Qhude does not allow the umoya-ze to withdraw, rising with bruised pride without moving forward and voice strengthened "We are not kin Akirra of the long dead... and my mind is not closed." touching his chest and tracing the ritual scars upon it with his left hand "I am bas'o and I am young... but I am no isiwula. Every step I take within this earthen tomb makes me long to be out of it."
"Your kin, who took your umoya bound daemons, set isifanekiso to kill, gave beasts the same half-death that was given to you, and this place has a dark inhliziyo beating it's poison through the stone that binds us here. The uMvelinqangi are not worth inhlonipho... and yet you prostrate before them." grimacing and shaking his head.
Turning to Jakob and Ansha, she asks, "Ought we not to remove the dead things from the room? The magic might have power to revive them."Ansha turns to glance at the dead plantoids. "They are aberrations," she says. "But it cannot hurt."
"Just....Try not to think about them too hard.."
Jakob spikes the Plantoids, using his spear has a makeshift pitchfork, and removes the verdant horrors to the relative safety of the corridor.
On returning to the room, "I wonder if this place could manage Sun Orchids? It would make the Grand Custodian job a bit more popular if it came with immortality."
Tebati shoots Jakob an alarmed look, hoping he is joking. "Keep in mind," she tells Akirra, "that as much faith as you have in the leaders of your own Order, we are here to deliver these secrets to those whom even we do not trust to do well with them. Are you not at all uneasy about what an unscrupulous person might do with such powers at his disposal?"
She turns back to Jakob. "If you can make a plant grow by thinking it.... In the room with the map on the surface of the water, perhaps it can display more than a map. If you think of the Treatises of Arioch, perhaps it might show them?"
Tebati shoots Jakob an alarmed look, hoping he is joking. "Keep in mind," she tells Akirra, "that as much faith as you have in the leaders of your own Order, we are here to deliver these secrets to those whom even we do not trust to do well with them. Are you not at all uneasy about what an unscrupulous person might do with such powers at his disposal?"
She turns back to Jakob. "If you can make a plant grow by thinking it.... In the room with the map on the surface of the water, perhaps it can display more than a map. If you think of the Treatises of Arioch, perhaps it might show them?"
"Not a bad idea Tebati. Not a bad idea at all."
Jakob sighs
"Yes giving this place to our beloved leader is overall a very bad idea. But as the other options are dying here or destroying these lost survivors I do not see much in the way of choices. Maybe the next generation or few will produce better people. Doubt it, but I am frequently wrong."
"Sure there are options," Kieran quips with a wink and a smile, avoiding to participate in the philosophical debate that seems to be going on. "In fact, you just named two. The problem is not that there are not any, it is just that those alternatives that do exist are... well, not all that palatable to say the least."
Qhude keeps near to the room's exit as he adds his opinion "They can do as they wish with this place... the sooner we are done with it the better."
The conversation faded out as the group thought upon this strange place and the Grand Custodian's interest in it. The plantoid's and the remains of the archer bush were unceremoniously dumped into the corridor, as a precaution.
I did not mean to imply that we were related Qhude, although that is a possibility... distant of course, Akirra manages with a slight smile, trying to ease the growing tension between the two warriors.
They did not take my soul, for here I stand. And I do not prostrate myself as you claim. As for the rest, without my memories I cannot explain or defend the Order's actions. I will admit, without context, it sounds like this is a terrible place. I am sure, however, that whatever was done here, was done with good reason.
It seems that none of you wish to be here, and that you do not trust those that you work for. What has transpired to bring you here then? And no, I don't think we should hand over this installation to those you deem untrustworthy.
First things first I guess. We need to be able to leave this level... Let's try Tebati's suggestion.
Qhude just gives Akirra's words an ironic echo "I cannot explain or defend... but I am sure it was done with good reason."
Ansha fights the urge to roll her eyes again at the reluctance of her comrades to seek after the power this structure was supposed to hold. Instead, she stands and follows after the party into the corridors to the east and makes for the schoolroom again. Once inside, she incants the short phrase to renew her cantrip of detecting magical auras and sweeps the room for anything she missed last time, magical or otherwise.
Unfortunately, both Akirra's and Ansha's attempts utterly failed to bear fruit. Ansha found no magic other than the auras represented like veins throughout the walls. Similarly, Akirra found that attempting to "will" the treatise into thought left him staring intently at a pool of water.
