The creature you're seeing strikes you as some kind of invertebrate puddle like creature...ooze, jelly, something of that nature. You're unsure what it might be beyond one of the gelatinous subtypes and your lack of study of these creatures means the best you can figure out is to stay away from it.
The creature you're seeing is obviously of the "Jelly/Ooze" subtype, and, due to the somewhat transparent mass, is likely of the Jelly type. Though exactly which Jelly type is unknown to you. You've not really studded these creatures well and aren't sure what to expect from them.
The creature you're facing is an Ochre Jelly, of that you can be certain. You are aware that Jellies have some special properties to them, but exactly what those properties are, you aren't sure since you've not faced one/studied them in depth.
The creature you face is an Ochre Jelly, and due to your extensive study, you have full knowledge of this creature and it's properties and abilities.
Initiative:
----------------
Lash (25)
Thantos (19)
Mird (16)
Theras (15)
Dirk (14)
Armand (14)
Selena (10)
Jelly (-1)
Jelly(2) (-3)
Quick as a Flash, Lash leaps backward, over a grasping Pseudopod, draws her rapier, and stabs straight into the creature, striking the slow moving mass in one of it's tendrils. The creature stops and sudders for a second as the hole created by the rapier grows larger and larger, separating the gelatinous mass along a diagnal length parallel to the rapier's strike. Seconds later the hole has grown to a gash that has increased along the entire length of the creature from the point of impact all the way to the floor.
That's when you notice that each separated section of the creature is now moving on it's own, independent of the other.
Instead of one Jelly, you realize you're now facing two smaller versions of the same thing.
Of the hole Lash created in the Jelly's exterior, there is nothing remaining.
Thantos pulls out a small ball of what looks like candle wax, with other things inside, and chants some arcane words, summoning into existance a rather large flaming sphere, almost as tall as a short man is high, the heat of which immediately takes all the chill out of the room. The ball starts rolling slowly toward the now two jelly like creatures.
Getting too close to one of the tables on it's way toward the intended targets you hear the splintering and cracking of quickly drying wood as the table starts to burn, as the ball of fire passes down exceptionally close the table, some of the chairs start smoldering, little fires catching on some of the splinters and even catching slightly in some places.
The ball continues to roll on toward the targets, finally speeding up and rolling over the first of them, engulfing it within the flaming sphere.
That's what it is! Thantos calls out. I knew I shouldn't have spent so much time napping during that lecture on oozes! It's an Ochre Jelly! Don't shoot it with arrows or slash it with swords or axes. Pummel it! Or burn it, or douse it with acid, but do not cut it, or it will keep dividing! And don't touch it, it will melt the flesh right off your bones. Lightning is no good, and it's mindless. It won't stop until we stop it.
Mird's arrow never reaches it's mark, as he stops from letting it go at the last second with Thantos' warning. "Bah! I have nothing but arrows and swords!"
"Grab a table leg then and light it on fire. Pummeling it with a torch might do some good." Selena says as a rare moment of lucidity comes over her. Theras flutters to the ceiling.
She calls heavenly fire to her hands, shaping it into two balls of pure energy, and releases them in a spiraling wave toward the nearest jelly, then backs away from it some more.
Mird draws a bead on the first of the jellies, arrow knocked and ready when Lash's strike and the Jelly's reaction to it gives him pause. Getting ready to fire into the Jelly after watching it split Thantos's call causes Mird to lower the bow, taking inventory of his equipment and growling in frustration as he helplessly looks for an alternative way to put some hurt on this thing.
Dirk, too, lowers his crossbow, hearing Thantos and seeing Mird do the same, the two of them glance at each other in frustration looking around for the easiest available weapon that doesn't match a slashing or piercing weapon.
Armand chants the words to a prayer to Saenrae, points his finger and a blaze of fire leaps from it, jetting past the first Jelly, almost consumed by the flaming sphere and stabbing his line of fire just under the table to strike the second blob of goo. ()
Selena summons her fiery light to hand and releases it in the form of two glowing white darts which unerringly speed out to slam into the first of the Jellies further burning holes in it's outer ooze. ()
The first jelly practically launches a pseudopod like arm out from it's body straight at lash's knees which Lash manages to jump clear above, however she still hasn't adjusted to the fact there's a second, independent ooze near her and it's stretching pseudopod slams her in the chest mid jump, luckily connecting only with her leather armor and not her skin directly. The hiss and sizzle of burning leather as the outermost layer of the semi-hardened tanned hide starts to disintegrate tells all of you that touching one of these creatures would be very, very bad.
