After helping to find a secret door below the entry landing, Hreidmar and company fell into the order of march behind Thorsdottir, Gandrefr, and Ardur.
Secret Room
A deep step down leads into this small room. The ceiling, below the landing above, is only six feet high. A door on the left (north) is closed.
Opposite the step (southeast) is a wide alcove, the back wall of which is tiled with lavender-tinted crystal. On a ledge stands a statuette, blackened by age. The figure is male, head turned toward an outstretched arm. The arm, as well as the statuette’s base, is truncated in a rounded mass, as if previously melted.
When Thorsdottir reached for the statuette, a bright flash of light from the crystal tiles left her blinded. Ardur and Hreidmar were also effected.
The other dwarves entered the room, letting the secret door close behind them. The four guarded the two entry points in pairs, while the party waited for their comrades’ sight to be restored.
Gandrefr examined the statuette, which she took from Thorsdottir’s hands. Scratching the black surface, she said, “The statue is of bronze. It’s damaged but should be worth something.” She stowed it in Thorsdottir’s pack.
Not having playing cards on hand to determine the effect’s duration, which was 1 to 8 turns, I used a deck of Chainmail spells I made last summer, Wizard Light as the ace. The party waited 40 minutes for sight to return.
At the table, the time passed quickly. I drew a card at the beginning of each turn and checked for wandering monsters at the end of every other. There was one: wolves.
I didn’t see how wolves could open either the secret or the normal door, which “usually open automatically for monsters” (B21). So…
The party waited, cramped in the small space, heads bent beneath the low ceiling. Then a scratching sound, as claws on wood, broke the silence. The dwarf guards braced their shields. The blind shrank back into the alcove.
Again the scratching, then “Awooo…” The canine howl came, not from an adjacent space, but from above.
Gandrefr let out a breath. “It isn’t here,” she whispered. “It’s at the entrance, just above.”
More scratching at the door before silence invested the space again.
“I can see,” said Thorsdottir, peering at shadows on the ceiling. She judged the distance from the secret door to the alcove. “This alcove must be directly below the arched door.”
Gandrefr recalled the archway’s inscription: “Lost alone together found…”
Though the DM suspects that the damaged statuette and the archway inscription have some connection, he does not yet know what it is.