From the journal of Kenari Sanura

As we get closer to the mansion we can see that there must be activity inside. Columns of greasy smoke churn from the chimneys on the roof as the smell of burning wax pervades the area. All of the windows are boarded, however… which makes me wonder. Are they trying to keep things out, or in?

Melchior seems to notice something on the ground and kneels down for a moment to inspect the dirt. "Hmmn…. there seem to be tracks coming from the house, but none going in that I can find."

"That goes along with what Alagon said, then," says Vedis. "Storykin are reborn in there and come out, but don't have any reason to go in."

"Assuming we're going to avoid the main entrance again, shall we see if we can find a back door?" I suggest. The rest of the group nods in agreement and we make our way around the house to find a nondescript back door for me to investigate.

After a few moments I whistle as I follow some cleverly hidden wires to a set of holes in the ceiling with the remnants of wax around the edges. "I get the feeling that they don't care for visitors," I say sarcastically to the others as I disable the traps and unlock the door.

Once I'm done the doors creak open to reveal a small room filled with crates and creepy wax mannequins. On the wall is a small plaque in a language reminiscent of Ancient Thorass with a warning. "Visitors will be scalded."

"How nice of them to put the warning after the trap," Vedis mutters.

"Guys… I don't like these mannequins," Melchior warns. "Take a look at this one… it looks like Robelar of the Circle of Eight back on Greyhawk!"

"A big-wig, I take it?" I ask, as in our few trips to Greyhawk we spent more time shopping than anything.

"Yeah, you could say that."

"There's a slight magical aura to them, but nothing that really stands out," Ef offers as his eyes glow with his spell.

"Check out this door behind the crates, though!" I reply as I move some of them out of the way to find a small hidden door. "Shall we check it out?"

"Ladies first," Ef replies with a gesture of his hand at the door. I chuckle and run my fingers along the edges of the door inspecting it for the traps that all hidden doors seem to come with these days. Lo and behold, I am not disappointed, either; as I get to the handle I find a small indentation and a rather nasty needle that seems to be coated in something. "Come to mama," I whisper as I pull out my tools and manage to disengage it from the door intact. "You never know when this might come in handy!" I then wrap the needle trap carefully and place it in my pack for safe keeping.

Once the traps and locks are taken care of we open the door to reveal a 5ft wide empty hallway. Yeah right…empty. I carefully make my way down the hallway a few feet at a time with Ef Utan following behind as I inspect the floor carefully. We make it a good ways down the hallway when suddenly I hear a click and freeze as the door we came in slams shut. Ef turns around and is about to go back to the door when I notice the holes opening in the ceiling and launch myself into his back just in time to push the both of us out of the way of the jets of hot wax shooting down where we once stood.

"Son of a… is it just me or am I detecting a theme?" Ef Utan groans as he sits up and rubs his head.

Ow…ow…ow… definitely not doing that again. "I don't know… but I am about ready to throw away my candles out of spite," I groan as I help him up and we go back to the door separating us from the rest of the group. Thankfully it's not locked from our side, and we are able to open it again to get the group back together.

"Are you guys ok?" Lenata asks in concern. "What happened?"

"No worse for wear, thanks to Kenaris quick actions," Ef Utan replied. "They seem to have an affection for hot wax, so I suggest we keep on our toes."

I smile at the compliment but keep my mouth shut. Knowing Ef if I say anything that will probably be the last one I hear for awhile. "I did notice something interesting before the wax treatment, though. There's another secret door at the end of that hallway, and if they are going to go to this much trouble to hide it, I definitely want to see what all the hubbub is about."

"Let me just make sure this door remains open this time," Ef mutters as he jams one of his daggers into the hinges.

Once we get through the next door we come to another door and a hallway. I for one am all about leaving no door unopened, so I unlock the door to the left to find a chilling sight. The small room is filled with large jars reminiscent of the canonic jars of the rituals of home where the priests would contain the internal organs of the dead. These jars smell of burnt wax, however… and instead of the faces of the gods on the lids, there seem to be the faces of humans. I even recognize two of them as powerful wizards thanks to my many stints in Seeker libraries. One of them is Hallister Blackstaff from the Realms, and the other is Bigby from Greyhawk. First Robelar and now these guys? A chill run downs my spine as I wonder why they might have jars such as these dedicated to powerful wizards of different worlds.