That said, the blow has force and Lash, already airborn, lands several feet back from where she was down on one knee trying to catch her breath from the hit to her solar plexus. ().
Mird growls in anger and grabs the biggest piece of chair he can hold, puts his arm back, and whips it around, throwing the piece of wood at the first ooze.
Dirk pauses sheathing his falchion as he hears Thantos' shout. Trusting the mages information, Dirk nods at Selena's advice and begins chopping at a the leg of a table hoping to fashion a make-shift club.
Thantos keeps his roiling ball of flames on the first blob, moving the sphere with it if it attempts to escape the heat.
As for the second jelly, he summons an acidic glob into his hand and hurls it at the abomination.
Armand, I hope your God will allow you to create some water to douse these flames later on!
Selena backs away from the oozes again, if she can. And speaks a few words in Celestial as she waves her hand in Lash's direction. A forcefield of glowing energy surrounds her.
Chuckling at Thantos, Armand touches the holy symbol on his chest, the symbol dedicated to Saenrae.
"Well, my friend, that might be a tall order to come by, I am, afterall, a priest of the Sun Goddess...fire is actually my domain, not water..."
Watching Thantos's eyes get large as he sees the table and nearby chairs catch and definitely start to burn, the flames licking higher toward the ceiling he adds.
"But there may be something I can do..."
Even despite the situation, you all get a chuckle at Thantos' obvious discomfort as you glance sideways at Armand an see him give a wink with a wry smile set on his face.
Flashing a quick grin of thanks at Selena, Lash reaches into her pack, drawing a glass flask that she shakes vigorously before sending it hurtling towards the Jelly that struck her.
(Note: This is a Combat Maneuver Resulting in a Grapple followed by Automatic Damage. Due to this, while the Grapple will hit, it's not "doubled" damage, while an attack, it's not damage that can be "doubled").
Pulling a flask from her pack, Lash shakes it vigorously and tosses it at the Jelly, holding it just an instant longer than she intended to cause it to break on the floor BEFORE the Jelly, realizing that the broken glass shards might have caused the Jelly to split again.
The glass bottle breaks and it's orangish-white liquid splashes onto the front of the semi-clear jelly creature, the liquid all but disappearing as it blends with the colors of the Jelly creature itself...that is, till a half second later when the entire contents of the flask bursts into flame upon contact with the air. The front of the Jelly creature goes up in an instant flash of flame which continues burning for at least a few seconds till the fuel is consumed.
If the jelly like creature felt any of that (other than a slight discoloration of the front of it) you cannot tell. (4 Damage to Jelly 2).
A few feet away, the first Jelly continues to burn under the flaming sphere now sitting practically on top of it, flames licking down most of the length of it's half formed body. The Ochre Jelly's coloration has turned a deep, deep orange now, going quickly to black as whatever substance makes up the creature is either consumed by the flame or "boiled off" of the creature due to the immense heat. ()
Stepping to the side to get a clearer view, Thantos hurls a glowing putrid green ball of what looks like dripping goo from his hand into the center of the second Jelly, the gooey mass splattering across the midsection of the jelly like creature...immediately a hissing sound escapes into the room as you can watch the mess bubble and burn a patch onto the creature's substance. Like the coagulated fire burning it's front, the green ooze sears it's middle. ()
Mird edges away from Armand as he sees Armand start chanting and pointing in the general vicinity of the creatures and the action. And moves over to one of chairs that is resting on the table. He picks it up and hurls it whole at the nearest of the creatures to him, hoping, in some way, to hurt it.
Surprisingly enough, as the chair hurtles through the air on target to smack into the first jelly, the orange of it's body all of a sudden goes almost completely dark and it seems to be moving oddly. Then the chair slams into it, and, for lack of a better description, disgusting to you as it may be, it actually flattens the Jelly like creature, splattering much if it's material in a short radius across the floor. Bits of the jelled creature, some normal, some still aflame from the burning sphere, seem to splatter from the obviously dead creature in a small radius around it.
