"Those narrow corridors impede my ability to support you with my bow, so I'll try and keep the other approaches in my view to keep us from getting surrounded again".
Phai stands right at the intersection, mainly looking at the southern door, but also looking over at the shaft area regulary.
This octagonal shaped room presents a bare stone floor, walls, and ceiling with no discernible function. Two door panels reside in the eastern wall. The wall between the doors is stone from the floor to a height approximately waist high. The rest of the wall is glass, too thick to be easily smashed open.
Map will be updated when I can - it's giving me trouble. o_O
Can we not see through the glass? I know it's thick glass but I suppose it's that way so one can see what's beyond the door panels?
Moving into the room and noticing it's emptyness, Phai's attention quickly shifts to the only area standing out from the bare stone architecture.
"I suppose we should investigate further...if you secure the doors, I'll try and take a look at what's beyond the glass."
Perception:1d20 + 9 ⇒ (1) + 9 = 10
1's and 20's...(before attack rolls were 1 and 20, after the 20 streak)...Rednal makes my dice behave weird in another game :)
Vincent took a look through the glass, hoping to start putting the pieces together.
Depending on what's on the other side of the glass, I'll probably suggest that we check the other rooms before we press on through multiple doors. With a sturdy window, I'm wondering if this might be some kind of holding cell though.
As Phai stepped forward, the floor literally vanished beneath her feet - and Ooran's, too, as a square fifteen feet on each side simply vanished.
Reflex (Ooran):1d20 + 5 ⇒ (13) + 5 = 18
Neither of the Tretharri were able to avoid plunging downward, though some kind of slowing effect immediately took hold of them, allowing them to land safely on the floor beneath.
This immense chamber has a two-tiered floor. The lower floor is built in the center and drops ten feet down. Metal ladders lead to the higher tier bolted into the north and south walls. The raised floor encircles the center area with two door panels on the east and west sides. The ceiling rises to ten feet above the higher floor.
From over the sides of the pit, two small creatures appear. The carapaces of these large centipede-like creatures are black and green, with snapping mandibles as their four alien eyes radiate a spectrum of rainbow-colored light like backlit prisms. With no apparent hesitation, they shot forward, mandibles snapping out at the two that had fallen into the pit.
Phai steps back from the two creatures, then, almost lifting up her bow, realizes she's too likely to hit Ooran with the creature upon him, and instead studies the one that hit him, raises her glaive and brings it down on the critter in a powerful swing. "Damn this place...this is madness!"
Damn...if I had known we'll be in close quarters combat all the time, I would have picked up Precise Shot instead of Rapid Shot ;)...next level when I have it, we'll be in wide open areas, right?
Who knows? Due to the nature of this game, though, it definitely helps to be flexible and capable of doing well at various ranges...
Phai's glaive plunged downward into the creature attacking Ooran, and it let out a loud, shrill scream - one answered, seconds later, by another (much fainter) sound coming from quite a ways away. The creature was obviously quite injured by the blow, and even a weak strike would probably be enough to take it down.
Clearly regarding Phai as the main threat at the moment, both of the creatures bit out at her.
"If anyone sneaks up behind you, probably best to follow us down where we can reach you," Vincent said to Andretta before he turned and leapt down the pit, into a flank with Phai.
Assuming the same thing that floated the others down works on me, otherwise, cast feather fall.
Ooran shakes his head in an attempt to clear the fuzz that is making it harder to think. "Hey Vincent, we've got company down here, and I think they're gonna have reinforcements coming."
He steps forward drawing his blades and makes a mighty swing with each.
True enough, and I made sure to be able to hit at all ranges. I'm more afraid of my hitpoints running out though ;)
Once again finding herself at the center of attention from more than one enemy, and possible others on the way, cornered without much room to maneuver and heavily hurt, Phai decides that survival is most important now...while the creatures focus on her, her companions could deal with them.