"What am I missing...?" Ansha wonders aloud.
Leaving the others to seek out what knowledge has been lost, Qhude instead looks to the Sangoma. The expression on his face suggests that he is troubled and seeks counsel... but is too prideful to ask outright.
Ansha wanders back around toward the corridor with the staircase leading upstairs. Once there, she reviews the force field covering the doorway upstairs.
(Presumably) finding nothing to spark her interest, the enchantress returns to the room with the staircase leading downward further. "Hey, Kieran," she calls. "Did you ever check this room over for traps or triggers of any kind?"
Quietly, the elf intones anew a cantrip to detect magical auras and studies the resultant swirl of colors from the relative safety of the doorway.
Tebati intervenes quickly. "You would send him into unknown danger?" she asks Ansha pointedly. "Send in Akirra first; he is more sure of the benevolence of the builders than the rest of us."
"Sure he may be," Kieran says with a shrug, letting Tebati's healing magic wash over him, "but he is also without memory, or at the very least quite close to that." He then adds with a wink, "And I do happen to be your resident trapspringer."
"I would not say no to a kiss for good luck though," the half-elf quips, kissing the Mwangi priestess' lips lightly before starting his examination of the room, talking while he does so.
"Funny thing, I actually have -or had- an uncle they used to call Trapspringer, though not for any right reasons mind you. Or was that someone else?"
"It's not a kiss but..." Kieran feels fatigue fall away like a discarded cloak.
I will assist Kieran... if he wishes the help.
From the relative safety of the doorway, Kieran's eyes scanned the room for hidden danger or threats while Ansha looked for presence of magic. They both found what they were looking for...
You spot cunningly concealed, thin folds of razor sharp metal that are currently lying vertically parallel to the central poles on which they are clearly mounted. You can't see any kind of trigger mechanism, but you can surmise the workings of such a trap once it was activated; the two poles are designed to spin rapidly after the folded blades are released, releasing them into various horizontal points that would spin with the central poles; culminating into a rather deadly spinning blade trap that would serve to not only threaten life and limb, but also block passage through the room.
You detect the presence of a magical aura that seems to permeate the floor of the entire room. Concentration and scrutiny reveal this aura to be one of Minor Abjuration.
Ansha purses her lips. "There's an abjuration aura that suffuses the entire floor, it looks like. Some sort of protective ward, probably...."
"Well, well," Kieran says mostly to himself before elaborating further. "See those poles? They have blades hidden on them. I cannot see the trigger, but once activated they will start spinning after the blades are released and... well, you can imagine the rest."
Listening to Ansha's input, he adds, "Could they perhaps be triggered by the magical ward? Either that or some pressure plates perhaps. If it is indeed the ward, I could perhaps try to... well, disable it for lack of a better term, or bypass the whole thing without triggering it. Unless Ansha can dispel its magic somehow?"
He shrugs as he waits for input from the elven enchantress. "I did try my hand successfully at triggering the illusions in the upper level alongside Arturius..."
"Well if we simply want to trigger the pillars we have some plant corpses available. Safer that risking, oh too late."
Ansha folds her arms and taps her chin in thought. After a few moments, she replies, "I've not got a spell of dispelling prepared. I'd say we should probably use the plant-corpses as a last resort, though. I would only want to try to trigger them intentionally if we can't disarm them."
Qhude stands silent and watching, though with furrowed brow. He has not thought of any additional actions that could be attempted though.
As Kieran entered the room, the two traps activated. The catches upon the poles instantly released, setting blades pointing in various angles and of various lengths and shapes to spin rapidly, creating a formidable barrier of deadly blades that reduced passage through the room to its edges and perhaps, for the daring, a central path that only one or two spinning blades swung into.
Having generated bottlenecks and deadly zones in the room upon triggering the Abjuration, Kieran and the others then heard an audible click as another ancient contingency was triggered. Two more Azlant humanoids, hauntingly human-looking in appearance but clearly identical to the golems encountered upon the first floor, dropped from sliding trapdoors in the ceiling, blocking the edges of the room. Simultaneously, from the floor on the far side of the chamber beyond the blades, three trapdoors opened on the far side of the room, a small recess in the floor beneath each of these trapdoors rising to send three small, perfect metal spheres up, each balanced on a small metal pedestal. The central sphere seemed to be sculpted from polished marble, while the two spheres that flanked it were crafted from gleaming bronze that caught the torchlight of the Everburning Torches in the room.