The chair, for it's part somewhat old and rickety, comes at least partially apart as it slams into the ground, pieces of it hitting the flaming sphere and burning, other pieces dully striking the other blob like creature. A large portion of the intact chair goes bouncing toward Lash who side steps the oncoming missile with grace.
()
As Dirk brings his falcion up to hack at a table leg, his arm brushes against something still attached to his belt. Quickly looking down he notices the forgotten great club attached to his belt from his encounter with the Ogre Jailor several days ago, realizing a better solution to the problem, all but tosses his Flacion as he simply lets it go mid swing, rips the club off his belt, and wades into the action.
Seeing the second creature extend a pair of pseudopodia at a distracted Lash, Dirk realizes he's got one shot to keep Lash from being engulfed. Dodging around the chest high burning sphere and practically kicking the now aflame table out of his way, the hair of his arms singeing at the closeness of the nearby flames and the heat from the burning elements around him, Dirk steps into an overhead swing of the club.
Almost without effort the club comes swinging down to smack into the second ochre jelly. For a split second the club causes the jelly to flatten out but it looks to you like it will hold, then the club sinks down through the jelly to slam with a resounding CRACK against the floor, sending painful vibrations up through Dirk's hands. Realizing what's about to happen, Lash dives backward into a roll as, with the first Jelly, the material that made up the second explodes, some of it aflame still from the Alchemist's Fire, some sizzling like frying bacon as the acid from Thantos continues to eat away from it. Small hisses resound as bits and pieces of the acidic contents of the Jelly hit Dirk's armor, pieces of the wooden table, and other disolveable parts in the room.
The pseudopods reaching toward Lash simply drop to the ground and disintegrate, or maybe deflate, as the creature's life force is extinguished.
Moments later Armand stops chanting and a torrent of water, several gallons of it at least, wash over the now fully burning table and chairs and splashes across the flaming sphere. A great hiss of escaping steam and the flash vaporizing of a large quantity of the water causes a steam cloud to rise from the table and sphere to almost as quickly dissipate. The flames on the table and chairs almost immediately die out along the areas where the water engulfed it while the flaming sphere hisses and spits and crackles, looking unstable for a few seconds, before the remaining fire re-ignites more of the spongy material underneath the splashed contents.
The rest of the water washes over Dirk, the floor and what remains of the jelly-like creatures, extinguishing some of the still burning and hissing contents (extinguishing the flames from the alchemist's fire and diluting the acid still bubbling on some of the creature's contents).
Very shortly thereafter, the room goes quiet, the sounds of the winter storm outside, of the wind blowing through cracks in the tower and shutters, of overburdened limbs on trees in the forest outside finally giving way with a resounding crack and crash, and the sounds of calling winter animals fills the void as you each return to alert status.
"Well I'm no longer cold." Dirk says as he inspects the fire-blackened hair of his left arm.
Wiping the gelatinous residue from his club, he continues, "I had hoped that we only had one dangerous creature to deal with in here, but it appears that we'll be facing more."
Re-hooking the club to his belt and retrieving his falchion, he says, "We've chosen our course, we may as well continue."
"I'm just grateful those things are gone. Such strange creatures are in this place. And for some reason, I cannot shake the idea that they are somehow related to the mirror."
With the space she has in the room now, Selena begins to arrange the mirror pieces on either the floor or tables in an attempt to understand how they once fit together.
"That was uncomfortable, I realize I am useless in situations against these types of creatures. Perhaps I can find something to use in the future."
Mird looks around the room for something to carry around as a club or a bludgeon. Before leaving his spot he stoops and picks up his bow and arrow on the floor.
After searching he heads toward the door and peers into the hallway looking for any enemies.
Thantos squeezes his hands together in a series of motions, the ball of fire shrinking with each squeeze until it disappears entirely.
Well, he pants, that was exciting! It seems that this tower is full of surprises. Let's make sure we don't leave any behind us, eh?
