The heroes next found a stairwell that was the secret entrance to the deeper levels of the Zyphus cult's hideout. The entire landing at the top of the secret stairs was a camouflaged pit trap, which Wrack fell into.
The first room of the second level had a five-foot-wide, rickety rope bridge stretching from a small landing at the bottom of the secret stairwell on the south side across a twenty-foot deep pit to another small landing on the north side. The north landing had a solid wood door leading north and the south landing had the secret stairwell leading up to the west.
This room represented the first test for new Zyphus recruits. A new recruit had to cheat death by crossing the rope bridge before a poltergeist triggered the bridge collapse and either crushed the new recruit's skull with a rock or hurled him to death against one of the walls. Hustavan knew about this room (having once passed the test) but he believed the poltergeist was actually Zyphus himself. When asked how they normally got through this room, he said, "Once you figure it out, you just get through here as quickly as possible. Lots of cultists die here even after they're part of the cult."
The poltergeist here used its telekinesis ability with annoying results. The bridge was rigged to collapse - something the poltergeist knew how to rig but didn't get a chance to.
The poltergeist spent most of the combat flying above the bridge throwing 25-pound rocks at the heroes. When Mrunk crossed the bridge he was targeted with telekinesis as the poltergeist pushed him in the pit. Once Mrunk was in the pit, the poltergeist resumed throwing rocks at the heroes. The poltergeist's only accessible rocks heavy enough to do damage to the heroes were in a single pile near three corpses in the pit. The poltergeist had to swoop down to pick one up and the heroes could spot him picking up a rock. He fought until destroyed.
There were three dead cultists in the pit - 2 human males and a female half-elf. Mrunk examined the bodies and found that both males were killed by massive internal injuries, probably from falling. When he examined the half-elf he found dozens of tiny bites all across her body which suggested that she probably died of some kind of poison. None of the cultists possessed anything of value.
The next room had four evenly spaced canvas walls in the middle, running parallel to each other in a row stretching from north to south. On both sides of each wall hung dozens of paintings, drawings, and sketches of a variety of violently-themed scenes. The heroes walked in through a solid wooden door in the middle of the south wall and a heavier, oaken door was in the middle of the north wall.
This gallery was where Fel Bustrani kept his collection of tragedy- and accident-themed art. The works each depicted some horrible event - the tragic death of a child hit by a wagon, a building collapse killing dozens of workers, and so on. The largest painting, on the far left canvas wall, depicted the interior of a large, elegantly appointed opera house where rotting undead fed on the living. Mrunk, Seoni and Wrack instantly recognized the opera house as the House of the Immortal Son.
A mechanical fire trap was set in the ceiling just above the north door. When Wrack stepped onto the square in front of the door he triggered the trap and it exploded toward the south side of the room in a 15-foot cone, setting the gallery on fire and almost killing Hustavan. The part of the gallery in the area of effect burned immediately; the fire then spread slowly until the heroes put it out. The oaken door in the north wall had been heavily treated with fire-resistant residue and did not burn during the fire.
Nine of the twelve paintings were lost in the fire. Aranthor needed to recover the painting of Panmagistros Taticus Petros the Spear-Bearer of Zimar intact and undamaged. The difficulty was that the painting was on the second canvas wall from the east and was hung directly in the path of the mechanical fire trap. When the trap was activated, the painting went up in flames.
The next room was split in half by a half-moon shaped cliff. The lower side, along the south wall, was twenty feet below the higher side on the north wall. The cliff was rather smooth, seemingly absent of handholds or any easy way to climb it. The heroes entered through a solid, oaken door to the south, and two simple wooden doors led out to the north and east. The room smelled vaguely like cooked meat.
This room represented the second test for new Zyphus recruits, a test of their persistence. The rock wall was incredibly difficult to climb and most recruits spent hours trying trying to scale the 20-foot-cliff, if only to avoid having to quit and walk back out through the first Zyphus test. Mrunk found a hidden set of handholds tucked back into a natural crease that run up the rock wall in the middle.
There was a nasty tripped trap, firing spikes from inside the hidden handholds in the natural crease. There were a dozen or so spikes embedded in the heavy oak door and the south wall as well as a dozen spikes imbedded in the corpse of a human female lying against the base of the cliff. There was also a tripped boiling oil trap that was the source of the room's smell. Two deformed and burned bodies lay against the eastern door in a puddle of congealed oil. None of the bodies possessed anything of value.
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