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-----Sol had taken to wandering around the room, looking at the walls in particular. Once the money is revealed, he says, "Can we worry about ownership later? Let's move back to the room where the rats were nesting. There are still two unopened doors leading from there." Making sure there is nothing else of interest in the room, Sol stalks back to this room's entrance and waits for everyone to ready themselves.
-----Sarah is thinking hard. "Something is very not right about this." She says. "I can't think of quite what, oh well, this isn't the place. Let's go, Sol." Sarah takes her pile and stands, ready to go.
-----Raven walks forward and grabs his and Sol's stack. "Lead on Sol." When Raven gets close to Sol, he hands Sol his coins.
-----In return to Raven's offer, Sol sighs and holds his hand out to the proffered coinage. Once given, he slips the lot into his backpack, nods his thanks to the hunter and turns to lead the group back to the rats’ room.
-----The Dread Pirate scoops up his coins and then hands Seth his share of the loot, "Arrr, let’s be gettin out of this armpit of a place."
-----With that, Sol leads them from the room and past the bodies of the spider monsters once more. They exit the chamber and return to the room where the adventurers had encountered the rats. Quite a few of the rodents are still smoldering causing some in the party to hold their noses at the smell.
-----Sol immediately approaches the middle door, carefully eyeing the huge hole eaten at the bottom of the portal. Perhaps somewhat heeding the words of the huntress, he opens it cautiously. Beyond the door, the light from the torch reveals a passage leading off into the darkness.
-----After entering the passage, it leads straight for a few yards and then turns to the right. The smell of the burning rats seems to follow them into the dark and mixes with the odor of rodent excrement. Twenty feet after the passage turns, the light catches something down on the floor on Sol’s left side. A small hole is revealed in the partly smashed wall and crumbling stone floor. The hole appears very dark and too small for anyone to crawl into.
-----Following the passage further leads the group to an open chamber. The dimensions of the room appear to be thirty feet wide and twenty feet long. In various places, crumbling stone has fallen from the ceiling and the small carcasses of rodents are seen.
-----Seth cautiously edges into the room, taking seriously his new job of torch bearer, as it gives him a reason to stay out of the fighting and mishaps so his new treasure pot can be safe guarded. "Mmm, want me to check around?" he asks Sol as he eyes the rotting carcasses.
-----"Sure," Sol replies as he scans the room carefully, "May as well be thorough. Still, make it quick. The sooner we get out o' here, the quicker we can get back t'Rinda and Jamison." He stands at the door and keeps watch back down the corridor.
-----"Yeeeeecchhh," is the only noise Sarah makes, picking her way very carefully through the dead rats.
-----The Dread Pirate peers cautiously about the rodent-corpse-strewn room and stops to inspect one of the corpses to see if it is desiccated as though the fluids had been sucked out of it.
-----Kazel stops for a bit examining the cause of deaths of the rats. Otherwise, she strolls around the room looking here and there until everyone's ready to move on.
-----Seth moves around the room noting the crumbling ceilings and walls. After a while he seems to see something in the far corner and kneels down to examine it further. "Hey! Come over here! Does any one recognize this surcoat, or the person it belongs to?"
-----"Surcoat?" Sol's looks back from his watch. Obviously interested in Seth's find, the warrior makes his way over to the garment and takes a look at it.
-----As Sol moves over toward one of the far corners, Seth points out to him what appears to be some cloth and bones sticking out from underneath some plaster and stone that had fallen from the ceiling.
-----Upon closer look, everyone can see the dead body, its skin fairly decayed away, partly buried by the fallen debris. It looks to be wearing leather armor covered with a black surcoat trimmed in red.
-----Raven looks down at the body, "He or his party must of been who killed the ogre and the rats." Raven frowns, "If he was with a party, won't they of taken his body out of here?" Raven looks up and peers into the darkness ahead, "Unless the whole party died down here." Raven looks back down at the body and frowns, "I suppose we should dig out the body to look for clues. Come on Sol..." Raven gets ready to start digging.
-----Within a few moments, the men have most of the fallen debris moved away from the body. The head is covered in a leather helmet and a shield lies nearby. The emblem on the shield shows a blackbird on a red field. In the two upper corners of the shield are the blue and white devices of the kingdom of Altoria. A sword is still in its sheath at the body’s side.
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