Chilling Adventures in the North

Qinfaren looks at the bars and through to the other side then back to Muharg.

"Would these bars have a way to open them from the otherside?" Qinfaren asks. "If not, I would need to slip through and find a way back to the entrance and open those doors for you."

He ponders for awhile, going through a mental inventory of the small animals he's come across over the years.

"I shared some cheese with a nice little black rat back on the ship," he says. "I think taking its form would do nicely. Small, blends in, and they see much better in the dark than Firbolgs do."

Qinfaren closes his eyes for a moment, and smiles. Then he quickly shrinks down to the size of a black rat. The rat looks up at the others, squeaks twice and darts through the bars to the other side, looking for any levers that might open the bars.

(One use of Wild Shape)

Shad watches the fortress walls, specifically the upper rim. He would hate for anything to be dropped on them: Perception 18

"If Qinfaren does not find a latch at the culvert, then, the plan is to try the front gate? Muharg, do dwarves typically build secret ways to escape? But maybe we have no chance of finding such a thing, even if it was made."

"I think we are wasting our time with this. Perhaps it would be best for us to find another way in?" Bjorn suggests while he looks at the bars, "Unless ofcourse Qinfaren finds something to lift it from the other side."

"I am not very strong, but if the pair of you help each other . . . maybe that will work," Shad says. "I can try and help, as well."

He continues to watch the snow around them and the wall above.

"Muharg tried, an' they weren't budgin'," Arogna sighs. "Qinfaren was gonna try the doors after the bars. I reckon we oughta stand by an' keep an eye out for trouble."

Bjorn frowns, "The doors after the bars? That might not be such a good idea if we can't get the bars up. We won't be able to help if he encounters any trouble."

Bjorn will then peer through the bars trying to look for Qinfaren.

Once inside, Qinfaren confirms that there are no levers or catch to release the bars. The bars are built into the foundation of the fortress. The only way through would be to bend or break the bars.

Shad scans the walls but sees no signs of movement.

Qinfaren the Rat looks around the culvert, goes to the bars, squeaks loudly at the others and shakes his rat head back and forth. Then he scurries a little further inside to see if there is any sign of a way up to the main doors.

Qinfaren travels further along the culvert, but as the culvert begins to bend, he sees some light coming own from above. Looking he can see a hole in the top of the culvert which is the bottom of a well. However, the sides of the well are frozen and icy. Climbing the well is not impossible but would be difficult.

Shad sees Qinfaren as a rat shake his head. "Doesn't seem like there is a way to release the bars from inside. That means he's headed toward the front gate, right? We should be there when he opens it!"

Moving cautiously and still watching for signs of the hostile dwarfish-looking strangers, especially around the guard house, Shad will try and move back toward the front gate.

Qinfaren makes his way back to the culvert bars and slips through to the other side and then changes back to his normally form, his nose still twitching like a rat's.

"There's an icy climb back there," Qinfaren says. "Might be tough as a rat to climb, but I could probably do it as a spider."

He looks at the bars and then at Bjorn.

"If you bend these open, I'm still not sure if you'd be able to fit through the opening. I can go up and take a look around and if it leads to the main doors." he says and looks at the others, seeing that Shad was already heading towards the gates.

"They don't want us in, that much is for sure," Arogna says. "Anyone got a way to make 'em come out to us? Come back, Shad, they ain't gettin' opened soon. Maybe we oughta just ask 'em if they took the stuff." 

Shad will return to talk to the others. "What about that guard house? How did they get in and out of that? Could we use it as an entrance?" He thinks for a moment. "I like the idea of making them come to us, but how do we do that?"

Qinfaren thinks for a moment at Shad's question.

"Last summer Archdruid Gillynn sent me to Copperblossom Hollow. The halflings requested aid with troublesome skunks they had. I was delayed on my way there. It was such beautiful weather and I was distracted by the light on the lake," Qinfaren smiles at the memory. "Anyway, by the time I got to the village, they had decided to take matters into their own hands and had lit green boughs on fire and were smoking the skunks out of their den. I would rather have just asked them to leave but the halflings did get them out with the smoke."

He looks back into the culvert. 

"I don't know where the well leads to, but we could try smoking them out of the fortress."

Arogna looks around at the snow and rock. "Good idea, but we ain't got much to work with. An' we don't know as they're the thiefs anyways. An' even if they is, maybe they're just hungry or somethin'. Shad, the one in that bunker there went down some kinda trapdoor. Maybe that's a way in like you says. He ain't there now, so he musta gone someplace."

"True, true," Qinfaren says. "I wouldn't be too thrilled with being smoked out of my home, though the right boughs make a lovely fragrance."

He looks back at the bunker.

"I think that leaves either going back in and up the hole to the well and seeing if I can get to the doors that way, going through the bars of the bunker and seeing where that leads," Qinfaren pauses and looks back at the fortress, "all of us trying to force open the front doors to the fortress, or looking for another way in. There must be another way out."

“What if we check the rest of the walls? We might find another way to try to break in.”

"And the bunker, maybe?" Shad says. "But how should we decide what to do first?" He looks at the sky, trying to judge the weather and the daylight. "Maybe we could roll for it, if anyone has dice. Flip a gold piece?"

"We could follow the frozen river. There could be a way in under the castle maybe?"

Qinfaren looks back to the front of the fortress.

"We could just knock a little harder on the front doors," Qinfaren says. "Muharg with some help from Bjorn or Arogna, could put some of that muscle to work while Shad and I keep watch on the bunker."