Wardplate Vault: Animated Armors & the Grell's Grasp

Beneath a collapsed mezzanine in an abandoned magister's repository, the party forced entry to a small vaulted alcove. Two giant animated armors clanged to life to guard a brass-bound coffer while a grell hung from the rafters, its tentacles reaching like a living chandelier; a single, nervous rat darted in and out of the shelves, dragging scraps toward a hidden nest. With the guardians dispatched, the alcove yielded a mixture of practical salvage from the animated suits, peculiar aberrant components taken from the grell, and tidy treasury items – gemstones, a minor magical cloak, a few useful crafting bits for an armorer or artificer, and a handful of coins and scrolls the rat had been hoarding. The pile smells faintly of ozone and oiled metal; runes on several pieces still pulse with residual warding magic.