Qhude chides "You hunger already Jakob? We have not yet been here a day... there is time yet before our bellies should drive our actions." The bas'o moves forward with Ansha to ensure that he is at the fore of their approach, both from a protective instinct... as well as a desire to keep an eye on their elven companion.
"Does anyone else find it odd that they left not just wax, but real people, here behind these walls, in addition to demons and floating eyes? They are not expecting us in some lost time to them, they were expecting an attack the day they all marched out of here...maybe to a last fight. And these skeletons are the remnants of a 'just in case we don't make it back' defense....and it would seem they didn't"
N'bellocq has his bow ready and ready to follow the others.
Tebati frowns at the walls with the spear holes. "Well spied, cousin. Did they volunteer to be walled in and die at their posts, or were they slaves whose lives and well-being were meaningless to this Order? I should be happier to think that they were already skeletons when they were set their task and the necromancy binding them to undeath has faded with time, but the other arcane energies within this structure seem undimmed."
"Who knows? They may have already been skeletons, and they remain dormant until something triggers their reanimation," Ansha chimes in helpfully. "Like one of us stepping on the wrong stone, or walking through a tripwire. Or releasing a captive who then has to go through this gauntlet of reanimated skeletons himself...."
As an aside to Tebati in hushed voice "Sangoma, can you tell if they were Mwangi?"
She shakes her head. "Without the skin on the bone, I cannot say. But in the statuary above, it is the Azlant who dominates and the Mwangi who obediently serve." Her expression and tone say that she would not be at all surprised if the unfortunate dead were Mwangi.
Qhude's brow creases as Tebati's thoughts add weight to his own... but attention goes towards the path ahead.
The next stone room was bare and unadorned, with the same thick stone walls that were becoming very familiar to the group. Ansha and Qhude were alarmed to see the room contained four threatening-looking individuals; until they saw that each of them seemed to be frozen in time.
The group entered, noting a door leading east. There were four intricately drawn mosaics on the smooth floor, each one containing an individual stood above it. As the group entered the room, a voice boomed from the roof in a deep voice.
A Lizardfolk, with sharp claws held up as if to strike. A white, four armed ape that seemed to dwarf a normal Gorilla. A black ape of similar size, with full length, furry wings. And finally, a hulking, Dire Ape which obviously would exhibit great strength. Each of the four had their eyes glazed over, and were completely still as stone. And each one had a small placard beneath their bodies, with words engraved in Azlant.
Native to much of the continent and especially the jungles, these primitive people are usually a hindrance rather than a direct threat to our goals. Still, worshippers of The Ravener King do sometimes count such stupid beasts amongst their own. Usually only dangerous in large numbers, or in the water.
The savage Girallon is one of the greatest predators of this land, but has no real motives or intelligence beyond basic instincts. Thus, they are only dangerous when stumbled upon, or when under the direction of our enemies. Far, far more dangerous and intelligent is the High Girallon; intelligent specimens that serve the Gorilla Kings as elite lieutenants. Thankfully, these specimens are extremely rare and few members of our order have ever encountered any. The mind meld's Arioch himself provided can provide a first hand experience of such beasts, if one is so inclined to witness one. We have never captured one of these rare and gifted ape's alive.
This sentient type of Ape is known as a Derhii and they often act as vanguards and scouts; flying just above the tree-line. Less primitive than their appearance suggests, they usually fight with swords laden with minor enchantments. Their booming, cacophonous voices can be heard from a great distance, so they must be silenced in the first instance or they will bring a great host upon an unsuspecting agent.
The fearsome Dire Ape is merely an animal, albeit a particularly ferocious and primeval breed. However, the Gorilla Kings order many of their kin to be brought into sentience, usually by High Girallons acting as priest-lords. They are also often pressed into service as shock troops and front-line combatants, much like the lesser Charau-Ka.
Qhude eyes the creatures appraisingly, before hearing the words spoken after entering. Remembering that the others could not ken the words he repeats "Enemies of the Order." before regarding each in turn, starting with the great ape and moving down the line to the scaled figure. "The words below, speak of each creature... but I cannot see any other reason for this room... we should continue." gesturing Eastwards.
