric symbol: a triangle, a square, a pentagon, a hexagon, and an octagon, and with similar locks set into the door. 

At the far end of this room, near the stairs up to the galleries, set into the far wall, a twelve-foot-high, ten-foot-wide door is visible made of green stone, its surface carved with grinning goblin skeletons. A belt of smooth stone spans the door at a height of four feet, set with five gold symbols in a row: a triangle, a square, a pentagon, a hexagon, and an octagon. Each symbol is engraved on a recessed circular seal. 

The cage is fairly close by. A heavy pad lock secures the gate of the rusted cage, inside which a naked figure cowers under a bloodstained blanket. In the green smoke it's difficult to make out any more detail about the prisoner. 

(In summary, 6 exits from here.  5 doors on an upper level with walkways, each with a keyhole looking to fit the key...and the big green door with the five symbols with no obvious way to open it.) 

Badger compulsively wants to look at the prisoner, but he forces himself to look anywhere but there... or at Silas. Instead he looks around the room. With three rocking chairs and some obvious cooking or brewing going on, as well as some needlework of some kind, he is curious who might be residing down here.

Badger will activate his 'third eye' ability to see invisible creatures and objects

"Another damn locked door," Grenk says.  "How much ya wanna bet that each of those doors has has some puzzle or test to get a new key that then goes into that big green skeleton door?"

I'm not convinced the 'big green skeleton door' actually requires keys, muses Badger. Perhaps it simply opens when the other doors have been unlocked. Badger has to admit to himself that he thought the symbols on the big door were in fact keyholes when he first saw it.

Badgers focus' on his 3rd eye, but it's ability to see invisible things is pretty short range, so he begins wandering around the room, though seems to steer clear of the cage with a person in it.  He scans back and forth through the green mist for anything that he wouldn't usually be able to see.  From out of the mist, comes three little creatures. They're not invisible though, they were just hidden in the green fog.  The three tiny figures waddle toward you through the smoky haze: a straw doll with rusty pins sticking into its body, a faceless child molded from clay, and a stuffed monkey with the lower body of a unicycle. The straw doll says in a strange childlike girl voice, "You need to run away! The Sewn Sisters will be back any moment now!"

Hidden from within the shadows you hear a females voice quietly swearing, "Oh come on what the hell now?"

Although more than a little horrified at the creepy talking toys, Badger crouches down to see them better and to lower his voice, speaking as kindly as he can. Sewn Sisters? Did they make you? Where did they go?

The one made of hay with tiny hay pony tails and her little pins sticking out of her says, "The took us....and...made us into these bodies. I think I used to be a normal little girl, but it was a while ago and I've forgotten.  I'm Strawbundle, this is Clay No-Face, and the monkey is Joho."  Joho waves one hand, opens his mouth to say something, and coughs, sending bits of fluff flying out of his mouth.  "But, if they come back, they're mean and they'll kill you....you should go.....they know all about you...that guy in the cage has been telling them about you....they've been torturing him....they just sorta fade away whenever they want to...we don't know where they go...sometimes they go into our dreams...."

Grenk stared at the wierd little abomination and he was ready to smash em.  That was until one said it thought it use to be a little girl and then his mood shifted.  Them sisters were the abomination and deserved to die.

"Little ones, come here, I might be able to tell of your past.  Maybe even hear your true names before they did... this.  And don't you worry about use, we are stronger than they think and mean to put an end to their mean Ness among other things."

If one comes close Grenk would putbout a finger and use its psychometry to try and determine something about it.

16

Mal grips her crossbow a bit tighter at the words coming from the little creature and then will look at the cage and walk over to it. Trying to see who might be caged inside.

Perception: 11

Not being able to tell person from covering, she will quietly speak to the caged creature, "Who are you and how do you know of us?"

Sisters... stealing children... invading dreams...  Badger thinks he knows something of what these Sisters might be (Arcana: 29). 

He stands up from the pitiful creatures, leaving Grenk with them. He continues to scan the room, and also uses the Helm to cast Detect Thoughts in an attempt to locate thinking creatures. While doing so, he walks past the cauldron to see what might be brewing inside (another Arcana: 21), and whether it can be covered to stifle the green mist (maybe with his blanket?)

Badger tries very hard to ignore Mal's conversation with the prisoner.

(Sorry, that's a lot of activity. Take and use what you like)

Grenk walks over and ... touches the clay one who raises it's arm to touch his outstretched finger. Grenk sees a flash....of a hideous black skinned demonic creature sitting in a rocking chair moulding the little doll.  The creature wears a string of chattering children's teeth and has a heavy peg leg. As she speaks and cackles, yellow gas billows out of her nose and ears. Around her neck, she wears a pouch made from some hairy skin. She cackles and holds the bag that looks like it's made of humanoid flesh...and mutters some horrid sounding words...coaxing a faint whisp of something from the bag, then using it's sorcery to bind the mist into the thing.  He gets no more however... as the vision fades.

Badger continues to walk around the room, and begins questing with his helm as well....but isn't getting anything....  The description from the child sounds like a Hag.....a chaotic and evil witch creature...that sometimes form covens of three.  He stops at the cauldron.  A tarry greenish-black brew fills the bronze cauldron.  A large bronze lid sits on the floor nearby. Badger lifts it up and places it on top. Almost immediately the annoying green mist begins to dissipate. 

Mal walks up to the jail cell. The creature inside stirs as she approaches. She asks her question, "Who are you?"  With a sudden lunge, the creature grabs the bars and pulls it's face near her. The dark skin and strong bone structure is oh so familiar, but the muscles of the thing inside are gaunt, it's body bruised and starved. It stares at Mal with eyes she's looked back at since she joined this group.  It whispers from his husky voice, "I am Silas..."    

Mal's eyes widen and then she steps to the side so she can see Silas and the creature in the cage at the same time. Her hold on the crossbow tightens ad she raises it up not necessarily point it at Silas or the creature bot hovering in between as she quietly says, "Badger, Grenk prepare yourself. Silas come here a moment the creature in this cage has something to say to you." Then she will take a step back tensing her muscles to strike.

This is the moment Badger has been dreading for days, trying to avoid thinking about it but knowing it will eventually come. With a groan of reluctance, he looks over at the cage to get a glimpse of the mutated version of Silas.

"Well this will probably dangerous so be ready," Silas states as he approach the cage himself, "I'm Silas, Who are you?"

Silas, healthy and strong, stands outside the cage and looks down at the....Silas within the cage....beaten, tortured and starved. But...the eyes are his eyes. He stares back at himself. Then the one in the cage begins to sob..."I'm sorry....I told them everything I knew....I....I couldn't stop myself...so much pain...and no sleep...even in my dreams they tortured me, until I couldn't tell the difference....between reality and my nightmares..."    He looks up at the Silas outside the cage, "Is this a dream?  How am I outside the cage...and ....i look ok...strong...so strong...is this why you guys never came to rescue me?"  He looks up at Silas, "What are you?  A doppleganger?  An illusion?"