Lost Lab of Kwalish

Sam looks at the daemon “explain your self, what is your name and why should we help you” 

Gravity settles herself into a comfortable position near the southernmost pit, and spreads the stolen spell scroll on the ground. Her baggy, loose set of clothes will offer her more room to spread her limbs when she examines the content of the scroll. An illusory image (Prestidigitation) of smoking pipe appears in her hand and she pretends to inhale small puffs of smoke. (Smoking kills)

"The Chapel.  Stop Phenex.  Save me. Tarnhem is his word.  Stop ceremony.  Weapons in altar.  Potions. Scrolls.  Three chests.  Open together.  Save me.  Bad. blood. must stop. Bad Blood."

The balor, evidently called Tarnhem, continues to project pained words into your minds as he says rhe same in abyssal.  

<Barril would know where the chapel is, and probably that Phenex is the house cleric.  I think a history check could decide how much he knows about the balor in the ball at the end of the hall>

When the balor 'Tarnhem' mentions the words 'Potion', 'Scroll' and 'Chests'; Gravity moves near the southernmost end and pulls out a set of Pliers and attempts to cut the silver wires attached to the binding mechanism.

Dexterity: (Tinker's Tool) 16 (Rolled with advantage from 'Tool Proficiency')

The name Tarnhem echoes in Kilis brain. Is this him? She draws closer to him, inspects his wounds to see if any of them could have been caused by a paladin. Did he even get this far, she wondered?

Medicine 12

“Did Pentival find you? Have you seen a group of paladins?” She asks the Baylor.

Rare and looks the balor up and down. "I believe a demon just asked us to kill a man for treasure. Ain't that the damnest thing. Anyone know where to find this Phenex? All of a sudden I find myself curious as to who has bested this demon."

Quote from InkedBee >>

When the balor 'Tarnhem' mentions the words 'Potion', 'Scroll' and 'Chests'; Gravity moves near the southernmost end and pulls out a set of Pliers and attempts to cut the silver wires attached to the binding mechanism.

Dexterity: (Tinker's Tool) 16 (Rolled with advantage from 'Tool Proficiency')

Make a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or take 10 force damage. 

Quote from BisAmandum >>

The name Tarnhem echoes in Kilis brain. Is this him? She draws closer to him, inspects his wounds to see if any of them could have been caused by a paladin. Did he even get this far, she wondered?

Medicine 12

“Did Pentival find you? Have you seen a group of paladins?” She asks the Baylor.

 "Chapel.  Not strong enough." Tarnehm says in reply to the query about Paladins 

<Moghadam had mentioned Phenex was waiting.  "Two rights and a left.  You can't miss him"  I'd say I'm spoiling it, but I think youve alreadu forgotten..  anyhow, these are good directions (and also a reference to Phenex's appearance).

So far you turned right to enter this area, headed south, and there is an open corridor to your right, though the tunnel at the bottom of the pit also goes right.

Constitution Saving Throw: 10

“Ok- we will go find this Phenex-  shall we continue? Tetrevess says.  

Ana's alarm levels started high when seeing the powerful demon, and only kept rising as the others bantered with it and actually seemed to intend to aid it. Did they think it would reward them? These monsters knew nothing of honor, being chaos incarnate. Didn't they know that...? Actually they probably didn't. She considered her options. She couldn't just tell them without compromising her cover - a lost youngling from another plane ought not to have such arcane knowledge. She came here for a reason, had a task to accomplish in service of the Queen, but if they were planning to attack this 'Phenex' just to unleash a demon lord who would probably slaughter them all as soon as they did, then they were no longer assets to her. They were liabilities. Yet she needed them, couldn't do the job alone.

She gritted her teeth. She had to get their minds back on track, get them to abandon this idea. She spoke up, pitching her voice to be as reasonable and persuasive as she could. "This creature seems strong. Really strong. Whoever bound it like this must have been even stronger, then. Right? Could we even handle them? Maybe we should stick to the mission we have."

