Dungeon crawl: Wine with your sandwich?

[Weremensh]

Our heroes are in a basement full of assorted boxes, barrels, and other clutter. They arrived through what seems to be a well concealed door from the basement side (though painfully obvious from the tunnel they arrived through). There's an obvious ladder up, leading to a trap door. There are people upstairs with spears and a crossbow. A bit of a standoff.

As Kinzie starts to reload her pistol she calls on the folks upstairs to parley. They do not seem interested in talking; before she is done speaking they close the trap again. Very shortly thereafter something can be heard being moved across the floor towards the trap door, as well as two of the people starting to shout at each other.

[CCC]

"Well." says Cloverleaf. "I don't think they're interested in a chat. Here's an idea, though - they're not trying to break through, and I can touch the door with my staff. So, if I stay here, I can keep my Lock-tight spell going basically indefinitely, or until tonight at any rate - why don't the other two of you take some of these barrels back to the monks while I do so?"

[Dom/SlimKop]

"Remember, there's still the other path. These guys are stealing the booze? Why? Is that a tavern up there? Also, we don't want to get attacked from behind."

[FreakyBoy]

Kinzie takes the stub of pen, some ink, and some parchment, and starts making a map (as much from memory as possible, but she'll fill it in as she goes.) "Let's head back. If we hurry, we can locate where they are in the village before they have time to evacuate."

[CCC]

"There's probably a dozen other paths, leading out of this cellar alone." points out Cloverleaf. "You may have noticed how hard it would be to spot the tunnel we came in by from this end, if the door were closed? What are the odds that they stopped at a mere one disguised tunnel?"

He reaches up to put a Lock-Tight spell on the trapdoor, while it's within reach, then hops off the barrel and strolls to the nearest wall. "Fortunately, there's a technique for finding secret doors. It's quite simple - all you have to do is cut out the frantic searching for twenty minutes for the latch, and skip straight to the point of nonchalantly leaning against the wall, which almost always opens the door if there is one."

He demonstrates this technique by nonchalantly leaning on a random bit of wall.

[Weremensh]

The wall does not move when Cloverleaf leans against it. However, from his new point of view, he can see a ramp leading up that was concealed from most of the basement by shelving. The ramp leads straight away from the basement, probably towards something like a storm door.

[CCC]

"Here we go!" Cloverleaf heads for the ramp, and gives the door it leads to a quick glance - if there's an obvious way to open it, such as a doorhandle, he will use it. If not, he'll nonchalantly lean against a nearby bit of wall again.

[Dom/SlimKop]

"What? What about the other passage?"

Teddy looks over at Kinzie and shrugs.

[FreakyBoy]

"I hate him soooo much," Kinzie hisses through clenched teeth.

Then she follows Cloverleaf to the door.

[Dom/SlimKop]

Teddy grins, and heads to the door with the group.

[Weremensh]

The door is similar to the one leading to the basement in the Wizard of Oz, just from the basement side. In this case, wood planks apparently held together with crossbeams on the other side. There is also probably an iron bar or two and some locks to deter thieves; it's the usual thing with this kind of door. To open it, if it isn't barred and locked, usually involves lifting it aside.

As she contemplates this, Kinzie just realized that there are only two buildings in town with a ramp leading down to the basement in this manner; the pawn/general shop, and the tavern. This is not the basement of the tavern, wine barrels not withstanding.

[CCC]

Cloverleaf gives the door a good lift and sideways push. Should it happen to turn out to be locked, he'll cast a Knock spell and then try again.

"The trouble with the tunnel we came through," he points out, "is that they know we know about it. Want to take a bet on whether they're sending some guys round that way to try to ambush us? I should warn you, I tend to win bets."

[Dom/SlimKop]

"I'm sure they know about this place too."

He leans his club against the wall as he thinks.

"I wish I could remember where I'd seen that one before."

[FreakyBoy]

Kinzie stabs a finger into the air. "The General Store! That's the only place this could be." She thinks for a moment. "Okay boys, Teddy could probably bash open that door - but I'm not sure we should go bursting in there just yet. What do you think?"

[CCC]

"Well, look at it this way - even if we come up in the same room as all the people with pointy things, they'll be pointing all their pointy things at the other trapdoor." points out Cloverleaf. "Though bashing will probably be a bit loud, I should be able to unlock this rather more quietly than that."

He continues his attempts to open the door.