Aga, leaning against the wall with her lance suddenly perks up, a tingling in her spine as the first hint of sounds from the Grick occurs.  In the blink of an eye she's leaping across the room, sliding across the corner of the table and slamming her lance into the Grick as it emerges from hiding to attack.  The lance strikes it, and then she pushes it further on, skewering the creature, a spray of black blood spouting from it's back and drenching the alcove.  

As the creature's body spasms and dies it's tentacles swipes out at it's murderer.... Attack: 16 Damage: 6

Having struck her, it's tentacles manages to pull Aga close enough to try and dig it's beak into her. Attack: 5 Damage: 6

Then it's dead body slumps back, ichor draining down the tip of the lance that's pierced through its back. 

As the rest of the group un-tenses, the battle done before it had really started, there's a moment of silence.  Then a torch flares up as Kane, his face furrowed and looking a bit frustrated glances around the room.  His nose squishes up at the site of the dead Grick now being kicked off of the end of Aga's lance.  With the orange light cascading around the room, everyone sees the grime and cobwebs that decorate the corners and each gap between the old cracked wooden beams. 

Ten minutes later the group is ready to continue, with Olin focused on his spell as he glances around looking for magic.  (again, a dim layer of alteration and illusion magic fills the area, but no other magic aura's greet your new expanded senses). 

Aga let's out a low growl, at first as a release of tension, then as a challenge to any other monstrosity within earshot.

Mordekai stands and stares for a few seconds, taking in the fact that a monstrosity appeared out of nowhere, came towards him, and was instantly and brutally dispatched by Aga, all before Mordekai had time to flinch. 

Mordekai turns to look at Aga for a moment as Kane's torch flickers into life. "That was...wow. Well, I'm certainly glad you're on our side! And apologies if my carelessness brought that thing upon us."

Coming out of his reverie as he replays the moment briefly in his head, he says to Olin, "Do you sense anything? Any preference to which direction we go now?"

(What happened to the children's ghosts, by the way? Did they just stop at the bottom of the stairs?) 

Meepo will look in the alcove, then head on towards the stairs.

Perception for alcove: 5

Standing at the top of the stairs, Meepo looks it over.  "Left go right, straight go left..."  He considers.  "maybe two meet up..."  Glancing to the right passage.  "Right go left and right, but straight no go right..."

"Rat go..."  He sends the zombie down the stairs to the left and around to see if it joins up with the stairs that go straight.  "Rat scout..."  He informs the others.

Rat perception: 18

"Aga, the more I get know you the less I feel like I know you! That was a truly impressive display! Perhaps once we're out of here you can tell us a little more about yourself." Olin says, smiling. To Mordekai, "This place is full of illusions, alterations, but in a general way. I think the whole place is magical. My spell is not giving me any indication as to where we should go. Was that beast the only thing in that alcove?"

 Aga stops growling as she hears that her companions are okay. She shakes her head a bit and turns to Olin with a smile. "I...suppose that would be nice. But, believe me, there isn't much to tell."

Kane is somewhat disappointed by the swift conclusion to the battle, but he cannot help but be impressed.

”A mighty feat.” He says, nudging the grick with his boot. “The battle was finished ere I lit my torch.”

(the children abruptly vanished from the bottom of the stairs, after complaining about being left alone)

Once Olin is done his spell the group follows Meepo back towards the stairs.  

At the bottom of the stairs, a hallway runs to the right about twenty feet or so then turn left or right.  The hallway to the left actually goes down more stairs, to a landing, and then curves to the right.  Meepo clearly can tell that the chanting is coming from that way. 

"Chanting this way..."  Meepo says, indicating the direction he hears the chanting from.

Aga will lead down the hallway Meepo indicates.

The stairs lead down to a landing, which swing in a u-turn and continue downwards.  They lead down for a while, the rough clay walls giving way to more patches of worn stone. Eventually you reach another landing, a turn to the left, and another staircase that opens up into what seems to be a larger room. Climbing down quietly, the group finds a room twenty five feet long and fifteen feet wide, with wooden pillars every five feet holding up the stone ceiling. There are two exits, one hallway to the right, and another hallway also to the right and further on. There are also 13 small alcoves dug into the walls containing all manner of items.  Meepo's senses come alive at the site of all the unique and varied items that are surely lost. He sees tiny objects such as a small mummified hand, a bone knife, a steel dagger with a rat skull pommel, a small small shiny orb, a leather cloak, a dried frog strapped to a stick, a bag of something, a severed finger, a small statue of a mummy, an iron pendant with a devils face, a shrunken shrived head, and a small little box. None of these items emanate any magic to Silas. 

The chanting fills this room and is clearly coming from the second hallway on the right.  The words here are clearer and you hear them chanting "He is the Ancient. He is the Land" over and over. 

"Meepo, don't touch any of those things. I have the feeling none of them are lost, but are exactly where they are intended to be. Also, I expect at least some of them may be trapped or cursed. We may wish to remove our destroy them at some point, to stop some kind of ritual or other, but we should be very careful about what we touch down here."

meepo cannot restrain himself and moves over to start putting things onto his floating disk.  as long as he triggers no traps he will put everything on the disk before they move forward.

"Lost... Lost... Lost..."  Meepo would be mumbling to himself as he works.  "Why lost things... No learn not lose things..."  He wonders who would have left so much laying around like this and thinks he best teach more people about not losing their stuff.  Seems like there is a lot of people left to teach.

Kane examines the shriveled hand with interest.

”I do not sense anything arcane about these objects. Nevertheless, we should proceed with caution.” He adds with a meaningful glance at Meepo.

Blowing out his torch, he approaches the chamber where the chanting emanates from.

Stealth: 21

Mordekai winces as Meepo wanders through the room touching *everything*.  With a sigh, he nods at Kane and follows quietly.

Stealth: 9

Olin whispers, "You are correct Kane, there is no magic to any of these things, no matter how bizarre they look."

Stealth, 23

Stealth for Aga: 12