Maren is escorted to the entrance where she and her son are reunited. Xander stays back and guards the entrance while the patrol goes deeper into Woodruff’s grove.
A large house, well maintained, sits nestled far in the back of Woodruff’s Grove. Two large doors banded in iron lead into a large Hall. Pillars flank the sides of the hall and in the middle are three large braziers, hot with well stoked fire, are strangely engineered to be chained to the ceiling. A chair, atop a raised platform far at the end of the hall, turns slowly to face the patrol. Boneless sits, glaring at the patrol from atop his platform. He pulls a lever and combat begins. The lever seems to activate the pillars which shoot darts at the patrol members. Springing into action the patrol races toward the platform and the mouse who has engineered this gauntlet. He pulls a second lever and the large braziers burst, sending hot coals scattering along the floor, impeding the group’s path.
Dameon and Connor make attempts to dash forward and they pay off. Connor closes the distance after the group takes a few bad wounds from the gauntlet and runs the mouse though with his sword, killing him instantly.
After searching the rest of the building they find many important things. In the laboratory some extraordinary strong cording is found as well as a a cipher guide. In his chambers there are an abundance of books. Some over a decade old and all written in what appears to be Boneless’ handwriting. Using the cipher found before along with the code book from Stallin’s, Dameon begins to understand some of the words among the pages. He takes a few key books with him. In his desk they find 4 keys.
Exploring behind the large building Roddy finds a natural cave. Inside is a very old doorway which looks to be of weasel design. Scrawled along the top arch is a riddle and the door seems to have 4 keyholes.
Making their way back to the entrance they see that a bandit patrol has arrived back at the entrance of the Grove. A bandit, huge and carrying a large club embedded with teeth, steps forward, identifying himself as the leader of the group and demands an explanation.