"I don't like this, guys… I don't like this at all. I don't think these guys are part of the story… so would they try to recreate these men out of wax… other than…" I gulp as a thought hits me. "Other than to replace the real ones with these fake replicas?"

Vedis gasps. "What if the 10th Pit made a deal with Cessarian? If they get their Dream-jammer, they could travel to every sphere and replace their leaders with these wax replicas!"

"Well that does it then… these things have to go," Ef Utan answers as he strides forward.

"Hold up!" I caution as the glint of something strange catches my eye in the dust. "If these things are what we think they are, they aren't going to have just left them here for just anybody. Let me check it out first."

I scan the room carefully now that I am not distracted by the jars and notice the now tell-tale holes in the ceiling… and the walls… and the floor. "Oh-boy… yeah… this is probably going to take me a bit."

"Be careful," Ef Utan warns. "The rest of you, why don't you check out the hall? Just don't go through any other doors until we're done here. I'll stay and back up Kenari in case something happens."

"Why Ef, I didn't know you cared," I laugh as I find a safe place to kneel and pull out my tools to sift through the dust.

"Don't get your panties in a twist, Kenari, we need you in order to get through this place alive," Ef scoffs.

Hmmn… what's this? I use one of my brushes to clear off whatever caught my eye earlier to find a chunk of a broken mirror. It bears investigation, so I use the edge of my sash to pick it up and stash it in one of its pockets.

"Hey guys, we found a Spelljammer tapestry on the wall!" Vedis calls out around the corner.

"I wonder if it's by the same person who made that tapestry in the bar?" I ask aloud as I tear some rags and stopper some of the holes in the floor.

"Even if it isn't, what the heck is it doing here?" Ef replies. "Could that person with the canister we saw in the vision have brought it?"

"Look, I'll be okay, and it's still going to take me a bit. Why don't you go see what they've gotten themselves into? I swear on whatever number of lives I have left that nothing will happen." Ef snorts and walks around the hallway as I continue to snip wires, plug holes with rags and mark safe spots to step with chalk for the next hour.

Eventually I am able to disable the traps to my satisfaction and dust myself off as I hear Ef cursing over the squabbles of the others. I chuckle and walk around the corner to join them as they're pointing and arguing over a tapestry on the wall.

"I'm not going to touch it… you touch it! It's radiating psionics like you wouldn't believe!"
Vedis warns.

"I could shoot it down," Melchior offers.

"Oh good god," Ef mutters as he unsheathes his sword and uses the flat of the blade to pull the tapestry aside. Behind it is a curious small door about half-way up the wall, reminiscent of wall safes I've encountered in the past.

"I'm all for seeing what's behind door number two, but in the meantime I think that last room is now safe."

The others nod and we return to the other room. "Okay, just stay within the chalk lines and you should be safe," I warn as I point to my work on the floor. Melchior whistles in appreciation as he takes in the remnants of disabled traps strewn across the floor. "Yeah… these things are definitely important," I reply. "There's some strange writing around the lids of the jars… so I'll bet my last whisker that they're magically trapped. I can try to disable them, but I wanted you all to be aware of the danger first." I gesture with my hands and shoo them out of the room. "Go on now… I wouldn't want you all to get singed."

Lenata looks at me in concern over her shoulder. "Do be careful, Kenari."

"Hey, I always try to be," I joke and turn to the Bigby jar to see what I can do.

You know, all things considered, I've been lucky in my life as an adventuring rogue so far. I've been taking everything as it comes the best I can, rolling with the punches and letting the chaos pass around me. These jars, though… they truly unnerve me…which is probably why I missed that last rune.

I can feel the searing heat at my back as I dive out of the room of Canopic jars and the shockwave of the blast knocks me into the wall. Great… I'm never going to hear the end of this one from Ef Utan… let's think of a story quick!

"Kenari? What happened?" Lenata asks in concern as they all hurry around the corner to see what happened.

I wince at the disapproving look from Ef and wave them off for a second as the ringing clears from my ears. "They definitely don't want anyone messing with those jars," I mutter and gesture towards the remnants of wax, pottery and pieces of internal organs all over the floor of the room. "But look at what was in them!"