Total defense action, for +4 AC, with Ooran's Aura, thats 23 AC
Vincent's blow struck quite neatly as he came down from behind, followed shortly by Ooran's first two blows. With a nice snicker-snack sound, the two creatures were downed and no longer a threat to you. The roof above you (formerly the floor) popped back into existence a moment later, darkening the room. For the moment, you were separated from Andretta, and still had your choice of doors to exit through.
"The f~+@ is going on here. I definitely heard more of those creatures before...but where from...
Phai will drink the healing potion they found earlier and which she hoped would not be needed, then follows Vincent to the upper level, and looks from one of the exits to the other, with an arrow drawn, hoping to surprise THEM...
Healing potion:1d8 ⇒ 6 Preparing for one of these creatures coming into my field of vision:1d20 + 5 ⇒ (10) + 5 = 15Damage:1d8 + 3 ⇒ (8) + 3 = 11
"Careful, Ooran. We are both quite injured. If Vincent doesn't mind, I'd suggest the Auttaine takes point for the time being. Their...unique composition should help against many attacks." Basically we get surprised+charged quite a lot of times in these battles...Vincent has the best FF AC of us-and most HP left...
After about twelve seconds or so, the floor disappeared, and Andretta came floating downwards - looking more than a little nervous, even as whatever power operating here took effect and kept her safe.
The western door is untrapped, and leads to a room with no other exits. A powerful stench assaults your noses as you open the door (Fort DC 8 to avoid becoming nauseated for 2 minutes), and you can see a number of mouldering corpses on the floor. They're not particularly fresh.
Ooran turns his head from the stench and covers his face with an arm. "Gyah! That's, that's awful. Well, we know what they eat." He shakes his head as he closes the door again. "I guess this is where we were headed if those lizards got their way. Do we try the other door? Do you think it's possible to get back out the way we came?"
Brilliant, the only possible way to fail. Does it still affect me if I don't breathe?
"Andretta, you probably better stay back. I don't think even the lizards would want to eat these. Perhaps these are just the left overs from their experiments?"
After the nausea passed, Vincent fumbled around a bit, before successfully casting detect magic and performed a quick sweep of the gruesome room before shutting the door.
Only if you naturally don't breathe. Otherwise, you weren't expecting it. XD No worries, that was mostly just flavor anyway.
The teeth marks on the bodies were a bit of a giveaway for why they were in there. Andretta looked nauseous, but there was one signal of magic in the room, and after collecting the source (an experience which probably never needed to be mentioned in any stories you told about this place), you ended up with a heavily-soiled Cloak of Resistance +1.
Half-constructs don't breathe, eat or sleep normally. They are able to, in order to gain a benefit, such as drinking a potion. Let's go with Vincent got nauseous, so he stopped breathing when he went to go gather up the cloak, cause that's just nasty. And I'm cool with flavor stuff, was mostly just asking for future reference.
"I guess you're right after all Ooran. I don't suppose any of you have a quick way to clean this thing up, so we don't have to bring the stench with us?" Vincent asked after he had collected the magical cloak.
After handing the cloak to Phai, suggesting she put it on regardless of its state, Vincent went to the only other door and waited to open it after Ooran had thoroughly inspected it.
Phai is reluctant to accept the offered cloak, "And you are certain this...rag will do any good?", but eventually gives in and don's it: "I do hope they have no beasts tracking us by smell..."
She then changes her position slightly, to cover the door from a more favorable angle, and be ready to shoot any creature she sees beyond the door the moment Vincent opens it.
*Throws a tiny bug monster at Vincent* Add the Half-Construct traits to your profile for easy reference. ^^
The door on the eastern side of the room is similarly untrapped, and eventually, you manage to pry it open - the key-like items you picked up before don't work here. On the other side is a set of stairs, leading up to the room above. That seems to be everything of interest down here (thank goodness for portable light, because there's no natural sources), though there's still the other door up top that you haven't been through. That, and all the other doors in the main hall...
