Hmmm.  Wow, so it does!  Alrighty then.  Meepo handles the ring and feels a slight tingling from it's extremely smooth surface.  It seems to be more than a normal ring.

"Meepo no like swim..."  Meepo complains as he steps into the water in the room ahead.  "Rat Go..."  He gestures towards the ledges along the room, having the familiar do a scout of them to make sure no enemies lay in wait there.  Meepo himself heads towards the dias, climbing the stairs there to get out of the water.

(How deep is the water anyway?  Meepo is only 2 and 1/2 feet tall...)

Kane ignites a second torch and follows Meepo. His storm grey eyes miss nothing as he examines the chamber for hidden passages and traps.

Investigation: 25

Olin thinks back over their time in the basement, trying to remember if he's seen any small animals. Spiders, rats, bats, anything. He also looks around the room they are in, and the one they're going to, searching for any living critters.

Perception, 7

(OOC: Did you say the mechanism for raising the portcullis was in the room? I'm sure you referred to it at some point but can't find it. If it's beside the portcullis itself and is obvious and easy to find, Mordekai will attempt to open it.) 

Meepo sinks into the water up to his chest, two feet deep.  The rest of the group, the water is just past your knees.  Mordekai walks over to the mechanism next to the portucullis and cranks the wheel.  The iron gate lifts with a metallic shriek.  Olin looks around for critters, spotting several spiders clinging in corners, as well as a few centipedes and other creepy crawlies moving about here or there, but nothing bigger. 

Rat flaps over to one of the ledges, coming to an uneasy landing and peering about the room.

Meep clambers up the stairs and onto the dias, Kane just behind him.  As soon as he steps on the top stair the silence of the room is broken as the chanting suddenly rises from the air around you all once more. Thirteen dark apparitions appear on the ledges overlooking the room, one is right next to Rat who hops aside reflexively. Each one resembles a black-robed figured holding a torch, but the torch's fire is black and seems to draw light from Kane's torch towards them, darkening the room further. Where you'd expect to see faces, the are just black voids.  The chanting has changed, as they say, "One must die!  One must die! One must die!" over and over. 

"Who one must die?" Meepo asks in a loud voice, at least as loud as he can manage.  "One us?"

Insight:  4

Kane sighs. “Assuming there are no ready volunteers, it would appear we are in for a battle.” 

He reaches instinctively for The Necronomicon.

Mordekai's eyes involuntarily dart to Rat for a moment, then back to Meepo, hoping he didn't notice. Mordekai rebukes himself internally, 'Meepo certainly wouldn't take kindly to the idea of sacrificing his familiar in place of another member of the party, no matter how noble an end it would make for Rat. But the voices don't specify what has to die, just "one" something.'

He says out loud, making sure not to look in Meepo's direction so as to avoid suggesting anything, "Does anyone have *anything* we can kill?"

(To clarify, Mordekai genuinely does not want to sacrifice Rat) 

"I assumed they meant one of us. Do you think that any one would do? An elf, a cat, a rat, or... a spider?" Olin muses, thinking of the multitude of creepy crawlies living down in the basement.

Insight, 18

Olin guesses that the strange apparitions are looking for a sacrifice.  Who knows if crushing a spider on their alter will count as "one", or if they're looking for something more substantial. Olin captures a spider in his hands from a web next to the door, and wades across the rooms water, stepping up on to the dias stairs, water streaming behind him.  He heads up the dias, and holds out his hand to Meepo, a spider crouched in his palm.  

Mordekai watches from near the door, wondering if the clearly not-alive Rat would even count as a sacrifice, as the idea to crush a bug and satisfy these strange dark apparitions is put forward. 

"I am sorry, small friend." Olin says to the spider. "Silvanus requests your sacrifice, that this evil may be removed and nature restored."

Meepo takes the spider with a shake of his head.  He moves over to the alter and simply slaps his hand onto the alter with the spider in it, squishing it on the alter, making sure the spider is under his hand and against the alter, if that makes any difference.

With a loud "smack", the small Kobold crushes the innocent spider (don't worry, it's actually a murderer and has murdered three other bugs, including a fellow spider just this morning, your conscience is clean) beneath his palm and into the alter.  The chant of the apparitions stops, and there is a moment of silence...and then they slowly fade away.   However slowly increasing from a bare whisper until it's loud enough to hear comes the chanting of "He is Ancient. He is the Land."  The chanting fills the room but seems to reach it's original volume and just continue, incessantly. 

Olin, as you were glancing around the room, looking for creature, you'd moved closer to the hole in the far wall that has a large pile of garbage in it. Now that things seem less urgent you glance around , and you see it shift slightly. You watch, but it's now still again.  Looking at it, you begin to suspect it's not just a pile of garbage.   But, it doesn't seem to be moving at the moment. 

"Meepo glad no kill Rat..."  Meepo says with a shrug as he wipes the spider guts on his tunic.  "Takes time summon Rat again..."  He explains as he moves around and checks around the dias for anything of interest.

Investigation:  17

(Does Rat see anything else up on those ledges?)

Rat perception: 9

"That...worked?" Mordekai exhales, shocked. "I mean, the voices seemed so zealous and fervent in their calls for death. But it seems we have simply placated them for a time...until the next unfortunate souls are lured in here. Do we now go back through this place, seeking the source of its malevolence? This basement alone seemed like a maze of horrors."

Having opened the portcullis, Mordekai will search the walls of the chamber for any more hidden doors and secrets, but avoiding the pile of refuse in the breach of the wall, which he suspects to be where the remains of every previous victim of the house's sordid history has been dumped.

Investigation: 4

Kane scratches his chin. “Well played.”

He proceeds to tie his rope around the hilt of one of his daggers. Once he is sure the apparitions are gone, he will use it as a makeshift grappling hook to secure it in an alcove and climb up.

(I’m not sure what check to make, if any)

It not an alcove, it's a walkway / ledge around the outside of the room, and there are stairs leading up to them so you don't need to use a grapple (though, you'd just do an athletics check).  The group searches the room thoroughly, but doesn't find anything else of interest aside from the pile of refuse which people pointedly avoid.  

"Meepo no find..."  Meepo says as he finishes looking around.  "Maybe head back?"  He suggests.  He thinks of all of the halls and such they did not check out yet and hopes to get a chance to look for more lost things.  "Monster no here..."

If the others agree...

"Rat Go..."  Meepo says, nodding towards the way that Mordekai opened for them.  He heads back to the dry room past the raised gate.  Meepo would move back to the last place they had to pick a direction and check out the other way there.  (I can look back through the posts later to see what that would be if needed.)

(I believe it was down some stairs from the crossroads, we turned left instead of right? So get to that junction and go straight ahead rather than retracing our steps further.)

"Yes, I agree. We should go back and see what else we can find about this place so we can undo its evil."