Vedis looks and promptly turns away with a moan. "Disgusting!"

Lenata gasps in shock as she takes in the mess of reagents and organ shaped lumps. "They were making homunculi!"

"Which is exactly why I feel we need to destroy these things. In fact, I am rather determined that these things are going to go BOOM," I conclude.

"I agree… but we're not about to have you risk your life again," Ef replies. "There's got to be a better way to do this."

"Well… I've got a rope in my pack, we could always tie it around the other jar, stand around the corner, and pull it down that way?" Melchior offers.

"Works for me!" Vedis grins. "Let's do this!"

After a few minutes of careful tying, we give the rope enough slack that we're crouching around the corner and down the hall by the tapestry they discovered earlier. Ef Utan, ever the bodyguard, is in front with his back to the explosive room while Melchior readies to pull the rope. I'm thinking of how I will explain all of this to Bast when I see her when the countdown begins.

"3….2….1….."

BOOM!

The hallway shakes with the force of the explosion as dust and plaster rain down from above… but fortunately the majority of it was contained in the room. I look around to see that everyone else seems no worse for wear before peeking around the corner. "Woah… I think we got more than one jar in that blast." The walls, floor and ceiling are splattered with organs and pottery shards as what's left of the wax drains into the now exposed holes in the floor.

"Yeah… I think we're done here," Ef Utan confirms as he steps around to look. "Now come on, or have you forgotten that safe in the wall we found behind the tapestry?"

My ears perk up and I grin. "You know, I did forget about that!" I also forgot about the cards… because now that I think about it, I believe we there is one called "The Waxworks." Doh! As we walk down the hallway I slip it out of my sash and let Ef walk ahead before playing it. A slight energy radiates over us all, and then disappears.

I slap my hands together and rub them excitedly as I look at the tapestry. "You said it's psionic, right?" I ask Vedis as I scan it for any kinds of traps around where it's hanging.

"Yup… it's radiating psionic energy like you wouldn't believe," Vedis answers. "I'm willing to bet that it's psychoportation power."

"Psycho-whatsis?"

Vedis sighs. "Using psionics instead of magic to teleport."

I fight the urge to lick the tapestry and declare it mine. "Okay then… well, it definitely looks like the same artist who did the tapestry of the Spelljammer back at the Portaljammer Bar. Look, you can even see her signature underneath the tail. It doesn't look trapped though…. so…" I grab the tapestry by the edges and with a flick of my wrists it flies off of its hangers and I am rolling it up to put it in my pack. "… I guess I will just store it for safekeeping!"

Lenata giggles behind me as Ef Utan rolls his eyes. "Fine… but what about the safe?"

Ah yes… the safe! I lean in and peer carefully around the edges of the small door in the wall, as I fully expect to see some traps. Okay… there's a poison needle trap… and another…and another… and that one is a lightning spell, and… Bast help me.

I step back and whistle in shock… as I've never seen so many traps around a door in my life. "I don't know, guys… I actually don't think I can handle this one."

"What do you mean?" Ef Utan asks in concern.

"Well… let me put it this way. If I opened this door now, I would turn into a poison pincushion just in time to get struck by about six lightning bolts… at least."

Melchior whistles. "Well then… what do we do now?"

"Hey now, I didn't say we weren't going to open it, did I? When something has that many traps on it, it's bound to be good! We just need to think of another way to do this… because I think I probably already used up one of my nine lives on those jars back there."

"Speaking of the jars… what if we just find a way to activate all of the traps from a distance?" Ef suggests.

"We could blow it up again…" says Vedis.

"I've got some bottles of Alchemist Fire!" says Lenata.

"I've got some powder horns and extra bullets… we could use it to make a fuse that leads to a pile of ammo and Alchemist's Fire and blow that trap door to kingdom come!" Melchior finishes with a grin.

Have I ever told you how much I love my friends?

"Okay, if we're going to do this, we need to make sure that we have a clear path outside before we set it off," I tell the others. "Melchior and Vedis, you two guard that back door we came in. Ef and Lenata, you guys make sure that hallway is clear. I will set up the explosion, so when you see me running outside, do try and keep up."

