You stay outside, Percival begins, looking forlornly at the dead seeker, I'll poke around. If anything bad happens to me, well...if you're going to be dumb you've got to be tough, right? He moves over to the beetle and pokes at it with his spear, then looks around carefully.
When Percival pokes the beetle, it sluggishly chitters and begins to stir.
Percival quickly and efficiently cuts the beetle in half, never giving it a chance to stand up. I don't really see anything of interest, let's move on.
Having no idea what the ring does, Pythia passes it to Cerise. "Can you tell what it does?"
---
"Well this is fascinating!" Pythia remarks. She yawns loudly, then shakes her head. "Yeah.... Get it, Percival..."
Pythia wander around the room sleepily, examining the slabs. Then she examines the big clay statue.
Chaetris watches as Percival quickly dispatches the beetle and carefully releases the arrow from her bow and places it back into the quiver. "This armor could fetch us some decent coin back in town. If we don't mind taking it off the dead." She scans the slab to make sure nothing seems awry.
The slabs seem very much like their meant for sleeping, though the corpse resting on it has been severely crushed by... something. It looks like his chest was caved in by a boulder.
Despite that, there don't appear to be any traps.
The statue appears to be made of some kind of red marble and is quite heavy. You imagine it represents some deity or other mythical figure, though it must be pretty obscure, as the creatures who recognized the entity have been gone for a millennia.
"Huh." Pythia remarks sleepily. She yawns loudly, then starts taking the armour off the dead body.
Pythia is able to retrieve the armor in relatively good shape, as well as a silver ring on the left hand. There doesn't appear to be anything else of value.
Kael pokes about to make sure that there wasn't anything interesting that was missed. Once satisfied, he returns to the less fatiguing hallway.
Once Chaetris and Pythia remove the armor and ring from the Seeker corpse Chaetris gives the room one last once over before heading back out into the hall.
"I think we're done in here. Let's move on, this room makes me tired."
Just north of the two rooms, there are a pair of alcoves with pegs, reminiscent of the one near the sculptor's workshop. The pegs are all empty. Beyond, a staircase descends into darkness. There are a few dry steps that lead down into ominously still water. The entire path beyond is fully submerged.
"Oh, a flooded corridor! How exciting!"
Pythia takes off her backpack, shield, and most of her gear and drops it someplace dry beside her companions.
"I want to take a peek at what's under there! I'll be back in a short while."
She waits in case anyone wants to come with her, before casting light on her dress.
Pythia walks into the water. Before submerging she takes a few deep breaths, then a big, deep breath, holds it, and slips under the water.
Kael gives a disdainful look at the water, then back to his companions. "First bugs, now plenty of water to drown in. What is this, the Cairn of Ignoble Demises?" He snorts as Pythia starts to get towards the water. "Are we skinny dipping now? I'm not getting in that unless I get out of my armor. Who knows what might live in there, though..."
Drowning's rough, but I bet we'll be alright. There's not a lot that could live in the water, right? Percival eyes it. He piles everything but his armor and longsword in the hallway, then follows Pythia without hesitation.
"Good idea, Kael! My dress will probably weigh me down." Pythia remarks, deciding it's best to go in her undergarments, after all. Casting light on her belt instead of her dress.
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Seeing the flooded passageway, Chaetris starts babbling about pumps and hoses. "Well, it'll need to be pumped back outside. We'll probably need a catchbasin and a second pump up in the sarcophagus room. Can we do it ourselves? Or will we need a donkey for each pump? I need to do some math..." She sits down and starts scrawling on the wall with some chalk.
She barely notices when Pythia and Percival jump into the water. Wait, what?
Cerise was nervous about the flooded room. She sent her dancing mage-lights under the water to help illuminate things for their brave divers.
"That water is not sanitary." she said with a wrinkled nose.
Before you venture further, you feel an inevitable sense of encroaching darkness so intense, it takes all your focus to stave it off, and before you can warn your allies, it is suddenly pitch black! You feel a surge in the water and your light goes out!
But, before you can venture much further, the light suddenly goes out! It is pitch black.
Percival places a hand on Kael and kicks forward with his legs, trying to put his other hand on her shoulder. I hope she's allright, shouldn't've let her go first...would've been so easy...I'm so dumb sometimes.
Fascinating!
Pythia draws her dagger and is about to swim forward when she feels someone's hand on her shoulder. Percival or Kael, she can't tell.
Pythia readies an action to stab at anything that she feels come at her from the front.
Chaetris looks at Cerise, "Did they just do that, just get in the water? It's dark down there." She sighs, "They should have at least taken a rope." And with that she goes back to her calculations.
Pythia's light goes out suddenly but thankfully, Cerise is still holding the Dancing Lights spell from up top, oblivious to the danger. The water in front of Pythia has a dark, humanoid shape little bigger than a gnome and it looks aggressive!
Dropping his Greatsword and drawing his more hydrolic-friendly morning-star, Kael tries to maneuver towards the strange watery thing, so that it could focus on him instead of Pythia.
Unfortunately he floundered a bit and his attack suffered from it.
In the pool, no one can hear him curse.
There's no need to attack it, Percival reaches out to stop his companions, longsword drawn but not in use. It hasn't attacked us or done anything wrong yet, we've invaded it's territory, who's the bad guy here?
Percival swims forward, trying to close the distance and looking for an opportunity to grab hold of the creature.
