I think I am going to stay out of the burning room, I will stand guard at the rear.
Who would have started this fire? I don't think skeletons and beetles know how to do it.
Jaed whispers to Etam: "There is a key next to the fire. Let me get it and quickly get away from all this smoke."
Then he carefully approaches the fire to pick up the key and the nice dagger that lays next to it. As he expects both of them to be really hot, he wraps his hand with the wet cloth.
Jaed picks up the key with no problem, but as soon as he moves his sword towards the dagger, the shadows seem to coalesce to form a ghostly shape. Too focused on the fire, only Finnrick sees the silent shape appear and literally fly towards the young rogue.
Completely unaware of the threatening shadows coalescing besides Jaed, Etam says: "Master Zandorias, I do not think we were sent here to loot the crypt. Would it not be fairly disrespectful to come to this place of such significance to the village and take everything we find interesting?"
With an inhuman screech the shadow claws at Jaed. The man's head snaps up at the sound just in time to see the claws coming towards his chest. The black wisps seem to pass through his armor, leaving it untouched as he feels the chill of the beast's touch seep through his bones. It seems to draw away both his warmth and his strength.
Hearing the cry, Erazmus rushes far enough in to the room to poke his head around the corner. All blood immediately drains from his face as he recognizes the creature. "Dear lord...that's a shadow! An undead monstrosity! They're incorporeal, so they can only be harmed by magic! " With shaking hands he quickly stumbles through some arcane words of power to try to distract the creature.
It screams at the blast hits it, turning its empty eyes on the cowering wizard that was the source.
Is that dagger a magic weapon? That would explain its condition. I have no way to damage the shadow.
Anyone have any advice?
"Damnation! Fallback!" Etam shouts as soon as he hears Erazmus and moves whilst focusing completely on defence. 'Let's hope this thing does not follow us in the next room.'
Finnrick turns and looks at Millsy. They both dash out of the room as far as their feet will take them.
Not that it matters, but I moved further away...
Did anyone see another exit from that room? If not I say we shut the door once everyone is out and stay out of that room.
Not being able to see what's going on in the next room, Runvald assumes some has gone awry as he hears the commotion. Expecting trouble he stays where he is and prepares to attack any hostile creatures that come through the doorway he's standing next to.
Jaed was so blinded by the beauty of the dagger that he didn't hear Etam's words neither did he notice the shadow that appeared in front of him.
Its hand felt cold as death and he thought that was going to be his end. However, despite of feeling that all his strength left him he was not dead.
That made him realize that a dagger was not worth his life. So he gathered whatever strength he had left to run away as fast as he possibly could.
Jaed withdraws to the adjacent room while he yells "Someone shut that damn door!"
Seeing most of its prey flee before it, the shadow moves to the one remaining figure. The one wizard cowering in the corner. It flies towards Erazmus and slashes at him, attempting to drain him of all life.
With a high, girlish scream, Erazmus quickly high tails it out of there and sits shivering in a corner, wide-eyed and mumbling to himself. Finnrick and Millsy follow soon after as Runvald slams the door shut. A few long moments pass as some hold their breath, but after a while it becomes clear that the ghostly being has no intention of continuing the chase.
Breathing heavily, Etam looks towards Jaed: "Can we all agree with not looting this crypt now?" And then, to the northern corridor: "Might as well try our new key in the locked door from before, unless anyone has any better ideas."
'If this was guarding that measly dagger, what will we find protecting the Everflame?'
If I recall correctly I believe there was the door with the wailing behind it and the locked doors on the other side of the crypt by the pools. Do we want to confront the wailing that is closer first?
Well, if we are going to be completionists about the dungeon, I would suggest we figure out what that wailing is, it is closer. And then proceed to deal with the doors by the pool. And not have to go back and forth around things. There is also the stairs, but I think we had said we were going to stay on this level for now.
As soon as the door closes Jaed sits in the middle of the room looking clearly exhausted. After Etam's short scolding he throws the key on his left hand at him: "At least I got this. Oh, and I'm ok, thanks for asking."
After taking a moment to recover his breath Jead stands up and says to the others: "I have had enough ghosts for today and that wailing gives me the creeps. I say we go try the keys on the doors next to the pool."
At least that way we get as far as possible from that shadow.
Etam catches the key and puts it together with the other two. "I am relieved that you are mostly unharmed, master Zandorias, make no mistake of that. In any case, I second your suggestion, let us go to the pool doors."
I agree, we should head back to the room with the pool. I greatly prefer it to this side of the crypt.
Millsy purrs in agreement.
"Our initial plan was to go West so should we try the West door in the pool room first? Actually, it is the most western door we have found so far."
It was my suggestion to stick to the west, so lets try that...
Runvald sighs audibly and takes a long pull off his bottle of whiskey.
West, east, it doesn't matter to meeee... letss jussst get this through with, eh?
Erazmus refuses to move, staying huddled in a corner muttering under his breath. He doesn't respond to attempts to talk to him, so eventually you all decide to leave him there since he didn't appear to be in any immediate danger.
You all head back to the pool area. When you open the door, the voice once again booms "Magic is the key." Ignoring it, you proceed to the western door, opening it with the key Finnrick found in the sack next to the brooms of the pit room.