"All right guys, that sounds like a plan to me. Everyone cough up whatever spare ammo, gunpowder or Alchemist Fire you've got to Kenari and move to your stations," Ef Utan orders.

After a few minutes I've got a pile of bullets, four bottles of Alchemist Fire, and two powder horns to try and set off the world full of hurt waiting in that door. It's only when I feel the pain in my chest that I realize I've been holding my breath as I carefully place the last of the bullets on top of the pile.

I back away slowly until I round the corner and give the nod to Ef Utan, who calls out to Melchior to pull the rope to knock over the candle that lights the gunpowder and… well, you get the idea.

"Fire in the hole!" I hear him yell from the back door and we all quickly run out to join him… with still no trace of activity from the mansions residents. "Well, if this doesn't wake them up I don't know what will!" I chuckle as we all gather outside.

BA-BOOM!

I swear, the force of that explosion lifted the house off of its foundations for just a second before it settled again. We wait a few seconds for any signs of activity after our second explosion of the day… yet still nothing.

"Maybe this Marsalee is deep underground?" I wonder aloud as I do my best to tame my now static-filled fur.

"We'll keep an eye out for her while you go check that trapped door," Ef Utan replies as he draws his katana. "I just hope it worked."

While the back door was intact, the door to that hallway was unfortunately in much worse shape; it took our combined efforts to remove the rubble from the doorway before I can squeeze my way through again. Eventually I make it through the rubble, burnt wax, and scattered poison needles to find that little door perfectly intact… with the traps in the process of resetting.

"NO!" I blurt out as I pull my tools from my sash and scramble to unlock the small door. "No…no….no…not going through that again! You can take your lightning and stick it up your…"

CLICK

I breathe a huge sigh and fall to my knees in relief as the door springs open… and that's it.

So what's in the safe, already?" Vedis yells out in frustration from her place of safety behind the corner.

Oh yeah!

I look up at the small door as it creaks open to reveal… a single silver scroll case resting on a pair of teak hooks. "It's a scroll case from the looks of it… don't know what's inside it, though," I call out.

"Trapped?" asks Ef Utan as the rest come from around the corner to take a look.

I can just spy the catches under the hooks that will surely give way and activate something if the case is removed. "Oh yeah, it's trapped."

"Well, assuming that these traps aren't getting any easier now that we can actually see the prize… what do you suggest?"

"Hey Ef… you've got that spell that does that magic hand-grabbing thing, right? Could you take cover around the corner and use that to grab the case?"

"I have to have line of sight to the object to make it work, unfortunately," he replies with a shrug.

An idea strikes me as I pull my little hand mirror from my sash. "Couldn't we use some mirrors so you could still see it? Any of you guys have another one?"

Lenata pulls a small mirror with the symbol of Celestian on the back from her pack and hands it to me with a smile as Ef shrugs in resignation. "Sure… why not… worth a shot, anyway."

A few creative applications of twine later we're taking cover behind the corner and crossing our fingers that it works as Ef squints at the mirrors and mutters the words of his spell. I close my eyes and plug my ears, as I have no idea what to expect from this one… but all I end up feeling is his boot in my side as he tries to get my attention.

"It's not working," he mutters in frustration. "It's like there's some kind of barrier on that safe where magic just can't get through."

Melchior then steps up and pushes his hat back on his head. "Well, no offense to your magic and all… but when all else fails, perhaps we should try the old fashioned way." He then scoops one of his guns out of his holsters and spins it for effect. "Get behind cover, everybody… I'm going to see if I can knock it off those hooks with a well-placed bullet!"

I'm actually eager to see this one, as Melchior has displayed a skill with his guns that I'm not sure I could ever achieve. The others resume their places around the corner as I do my best to peek around his side to watch the action. With a click and a bang the bullet fires and TING! it strikes the scroll case, launching it off of its hooks… where it's immediately followed by a BOOM! as the shockwave of the explosion from the trap sends the case flying down the hallway.

"Gotcha!" Ef yells as he snags the case out of the air with his Mage Hand spell and tucks it into his belt.

"Um… guys?" Vedis looks worried as she points up at the cracks forming ceiling. "I think we should get out of here…"

Now that she mentions it… I can feel vibrations coming from under the floorboards.

"RUN!"