Gibson stops at the bottom of the stairs and looks back. He's already managed to pile a couple more bottles into his arms. "Well wine and I are old friends and the corpse has clearly done its job of keeping people out, as we've seen with our gnomish Mr. Lonagan. There's clearly nothing here!" He motions around with a bottle. "I'm sure he's just here to keep bungling burglars at bay so this filthy pirate pit can remain the staunch stronghold that it is!"

Gib -- most of the wine you've gathered is the real cheap stuff. Apparently, whoever else has been down here has been taking the good vintages first. If you want to see if you can scrounge any fancy bottles, you can make an investigation check.

(OOC: Gib's very familiar with the bottoms of the bottles. Not so much with the labels.)

Tul follows the footprints to the southern wall of the room where they abruptly ended. She looks at the wall but can't find anywhere that would show it to be something other than a wall. She bangs on the wall with one of her fists, a degree of anger and frustration welling up inside of her. She pauses. Takes a deep breath.

"I'm a moment away from trying to put my foot through this wall. Could someone else please take a look?"

She points down at the footprints, points at the wall, and then throws her hands out wide admitting defeat and moves off to a corner of the room to breath slowly in and out until she can regain her calm.

"I'm for letting her put her foot through it. She's put her foot through everything else in this house!" Gibson chortles as he sits down on the bottom step to try to better organize/stack his wine bottles in his lap.

Dimma will step forward to examine the wall. She looks over the masonry with a keen dwarven eye, examining its wear and its material to determine when and how it was it built, particularly to tell whether the wall is a recent addition to the basement, or if it was laid when the house was first constructed.

History check (just for funsies):20

As she's examining the wall, she will prod it with her hand to check for anything out of place, with help from Tul.

Investigation check: 15

Dimma, you are able to tell that the wall itself is an original part of the house, but this particular wall seems thinner than the other walls in the wine cellar. It is made with river rocks (which is an extremely common material in this part of Keoland) and cement and the area of the wall that Tul pointed out to you seems a little more worn the rest of the wall. You also know from the layout of the upper floors, there should be a LOT more cellar down here than you are seeing. However, you cannot figure out for the life of you exactly how to trigger (what you assume) is a secret passageway into the other area.

"What? Secret passages, you say?" Gibson carefully arranges the wine bottles on the floor at the foot of the stairs, stands, and walks over to see what the others are carrying on about. "I've a bit of experience concealing things. Why, I bet you didn't even know I carried this around!" He reaches under his strangely long vest and pulls out a dented and not particularly sharp handaxe. He then proceeds to poke around the wall, occasionally fitting the blade between stones to see if prying a bit would prove useful. If he doesn't find anything on or in the wall he gradually expands his search to include the surrounding area looking for leavers, switches, buttons... Anything that might be used as a trigger for this mysterious mechanism.

Investigation: 12

Somewhat incredibly, Gib's puttering with his hand axe seems to pry something loose -- you all hear a click sound and the part of the stonework rotates sideways, giving you access to the next part of the cellar.

DM Screen

 This torchlit room was apparently part of a larger laboratory, but has been since transformed into a living quarters, you see ten beds strewn about the room in various conditions, and a wooden foot locker at the end of each bed. A long, rectangular dining table is the dominant feature of the room, and near the table is a small stove, where a single bandit is cooking a large piece of ham.

Despite Dimma and Tul seeming to stumble as you all enter the room, the bandit does not seem to notice your presence as he is humming a sea shanty (Arvastan & Hugh -- you recognize it as "On the Run from a Dragon Turtle" -- an old classic.). 

A sturdy set of stairs in the western part of the room seems to lead to the upper floor, and there are two wooden doors to the eastern side of the room.

Dimma only

 (You can take a surprise round against this bandit if you like. Also Hugh -- you can see again as there are a number of torches in the room.)

Gibson takes in the scene with a glance and steps in quickly, making a beeline for the cook.

"Well hello, old friend! I didn't know you were cooking or I would have brought a dessert or something!" And he casts charm person (Wis save, DC 14).

The bandit looks up in surprise and anger. "What? Who are--." There is the briefest moment where Gib's magic starts to cloud his mind, but he shakes it off. "You ain't supposed to be down here!"

(Anyone who has a ranged weapon can try to get off one shot before we go into initiative -- melee fighters can get close to him, but can't get in range unless they Dash)

Bandit Initiative - 2

Hugh will dash to reach the bandit as he draws his greataxe. 

Gibson grumbles, "Blast it all..." and he rolls his eyes and waves a dismissive hand at the bandit as he begins to turn away to look for the others. Another arc of rippling energy steaks out across the room.

Eldritch blast Attack: 9 Damage: 10

His head snaps back to see whatever he just hit get blasted and he laughs in surprise at his inadvertent pun.

Tul takes a shuriken from the strap across her chest and flings it quickly at the bandit, hoping to silence him before he can call out.

Then she covers as much ground as she can drawing out the ninjaken short sword from it’s scabbard on her back.

(Attack: 18 Damage: 7 )

Dimma calls on a sacred flame as she draws her warhammer and begins to close the distance with her normal movement.

The dwarven bandit, at this point completely bewildered, raises his hands to his face instinctively as Tul throws her star, then screams with horror as it embeds itself in his hand, the blood dripping out thick and with increased volume with every movement. Looking over at Dimma and seeing her tracing arcane runes with her fingers, the bandit tries to dive out of the way...

DEX Save: 13 or take 3 radiant damage.

He tumbles away from the stove just as a burst of radiant flame consumes it leaving it a burnt husk just as Gib's Eldritch Blast strikes it and sends it flying into the wall of the cellar with a crash. As he stands up, he's faced with Hugh standing right before him, breathing heavy, holding his greataxe aloft.

"Oh, shirt...." The bandit says in Dwarvish.

(Since Tul's shuriken took a good portion of his HP already, we'll move into initiative at this point. Gib already took his action, but the rest of you have another action. @inkedwolves can retcon this during their turn, but I'll assume Arvastan used his surprise turn to dash as well. Hugh and Arvastan are in direct melee with him, the rest of you are around 25 feet away.)

Initiative order:

Party

Bandit

Tul continues moving quickly to close the ground between her and the bandit, swinging down with her ninjaken even before coming to a stop, allowing her free hand to snap forward to drive a blow to the bandit's face.

Attack: 5 Damage: 4  

Bonus: Attack: 24 Damage: 5 

Hugh will slice downwards with a heavy strike of the greataxe.

Attack: 18 Damage: 15

The bandit stumbles out of the way of Hugh's heavy swing with the greataxe, and as he is laughing, his eyes suddenly widen as one of Tul's nunchuku strike him in the side of the head. He takes a step toward her in her a daze.

You've all seen Tul in action, but it still surprises you all how graceful the half-orc monk can be. She moves smoothly towards the bandit, and although she only flicks her hand out towards the dwarf, from the way he clutches his throat in pain, you'd swear she had slit his throat with a dagger. Instead, she had merely struck him with her palm, crushing his windpipe. As the bandit gurgles and slumps to his knees, he eventually falls over completely.

You are out of combat.

There are two doors to the far Eastern side of the room, and a small opening on the Western side of the room near the beds that appears to open out into a cavern -- and presumably, some outlet to the ocean for the smugglers to use.

"...and don't kill him so we can ask... Aw, beans."