Okay, so you guys all get to go first.
Quinn didn't wait for an answer to her question before she was on the move. She knew she had to get behind this thing and flank it but more importantly, she wanted to be out of its line of sight.
As she moved, she flicked her wrist to release her dagger into her hand. She stabbed into the creature's back and then twisted the blade while yanking upwards.
Duncan tried his best to end this encounter quickly.
He quickly started chanting and gesturing and a pit opened up under the reptile's feet.
He smugly said, "That should do it, right?"
----------------
HP 35/35
AC 16, touch 12, flat-footed 14
Conditions: n/a
Melee: dagger +3, 1d4, 19-20, x2, 10’, P/S
Ranged: MW light crossbow +6, 1d8, 19-20, x2, 80’, P
Deadly aim -1 to hit / +2 damage
Spells: 5/5 1st level and 2/3 2nd level; 7/9 Summon monster
Oh, come on!
Dizzy didn't like the look of the multi-legged reptile. She especially didn't like the look in its eyes. Swinging her mace, she moved forward to attack it. However, as she approached, it vanished into a pit! "Did you guys do that?!"
Looking into the pit, she put her left hand on an etched symbol on her breastplate, and pointed her other finger at the creature. A ray of divine flame shot out at it.
Jibril went to draw his hammer as the creature dropped out of site. A little confused he drew his bow as he walked to the pit's edge and fired down.
Rex began to run at the creature and almost ran into the pit. Woah another trap? He thought briefly, until Duncan spoke up. "Well, it isn't very sporting, but I guess it works..." he muttered as he threw a javelin at the creature.
Sorry Jibril
The strange reptile was bleeding and scorched, but undeterred. Its many clawed legs made climbing the rough stone wall of the extra-dimensional pit relatively easy. When it reached the edge, it was directly in front of Jibril
The half-elf unexpectedly found himself looking into the strange, green glow of the creature's eyes. He felt a heavy stiffness growing in his limbs, and struggled to fight off the sensation.
I don't think so. It's entering a threatened area, not leaving or moving through it. And even though it's climbing, its main attack is a bite, so it's not defenceless or vulnerable as it comes into range. Fabian - thoughts?
Rex frowned as the creature crawled out of the hole and began doing something strange to Jibril. Trying to stop the creature from doing any more voodoo, he slammed his shield into it and pushed hard. "Back into the pit with you!"
Jibril watched as the creature clawed it’s way out of the pit. He was aiming his bow diligently at the creature’s face. Right into it’s eyes ... it’s green glowing eyes ... verdant... verdant green .... what? No! Wake up!
”Don’t look it in the eyes!”
Dizzy heard Jibril's warning, and wondered what sort of compulsion it had tried on the half-elf. Averting her eyes down into the pit, she tried to avoid looking into the creature's strange gaze. She swung her mace, hoping to connect.
As she swung, she felt herself start to stumble towards the pit, and looked up as she stepped back. She found herself looking straight into the strange green gaze...
Jibril swayed on his lanky legs trying to gauge which direction the creature would move, took a five foot step backward, and with little care for his own safety fired another arrow.
Quinn definitely couldn't stab the creature in the back because there was a pit between them but she could shoot it. Making sure she stayed behind it, she loaded her crossbow and took advantage of it being distracted with climbing out of the pit to aim at a vulnerable part of its anatomy.
"What do you mean don't look into its eyes?"
Duncan looked past it and still conjured up another spell.
"Well, if we can't look at it, then it shouldn't look at us."
He then blew some fine sand that blossomed into a cloud of sparkling particles next to the beast.
-------------
HP 35/35
AC 16, touch 12, flat-footed 14
Conditions: n/a
Melee: dagger +3, 1d4, 19-20, x2, 10’, P/S
Ranged: MW light crossbow +6, 1d8, 19-20, x2, 80’, P
Deadly aim -1 to hit / +2 damage
Spells: 5/5 1st level and 1/3 2nd level; 7/9 Summon monster
Everything seemed to happen at once. Dizzy stepped forward to attack, and suddenly....stopped moving. Her skin and equipment turned a solid grey, and she froze in mid-strike, her mace raised. Rex rushed forward to push the creature back down, and Quinn and Jibril let loose their arrows. Jibril's struck the reptile at the joint of one of its front legs, which promptly stopped working.
The creature hissed in rage and pain, just as Rex's shield connected. The reptile had not enough purchase to hold on, and it tumbled back down into the pit. Rex watched it fall, and didn't remember to avert his eyes until it was too late. The pale green glow of the creature's eyes overcame his resistance, and Rex, too, turned to stone.
