Truly Evil?

The next door seemed to open into some sort of lab. To roughly 5 feet long by 3 feet wide island counters sat with a single small movable tray between them. On the tray was a very neat assortment of various medical tools. A third counter wrapped around the left and far walls with a series of cabinets above it. The cabinets seemed well stocked, and the whole room was very brightly lit, almost exuding an aura of clean combined with the sterile unease of the doctors.

Along the right wall sat yet another door.

"Not risking it." Ician pulled another severed table leg to him and kicked it along the floor, waiting to see if it triggered any traps.

The table leg skidded across the floor, coming to a stop next to one of the counters. Nothing else happens

"I still don't trust this..." Ician stepped warily into the room, his eyes darting about. His sword still stood ready by his side. Carefully, he trotted up to where the table leg had come to a stop and picked it up tentatively, waiting to see if something happened.

As Ician enters the room and retrieves the trusty table leg, nothing within the room changes.

Ician moved over to the medical tools and examined them cautiously, seeing if anything was amiss. "I'll bet that something in here is just waiting to kill me. Now if I just knew which it is..."

"Or perhaps, like in the study, there's nothing that will try to kill us," Dusk said, even though he didn't exactly believe it himself. He too was wary of everything in the room, but he knew worrying about it wouldn't help him. Defeating the table, as odd as that sounded, brought his spirits back up a bit. He felt that he could take what Sin Ester could throw at them now.

Dusk then entered the lab, and began going through the cabinets. He hoped he wouldn't find any severed body parts lying in them.

Jon saw the lab, and let out a happy gasp.  "Finally, something I can work with!"  He trotted in, and started sniffing around and opening cabinets, trying to find some clue of what sort of lab this was.  He hoped there would be more chemicals than magic this time.  He liked chemicals.

No matter where or what, Jon would almost certainly be able to smell magic within this house. There was simply too much of it at work to not smell it, however, in this room it wasn't nearly as strong. As for medical/surgical chemicals, the scents were very hard to pick up. Not because of their nonexistence, but because of the strength of cleaning chemicals at work and whose stench was really quite powerful. Bleach, various cleaners, more disinfectants, and lastly a powerful lemon scented soap all working to cover up the stench of various unidentifiable chemicals and blood.

The other reason why Jon would only barely smell the chemicals would be one for Dusk to first find out. Opening one of the cabinets would show a large variety of various well sealed jars, each with a similar warning label and chemical description. Some looking rather professional and likely store bought while a few looking rather homemade, or with the previous label scratched out and replaced with a new hoof written description that was usually longer. This seemed to be the case with most of the cabinets, all except one and when this one was opened, inside was a small black box with a large key lock holding it shut.

As Ician inspected the tools, he would see various scissors, clamps, scalpels, and other tools commonly used in surgery, and then an additional series of tools that looked rather akin to torture devises rather than surgical instruments. Within the drawers of the little table stand, there were additional sets of each tool, some gauze and bandages, even a needle and thread.

"Hm..." Ician stared at the tools reminiscent of torture devices. "This certainly says a lot about whoever used to live here... Not that the animated killing table and bottomless pit didn't already speak volumes." He gathered up all the instruments he can and slipped them into his saddlebags, paying special attention to the gauze, bandages, needle and thread. Who knows when we might need this... Probably soon.

"What the heck is this?" Dusk asked aloud. He decided to pull the black box out of the cabinet to take a closer look at it. He couldn't tell much from the box itself, but he figured there was something important in it, or at least something valuable. Now he either needed the key or a pony who knew a spell to unlock locks. He could always try breaking the lock, or heating the lock to the point it melted, but he didn't know if it was trapped or not.

Jon gave a disappointed 'hmm' at his inability to smell anything other than the cleaning chemicals.  At least it was sterile, he supposed.  He moved onto the cabinets, and focused on one of the homemade jars.  He looked at the label, then carefully sniffed at the lid, checking for any enchantments or magic in the substance itself.

The box Dusk picked up offered no restrictions to being moved other than it's weight, and the surgical instruments that Ician picked up, so long as he was being careful, would do little more than sit in the saddlebags he placed them in. The jar Jon picked up would have some feint magic to it, but this was in the form of a simple sealing enchant so nothing would get into or out of the container. As for what lay inside, it smelled almost living or as if it'd come from something living. Either way, it was still very fresh.

Figuring he wouldn't find the key anytime soon, Dusk decided to melt the lock off the box. He'd just use the same spell he'd use to start his forge, only prolonging it and making it much hotter. He soon began heating the lock, and when the metal became a hot orange, he began pulling it with his magic as well until it came right off. By sheer habit he cooled the lock before he set it down.

With the box free from the lock, Dusk took a few steps back and used his magic to open it, just in case there was a magical trap inside.

Despite the intense heat of the spell, the box didn't melt along with the lock, but when the attempt to open it was made, the lid didn't budge. Taking a moment to look would reveal the imprint of a lock around a key hole on the box itself, just under the latch that the conventional lock had been holding. This imprint however had a feint glow to it, signalling the use of magic in addition to the mundane lock.

Come on, why won't it open, Dusk said to himself after trying to open the box for a bit. When he finally looked at where he melted the lock off, he noticed the imprint of a lock on the box, and it seemed to be magically charged. Great, a magic lock. I guess I'll either have to find the key or have somepony break this magic lock.

He then remembered that Jon seemed to have some knowledge of magic here. He thought he could open it. "Hey Jon, there's a magic lock on this box here. You think you can unlock it?"

Jon shrugged.  "Maybe.  You'll probably want a unicorn."  He gestured to his forehead, which was noticably blank.  "Anyway, I say we see what's in one of these jars."  He looked at the others.  "Anyone going to tell me not to open the jar?"

"I have no problems with it," Dusk said to Jon. Dusk then turned his attention back to the box. He didn't know enough about magic to unlock it, so he figured his only options now were to find the key or break the box.

"Hey, if anypony finds a key, I'm for one to open this box," Dusk said so everypony could hear him. As he waited, he tried to find a weakness he could exploit if he needed to break the box.

While the box seemed fairly ordinary in it's own right, the enchantment where the second lock was hinted at something more. Any attempts made on the weak points however would prove fruitless as the magic lock held the box firm.

"Hm..." Ician moved over to Dusk. "If we can manage to find the key... or perhaps we've already found it and it's simply hidden in plain sight." He pulled out the instruments he collected earlier and began to try fitting them into the lock, one by one.

While plenty of the surgical instruments would fit into the keyhole, none seemed to hit all the tumblers or trigger the magic within to release the mechanism.

"Well... that was a failure." Ician looked around the room. "Perhaps there's something else in this room..."

He moved around to all the walls, cabinets and drawers, trying to remove any fake bottoms or fake backings or fake walls or fake what-have-you, behind which something could be hiding.

The room yielded no such panels, walls, or bottoms. The only movable things within the room were the various doors belonging to the cabinets and the two doors leading into and out of this room, one of which was the one the three entered from.

"So much for that." Lifting his sword, Ician approached the door he had not yet checked and pushed it open, keeping his sword ready.

The door opened easily enough into yet another hallway. Though this one was rather short, with only two pairs of door on either side and one at the very end.