Kaeleen and Karl whisper together, then Karl opens the door. The fleeing goblin is in the next room, scurrying through an open door to the right. Grotz spies the fleeing creature and springs through the door Karl just opened. Kaeleen and Karl and the angle of the door interfer with Grotz's desire to immediately charge after the goblin, but the swarthy half-orc does push past his friends to move into the next room. Grotz's greataxe swings a wide arc through the air and slices through the fleeing runt, dealing 17 points of damage. The goblin, sliced clean through, lands in two pieces on the floor, its dead eyes already rolling back into its head.
Back in the hallway, Elyan gently slaps Meepo on the cheeks. The kobold's eyes flutter open but, seeing a human bending over him, the pitiful creature groans in sorrow. Meepo remains lying, motionless, on the flagstone hallway floor. "Hurt, yes! Break head on floor. Hurt, need bed!" The sound of Grotzkoshter laying into another goblin nearby echoes in the hall through the open door and Meepo starts to quiver. "Hurt, need bed!"
Karl scouts the area just inside the newly opened door for hints of traps and, finding none, steps through. The stench of garbage, rotted carrion, and half-eaten legs of strange animals in this room speak of long use by unsanitary tenants. Tattered hides form six unstable hammocks around a much-used fire pit on the opposite wall of the room. Battered cooking equipment lies mixed indiscriminately with broken or worn arms and armor. Karl and Kaeleen spy javelins, scimitars, leather and spiked leather armor, all of which is mixed into the room's refuse and lies strewn across the floor.
Beyond his fresh kill in the doorway, Grotzkoshter (and Karl) see another long hall not terribly unlike the one occupied by Yusadrayl. A double row of marble columns with sinewy carvings of some sort marchs the length of the portion of the hall visible from the open doorway. The air inside the long hall is thick with a noxious haze that fogs the view and burns the nostrils. A draft from the open doors sucks the haze from the long hall into the carrion-strewn room toward the companions, and threatens to fill the room's narrower space in short order. The smell of the haze, while unpleasant, is tolerable. Kaeleen, Karl, and Grotzkoshter all hear a multitude of harsh voices punctuated by the occasional shout echoing from somewhere beyond the long hall. Juding by the quality of the sound, something larger than mere goblins occupies this new area.
