Rigel scratches his head and gives an exhausted sigh, "Pheeew, I don't know." the ranger laments. "All this reeks of Isolde. Fake Carp had to be a decoy to lead us into the trap. We found the portal on our own. So as much as I agree that portals should be avoided I'm inclined to believe the tracks that led us here and the randomness of the discovery. I think we should take the portal." After making sure Gundren, Sidar and Nundro are with them in the room (main not portal) he addresses them directly. " Gentlemen I can't in good conscience ask you to join us, should we go through, so I'll leave this decision up to you. It would also serve us well if you returned to Phandelin and told our tale. The rest of you what do we want to do? I vote the portal." Rigel stands stoically waiting for the vote to play out.

Even though Marcon felt much the same as Rigel, that hadn't stopped him from nodding firmly in agreement in taking the portal. Yet his resolve began to waver as it's pointed out the Rockseeker Brothers and Sildar might go another way. Before answering Rigel, Marcon began rubbing the back of his neck and eyeing up the room as if the right answer might be hidden somewhere in the burnt stonework. "I..." He trails off sighing softly, before then straightening his posture and regarding the group. "I-I still say we take the portal. Preferably all of us 'fore the rest of dem ghouls come a sniffing about the place again, or... Isolde starts getting bored clearly watch'n all this play out somehow." 

Ronk simply shrugs. "The worst case scenario is we die horribly on the other side. But I feel like we've had that possibility with every choice we've made so far so... Portal sounds fine."

Gundren and Nundro join the others in the room and evaluate Rigel and Marcon's recommendation that they follow the portal. Sildar remains outside, keeping watch with Garet. The elder dwarf kind of regards Vanzaren oddly as he sees the wizard speaking, unsure exactly who Vanzaren is addressing. He waves it off, assuming maybe he missed something.

"B'fore we go jumping through some portal to gods know where," he starts, "maybe we should..." he pauses as he begins to look around the room at the broken bits of old shelving and burned books lying around on the floor. He picks up a shard of wood about a foot long and walks over to the portal and tosses it in. The portal flashes briefly for a second as the piece of wood breaks through the plane and clatters onto the stone floor on the other side.

From outside the room, Sildar and Garet hear the sound of wood clattering onto a stone floor echoing from somewhere in the complex beyond the chamber to the south with all the poisonous fungi. "SHHH!! You hear that?"  implores the knight to Garet...."It came from that way," he says as he points south.

"Yes he.d..does it from t..time to t..time" Says Garet also nodding at Van "M..A..G..I..C.. S..P..E..A..K..I..N..G S..W..O..R..D" he finishes laud and slowly hoping that Van will confirm

As the clattering noise scatters across the complex  "Hey guys t..this room is s..somewhere h..here"

Marcon did as he's told and stayed quiet, but not without cupping a hand about an ear and strain to catch at least an echo of the noise. "Sounds like... it's coming from that bad chamber, sorta? I dunno -- BUT, it could be a shortcut 'round it all the same maybe? Otherwise, at this point, our best bet would be to double back and hope another tunnel doubles back that way. But then we're definitely gonna have to deal with those ghouls and probably then some." He asserts. "But look, I'm fine with going through first and checking things out at least. Or heck, me and Mrs., er, Lady Olrai can do it, if ya'll feel that uncomfortable either which way." Marcon went on to offer, and almost as soon as he'd have most people's approval(but especially Gundren's), he'd try step on through with his shield ready and torch ready.

Gundren puts out a hand to ward Marcon back from advancing through the portal. "Now just hold on there me boy," he says calmly, "remember our deal - you stick next to me and I'll tell ya when to go and what to swing at." With his other hand the dwarf points two forked fingers at his eyes reminding Marcon to watch him and look for his signal. "Hey, er...bugbear..." he then says towards Ronk, "maybe ask yer djinni girlfriend if she wouldn't mind hoping through yonder portal, hmm?"

Marcon frowns, and for a moment looks as if he might argue with the dwarf... and maybe thensome. But then after a moment or two, he lets out a sigh of huff of defeat and stood back from the portal to wait, shooting Olrai an apologetic look before looking to the ground. 

Rigel marvels a bit at Gundrens ability to slow Marcons impulses. "Good idea. Perhaps she can come back through the danger zone just to confirm," Rigel pauses a moment with a stiff swallow, "that Carp didn't succumb to the gas. Of course that's if this comes out down the hall like it seems."

Ronk shrugs. "Yeah, that's probably a better plan." He turns to the Djinni. "I wis- Er. I'd like you to go through the portal, please, and tell us if it's safe on the other side. Um... Please?"

"...can you guys not hear her?" Van asks, looking around before back down at the sword.

Marcon snapped a bit to attention and cocked his head to the side. "Here... who? Isolda? 'cause if so, naw." His eyes than narrow at Vanzaren. "You... aight man? You're not hearing voices like I was earlier are ya?"

Orai sheathes her swords and does as Ronk requests. The large djinni steps through the portal at the back of the closet then proceeds to re-enter demonstrating that the portal is apparently safe.

Gundren also responds to Vanzaren: "Hear what lad? Alls we hear is you talking to no one while you look at that sword..."

Ronk nods as the djinni emerges from the portal. "I think the portal is safe. Or safe enough." He frowns, hearing Vanzaren's question about 'hearing her'. "She didn't really say anything," he said, nodding at Olrai. "Just stepped through the portal and I guess back out." 

"Well, only one thing left to do now," says Gundren. The dwarf unties a rope from his pack and hands one end of it to his brother. "Pull me back through if I go to screamin', but if all seems well, I'll give three short tugs on this rope," he says and then steps through the portal after a brief sigh to calm his nerves. The others watch as he enters the magic gate and appears on the other side unharmed. He turns and motions for the others to follow, tugging gently on the rope to reaffirm that he is indeed okay on the other side.

Garet and Sildar begin to hear the faint echo of long, sharp fingernails scraping against stone and realize that the four ghouls are not far off from the cavern. "We should go...NOW," commands the knight and proceeds to herd the others into the room and towards the portal in the closet.

"..." Van looks very concerned even as he stumbles through the portal.

Ronk shrugs and steps on through the portal.

"...Van?" Marcon repeats as Van hesitates to answer. But once side-tracked catching Gundren stepping through the portal ahead of him to further testing things out, and then further urged to step through by Sildar, any thought of questioning Van further falls completely to the wayside as Marcon ducked through the portal as well, only to try and find a spot to be ready to smack a ghoul should any follow after the group.

With a determined tilt of his head Rigel jumps through.

The rest of the party advances through the portal, emerging on the other side in a dark storage room full of dusty kegs are tucked neatly against the walls, all of them cracked and split open from age, the contents of which have long evaporated. A heavy door on the southern wall is closed, but no locking mechanism is present.