The elf proceeds to engage in a thorough search of the room, checking to make sure the group hasn't missed anything. He also prys open the blackened husks of the jelly with his dagger, pocketing a few choice globules for use in future spells. All the while he hums to himself in a tuneless drone, his eyes glowing slightly in the dim light.
Once his search is complete, he signals to the others that he is ready to proceed.
Something just isn't right with putting the pieces together. You can't put your finger on it and it may just be you don't have enough pieces yet, but it feels that the pieces are either too large or too jagged to get any kind of good read on the 4 pieces you have right now. You're either missing something or going about this the wrong way...
As you are examining the pieces and trying to find any kind of relations, you realize that at least one of the 4 pieces you have are JUST this shade off from each other. Looking more closely, while they're all pieces of mirrored glass it strikes you that some pieces are just slightly thicker than each other, some are thinner and some are a different color...while the glass is all of the same "type", it occurs to you that any mirror made from this stuff would be so uneven and abnormal (even if you could get it all to fit together properly) that it wouldn't resemble any mirror you would ever have seen. The image would be so distorted due to differences in shape and size and depth of each piece that you can't imagine it being useful.
And then it strikes you, if it weren't so insane to suggest, this stuff almost looks more like quarried stone (shale, etc.) than a pieces of some gigantic mirror.
As the group takes in the details of the room, Lash scans the chamber for any possible unexpected entry points to the room, or any hints the overall srtucture and condition might indicate..
"This is interesting. After looking these over again, I don't think these are mirror shards at all. These are shards of something else. Perhaps even a worked stone from exotic mines or ore. See here, these are all different colors, different thicknesses, and such. Definitely not a mirror, but something that once held an enchantment. How odd....?"
Theras flutters around her head in agreement.
Mird: You can find several heavy wooden objects you could make work as a makeshift club: Anything from chair or table legs all the way up to hacking a board off one of the tables and working it down into something akin to a club. Feel free to add a "basic" club to your character sheet if you wish.
(In your detect magic castings I am ignoring the various implements of known magic that the party is carrying [rings, weapons, etc.] from my description. I'm assuming you're familiar enough with the possessions of each party member to recognize the glows from their known magical equipment.)
(I've given this description in the past, but you may not have been playing the character at that point, so I'll give it again).
The only thing in the room to glow are the four mirror shards Selena's holding. Each glows faintly with a magical radiance, a "residue" so to speak, somewhat different than the glow from a magical item. It's akin to what you're familiar with when viewing the aftereffects of a spell (the residual magic in the air left behind after an activated spell), rather than the magical radiance given off by a magical item. While it's not exactly the same thing the radiance you're seeing is a "passive" radiance, not an active one. As you study harder, the other oddity is the radiance isn't giving off any kind of "specific" type of magic. If you had to pin it down it'd be conjuration...but even that is more guesswork than fact.
You definitely have to admit, you've never seen ANYTHING like this.
The tower is solidly built, there's no question about that. The construction is as fine as you've seen in the richer sections of Oceansend or Landfall, not like the hovels you're used to in the larger cities.
The walls of the tower are well sealed. It's obvious both the north west and north east walls of the room are outer walls, but in your perusal and inspection, you can't find a crack or crevice in that outer wall between the stone blocks used to build the tower...it's definitely built to withstand the rigors of time and weather.
Neither of the outer walls looks to have any kind of entry ability. Knowing what you know of building engineering, the outer walls are, without question, load bearing, and any kind of secret door or other entry point at this level of the tower would run the risk of destabilizing the 3 levels above it, creating a weak point in the exterior shell...a bad thing if you're being attacked. You're pretty certain the tower itself (at least at this level) is likely not penetrable from the outside baring phasing through the outer walls themselves.
Continuing to the inner walls, it makes little sense for a secret door or alternate entry method to have been created in a wall with a door already in it (though you check anyway, just to make sure), but your perusal of the level and it's layout also indicate no "missing" space attached to this room that would indicate a hidden area attached to this room of the tower.