Duncan's spell exploded over the over-turned reptile, glittering dust everywhere. The reptile thrashed and blinked, vainly trying to right itself, and remove the painful substance from its eyes.
Jibril and Quinn each fired again into the pit, and the bolt and arrow were enough to put the creature down for good. It thrashed twice more, then stopped moving. The green glow faded from its lidless eyes.
Again Quinn asked her question but her tone was slightly more demanding considering two of their group had been turned to stone. "What was that thing?" She buried another bolt into its body to make sure it was dead.
"How do we reverse this or will they turn back on their own? I mean, the creature is dead so any affect it has should die too, right?" The rogue's words sounded hopeful but the tone of her voice didn't.
She approached Rex and Dizzy and snapped her fingers in front of their faces and looked for any kind of response.
"And don't forget, we still have to figure out what key to use. Maybe if we solve the room then they'll turn back to normal."
Jibril looked at Quinn, he had a tinge of shame in his elvish serenity. It was hard to tell. Sometimes the ages of elven wisdom he was trained by made it look like he just seemed to be feeling nothing but he was concerned about Rex and Dizzy. That much was somehow implied.
"My cloak has the keys in it. I was worried that the wrong one would make things worse but now it seems of less consequence. I know something about the natural world. I know more about the five elements of burial and the methods of dealing with uncalm spirits. I know precious little of this game and nothing of petrification."
He looks at Duncan the way he did at the 'par-tay' when he just didn't know the social rules. Then he goes to his cloak in the hall, all filled with keys, and drags it to the door.
"Is there anyway to tell which is the correct key? They all have a slightly different tooth."
Quinn glanced into the pit again. "But that thing exists in nature, doesn't it? Or is it something unnatural created for the Game?"
Quinn moved over to join Jibril. "I don't know how to turn them back to flesh so we need to get out of here as soon as possible and get them help. So let's study the keys and see if we can find the right one."
Duncan had a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach and it wasn't hunger.
He suddenly panicked into a flurry of words, "The creature was a basilisk! A basilisk!"
He then looked for any spy-eyes and started yelling for help, "OK, we beat the challenge. Please bring my friends back!"
He waited and started talking to Quinn and Jibril, "It's Ok, we have have one hour to coat our fiend-statues in their blood in order to return them to flesh."
He spoke out loud again, "Hello? Did any of you spy-eyes hear me? We need help here..."
He waited and started talking to Quinn and Jibril, "It's Ok, we have have one hour to coat our fiend-statues in their blood in order to return them to flesh."
Jibril, "???", he looked to Quinn, then back to Duncan, then back to Quinn, "How does one bleed a statue?" He took out his ghandasa and tried to nick Rex on the back of the arm about the tricept.
Quinn crosses her arms and gives Duncan a doubtful look. "We do what now? To someone who doesn't know a lot of magic, explain this to me...please."
Duncan explained more carefully - it was the basilisk blood that was needed to coat the statues it had created. When Duncan's spell ended, the body came up to floor level, making the job easier.
During the process of removing blood from the basilisk, you notice something shiny inside its belly. It's a key.
Once Duncan explained how the magic was to be reversed, in a voice a little slower than necessary which irked the rogue, she nodded.
Flicking her wrist, a dagger appeared almost immediately and she bent over the basilisk's body. "We need to hurry before its blood fully clots."
She dragged the body over to Rex and started slicing into its skin in a few key places. Quinn started with the femoral artery since it had so many legs. As soon as she cut them, it was like a geyser spurting all over Rex. "Jibril and Duncan, smear it around on Rex and I'll finish with Dizzy."
Next she cut the carotid artery to empty enough blood on to Dizzy. Since they had already used some of its blood for Rex, the flow began to slow. Worrying that there wouldn't be enough to coat Dizzy's skin, Quinn sliced the creature up the middle to get at its heart. As she sliced it open something shiny caught her eye but she was more concerned with their petrified companions at the moment.
She tore the heart out and squeezed what she could on to the rest of Dizzy. She then rubbed the blood into the stone casing surrounding the dwarf and hoped that Duncan was correct.
Once Quinn had done all she could and was waiting for the blood to take affect, she returned to the basilisk's body and dug around in its insides to find the shiny object she'd seen. She pulled it out and smiled. "I bet this is the key we need."
Dizzy finished her swing at the basilisk, only suddenly the creature wasn't there. Instead, she found a blood-soaked Quinn standing in front of her. Crying out, the dwarf checked her swing, and barely managed to avoid bashing the human's head in.
