"Good idea Ekuur." Justin comments as the elemental cleric prays, and reaches for his own spell component pocket, then frowns as he realizes that he doesn't have any elemental protection spells prepared. He decides against using his amulet, yet, and simply follows the others as they approach the central sphere.
Justin watches and holds his breath as Arnav approaches the sphere and touches it.
"Careful,..." Justin Breathes, too late, as Arnav reaches out a hand. And it vanishes into the sphere wall. Then is pulled out again.
The mage's eyes go wide in pleasant surprise when nothing happens. No roaring attack of creatures, no lightning blasts,...
"Well,... alright then." Justin looks at the others.
"Mister Arnav seems to have found the door. After you!" He gestures to the spot Arnav touched.
"Karrin, As soon as we get inside, I'm casting a protective spell on you. I don't know how to sprinkle diamond dust in a plane of weightlessness."
Hamar nods to Ekuur, "My thanks Cleric".
Hamar heads to the "doorway" that Arnav seems to have found. He draws his blades and then steps inside...
Hamar steps into the oval and suddenly feels the gut-wrenching feeling of a portal. He is suddenly standing on a black flagstone floor. The room he is in is empty, the ceiling curving up into a dome overhead. There is gravity here. Four round openings lead off the sphere. They seem to be attached to flexible hallways that sway ungulently. The material of the hallways is black with a rainbow oily sheen to it
Hamar takes a 10' step forward to allow his comrades to follow him.
He pauses to hear something as it is obvious there is nothing to see, yet.
Perception
Justin watches as Hamar vanishes into the sphere.
He raises an eyebrow. There was no scream or flash of anything disaster-indicating, other than the constant flashes of lightning around them traveling between the spheres. He looks at Karrin.
"After you?" He smiles.
Karrin enters the sphere. Landing ready with her Ferissirion, her crystal great axe, at the ready. She also makes room for others to follow after her.
Inside the spherical room the area is bare. The temperature is chilly, plumes of breath smoke rise from their mouths as they stand waiting for their party members to arrive.
Hamar hears nothing. The quiet is like a physical thing, like the silence of a tomb. The only light is their ioun stones, Ferissirion, and Arnav's amor. . The feeling of hollowness they felt traveling here is lessened.
The four circular entrances also faintly shine, but the illumination is very low key, like an oil slick on water. The hallway/tunnels are silent, and nothing can be seen down them past a few feet, as if all light gets sucked out at that point
Justin watches as Karrin vanishes, Glances at the others, and with a grim look enters the portal himself,...
He keeps his voice quiet as he asks, "Do these tunnels match what we saw outside?" The transit proved that all of his companions were smarter than he, but he still attempts to keep the structure clear in his head in case they get separated.
He keeps his voice quiet as he asks, "Do these tunnels match what we saw outside?" The transit proved that all of his companions were smarter than he, but he still attempts to keep the structure clear in his head in case they get separated.
[dice=int check]1d20+0
Arnav recalls four tunnels leading off the sphere they entered. They had seemed to sway a bit from the outside
Nari ignores Merle's advice to get to higher ground and instead concentrates on the approaching zombies. If anyone could see her, what with being invisible and all, they would see her eyes glow green as she raised her hand and then abruptly lowered it. As she did so, a large chunk of ground around and under the zombies is lifted up into the air and abruptly dropped back down again on the zombies themselves.
The floor beneath the shuffling horde raises up and flips, spilling the dessicated corpses willy nilly . The chunk of ebon stone slams down upon them, and their moaning is cut off with a solid *CRUNCH*. Nothing stirs afterwards
He keeps his voice quiet as he asks, "Do these tunnels match what we saw outside?"
Justin does a quick two-step as he enters the gravity of the interior. He manages not to collide with Karrin. He steps aside to make room for the rest, then, true to his word, sprinkles glittering dust on Karrin with a magic phrase that makes it circle, then adhere to Karrin as if she was a magnet. Then it fades, leaving only a slight crystal shimmer to her skin.
"There. You will take less damage from physical attacks for about an hour. So let's not dally." Justin says with a small smile.
Then the wizard turns his attention to the rest of,... whatever this is.
"No convenient signposts. How rude." He observes.
The floor beneath the shuffling horde raises up and flips, spilling the dessicated corpses willy nilly . The chunk of ebon stone slams down upon them, and their moaning is cut off with a solid *CRUNCH*. Nothing stirs afterwards
"Well that certainly worked......." Merle
Ekuur enters the sphere after Justin, and bristles at the cold air. "If more light is needed, this should help." With a short prayer and command, his trikal once again bursts into flame, hopefully cascading some additional light (and maybe some heat?) into the area.
"No convenient signposts. How rude." He observes.