You recognize the spheres from texts you have studied. These are perhaps far more advanced than what you would expect, but they are clearly sentinels of some kind. Typically these constructs are released as innocuous looking eggs but they are both surprisingly resilient as well as usually equipped with a ranged attack. Although often more expensive to build than animated objects and even Golems, sentinels are completely obedient and utterly unwavering in their duties.
Round 1-
Ordered Initiative-
Kieran- 24
Qhude- 22
Wax Golems- 15
Tebati- 11
Spheres- 9
Jakob- 8
Akirra- 5
Ansha- 2
Active Effects-
Bit of Luck on Kieran
Map-
Notes-
The path I mention in narrative is marked out in yellow. It would require a successful acrobatics check to pass through unharmed, failure would invoke a reflex save for half damage (Evasion applies).
The red squares are the denser areas where the blades are too dense to even hope to pass through (and will clearly deal high damage). These areas are dense enough to provide cover though.
Alert and lightning fast, Kieran was reacting even as the Golems dropped from the ceiling and the spheres rose from the floor...
"Watch the spheres for bolts or arrows!"
Moving quickly and heeding Ansha's advice, Kieran ducks and weaves through the less dense path and manages to reach the strange metal spheres. "I will see what I can do about these," he calls to the others. "It is a good chance to see if this rather expensive sword of mine is worth the money I spent on it," he adds in his usual flippant way.
Round 1:
Stepping into Kieran's wake, Qhude holds position just at the fringe of the whirling blades. He keeps upon the toes of his feet, ready to strike out if the wax golems draw near to him...
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Darting forward as the blades began to reach their full speed, Kieran spiral-dived through from a running leap, soaring through the dangerous avenue as several blades came within inches of his flesh. Somehow, he landed neatly and even his cloak was unscratched. Wasting no time, he performed a neat, tucked somersault over the marble sphere, the maneuver adding momentum to his strike; he had reversed his grip mid-air and upon landing, rammed the adamantine blade into the construct behind him. It pierced the marble of the sphere, revealing tightly wound mechanical legs that had not yet revealed themselves. The sphere wobbled precariously upon its pedestal.
Qhude stepped into the room and readied himself to strike.
The two wax golems stood in defensive positions, clearly content to act as guards for the less perilous paths.
Tebati reaches around the doorframe and touches Qhude with a blessing. "Shimye-Magalla grant you victory," she urges. Remembering how little she was able to accomplish against the wax men a few floors up, she nevertheless readies her trident, just in case.
Ansha ventures a peek around the corner into the room. I wonder if they can be drawn out of the room, or if their orders are to shove their opponents into the blade-traps, she ponders.
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The spheres seemed capable of swift movement, moving from their pedestals but not shifting their positions much. Two small flaps opened on each of the constructs, revealing glows underneath that seemed to be their source of vision. Lacking the tactics to avoid the melee combatant or, perhaps, unwilling to give up their position to the swordsman; the three spheres each faced Kieran.
The two bronze spheres briefly lit up with an orange glow before releasing gouts of flame at the Half-Elf, while the marble construct pulsated an dark green before firing a third ray that matched the colour. Deciding to capitalise on the blow already struck and focus on the more unique construct, Kieran swayed in swift motions as he did his best to evade the bolts and strike; twisting with fine agility as his blade lashed out to strike the already exposed internal workings, cogs and rune-etched machinery. His blade ripped through the other end of the sphere with a hissing sound left in its wake, but it survived the sword blow nevertheless. While the simultaneously fired green bolt struck Kieran square in the chest, it seemed to have no effect upon the man; other than to briefly distract him long enough for the two gouts of flame to be directed at the nimble warrior, who was sorely burnt by both rays striking and melting through his clothing and flesh.
The green ray fired at you by the marble construct confirmed your suspicions that it is the deadliest of the threats here. The ray had attempted to lock your muscles in place, to utterly paralyze you. It would have been a simple matter for the spheres to shunt you into certain death at the hands of the trap's blade-dense sections.
Ansha incants a brief spell in Elven and flicks her fingers, sending a glob of acid at the orb that Kieran just skewered.
