Javi looks up through the press of overly-large bodies around him, unable to see the oncoming item-of-discussion. ”Could you hoist him up to ’smell’ the magic sooner? If it’s dangerous, every second may count.”
Rosalia scowls darkly at Lyrian coming closer and makes a point of shoving him with her elbow as she makes the arcane gesture necessary to activate her magical gifts. She squints upwards.
"Yes, I'm picking up magic overhead," she confirms. "Can't see anything else yet, though...."
The lift continues to rise inexorably, slowly, upward.
Start round 2.
Neither of you think that it's a rune. A rune would probably be nearly impossible to detect at this distance, being essentially a shallow carving-- this seems something bigger, more formed, like a bas relief or something set into the wall. It's not very large though, perhaps a foot in diameter.
"I'm focusing on the magic," Rosalia announces. "It's pretty faint, and I'm only picking up the one aura."
The Oracle stares up as they approach the area, waiting for Rosalia'a feedback on the magic at hand.
Round 3
The lift continues to rise.
Rosalia keeps squinting upward.
"It's an... illusion spell?" she says with an unimpressed look. "Ugh, I hope this isn't something like back in the throne room..."
Smart whistles uncertainly, a sound of ignorance as to what this might be.
"Two things," Javi says as he fights to get a good look at what's above. "First, you still have that shield, Shaggar? Not sure if it'll work, but we might be able to cap whatever that thing is off and block its effects." His tone sounds doubtful, but then he continues. "Secondly, can you lift me up there? If it's an illusion, it might be hiding something. Boosting me up there may give me a closer look and maybe a few seconds to disable any traps that might be hiding in there. Best idea I have."
"That's a good call," says Lyrian, suddenly serious.
Shaggar easily lifts the halfling onto his shoulder after pulling out the wicker 'shield' and spikes for holding it in place.
Finally breathing a bit of slightly-less-stifling air (ya know, not the air that's clogged by team-members legs and crotches), Javi breathes a quick prayer to the dawn flower as he allows his hand to slide up the smooth wall toward the strange rune.
As soon as it's within reach, he takes an involuntary breath and presses his hand into the rune, quickly feeling for anything that could indicate a trigger or trap.
Round 4
Javi clambers up the Shaggarvator, ready to try and get a headstart on... whatever the break in the stone is. Everyone stares upward, becoming a bit more tense despite themselves. Rosalia slides her sword from its sheath out of paranoid habit.
As he waits, Javi pulls out one of his powder bags, hurling it as far up into the shaft as he can. Ya know … just to see what happens.
"I see something else..." Heldar comments, straining to see further - "And I don't like it - it seems as if beyond that irregularity in the shaft wall, there are also a couple of holes, evenly spaced, about two inches across each of them maybe... Forming a circular pattern" - he informs the others.
"Rosalia, can you see it? Maybe the illusion is in place to disguise those?"
Rosalia squints up. "I can't see anything," she complains. "The illusion spell seems really centered on that tiny little spot, though, I don't think it's covering up anything..."
Javi chucks a bag of powder into the air! It rises! It reaches its peak! It... descends! It lands in a puff of white powder over Rook, Rosalia, and Lyrian!
The Brevoy woman turns a withering glare on Javi. "Brilliant," she says. The lift continues to rise.
Round 5
Lyrian got some flour in his eyes, unfortunately. As for everyone else...
You're finally close enough that you can sort of see whatever the source of the illusion spell is, though still not close enough to touch it physically. There's a slight recess in the wall, an inch or two deep, and a carved face, it looks like-- similar in general appearance to the golden mask you're carrying around, save that it's made of marble, not gold.
Shaggar and Rosalia can also see the ring of holes on the wall that Heldar pointed out, now, ten feet above the carved face. The gnoll grunts.
Both Shaggar and Rosalia come to the same conclusion (maybe Shaggar a hair quicker). The gnoll growls grimly, "Perhaps something spills or comes out of the holes, to rain down on us?"
The gnoll looks at the casters. "One of you, put on that mask quickly. Maybe wearing it will prevent whatever pours out from doing that."
Javi grins at Rosalia, "I thought so" He fishes out the mask and holds it out for Heldar or Lyrian to take. "You guys should see yourself. You're a right mess with all that flour on you."