"If they took the trouble of installing this trapdoor here, I wonder whats behind the second door. A pity we can't see anything through this glass. It's still weird...if it was a trap, they would not have slowed our descent...but they still stashed bodies in the room."
Phai heads up, tries to see through the glass again, then gets into a position to cover the second door in the trapdoor room.
Ooran makes his way carefully to the other door, avoiding the disappearing floor. "Nothing in this place makes any sense. Maybe when we get it all figured out and work out the pattern of it all, we will understand, but for now it is just a mess."
How's that? My tag is getting filled up, my class level line is almost at the character limit.
"It will be for the best Phai. It will help protect you from all manner of unpleasant things, from including poison, explosions and magic spells. If the smell becomes too unbearable just stop using your nose for a while. Perhaps if we're lucky, we can find a map of this complex, though I'm worried that it may be no more logical than the building itself. I'm ready when you are Ooran."
I said Profile, not Quick-reference bar. XD It should be with your Special Abilities as Half-Construct Traits.
The northeastern door of the upper chamber - for that's the one you haven't gone through yet - remains locked after Ooran's attempt to get through it.
Andretta, on the other hand, looked over at Vincent. "This place does seem to have an intelligent structure." she observed thoughtfully. "I believe we just haven't seen enough of it to make proper sense of it... how many levels do you think there actually are?"
"No hurry, Ooran. The sounds we heared before do not seem to get any closer right now, take your time with the door!", Phai motivates Ooran.
When Andretta speaks up, Phai considers:"It's an artificial structure...built by some sentient being or beings, so it best have some meaning behind it's design. But that Area downstairs, I can't make sense of it, unless we missed some secret door."
Number of levels is a good question...did we simply climb up to the "next level", or was that actually the top of the shaft? I think you did not quite specify...
"Without a good grasp of the purpose for the structure, there's not much we can do to guess the overall size. So far, what we've seen seems to indicate some kind of prison or research facility. Assuming a relatively compact building plan, I would guess that the shaft we climbed up extends from the bottom to the top of the whole structure. From what we've seen, the layout reminds me a bit of a tree, with a central trunk and various branches growing out from the center."
Ooran sets down and begins to work on the door, taking his time and working carefully. "If this place is alive, it may have grown organically and then been used as its inhabitants saw fit.
Taking 20 on Disable Device to open the door for 20 + 10 = 30
"If it grew organically, the doors would throw me off...and the visual feedback, as with the green light in the very first room...of course, everything is possible...and that central shaft sure seems weird...if it was intelligently designed, surely there would be stairs-"
You climbed to the next floor, not the top of the shaft.
After spending quite some time to unlock the door, Ooran is ultimately able to do so. Inside is a relatively small room with a significant number of buttons arranged on a panel. The glass seems clearer from this side, allowing you to see into the main chamber.
Vincent followed Ooran into the room to take a look. "Seems to be some kind of observation chamber, or control room. Perhaps this panel controls the floor, and possibly other access points?"
Are any of the buttons labeled, or anything to indicate what the buttons do? If not, I'm probably going to start pushing buttons at random once the others are all set.
"I concur with your opinion. A weird one, though, since you have to pass that room with the disappearing floor to get in here. Careful with those buttons, we wouldn't want to set this facility to self-destruct before we found ourselves an exit....", Phai smiles at the Auttaine, poking at one of the buttons herself. (And pressing it, if they are unlabelled)
Ooran's efforts at working with the device eventually make its controls more understandable - it seems to be a way of manually controlling the floor in the main room, and among the buttons, there are some that turn the floor invisible and another that makes it entirely disappear for a brief time. None of the controls seem connected to anything outside the immediate area.
"Although they do not appear to control anything more than the floor next door. A very strange arrangement. Perhaps it was a way to contain the Void Death, or those things were supposed to be manning these posts and became I'll. Either way, this does not bode well for me. Please, watch for signs of illness, I do not relish the thought of becoming like them."