Ansha eyes the placards curiously, trying to discern the meaning of the texts for herself with Qhude's magically-acquired knowledge as an aid. "I didn't know that lizardfolk followed the ape-demon as well," the elf remarks.
Tebati shrugs. "We don't know that the Angazhanites were their only enemies," she points out. "Perhaps they were only the most numerous or pressing. These patterns on the floor, are they like the ones that imprisoned the toad demon? Could these creatures be released as well?"
Ansha shakes her head. "Not unless they're from another plane of existence. Although these might be a different sort of magical ward," she replies to Tebati. Murmuring the words to a cantrip, she looks over the room again.
"Why release your enemies in your temple? But perhaps to study and practice on them? Maybe these are similar to the waxmen, to get used to fighting the enemies of the Order."
"Or like the toad demon, it is a ward against those seeking entry," Tebati suggests. "Unless the toad-demon worshipers are fighting the ape-demon worshipers, I doubt it served the Order willing."
"Sort of. Ceustodaemons like that one seek to profit by their service, like all fiends. It was in a win-win: either we dismissed it; or, it thought it would kill us and take our souls," Ansha adds.
Listening to the words spoken by Ansha and Tebati, Qhude mulls for a few moments... before leaning forward with his guisarme to cut the lizardfolk and see if the statue bleeds.
Listening to Qhude
"A zoo? Your ancestors were skilled taxidermists in addition to grand magicians, Tebati."
"Poor beast..." Jakob gently touches the massive hand of the Great Ape.
"We should keep moving."
Qhude's guisarme cut along flesh with an abnormal amount of resistance. Actually, he found it more difficult to pierce than he would have imagined; the hide of these humanoids was tough. Disturbingly, while he could see he had opened the wound on a living creature, the blood beneath the wound did not flow out of it as it should; the blood itself seemed as though it lay dormant. While red, it was not flowing. It simply existed underneath the wound, inactive.
Ansha was confident that the aura around each of the four creatures was that of powerful Transmutation magic; a strong aura. Examining them closely, along with the effects of Qhude's cut, she concluded that they were under the effect of a Temporal Statis spell, or some variant thereof.
While the symbols beneath each were intricate, she was fairly sure they were decorative rather than magical in nature.
Qhude looks upon the hard fought almost cut with some degree of surprise and confusion. Turning to those more learned "Do they live or are they dead?"
Ansha murmurs curiously. "I think they're frozen in time. But they're definitely alive. I wouldn't worry about them for now--they aren't going anywhere. And those symbols look to be decorative, but I wouldn't try erasing them or anything."
She starts to move toward the door to the east. "I agree with Jakob, though. Let's keep moving."
The confirmation of life makes Qhude revert to his fighting stance, baring teeth and hissing with guisarme wardingly before him "These creatures are what the Order feared most... how sure are you there is no means for them to be woken... is there no way that we could end them?... to be safe."
The elf shakes her head. "You could try to carve them up, but if this is anything like the spell I'm familiar with, they can't be harmed while they're in that stasis."
Tebati seems untroubled by the creatures' continued existence. "The Order which opposed them was not afraid to leave them here within their own walls," she points out. "Perhaps they are like your scars, Qhude: each a trophy of a victory. At any rate, they have stood here many thousands of years without being freed from the magic which binds them. If they awaken, we may have to fight them, but now they pose no threat. Is there honor to be found in killing a mighty warrior as he slumbers?"
"Hardly," Kieran says with a half-smile as he places a hand on Qhude's shoulder. "I am quite content to leave them be. And if indeed they awaken at some point while we are here and we have to fight them, well..."
He shrugs. "I suppose that might even interest you actually. More of a challenge than carving them up in this state."
He then looks to the rest. "Shall we then?"
Qhude grunts at the mentions of honor and threat, taking them inward but not speaking further upon them. He moves from the living but not live statues and plumbs further depths beyond the door...
Leaving the room behind, the group stepped through the next door, another iron one which was apparently unlocked.