The room they are in is quiet and bare. All Justin can see is the four circular entrances with their oily sheen. He cannot seem to see more than a few feet down the corridors. No matter how much light is put hear them. It doesn't illuminate any further
Ekuur enters the sphere after Justin, and bristles at the cold air. "If more light is needed, this should help." With a short prayer and command, his trikal once again bursts into flame, hopefully cascading some additional light (and maybe some heat?) into the area.
Ekuur's trikal flares and brings some much needed heat to the room
"Darkness that seems to absorb the light. Keep the Ioun stones going." Justin observes dryly, trying fruitlessly to peer down one of the hallways.
With a flicker of concentration, he once again summons his four small spheres of glowing magical lights. Waving a finger like a musical conductor, he strings them out into a line.
"All right. Which way? I can't tell the difference between any of these archways." Justin gestures to the circular entrances in frustration.
"Whatever we decide, My spells won't last forever. And I do NOT want to wait around for someone, or something, to find us. First."
The wizard seems a tad nervous. Or excited. It's sometimes hard to tell with him.
IN his defense, it IS a strange giant fortress, (Potentially holding the body of a dead or erased Power?), circled by elemental lightning, floating in the void of the Negative plane.
What could possibly go wrong?!?
"Well that certainly worked......." Merle
The floor beneath the shuffling horde raises up and flips, spilling the dessicated corpses willy nilly . The chunk of ebon stone slams down upon them, and their moaning is cut off with a solid *CRUNCH*. Nothing stirs afterwards
"I did say it would hit like a ton of bricks...because it was a ton of bricks....umm.....that might have been overkill," she admitted sheepishly. "I'm just kinda jumpy after all the nasty stuff we've met out here, you know?"
"Then we move on." he says simply. "Do we lead with stealth or brawn?"
"Hamar, I need you to check the path ahead, hiding in the shadows shouldn't be hard, but I'd think the things that exist on this side would have adapted to that somehow. Everyone be extremely careful. This is a fortress and we have no idea the kind of defenses it has yet.
"Nobody moves until Hamar has checked the path. don't touch anything until Hamar has looked it over.
"Let's get this place explored quickly and get back to the friends we left behind. I don't like the idea of them alone in that temple. Move out.
"So, Stealth. THEN Brawn as required." Justin says to Arnav with an irrepressible smirk.
He nods, understanding the wisdom of this method.
"For the first few halls at the least. I wouldn't think the guts of this place would be trapped."
Justin nods in agreement with Karrin. "Guarded maybe,..." he murmurs, and then hands Hamar his glowing wand once more.
"In case you want to get a good look at something." Justin says as he hands the wand over. "Be careful."
As Hamar moves off to do his thing, Justin muses softly out loud.
"I'm trying to figure out what to expect by what we know about the builders of this place. But I'm having a difficult time comprehending the amount of power required to erase a Power from existence, much less what whoever did it was thinking."
Justin rubbed his goatee then frowned. He needed a trim and a shave. His neat goatee was threatening to turn into a full blown beard. And Justin had no desire to grow a full-out long 'old wizard's beard'. Not Yet anyway.
"Traps are a definite probability. Keep anyone who might find out about your secret place out. But, if this place was built by the 'erasers', then any person, being or creature you used to guard it is another who knows about the being you are trying to erase. Sort of counter-productive if your trying to make sure the multiverse forgets and never recalls the being in question."
"Doesn't mean it CAN'T be guarded of course." Justin is in full talking to himself mode now. Ignoring even Memnon floating next to him.
"Golems and automatons don't have memories. And basic unintelligent undead of course. Of course in THIS plane they'd be,... Oh. Shards." Justin goes pale. Like, white as a ghost pale.
"Karrin." Justin says very, very calmly. "We may have a problem."
"IF there are any undead here. they will be powered by the Negative Plane itself. Unless the walls of this fortress block out the Planes natural energy. Essentially, they will be indestructible. The negative energy of the Plane will heal them faster than we will be able to smash them. I don't know if they will be able to regenerate from being completely disassembled, but getting them to that point may very well be impossible. A simple skeleton or zombie will be a juggernaut beyond the destructive abilities of a flesh or iron golem."
Justin looks at the purple ioun stone whizzing around his head.
"We'd have to cut them off from the energy of the Plane itself."
"You don't go to the trouble of building a fortress in the negative plane just to fill it full of mindless undead, they'd just have a big old rock with a flat spot for the corpse. They need living intelligent priests and cultist to bring the dead god back to life, I mean look at this place, it s incapable of creating or sustaining anything. Undead are powered by this place, true, but that doesn't mean they'll thrive here. Not long term anyways. We've all heard that saying "Too much of a good thing is bad for you," well this is too much of a bad thing for undead and they don't do well with things that are good for them. You get what I saying right?