He looks back up at the holes. "Any way to plug those up in time?"
Heldar picks up the mask, stares at it momentarily, then smiles and puts it on.
Rosalia continues to be less than amused by Javi's wit. "How could we plug them?" she retorts. "They're thirty feet over our heads, and there must be half a dozen of them."
Heldar smiles and puts on the mask. The lift continues to rise.
Round 6
Shaggar hefts Javi; Javi gets to work! He finds himself staring at the face in question, yes. It appears to be a... face, carved of green marble, slightly-larger than life size, staring fixedly ahead. He quickly attempts to disable it, only to come to the conclusion that it is... not a trap. There's nothing to disable.
The face of the statue moves; the mouth opens. A woman's voice rings out (sounding a lot like the voice Smart mimicked in the throne room, actually).
The lift comes to an abrupt halt as the construct pushing it from below ceases to move.
"...uh..." says Rosalia.
Lyrian, Heldar, and Javi.... you're twenty feet below the ring of holes now. As Rosalia pointed out, there are six of them, spaced evenly around the shaft walls. Each hole is about 2-3 inches wide; they angle slightly downward. Lyrian and Javi in particular are pretty convinced the holes are a trap of some sort, probably of the 'spill something nasty onto you' stripe. Heldar thinks he heard a click up in one of the walls, and the sounds of gears grinding faintly behind them. He is fairly sure that whatever is activating will happen in another handful of seconds.
Javi has, unfortunately for him, already acted in this particular set of seconds, though he can still point this out, of course.
"Magic mouth," Rosalia blurts. "That's the illusion spell. Oh for gods' sake. Should I-- I can't make us ALL fly--
Actions, anyone save Javi?
"Get as many of us flying as you can Rosalia - the first will block the holes with its body. I'm sure it is gonna hurt, but I'll do my best to ease the pain" - the Oracle frowns - "The second, third, or whatever many we can muster, fly out of here, and carry the others?"
"Or..." - the oracle ponders.
"Smart, can you use the woman's voice to tell Kahotep to continue in the name of his masters? Has she said such a thing before you?"
Rosalia grimaces. "I can only make one person fly!"
Smart is making a nervous humming noise-- Smart doesn't really understand the concept of personal danger from holes in the wall very well, but he does get that his new friends are nervous about something-- which breaks off when Shaggar addresses him.
Smart whistles in the tremulous fashion you have heard a few times which seems to indicate uncertainty.
The woman's voice rings out from empty air: "عبده: مواصلة باسم سادتكم."
And it... works, as there is the groan of tireless stone muscles resuming work beneath you.
Shaggar growls more to himself than the construct, "Go faster Kahotep, in the name of your masters." With no brilliant ideas, the gnoll digs his claws into the wall, trying to get Javi into a position to disable the trap. "I've got several waterskins in my pack. Perhaps we can stuff them in the holes to slow whatever comes out until the lift gets above the spouts?"
Rosalia continues to be less than amused by Javi's wit. ”How could we plug them?” she retorts. “They're thirty feet over our heads, and there must be half a dozen of them.”
”I don’t know,” Javi quips absently, ”Magic-em shut or something. Summon a water bladder in there or something.”
"Not a bad idea, Shaggar. Here's to hoping its' not going to pour something like acid."
"Good thinking, Smart!" says Lyrian. "You are well-named!"
To the others, he says "I think the trap is likely to be disarmed, now that our clever friend has riddled the passphrase."
To Javi, he growls, "Even slowing acid for a few moments may help us... I hope."
Shaggar finds the smooth wall of the shaft offers no purchase to his claws, skilled climber that he is. There simply are no places to get a grip.
Smart whistles cheerfully at Lyrian's praise, even if really Smart just repeated what Smart was told to repeat. The whistling does not entirely cover up the sound of the gears still clicking behind the walls.
The lift rises, and....
Start Round 7
....a stream of cloying greenish vapor starts issuing from the holes in the wall, pouring over the space of the lift and over those of you who are currently standing on it. The true intent of the trap is made clearer: Javi actually triggered it early, by standing on top of Shaggar's shoulders, but it seems clear that the lift is meant to stop right here, holding its passengers in the cloud of the mist until, or if, they manage to get the lift moving or otherwise get above the gas.