This led to a small room with three exits. The doors to the south and east appeared to have no handles. On the south wall, flanking the door, two large red gems were set in the wall, one on either side. The western gem was glowing, while the eastern was not.
Qhude looked at the gems and the door to the West "The other task is not yet done... we need to go back to there... what was there N'bellocq?"
Ansha moves for the door to the east. "The arbiters said they were waiting for us over here, so let's go. Maybe we can bypass the mechanism on the south side by entering from this way."
Ansha found no way to open the eastern door, lending credence to Qhude's theory.
"...Back we go, then," she mutters.
Meanwhile, N'bellocq inspected the other room, beginning with the cubes. It seemed as though they were semi-fixed into place, but could be rotated horizontally, thus each cube atop each of the nine pedestals could be put into four different positions. Each of the four faces (but not the top) bore a symbol upon it; N'bellocq did not recognise any of them but suspected they might be letters, especially as he recognised a few of them repeating themselves from cube to cube.N'bellocq also examined the figurine in the room. Now he was closer, he could see that it was only loosely humanoid in shape; it was only a little larger than his thumb, but appeared to be made up of hundreds of tiny threads of string and rope, weaved together intricately to form a humanoid shape. The tiny holes left by the weaves where a man's eyes would be was quite disconcerting, as though the tiny figurine was watching the pedestals in front of him.
The mural depicted a long, high wall; well manned by armoured soldiers in helmets. The background presented the scene along the wall, looking out over a vast, jungle-like plain with forests in the distance. In the foreground, an Azlant warrior was squinting out into the distance with one hand held touching his forehead, blocking the sun from his eyes and helping him to spot threats.
Moving into the eastern room, Qhude could see that the symbols upon the faces of each of the cubes were Azlant letters...
Qhude warily looks upon the figurine and symbols confirming "The symbols on the blocks are parts of their words."
Tebati frowns. "So... we are to spell a word in a language we don't know? How is that possible?"
Qhude nods and makes a non-commital grunt of either affirmation or confusion...
"Can you still read it, Qhude?"
"Yes... but each is only a part. Without knowing what animal has died it is hard to put the bones together."
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Tebati turns from the mural to the strange fetish-doll with empty eyeholes on the pedestal. "'Eyes?'" she ventures. "What is the Azlant word for 'eyes,' Qhude? 'Watchman?'"
Musing on the word "Vigilance", Qhude actually manages to spell it out with the letters available, moving from left to right along the pedestals. He is, however, also able to spell "Angazhan" and "Fortitude". It seems that no matter which combination of letters he uses, a cube atop a pedestal has to be pressed down in order to lock in place, rather than spun which is how the letter is changed.
"So we set the cubes to a word and then press them in to indicate the choice...."
Jakob walks over to the figure.
"... and this little fellow must decide if the choice was correct."
Turning to the group.
"If we can spell 'Vigilance' then we should try it. Even if it is wrong we might learn something."
Softer "At least the survivors might... I can try if you like."
"'Vigilance' seems as good an idea as any," Ansha agrees.
Qhude nods and takes a breath "Done... but only one should stand in the room as it is tried." waving the others back behind the threshold before attempting to spell out 'vigilance' in order from first letter to last.
Tebati folds her arms discontentedly. "If anything happens to you," she points out, "we are worse than blind in here: We are blind, and deaf, and mute. No one else can read the signs and warnings or understand and speak on our behalf to any guardian. You are no longer expendable, Qhude, to the extent that you ever believed you were; you cannot continue acting as if your life is of the least importance."
"Actually..." Ansha whispers as an aside to Tebati, "We could probably just go upstairs and drink from that same fountain that he did. If we were feeling lucky."
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Qhude stops to hear Tebati's words and mulls them. At first it appears as though some affront is taken at his courage, but reasoning shows the Sangoma's line of thought to be sound. With a sigh, followed by questioning eyes he speaks "Fine, let Ansha do it."
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Ansha blinks at Qhude, mouth open and at a complete loss for words.
"Qhude did take the risk of the last room, it is right that he should be spared another trap so soon. If the doll is to be our judge, I will stay to take its judgement. Much has been done to me in my short life, I doubt this doll can do anything worse."