"I mean think about it, the positive plane makes all things right? Most undead were once living right? Well they're designed to exist on the positive plane, while drawing energy from this one, I'd think the only thing that might thrive here are those spirits we've already fought, their masks being something that ties them to the positive plane, which resists the strong natural tendencies of this plane. This place unmakes them. This is a hiding spot which nobody suspects because there's nothing here and nothing, not even the undead, wants to be here. I'm willing to bet that those walls are exactly here to counter the plane's negative energy so that living things can reside in here.
"As to your first question, this is the work of a god, without a doubt, and hopefully a good aligned one, the sort willing to forgive meddling in their affairs, I mean one would assume gods would be forgiving of us hero types trying to stop followers of their rival from undoing their work but gods can be petty, and the could take offence to us even helping if it's the wrong sort of deity. Anyways, enough worrying about what could go wrong, let's think about what could go right. I'm thinking money, fame, all kinds of books and knowledge, the gratitude of a god, and maybe some handsome elven warrior, with strong grippy arms . . . I'll allow you to skip on that last reward though, that's strictly for Karrin. It's been a long three years."
Arnav is quiet. It could be all of the talk about planar stuff that he doesn't know. It could be that he was focusing on the fight to come. It could be thoughts of how unlikely he was to find somebody for his strong grippy arms.
"As to your first question, this is the work of a god, without a doubt, and hopefully a good aligned one, the sort willing to forgive meddling in their affairs, I mean one would assume gods would be forgiving of us hero types trying to stop followers of their rival from undoing their work but gods can be petty, and the could take offence to us even helping if it's the wrong sort of deity. Anyways, enough worrying about what could go wrong, let's think about what could go right. I'm thinking money, fame, all kinds of books and knowledge, the gratitude of a god, and maybe some handsome elven warrior, with strong grippy arms . . . I'll allow you to skip on that last reward though,...
"While that is very hopeful, I have my doubts that any good being created this place. The whole bears the cold of death, the icy chill of the grave. Nothing good comes of that. I suspect the mummy we fought earlier was only the warm up to what we might find here."
(Lots of stuff)
Justin looks at Karrin. He opens his mouth to say something, closes it, then Smiles and nods.
"Riiiight. This way then?"
"As to your first question, this is the work of a god, without a doubt, and hopefully a good aligned one, the sort willing to forgive meddling in their affairs, I mean one would assume gods would be forgiving of us hero types trying to stop followers of their rival from undoing their work but gods can be petty, and the could take offence to us even helping if it's the wrong sort of deity. Anyways, enough worrying about what could go wrong, let's think about what could go right. I'm thinking money, fame, all kinds of books and knowledge, the gratitude of a god, and maybe some handsome elven warrior, with strong grippy arms . . . I'll allow you to skip on that last reward though,..."While that is very hopeful, I have my doubts that any good being created this place. The whole bears the cold of death, the icy chill of the grave. Nothing good comes of that. I suspect the mummy we fought earlier was only the warm up to what we might find here."
"Er, no, I wasn't talking about this fortress, this is clearly the work of our dead power, what I was talking about is who killed him or her and made people forget his or her name. You'd think that making sure this dead god stays down would endear whoever killed him or her, but as I said, gods are fickle and we could earn the wrath of someone just by interjecting ourselves into their affairs."
Blayze listens t the discussion, quickly coming to the assessment that Karrin is much smarter than she projects on the surface. Then again she herself wasn't quite as reckless as she seemed at first either.
"You know what I really wish Karin had left her rashion bag here."
Hamar refuses the torch, gesturing to the soft light coming fro his own Ioun Stone and moves in the direction that Karrin indicated Dorection "2".
Stealth
Perception
channel 1
channel 2
"You know what I really wish Karin had left her rashion bag here."
channel 1 5d6
channel 2 5d6
Karrin follows Hamar about 10ft back.
Arnav will follow about 10 ft behind Karrin. That will allow him to get to the front or back as needed.
"You know what I really wish Karin had left her rashion bag here."
Nari rummaged around in her bag. "Sorry. I appear to be out. I stopped packing rations since...well, I don't actually need to eat anymore. I mean, I can eat. I enjoy the flavor. I just don't actually need to. That's how I knew that this body was definitely not human. Well, that and the fact that I still meditate instead of sleeping. Humans definitely need to eat and sleep on a regular basis. One of the new people called me something else. Elan. I don't know what that means, but it sounds right. I think." She shivered again. "Would it help or hurt to think about all the delicious food that will be waiting for us when we get home?"
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One of the new people called me something else. Elan. I don't know what that means, but it sounds right. I think."
"I dunno sounds like something you would call a bard."
One of the new people called me something else. Elan. I don't know what that means, but it sounds right. I think.""I dunno sounds like something you would call a bard."