"Aah! What....? Are you okay? Am I okay?" She noticed that she was completely covered, head to toe, in gore. It was in her nostrils, her mouth, everywhere. Yet, she wasn't in any pain. "Goddess! Did somebody explode?"
Rex stretched as his limbs slowly loosened.Looking down at his blood covered arms and clothes, he touched his face and found that to be wet also. "Geez...I didn't think I hit it that hard..." he remarked, finding himself confused by seeming gaps in his memory.
As Quinn lifted the key, Rex got a distinctly smug look on his face. "See. I told you those others keys were a waste of time!"
While Quinn dissected the beast Jibril did his best to pump the legs to force blood into the heart chamber. As he crawled away from the creature slick with ichor he grinned a sweet grin to see it take effect. ”I think we found our team colours. Basilisk gore red.”, as he stood next to the other team members likewise drenched. He went to the basilisk, removed it’s eyes and collected a little blood, ”These are bound to have some use.” He grabbed his cloak letting the strange keys klankle to the floor only keeping one for a souvenir. He moved to the door and waited for the others to collect themselves. ”Rex, sorry about the nick on the arm.”
"Huh?" Rex replied, as he glanced at his arm, realizing more and more that some things had happened that he missed. "Er..Sure. No worries. So, let's get out of here?" He said, swiftly changing the subject as he pointed to the door.
Slowly realizing what had happened, Dizzy thanked her new friends. "Thanks for doing that. I can't imagine it was pleasant. Anybody want a rinse?" She touched a different spot on her breastplate, one depicting a stylized river, and murmured a few words. Water appeared over her head, and sluiced the blood from her body, leaving her dripping and soggy, but at least blood-free. She then repeated the process for anybody who wanted it.
Activating her magical sight again, she examined the key that Quinn had pulled from the basilisk's guts.
Duncan kept his distance from the whole gory ordeal and still clamored for the spy-eyes.
"Did we at least get what we needed? Does the key work or not?"
He neared Rex, "You need a bath; you... stink."
Keeping an eye open for any other traps or tricks, Dizzy moved to the door. "Shall we continue?"
He neared Rex, "You need a bath; you... stink."
Jibril looked at his monkey poo cloak his basilisk blood armour and started combing his hair down over his forehead using his fingers as a comb. When Dizzy offered a bath he sidled over quietly.
”Good thinking about the blood Dun Can.”
"Hey! We all got flung by the same, monkey! We could all use a wash." Rex responded to Duncan, clearly still in good spirits. He turned to Dizzy. "Sure. Hit me with that water. Thanks!"
Once everyone was cleaned off, he asked. "Alright. I guess time to get going. I'll let you do the honor, trap master Quinn!"
Quinn moved towards the door with the newly found key. "Where this key was found would suggest that it is the right one and worth trying."
Even though she had already checked the lock already for traps, out of habit she checked again.
Confident that her safety was not in jeopardy, Quinn inserted the key into the lock and gave it a turn.
The key turns easily, and they hear a loud click. The door swings slowly forward. Ahead is a dark corridor - about ten feet wide, and twenty feet long. At the other end is another door. This one made of stone, and clearly designed to slide into the wall.
In the middle of the door is a panel of some kind. You'll need to get closer to see more clearly.
Quinn dug out her ioun torch and put it into orbit around her head to provide light in the dark hallway and keep her hands free. She cautiously moved forward looking for more traps.
"So stay back and let you do your thing again?" Rex asked with an eyebrow raised. "While you figure out what horrible death the dear gamemasters planned in this room.."
Despite leaving the investigating to Quinn, after the event of the last room, Rex did try to keep an open eye.
Sort of...Waiting was dull. He preferred it when they were sky fallen lizards.
Dizzy moved carefully into the corridor, looking for secret doors or traps in the stone.
Dizzy and Quinn noticed it at the same time - a secret trap door in the low ceiling.
Ahead of the them, the panel on the door looks like this. Each of the numbers is etched onto a raised stone square, which look like they could be pressed. There are no clues about how it works, or what it means.
Quinn takes a closer look at the trap door to determine how it opened and if it was safe to try.
There's no sign of a trap on the overhead trapdoor.
I swear, I'll get this link thing figured out one day. If you couldn't see the other one, try this:
Yes, it's not locked, you can just push it open.
Moving to the strange panel, Dizzy stared at the numbers for a while. "Perhaps we're meant to press them in order?" she suggested. "Shall I try?"
Rex looked skeptical. "Pressing them in order makes sense. But it seems too...straightforward. I think we might need to press them, but in what order? I'm not sure. I suppose we could try pressing them one through nine...but I would be ready for more scorpions if it's wrong."