On the other side, you see a long corridor that is flanked by a row of human statues, set into alcoves on each side. The statues look like Kassen, and each one holds a longsword out in front of it. Oddly enough, the blades of roughly half the statues-- the ones closer to you-- are wrapped in leather padding.
At the end of the hallway, you see another door.
Etam looks at the statues, appreciating the figures of the warrior 'Kassen was clearly very skilled. I wonder if that was partly the reason that lead mother to choose this village?'
Before entering the corridor, he throws a stone at one of the statues with the leather-covered sword, more out of precaution than actually believing it will reveal anything.
Once he's reassured that nothing happens, he tries to examine the sword more closely, but wary of entering before the others confirm that they do not see anything out of place.
Something seems fishy with the pillows in the pit and these swords wrapped in leather, seems like we are on easy mode.
Magic is the key and our wizard is incapacitated in another room. Great.
Jaed lets a sigh go when the door opens: "A narrow corridor flanked by armed statues. What a lovely setup for a trap. " He turns to Artair: "I don't have any intention of dying for that flame and that shadow we found before didn't seem easy to me."
Without waiting for a reply Jaed moves into the corridor carefully inspecting the statues and looking for something out of the ordinary. He smiles at Etam and teases him: "Should we pick one of these longswords?"
That was part of my point, part of this seems easy and another part seems really hard.
"Yes, master Zandorias, that seems like a great idea. Then we can have a cozy little shadow festival, full of intriguing stories and nice food." Etam says whilst picking a stone from the ground.
"In any case, I was thinking about the pillows, actually. My suspicion, which might be completely wrong, is that the traps were tuned down so they would not fatally harm the yearly pilgrims from the village, just pose some minor challenge." Happy with the stone he found, He throws it, waits a second and continues: "I do not think that the hordes of undead and nigh-invincible shadows were meant to be part of this assignment."
Agreed, so why half of these swords blunted. I suspect we will find a trap somewhere. And I dont want to get sliced by one of those swords. Not that I want to get sliced by any sword.
As expected, the Etam's thrown stone merely bounces off of the statue in question.
Mmmm, as I suspected. "Look at this shoulder joint. It looks like the arms of these statues are capable of some limited up and down movement. I guess that those longswords will spring if we walk in front of them. I can try to jam the mechanism or if that doesn't work we can just try to break the statues' swords."
Jaed takes his dagger and starts meddling with the first statue's shoulder trying to fire the mechanism while there is no one in front that can get hurt.
Jaed fiddles with the arms of the statue for a moment. Since there's no visible mechanism to cause the arms to move, he does his best to try to inhibit their movement. However, it's unclear how successful his efforts have been.
to notice anything peculiar in the passageway.
to notice stuff that is not stone.
"Is it possible to just trigger them and pass whilst the swords are turning back to their original positions, master Zandorias? I would rather avoid damaging the crypt."
Etam examines the floor trying to detect any sort of stepping stones that might trigger the trap.
Neither Artair nor Etam notice anything out of the ordinary. The statues, like everything else, seem well made. The stone floor looks just as smooth and even as in the previous room.
Just as smooth as the previous room with the pits? I guess crypt floors are not always the easiest surface to detect issues on. These things likely trigger somehow...
I dont see any triggers, how do we want to proceed?
"Sorry Etam, I'm not sure how to activate the mechanism. But I think I have jammed it so it should not move when we pass."
Jaed moves from one pair of statues to the next and jams all of them the same way he did with the first one.
I will let you pass through first and see how things go...
Jaed goes through trying to disable the statues' arms. He's finished with the first four and started moving towards the last four when he catches sight of movement out of his periphery. Out of instinct he leaps backwards, just barely avoiding one of the sharpened swords swinging down on him. Behind him he feels air quickly rush down his back as he almost jumps back into the swing of the other statue. There's a moment of silence as Jaed stands in the narrow space between two stone swords.
The passageway to the door is now half blocked by sharp stone swords. However, the sabotaging of the first half of the statues seems to have worked. Or at the very least, they did not swing at the same time as the southern statues.
Etam, who was very attentively observing Jaed and jumped forward when the swords came down, lets out a sigh of relief once he sees the rogue escaped unharmed.
"It seems your work was successful in the first half of the statues, master Zandorias. Do you think you can move forward whilst we try to join you?" He examines one of the swords and then looks at the ones covered in leather. "Say, master Artair…what do you think about using some the blankets given to us by the mayor to wrap these swords and thus avoid accidentally wounding ourselves with these sharp rocks?"
Mother of Kassen! Jaed looks back over his shoulder, avoiding the slightest movement: "Etam, I know you want to be very respectful and so but I am getting tired of this. It is the second time I'm close to be killed so the integrity of this crypt has become the last of my worries. If you cannot cover those blades hit them until they break."
Clearly angry and still shaking Jaed tries to reach the door at the end of the hallway.
When he reaches it he starts inspecting the door for more traps, putting his ear against it and looking through the keyhole trying to perceive any movement on the other side.
Jaed carefully limbos and leaps his way through the blockade, arriving safely on the other side.
We could cover them with blankets. Might not do as much as the padding.
Hope I cleared it. I would hate to wind up dead jumping over a sword.