Lost Lab of Kwalish

<So, there are options. One is to try to move through the midden without slipping into the pit.  If you pick that, I think the fairest thing is a single group check so we're less likely to see a single failure and if you do fail, you're all in there together.  Of course.the check would only be the average of those who choose to move that way (which you are aware has a hidden door by which you could escape, at this point).  This is the most tactical part if this campaign so far if you choose to pursue it.  Alternatively, you could go back out into the L-shaped room where owlbears are tearing apart lizardfolk shamans and renders (right outside Thesselar's lab) and make your way,  as you please, through that room - possibly also through the secret door.  And of course, there's the ever-present time travel button.

The choices are yours and yours alone!>

Tetrevess - carefully not entering the disgusting room, thinks to the group “I have a means to see down there and help in a fight from here, but I cannot kill such a creature on my own,  and I am not entering that room unless there is a strong reason for it.  I understand we know where that concealed door goes?” 

(OOC.  Tetrevess will look to etrigan for the decision.   If we do choose to cross, we can rig up a rope or something to try to keep from falling all the way into the pit, and he could use shape water to clear a path and even make a little ice ridge to prevent us from falling in to the pit.   

(While the door is open, can Barril determine if the walls are textured enough and the ceiling high enough to allow him to enter without touching the floor and take a position on the ceiling where he could rain arrows down on this creature and remain out of its reach?)

<ooc; Unless he's a chitine or a dhampir or something, I don't think he'll have much luck with those dex checks.  The walls are hewn stone like most of this part of the temple (the lab space) and even more damp than average, so if we need DCs, I'd go with 17 for the walls, 20 for the ceiling and shooting is at disadvantage unless it's with a hand crossbow and you can see the target at the bottom of a pit with (currently) no illumination.

As you all contemplate your decision, you recieve a message telepathically telling you: "This way is safest.  Avoid the fighting." The "voice" is calm and soothing, with the innocence of a young girl.  Perhaps this is how your mind reconstructs the telepathic pattern your brain receives or perhaps it is a reconstruction of the sender's actual tone and timber.

Huarache jumps straight up hearing the telepathy, and as he lands, he tries to detect any nearby magic, saying in a low voice, "Where did that come from?"

OOC: I may be showing off with my tooltips just a bit. Also, Huarache probably knows about telepathy as a Thing, but he's trying to find its source.

Telepathy not caused by a spell is what Crawford /v5e calls "background magic" i.e. Dragon's.  3.5 called these Supernatural abilities or Spell-like abilities.  This is one of those and is not noted by detect magic.  However... make an Arcana check.

Etrigan/Barbatos assumes "This way" means across the room with the refuse to the concealed door in the west wall. "Let´s get across then, and leave the tentacled creature where it is." He messages to the others. He will quickly unfold his portable hole for the others to climb into (also hopefully saving them from the con save), then float away pulling himself along the wall to the concealed door and letting the others back out as soon as he enters the next room.
Arcana check with help from Grygaxx:22

“Why is there squid on land” Sam say with wonder 

OOC do I still have the lizardfolk that were tasked with me? 

Quote from Legion4 >>

“Why is there squid on land” Sam say with wonder 

OOC do I still have the lizardfolk that were tasked with me? 

 I'm going to say they are also aiding the shamans as they are attacked by owl bears.  This will not increase the number of monsters engaged in combat if the party does join the fray.

Quote from Oberon99 >>

Etrigan/Barbatos assumes "This way" means across the room with the refuse to the concealed door in the west wall. "Let´s get across then, and leave the tentacled creature where it is." He messages to the others. He will quickly unfold his portable hole for the others to climb into (also hopefully saving them from the con save), then float away pulling himself along the wall to the concealed door and letting the others back out as soon as he enters the next room.
Arcana check with help from Grygaxx:23

 Grygaxx whispers to Etrigam that the Otyugh communicates telepathically and has a rapacity that can know no satiety.  

Otyughs make the most of any opportunity to ambush and devour prey. They use a limited form of telepathy to urge sentient creatures toward their lairs, sometimes by pretending to be something else.

<Etrigan floats?> <<Edit: ahh, Ascendant Step invocation. Nice.>>

"The target can move only by pushing or pulling against a fixed object or surface within reach (such as a wall or a ceiling), which allows it to move as if it were climbing. You can change the target's altitude by up to 20 feet in either direction on your turn. If you are the target, you can move up or down as part of your move"

<So, it sounds like a very low DC climb check, but the risk is missing the push and getting stuck over the pit.  This would essentially be a critical failure.  Etrigan can then use his movement to float to the top of the room and crawl away to the far end he was aiming for via the ceiling, but he will have passed within 5ft of the hole in the course of travel?

Sounds ok?  (If you tell me he goes straight for the ceiling, I'm lowering the ceiling.)

Climb check (Str (Athletics)) to push off the walls and steer clear of the pit. DC 5 (it's really 10 in my mind but with no consequence unless it's by 5 or more, so just 5)>

Also, take an inspiration die for the while portable hole thing.  BTW. They can breathe for 10 minutes / number of creatures, so 2.5 minutes die the 4 of them.