Kili looks at Ana and then at the baylor.
”My knowledge of these … things… are limited. But I can understand your concern. I have no reason to trust it, I only know that good men came her to defeat it at yet it still is here. If the information it has given us it true it has at least been useful. My mission is to find the paladins, this creature has given me the first clue to where to find them. I do not trust it, but I will investigate non the less.” she looks back at the demon. “If it is telling the truth, I may come back and finish it’s life. I think it would be a kindness at this point”

She will then go to the pit with the ladder and look down it and then look past it to the corridor.

”I think the safest way is down the hole, if there are things waiting for us I think they would expect us to come down the corridor. What do you think?” She says, turning to the party.

“Let us go and find this person” Sam will leave the room and follow the balors instructions 

Turning towards Ana at her cautionary remarks, Raeland laughs, "Aye, your reasoning is sound. Which is why we should go see who imprisoned such a beastie. We don't be trusting the demon cause it looks like the upstanding sort, we be listening to a desperate trapped animal that's told us where there's a good fight and some shiny loot. Maybe we help this balor afterwards, maybe we don't."

With that Raeland nods at Kili's suggestion, "Best get to checking what's down that tunnel first." As he starts down the ladder.

Failing any other interactions, Raeland will now use his echo to scout the tunnel. He is careful not to move too far away from Gravity, and summon his echo out of sight of the original group (assuming that Ana and Gravity would have seen it at some point). Transferring his consciousness, he moves the echo along the tunnel...

Gravity will frequently check out the condition of Raeland when he summons his echo, but she will remain outside the pit and impatiently pace across the length of the tunnel while trying to start small conversation with the Muralists:

"Do you use the western side entrance? What's behind the door?"- she asks one of them, then engages in conversation with another person, "Have you seen a place here with three chests inside it?"

"What's the point of letting a jeweled demilich and a metal-thirsty arthropod terrorize the place? 

"What does the weird-looking machine do?"

"Do you want to buy this 'Dark Shard Amulet' (nothing but a common jewelry)? The green material is extracted from some kind of extraplanar material (actually a Tourmaline), it might help you to draw better portraits."

Charisma: Deception 6

"This place is built for a demili h, but the one terrorizing us is no lich, just the architect.  He keeps a very close eye on things."

"Have they put in a West entrance?" That guy just can't leave well enough alone, always building more and more things into this place.  I suppose he'll want us to tile that as well."

Seeing the jewelry,  the teifling replies with a laugh "I wish, for what Moghadam pays us, I'll be lucky to afford a new set of brushes.  He makes us buy our own, you know.  Still, a chance to complete this masterpiece to transcend art itself, it's worth it.  If just barely." she declines. (For what it's worth, she takes you at your word, but might second guess the purchase if she inspecter the jewelry.

The tunnel in the pit is a narrow crawl space. At the bottom of a 10-foot drop at the end of the crawl space, a miserable cell holds a solitary prisoner. The artisan Nolzur has been captured and held here, his alchemical blood continually drained to create the magic pigments used to paint the tomb’s murals. The muralists drain him with tools crafted from the beaks of stirges, keeping him barely alive with healing magic.

<Here is some meta roleplay backgound, the players can know, but your characters presently would not.  Nolzur, in the Greyhawk Cannon, has been tothe Pirate Isles (looking at you L'Chuck) presumably prior to the present moment in time (They are the ones in the sea of Fallen Stars in Faerun).  Later he will (if he survives) travel to the Cold Marshes in search of ruins of a civilization of sorcerous amphibians (perhaps inspired by Kilis?).  For anyone who is unaware, Nolzur is a member of the famed Company of Seven, which included recognizable names like Keoghtom (ointment), Tasha (hideous laughter), Heward (handy haversack; Kwalish's Idol (Kwalish sent you here with the guide)) and Quall (feather token).>