Pizazz's Ravenloft and Beyond

You head down the spiral staircase and arrive at the next floor down, seeing a short hallway, two empty alcoves, and a whole lotta dead rats.  Ahhh.  You're here.  Easy enough.  You can descend all the way to the water from here, or go explore that big hallway on the floor above where this elevator trap got all of you (and where Meepo's errant skeletons are probably hanging out.)

Meepo heads back to collect his skeletons. Then he would want to just move on downward, his desire for checking out that area a bit diminished now.

"I guess it's a swim after all. Though we can stop to pick up your skeletons, Meepo." Not like Lionel liked skeletons much but they did prove to be useful and useful things here seemed to end quickly.

"Meepo thanks the Lionel..." Meepo says with a glance to the now-dwarf. He hunches in his cloak, atop his skeleton as he has the skeleton move to the door they went through just before the strange upward-moving room thing happened.

     "At least they're dead, not undead..." Ketch says, nodding his head towards the rats.  Then he instantly regrets saying anything.  Gruumsh says not to tempt fate or fate will kick you in your tenderloins....  

Meepo glances at Ketch with a sullen glare at the, clearly descrimitory, remark against undead. "Meepo undead..." He says with a flash of pointed teath from atop his skeleton. "My trusted friends undead..." He says, patting the skull of the skeleton he rides.

The group soon enough finds themselves at the bottom, wading through three feet of cold, dark, icky undead bit filled water, wading past the torture chamber where you clamber up onto the viewing balcony, pulling skeletons up, before moving through the curtain. The door to the strange teleporting brazier room remains open how you left it. 

The three doors on the far side of the brazier room all remain closed and unexplored. You take a few moments to open each and peer through, one at a time. The left door opens and reveals a long stairway that leads upwards for a long way before reaching a landing and turning left to continue upwards. 

The middle door reveals a short stairway that leads to a hallway that runs to the right.  

The right door reveals a winding stairway that leads upwards. 

"Huh. I wasn't expecting them all to lead upwards. Seems like we might be in for more reckless exploring. Do we take the one that leads the least-up? The middle one?"

"Where are the ghosts when you need them! No, not you!" Lionel caught and tried again. "What I meant to say,  is yes, that sounds most logical. We still want the crypt and it can not bee too far up." He carefully made the first step and slowly walked up to the hallway that runs to the right.

     "You are an ally, Meepo.  A friend.  That is what defines you to me, not your lack of life.  Rats, on the other hand... I hate rats. Live or undead.  Both want nothing than to chew and bite and sicken. So apologies, but I prefer rats dead.  Plain old ordinary dead," Ketch explains...

     "Before we pick a staircase..." Ketch points to the hourglass and reads one of the lines:  "'Green to where the coffins hide.' Perhaps there is easier way to find the catacombs?"

That also sounded reasonable. Lionel missed action but not so much to ignore reasonable suggestions. Before venturing up, he looked at Meepo: "Can we send Rat to check the green path?"

Meepo looked between the three doors, then to the teleportation device, as he thought of it. "Meepo send Rat." He agrees with a shrug. He has the zombie flying cat use the green stone in the fire. As soon as Rat disappears Meepo will see if his connection is broken again, as it was last time. If it is he immediately summons rat back to his side and has the familiar report in on what it saw.

Meepo sends Rat.....losing touch with him immediately and summoning him back quickly.  Rat reports which Meepo describes to the rest of the party, "It was in the town....in a burned out ruin of a building...the one in Vallaki where we fought those vampires, in the coffin makers shop." 

Now where?

"Well, unless we are going to try the yellow that leads "to the master’s tomb" - we can as well go on foot upstairs. I say, by this time the whole place is aware of our presence. Why not try that yellow?"

     “Follow the yellow stone path... has a ring to it, I suppose,” Ketch says with a shrug.  “Anything is better than standing around waiting...”

"Meepo say tries stairs, no want go master tomb." He sends Rat up the central door's stairs to scout in that direction.

(DragonDenn, FYI, your "status" on your posts says:  "Unable to Post!Status: normal availability.") 

Meepo sends Rat the undead flying cat flying up the short stairs.  The door creaks open to reveal a stone staircase between rough masonry walls. There is little dust on the steps, but light fog tumbles down the steps from above. It reaches the hallway above which runs to the right. The tunnel is cut into the Pillarstone of Ravenloft itself. Its surface is slick, and its ceiling is barely 6 feet high. A lingering fog limits visibility to a few feet.

At the end of the hallway Rat finds a closed door. Rat struggles to get a paw into the doorframe enough to work the door open, and eventually does, squeezing through into the space beyond. Buried deep beneath the keep of Ravenloft lie ancient catacombs, with arched ceilings supported by wide, hol­low columns that double as crypts. Cobwebs hang limp in the musty air. A thick fog clings to the floor, which is covered in putrid waste. The black ceiling is moving. Rat, peering up twenty feet to the ceiling above sees a mass of squirming bats covering the entire ceiling.  This crypt room stretches off in every direction into blackness. 

Meepo, not wishing Rat to be eaten by bats, calls him back to his side.  “Rate find catacombs...” He tells the others.  He nods to the central door.  “Meepo say go...”  He stars in that direction.  “Meepo want someone lead watch traps...” He glances to the others to see if soemone will agree to do so, as he does not wish to set off another trap...  “Also, catacombs have many bats...”

"Bats... Does not sound that frightening. The fog, though... Covered floor is not a good sign." The floor covered with water did not look that frightening either. "Meepo, can one of your skeleton walk a bit ahead? We can try and carefully get across that big room to at least make sure there are no other doors. Or, may be, follow the wall? If the other side can not be seeing, that would be safer. Anyway, would you send your skeleton with me?"

With or without skeleton Lionel waled up the stairs, opened the door and stepped inside the bat-room.

Meepo, and his skeletons, follow after Lionel, until they reach the bat room. he then would let one of his skeletons move forward to start across.