Ertigan would still make the Con save.  DC 12 or poisoned. (DA on ability checks and attack rolls) 

"It´s just the Otyugh trying to trick us with the telepathy." Etrigan/Barbatos messages the others.
Etrigan/Barbatos athletics check to move to the concealed door bringing everyone willing to enter the portable hole:4

(OOC: Thanks for inspiration :-) Etrigan/Barbatos already succeeded with the con save (post #3603) If either Huarache or Sam would know there would be no point in getting to the room beyond the conecealed door in I presume they would have informed Etrigan of that.)

Immediately using inspiration for Athletics roll:13

Etrigan successfully sticks close to the walls of the midden, floating above the slippery sloped stone floor as the others and anxiously await in a pocket sized pocket dimension (it's roughly the size of an elevator car)

Grygaxx alone sees the tentacle that reaches around the rim of the pit in the floor, feeling foray (for any)  new nourishment nearby before withdrawing back into the dark depression.

Etrigan can try to open the secret door or let the others out of the 【sic portable】 hole first.   They are now in the save same space where comvatvis combat is happening, so there is a chance they will be caught up in the fighting - or other things could happen【,】 the more time they spend here.

It's unclear how many creatures are still involved, as the battle occurs partly out of sight around the corner, but there is at least one owlbear in addition to bear-bear (the 2-headed) and 1 render and 1 shaman still fighting, but there may be more at he north end of the L-shaped room.

If Etrigan or anyone else tries ro open the secret door, you pick how to opium open the door. Any Atticus skill check has a DC12. 

Portable hole rules apply, so if Etrigan doesn't let everyone out,  they can still force their way out with a strength check. 

(OOC: I think perhaps auto correct messes with your texts Wile. Maybe read through them before posting since decrypting them can be really hard sometimes. Are you telling us the "concealed" door we are trying to go through now is leading back to the L-shaped room or what? Post #3604 said there was a concealed door in the west end of the midden making me think there was a concealed door in the west wall not visible on the map. It wouldn´t make sense to go through with the floating and all just to go back to the same room, would it? If our only choices are to be poisoned or stay in the L-shaped room I think we will stay in the L-shaped room but try to let the owlbears and the lizard folk fight it out for now helping the lizard folk when drawn into the fight.)

Minor corrections made. Less opium picking now. I don't know if that made it any clearer in regards to your question.  On the map, you've gone clockwise around the room.  You see in the overhead view another room through the west wall of the L.  The rooms are connected by the hidden passage.  The midden is an appendix to this lab with two entrances, architecturally similar to a Jack-and-Jill bathroom or any of a variety of common-spaces, with the odd quirk (not my map) that the two doors both access the same room.

                            The midden is right here ------‐--------------------------------♠︎

<Edit; I see #3604 where I said "the room".  I should have elaborated "the L shaped room" or "the laboratory"   I also see the west wall is up against some grey smudges I made, exacerbating thr issue.

I'm not saying there's a combat the characters are involved in.  I'm just pointing out that there's some sort of urgency as you are still fleeing the chaotic scene.  Mechanically it doesn't actually matter much, just that there is some time pressure.  I shouldn't say it, but that Otyugh is perfectly capable of crawling out of that pit and there are some other things, too.  Like all the lizardfolk saw you take this button and let the owl bears loose then step into the midden, so it's not a great hiding spot.  But you can go right through the secret door I just invented on the fly so you don't have to fight your way through the parliament of owl bears and lizardfolk unless you want to, spending no resources at all to do so and find yourself in the relative safety of the now empty lab where Stalos was torturing Big Gadai and Mack Francache.>

20  investigation  (passive 20)

Tetrevess hops out of the portable hole with a grin on his lizard face, and promptly begins searching the lab for anything of interest or value.  

I’m sorry I didn’t see the arcana request earlier; today’s been busy. 25.

Etrigan/Barbatos tries to quickly open the secret door, supposedly with help from someone. Athletics check?!:10
(anyone else have a go please)
If he/they succeeds he then enters the next room and hopefully the others follow quickly.

(OOC: Yes, I am really trying to leave the room as soon as possible. Is the secret/concealed door locked or stuck or what? Please try to be clerarer about these things. If it´s locked I guess Barril could lend a hand?! If we get into the next room beyond the secret/concealed door please try to be really clear about which room on the map we are in then. This would be much easier if we had a map with numbered rooms I think. Btw Shoni, I think the arcana check was about the Otyugh sending the telepathic message earlier, which Etrigan already has informed Huarache about.)

I'm just trying to.mask the fact there is no door so you can just escape to the next area.  You've already got the loot, so running makes sense and seems to be the intent.  It's a secret door, so I would think investigation or perception makes sense.  The other such door (which actually leads to the Temple part of the complex (where Etrigan started)  and contains all of the unexplored rooms had a similar thing, where there were some knows and the box text suggest yiur successful check had you noticing which are the most worn.  With a good perception or investigation check I would have described something similar.  If you forced the door wirh a good athletics check or tried slight of hand, I would have said you defeat whatever mechanism keeps it closed.  I was deliberately vague about the check to let anyone try with their best skill and succeed.  The help advantaged str check is to open the portable hole, as indicated in the description of portable hole.