Poison pill defense

The others finally returned and we took a brief rest as we recovered from our exertions.  We then explored the rooms that they had been in.  There were two bodies, which matched their tales.  Their purses were empty unfortunately.  We proceeded to a trisection with a strange clay statue, which proved to not be magical, and didn’t attack us.  Going north, we then headed east to a door, beyond which Feyabelle heard kitchen sounds.  We burst in to once again slaughter menials, to be confronted by a mess hall and two heavily armoured warriors eating a root-vegetable stew.  

They leapt up, Sorrel cast spike growth, so they leapt on the tables and jumped across the room towards her.  One slipped and fell on the floor.  Feyabelle shot at them, and Arielle rushed in to fight the one on the table.  Thorg stomped round to the one on the floor.  Feyabelle moved further in and shot at the one on the floor, killing him just as Thorg reached him.  Thorg turned and stomped back to the other one, reaching him just as Arielle killed him.  It all seemed quite boring, so I waited in the corridor.  They certainly didn’t seem to be of a calibre to waste my magical might on.

There was a kitchen in the far corner with three menials that Thorg and I interrogated.  As we were gagging and tying them to the cupboards, the floor around the other three erupted upwards.  A woman had appeared in the other doorway of the room.  She then retreated back through the door and Sorrel followed her.  I ran up and saw a short corridor with two men at arms supporting her.  Arielle cast a circle of silence on her to stop her casting further spells, and I cast my own earth erupting spell which caught the three of them (and Sorrel as acceptable collateral damage).  The two henchmen went down rapidly, but the woman took a pounding from Feyabelle, Arielle and Thorg.  I cast a web spell on the door at the far end of the corridor to prevent her running away.  We realised later that only Thorg’s sword and Arielle’s dagger had really been doing her much damage.  Finally Thorg delivered the coup-de-grace and she exploded in a shower of razor sharp stone shards, cutting up Sorrel and Thorg quite badly (Arielle managed to dodge them all).  Now to see what lies beyond the door.