The lift is filled with the collective sounds of your coughing.
...Chariot-full-of-eels time again?
Rook meows plaintively as he gets a lungful of the nasty gas that smells, oddly, of hyacinth. Lyrian, ready to repeat his belief that the trap is dealt with, also gets a mouthful. Everyone else breathes in some, but they manage to not be overly affected by the airborne toxins.
The lift continues to rise-- it's clear that in the next few seconds, the lift will be above the cloud of toxic gas, so there's nothing more to fear from it, save for those who already got a big lungful of it.
Rosalia gasps in sympathy with her little cat, hurriedly trying to give Rook a kitty-Heimlich maneuver, or something.
Actions, if any?
Javi clamps his mouth shut, holding his breath. Then he hops down, ready to help whomever decides to aid Lyrian in fighting the effects of the poison.
Lyrian will go with choking and gasping.
Heldar's reaction is instinctive, as he tries to cover his mouth when the gas comes pouring over them - it is however futile as the vapor is insidious, and manages to reach his nostrils.
Coughing, and somehow managing to resist its effects, he focuses on the ones around him - noticing Rosalia taking care of Rook, he nears the bard - "Try to remain calm" - he speaks in even tones, attempting to evaluate what the effects might have been.
"If you can't blow the mist down, try to get above it." Shaggar clamps his mouth shut and tries to not breath while hoping the poisonous fog works in the lungs and not on skin contact. He digs his claws at opposite angles into the corner where the walls meet and attempts to get himself - or at least Javi on his shoulders - out of the cloying mist.
Round 8
The lift keeps rising.... and fortunately, lifts everyone through and past the cloud of thick green mist. Except for the kitty cat and the copper-skinned archaeologist, everyone is fine. Smart makes confused noises. Why is green mist bad for you? Shaggar executes a heroic climbing maneuver that turns out to have been not terribly necessary, alas.
Rook's tiny kitty body continues to be wracked with hacking and spitting. Rosalia looks extremely distressed, sitting down on the crowded lift and cradling her cat in her arms. "Come on, Rook, barf it up--!"
Rosalia is not trained in medicine, or in cat CPR.
Overhead, the smoothness of the shaft continues, uninterrupted, for at least the sixty feet that Shaggar can see.
Feeling more in the way than anything else, Javi tries to work himself out of Heldar’s way as the healer tends to the group. With nothing much else to do, he watches the darkness above, the slowly-sliding-by walls, and his teammates. ”Seriously, though,” he says from down around your knees, ”you guys look ridiculous in all that flour.”
"I'm trying Rosalia" - Heldar tries to calm his companion - "I can assure you that Rook will be fine, I will make sure of it" - he smiles, then turns to Lyrian - "And so will you my friend - it is what I do"
Lyrian, never the wisest of men at the best of times, nods sagely. "I'm sure it'll be fine, Heldar. Thank you."
"So, I think we should be ready to jump off this thing as it arrives at the top. That'd be another good place for a trap."
"You are probably right Lyrian, on both accounts..." - Heldar sighs, slightly exhasperated by his own inability to assist his companions in shaking off the effects of the insidious cloud - "Shaggar is already ahead a ways, perhaps he can have a glance at what expects us?" - he adds, looking up.
Heldar takes the black cat from Rosalia gently and performs amazing medical care. And by 'amazing medical care', we mean 'he puts a finger down Rook's throat and makes Rook hack up a hairball'.
It's gross. On the plus side, and after biting Heldar's finger, Rook seems to feel much better.
Rosalia scoops Rook back up and cuddles her cat. "My poor baby! That icky nasty gas got all in you! -uh, thank you, Heldar," she tacks on guiltily.
Things you never expected when you first left Absalom: wiping magical cat puke off your finger and checking to see if the cat broke your skin with its teeth.
Anyway...
About another minute after that, Shaggar is able to pick out a break in the smoothness of the wall shaft. The shaft continues going beyond that, but the walls open up briefly on three sides of the shaft, creating a landing area much like the place where you first got on the elevator.