"I'm trying to make it less dark for them. I hope it helps, but from up here I can't see quite where to put the lights. I'm just trying to keep the orbs near them."
Seeing that the humanoid shape is angry water, Pythia thinks to herself, Cool! Just before she gets smashed by it. She spins in the water, trying to find her footing, then stabs at the angry water man.
"I think maybe we'd need a third pump and a second catchment. I don't think even Ragnolin Dourstone would invest that much into pumping out a space like this without significant expectation of return." Chaetris stops and looks down at the water. "How long should we wait before we start to worry? They've been down there a while."
Kael manages to keep his footing this time, moving around to flank and lashing out at the strange aquatic aggressor,
[ooc]If I could get higher than a 10...
Sent reeling from the impact, Pythia struggles to keep conscious in the water. From deep within her, magic surges. She tries to focus on it, in order to heal herself. Concentrate!
Dizzy, and near unconsciousness, she can't focus enough to heal herself.
Kael watches as Pythia continues to take the brunt of the attack, silently yelling, No! Move away! In the water and with his attention riveted on the water thing, he can merely gesture frantically in what could possibly be taken as a shooing motion. Or possibly his poor attempts to swim.
I'm really starting to regret never having learned to swim... but really? Who would have thought in the middle of a cairn swimming would have been suddenly relevant?"
Deciding that Pythia can't survive another hit and hadn't moved in a position to defend herself, the only recourse was a potentially risky attack.
Kael brings his morningstar down in a mighty swing!
Percival's feet now rest firmly on the flooded floor. He flails frantically forward, feeling Pythia's fear and forcing his sword into the pelagic fiend.
[ooc]All for Noooping out of the water to at least catch breath,
potentially healing up.
Seeing its safe to swim away now, Pythia does so, swimming back slowly to the corridor and coming up for a huge gasp for air. She's battered and bruised and does NOT look well.
"Whoah!" she remarks. "That was exciting! I wonder what else is down there..."
Nearly swooning in place and still up to her waist in water, Pythia casts a few healing spells on herself.
Feeling (and looking) much better she smiles. "Much better! Oh, dear! You don't look so well, either, Kael!"
"Well?" she asks Kael and Percival. "Ready to go see what it was guarding?"
Pythia recasts light on her belt before turning back to the water. Suddenly she stops and looks at Cerise. "Thanks for the lights you sent. Mine sputtered out as soon as we were underwater, but yours kept working."
Pythia's mysterious wounds heal magically and her spell lights happily, like nothing is wrong at all! Kael and Percival follow her out into the corridor. The all look absolutely drenched.
Kael sputters once he emerges from the water, doing his best not to glare at Pythia. "Not that I can complain too much about you keeping me from getting killed, but could you avoid coming so close to We Jas' embrace yourself? You can back away when something nasty is paying attention to you." Speaking of which, he studiously avoids looking at Pythia's underwear. "Also, could you perhaps but some clothes back on?"
Glancing back at the water, he sighs. [b]"I didn't get a good look in there, but there's definitely more to explore. I'm not sure if we want to make a couple more trips down.
"Oh, I very much doubt I could outswim water!" Pythia remarks happily. "I'm not that good of a swimmer. Although I appreciate your confidence in me."
As Kael finishes speaking, Pythia looks confused. "I've still got some clothes on. It's more than I wear to work. Besides, we're not done swimming! I want to head back down there. My dress will weigh me down."
After a moment she suddenly exclaims: "OH! Do you find me distracting? Or are you not used to women in their underwear?"
Kael coughs, still avoiding looking directly at Pythia. I'm not really used to being around -women- let alone ones in their underwear. The almost entirely male militia didn't afford that many opportunities for interactions with the opposite sex. Still he tries to cover it.
"You don't have to outswim the water, you just have to outswim us." He thinks a moment. "That's a sentence I never thought I'd say."
"Well, consider this an opportunity to get used to women, Kael! You're surrounded by us now." Pythia nods helpfully. "Oh! And most don't have this many scars." she gestures at the many, many, MANY ugly scars scratched all over her flesh.
As Kael finishes talking, Pythia looks surprised. "Oh, don't be silly! I wouldn't swim away and leave you in trouble!"
She takes a step deeper into the water, still sopping wet and in her underwear. "Come on. Let's go."
Pythia eagerly re-enters the submerged room, still in her bedclothes, as Kael and Percival hesitantly follow. They disappear fully into the depths before long.
Pythia takes the lead and heads toward the room on the right. The room contains four long benches with several niches along the walls. It was probably some sort of locker room.
Before you can do much exploration, a creature lunges out from around the corner at Pythia, narrowly missing her unarmored form! It looks like a humanoid creature with long, sharp teeth, and pallid flesh stretched tightly over its starved frame. A gold ring glints on one of its fingers.
Percival lingers in the water for a while, making sure there's nothing else hiding down there. After a moment he swims back up to join the others, still breathing fairly easily.
Don't have to outswim the water? Oh, yeah, if you're hurt, back up. We're here to help each other, I can help you by getting hurt. I'm really good at that, actually, he grins, then dives back down.
Kael swims down with his greatsword on his back, morningstar drawn, following Pythia as she inevitably gets into trouble once again. Moving past the monster, he swims into the room, grimacing as it leaves him vulnerable. He then makes a mighty attack at the strange creature!