Shall we see if the other branch leads to a similar set of rooms?."
You mean we can make the whole floor disappear? as in, stuff would fall down? In that case this could be a good spot for some rest...
"If we have some time, I could take a look at that wound. It looks nasty, and you are right in that we definitely don't want to end up like them." Gonna treat disease on you when you make checks
"For now, lets continue our...tour of this place, yes...and see whats at the other branch."
"Sounds good to me. Let us know if you feel yourself growing weak, or need a rest, but I'm sure you'll be able to shake it off." Vincent led the way back down the hall to the south eastern door.
Yes, you can make the floor disappear, and cause stuff to fall.
This rectangular room contains two work tables, each covered with alchemical or medical tools and equipment, including an enormous frame-mounted lens to magnify images, several small, glass dishes, and a number of stoppered glass vials. What looks like a journal or notebook of some kind rests on one of the tables. The door set in the center of the north wall - that you entered through - provides the room’s only exit.
Seeing the tools and equipment, the glass vials and notebook, Phai will conduct a thorough investigation of the room. "A journal of sorts...maybe it could provide some answers if we can make sense of it..."
Perception to search for something useful:1d20 + 9 ⇒ (4) + 9 = 13 Healing to check the medical equipment for something useful:1d20 + 8 ⇒ (14) + 8 = 22 Linguistics to understand the journal/notebook:1d20 + 8 ⇒ (16) + 8 = 24 Profession(Writer) for the same reason, considering I was writing scientific stuff for a living:1d20 + 9 ⇒ (7) + 9 = 16 Knowledge(Nature) to check the stoppered vials:1d20 + 6 ⇒ (12) + 6 = 18
"Finally, something more familiar. While this is a bit... cruder than what I'm used to, my people keep places like this with which we modify our mechanical enhancements." Vincent demonstrated by rotating his larger, vice-like hand as well as opening and closing the compartment in the arm. "Anything useful in that book? Maybe some indication of what they've been doing here?"
I'll also provide a detect magic sweep of the room before we leave.
As Phai and Vincent pour over the contents of this room, Ooran keeps watch on the door. "I must admit, I was always more interested in the machines than the men. This medical stuff is beyond me."
Either of you could still also try a perception to search the room. Not taking 20 because that takes a lot of time, but a quick screening would be reasonable I think...it's one of the few places so far where we could stumble on stuff-
As he watches for anything to come through the door, Ooran takes a quick assessment of the contents of the room, looking for anything useful or out of place.
Nah, just hadn't updated it. XD It's a fair bit of work to keep updating the map, and it doesn't need to be changed every simple room. Now, if there's doors or something, that's more likely...
The items in this room appear to be mainly alchemical in origin. Among other things, you find a hybridization funnel and what appears to be a noble’s vigilant pillbox. The journal was a bit too long to be easily translated - which actually wasn't as much of a problem as it could have been, because Andretta, looking over, cited it as the written form of Ultari... the language she'd used to communicate with the dog-men below. Without hesitation, she began to translate it in full for you, choosing a random section near the end.
Translated Text:
Jagdaline Report #893521-G Summary: Records of the Golarion Incident.
Details of Planet: Golarion is a relatively typical life-bearing world, albeit one with extremely high levels of magic and biological diversity. This is believed to be due in part to its status as the Cage of Rovagug, the God of Destruction. The world is primarily oceanic, with several large continents. While these continents do have contact with each other, communication and trade between them is limited. Due to the high reliance on magic, technological advancement is limited - combustion-based firearms are present in limited quantities, but that is as far as the world has reached. Note: One local political state, 'Numeria', is home to a crashed Androffan Starship, and possesses technology considerably in advance of the rest of the planet. Local inhabitants have restricted the trade of technology. This technology (and especially the crashed ship) represents a Category 1 Unclaimed Asset, but is regrettably unavailable (see Conclusion).