Sick of the long, cramped ride, and sick of things like poison gas, the Pathfinders and honorary Pathfinders elect to get off the damn ride while they can. In short order, you are all standing in a hallway made of more of the ubiquitous green veinstone. The only feature of this landing area is a set of double doors. Two bronze vases filled with palm fronds flank the doors, but the fronds have long since dried and dessicated to brittle husks, prevented from actual crumbling into nothingness only by the still, dry, cold air of the crypt.
Shaggar informs everyone not to look at the heel of the contruct as it passes. The lift and its tireless operator keep moving, until the rumble of their passage dies away overhead.
"Well," says Rosalia as the last noise of the lift is lost. "Shall we?"
Javi draws out his scimitar, checks his wayfinder, and creeps forward, doing his usual gig of checking the hall, walls, and door for traps ... even the dried plant husks get a quick inspection.
Javi creeps! You're one hell of a creep, Javi. The palm fronds don't even feel his passage and intense scrutiny.
He believes the door and areas surrounding it to be free of traps. The door appears delicately balanced and hinged, and opens inward into the room.
Rosalia sets Rook down and makes sure her own blade is ready. She looks to the others with an interrogating eyebrow, then follows whoever first opens the door.
Smart whistles an off-key harmony in its 'voice'.
oblivious, Javi eases the door open and—using the door and frame to maintain his cover—pauses to take a hard look inside.
Less wise even than usual, Lyrian bounces slightly on his toes, eager for the next room.
Heldar raises an eyebrow, and after conjuring a simple spell to Detect Magic on the doors, comments, seemingly into the air - "Is there anything you think we should know about these doors friend Smart? Or what lies beyond?"
Shaggar pulls his axe and crouches near the door, sharp eyes ready to find threats as soon as the doors are opened...
The doors do not appear to be magical to Heldar.
As for his question to Smart... there is the usual slight pause, then (in Ancient Osiriani) the woman's voice again.
"I am the Radiant One, Queen of the Mighty River, and by my name and words do the birds sing and the hearts of men beat! You serve me, fool!"
After that, Smart falls silent again, save for a few more nervous noises. Smart seems to be staying behind Heldar, judging by where the sounds are coming from.
Javi opens the door...!
The chamber beyond is large and colorful. Like the throne room, it is a shock to the senses after the darkness of the tomb. The floor is patterned with a mosaic of jewel tones that glint and reflect light in all the colors of the rainbow. Where one would expect a ceiling, the chamber is filled with glorious depiction of the night sky, with several familiar constellations standing out overhead. The walls of this chamber seem to boast alcoves in which some sort of dark objects are stacked, but this is a minor footnote to the fact that there is a floating sarcophagus made, it seems, purely of golden light that is hanging in mid-air in the back half of the room. Even as you watch, the lid of the coffin dissolves into nothing, and a beautiful woman rises with ethereal grace out of the sarcophagus. She is the spitting image of the statue in the hall, as well as the figure you 'spoke' to in the throne room. She seems to be in the flush of health, with her dark eyes accented by artful kohl, her generously-curved body draped in diaphanous pleated linen, and her every move fluid as a dancer's.
She regards you.... curiously, head cocked to one side, a slow smile starting at the corners of her mouth.
Javi's eyebrows rise at the sight, and he looks over at the group—his voice pitched low, his lips quirking in a smile. "I don't think I can carry all this in my pockets."
Just as quickly, his 'serious thief face' returns, though his voice remains quiet. "Anything anyone wants to do before I do my thing in there? Or know what those dark objects are?" He looks at the spellcasters in particular.
Shaggar's keen eyes roam over the room and he cocks his head curiously as he translates the woman's words into the common tongue, for the benefit of those who don't speak the ancient language. "She says Ah. The intruders! I had wondered if you would make it so far as to desecrate my burial chamber with your presence." His eyes trace certain spots of the doorframe and room beyond. "Don't cross the threshhold, things are wrong here. That doorframe is thicker than any other we've seen here. Also, there is a crack in the middle of the room. It crosses the floor and goes up the walls, and possibly splits the ceiling. There may be a counterweight trap here."
Javi pauses, squinting as he tries to follow the gnoll's gaze. "You think they're related? Or two separate traps?"
Lyrian casts Aram Zey's focus and glibness.