Round 1
Jakob walks confidently between the wall and the spinning blades. A clumsy swipe by his spear misses the wax horror's head only to have one of the 'ears' on the enchanted spear bite into the waxen head as the thrust is recovered.Leaping backwards and pulling hard on the spear shaft the oracle sets his weight and strength of arm against the wax pulling it slowly closer and closer to the spinning blades.
As the room springs to life, Akirra snaps off two quick shots with his magical bow at the nearest flame spitting globe...
...but the first arrow collides with one of the spinning blades and is obliterated. The other seems headed to collide with the menacing ball...
Does anyone have a plan? Besides just attacking them?
"You are the expert," Tebati reminds Akirra. "Would you like to suggest another way past them?"
Groaning audibly, Akirra clarifies, I mean are we going to coordinate our efforts? Which threats should we concentrate on?
Turning to shout at Kieran across the room, What would you like us to do? he asks.
"Well, the spheres feel pretty dangerous to me, but it may just be because they are trying to burn me to a crisp," Kieran says through clenched teeth due to the pain only fire can cause. Still, he fights one, landing another solid hit on the
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Hooking one of the Golems with his spear, Jakob heaved with all of his might and sent the wax Azlant into the dense thicket of whirling blades. The effect was utterly devastating; the density of the blades was such that the Golem, for all of its arcane-bolstered endurance, was torn to shreds in a mere instant; sending globs of wax all over the room and plastering the walls, as well as the room's combatants. The other wax golem frowned in worry at his comrade's fate, apparently possessing emotions or some semblance of them.
Akirra felt a sense of satisfaction as his second arrow struck true despite the cover of the blades, the force of the impact shedding a layer of the sphere's armour and staggering it for a moment.
Ansha's ray unfortunately veered wide, the difficulty of aiming the glob of acid through a wall of blades apparent to her.
Round 2-
Ordered Initiative-
Kieran- 24
Qhude- 22
Wax Golem- 15
Tebati- 11
Spheres- 9
Jakob- 8
Akirra- 5
Ansha- 2
Active Effects-
Map-
Notes-
The path I mention in narrative is marked out in yellow. It would require a successful acrobatics check to pass through unharmed, failure would invoke a reflex save for half damage (Evasion applies).
The red squares are the denser areas where the blades are too dense to even hope to pass through (and will clearly deal high damage). These areas are dense enough to provide cover though.
Narrative-
Despite his injuries; or perhaps because of them; Kieran's swordsmanship had never felt more on the mark than it had been in this encounter, a wall of blades perilously close and three unfeeling objects seeking his death. Continuously weaving and dodging to avoid deadly rays, Kieran combined the evasive maneuver of a backwards somersault with a deadly outstretched sword; making contact in exactly the spot he had already sabotaged on the construct. Slicing through the bulk of the construct in a clean blow with his upward momentum behind it, by the time Kieran landed neatly the two halves of the marble device had already crashed to the ground, hissing softly as whatever energies powered the contraption failed.
Round 1:
Vocally exclaiming as the battle avoids his defensive position and his companions prove far more adept at ending their foes, Qhude nevertheless sees an opportunity to press down one flank against the remaining waxen figure.
Circling the blades with his weapon raised he comes upon the waxen creature and fights side on and straight. His guisarme lunging low before being ripped up and back violently...
Qhude's guisarme blade was met before it had gathered enough momentum by the arm of the wax golem, the edge only penetrating a little before the swing was robbed of its potential. The purple-eyed mannequin likely did not anticipate it was facing a skilled unarmed combatant- with the parry bringing it inside Qhude's reach it sought to wrestle the Bas'o with its brute strength and maintain a grip in order to begin to force him into the blades. With the reflexes born of a hundred childhood fist-fights, Qhude released one hand from his blade and slammed his battle glove into the golem's jaw with a powerful uppercut before it could get a grip on him, ruining the attempt to strong-arm him and leaving the golem's head sitting at the wrong angle.
With Akirra in one doorway and Ansha in the other, Tebati hesitates in the hallway, unsure where she might next be needed.
The two spheres rolled away from Kieran in either directions before loosing additional rays of fire at him. The agile duellist had found his flow and casually swayed aside from one of the bolts of fire before leaping into a diving roll to narrowly evade the second as he pursued one of his attackers.