Details of Event: Following the decision to attempt to claim Golarion after the successful activation of a portal to the world, a Xoraphond (Vuelib) was dispatched to the world to begin infiltration. It arrived successfully and performed reconnaissance of a small town of humans (Golarion's dominant species), after which it tailored an Assimilation Strain virus. Regrettably, the first strain of the virus induced a side-effect because of genetic anomalies in the local species - it tended to drive the hosts insane, either causing dementia, suicidal thoughts, or violent psychosis during stressful situations. Over the course of approximately three local days, more than 50% of the humans within the village perished. On the bright side, standard precautions had been taken, and the initial virus went dormant after 24 hours in each host.
These developments are not uncommon in expeditions serving the Scions of the Celestial Helix, and Vuelib began tweaking the virus to remap personalities properly. After three days, a successful version of the virus was produced. A local plant-harvester named Silam Oddle was infected, and directed to spread the virus throughout the rest of the town. Several non-humans were present, and most were quickly abducted for further experimentation. (Note: Golarion is an extremely biodiverse world, and would have required many different viruses in order to properly conquer.)
Several days after the initial outbreak, three outsiders immune to the existing Assimilation Strain arrived. It was eventually determined that they crossed a nearby river into the settlement, met several of the locals (including some not infected who were in the middle of leaving), and were in the process of examining the town when they were apparently slain by several undead that had been formed in the fighting. (Observation: Golarion seems especially susceptible to the creation of undead - sometimes mere emotion is all that is required. An interesting trend, if not particularly relevant.)
It was at this point things began to go wrong. Vuelib noticed a sudden improvement in the virus' ability to spread, but it no longer had any effect among the human population - indeed, subjects were captured and carefully monitored, and there was no doubt that infection was successful. Despite this, there was no change in the subjects' personalities, nor any other effects upon them, regardless of the changes made to the virus. The assimilation strain had become perfectly transmittable, but also completely inert - a trait never before seen.
After verifying and recording the phenomenon, Vuelib promptly contacted his superiors to explain the issue and obtain guidance. When the supervisors arrived, the virus jumped to them and drove them insane (despite the fact that it was specifically engineered to never affect Jagdaline or Xoraphond in any way). They killed each other and Vuelib. The next team met with the same fate immediately after arrival on the planet. At this point, the portal was quarantined.
A non-Jagdaline informant was brought in and sent to the world. Arriving safely, they studied what information was left, then returned with an explanation. The informant suggested that the area had been struck by a divine curse - one of the three outsiders who had come to investigate the village carried the insignia of Yidhra, Goddess of Paradoxes, and the virus being both successful and unsuccessful at the same time, not to mention harmful only to its creators, was a very typical sign of the goddess' wrath. The informant further suggested that the goddess blamed the Jagdaline forces for their servant's death, and cursed the world in a way that mainly affected the virus to make it harmful to us. To guarantee that the cursed virus would not be spread, the informant was promptly sterilized.
Over the next year, Jagdaline and Xoraphond individuals were inserted on a regular basis - all went mad immediately upon arrival on Golarion.
Conclusion: Despite the strategic value of controlling the Cage, the active anger of a deity is an insurmountable problem. Recommend ceasing all activity in and around this world and reapplying resources to projects more likely to be successful - any further resources committed to this world will only be wasted.
Recommendation approved, to go into effect immediately.
---
By the time she was finished reading the section aloud, Andretta looked a bit pale. Not ill, just... concerned.
"Huh, that pillbox could be useful if the bug did inject me with some disease."
Ooran listens to Andretta read part of the journal. "That sounds like an unusual world. Could these Jagladine be our captors? I've run across their writings before. Had to learn how to read it to fix a ship we ran across once. "
"Gotta wonder if that virus has anything to do with our anomaly."