Moving on to the Floor/Ceiling, this is a little harder, it's obvious that the floor/ceiling of each level is a layer of stone laid over a wooden subfloor and rafters (you can see this by looking up). Again, creating some kind of entrance or trapdoor in the floor would almost definately show some kind of workmanship from below. While it's possible there's some kind of trap door in the floor, you can tell there's no "crawlspace" between floor and ceiling of the next floor down...going through the floor of one level would drop you STRAIGHT into the lower level.
Completing your inspection, without performing a definitive search for secret doors, the only ways into our out of this room are by the door you came in, and the "passthrough" window to the kitchen room in the southeast wall...and the engineering of the building supports that theory.
The rest of you finish your search of the Soldier's mess, seeing nothing else out of the ordinary and nothing of value.
(Not trying to rush the party, if there's anything else you want to accomplish before you go into the next room, please let me know and we'll handle it. I'll post the next room statistics, however, for when we get there.)
Ducking into the Hallway, Dirk looks both ways for enemies while Mird slips out into the hallway, silent as a mouse, and starts to move counter clockwise toward the next room ()...alert for the next signs of Danger.
As the rest of you finish your search, you each move out the door and down the hall, following Mird.
The six of you come to the next door on the floor, Lash performing her usual checks for traps and triggers before Dirk pushes the door open and enters, weapon drawn, followed by the rest of the party.
This chamber contains 5 cots and 5 chests for the possessions of the room's occupants, likely soldiers. The cots look bland and plain and cheap, very military issue; and the lack of personal space certainly means either servant or soldier quarters. Given the already identified uses of the floor (Soldiers Kitchen, Soldier's Mess) you have to assume this was the floor where the keep's defenders resided, and that this is one of the bedrooms.
And in this room, at least some of the Soldiers defending the keep died. There are spots of dried blood here and there to prove this fact, but no bodies...they are completely missing.
Up against the far wall opposite the door, one of the cots has been dragged (the drag marks on the floor are obvious) and, propped on it against the wall, rests yet another of the mirror glass shards.
As the group heads towards the room that will turn out to be the barracks, Thantos casts mage armor on himself, sure that the tower will grow more deadly.
Selena leaves the pieces there, but keeps them collected together. Then joins the others.
If Thantos sees Selena leave the pieces, he will pick them up and put them in his handy haversack.
Mird, places his newfound "club", a large chair leg, into his belt. Arrow nocked, he scans the hallways while the others investigate the new room. "Something is...wrong...in this place. How were all these soldiers' lives regrettably ended? I have a gut feeling something has to do with these pieces of "mirror" we keep finding."
Dirk raises a hand upon entering the room, to indicate to everyone to stay clear of the area around mirror.
In a quiet voice Dirk says, "I know little of magic, but I am trained to see patterns in battle. Each time we've seen one of these shards - save the one in the entry way - we've been attacked. The creature always seems to appear and/or exit near the shard. For example, the shard near the fireplace, the baboon creature escaped up the chimney; the Jelly dropped from under the table that the shard rested upon. Now we have a shard sitting on this cot."
Leaning (from a distance) to peer beneath and around the area of the cot, Dirk continues, "Could the magic of the shard be triggered by proximity?"
Seeing Selena setting the pieces down, Thantos approaches and starts a short discussion with her about her findings. Selena shows Thantos the various bits and pieces she's discovered and Thantos agrees the likelihood of these pieces being interconnected are small. Still, after a short discussion Selena and Thantos decide to continue carrying the largish shards of mirror with them.
As the party enters the next room everyone stops as Dirk postulates about the possibility of the mirror shard activating by proximity. Keeping people where they are and motioning for Mird to cover him, Dirk flops down onto the floor and starts looking under the cots from where he's at at the door, getting no nearer to the mirror than he currently is, but doing his best to examine EVERY available space in the room from his location.
His search shows up nothing.
There are many ways to trigger magic by Proximity, many spells are proximity based, such as basic "alarm" spells, magic mouths, and other such created entities to warn of approaching entities. There are items as well you've studied that have been enchanted with proximity enchantments...usually these kinds of magical items tend to "blow up" spectacularly when used. Others, like Mirrors of Life trapping, are known to work, at least somewhat, by proximity.
It would not come as a huge shock (though you know of no SPECIFIC circumstances in your studies) whereby a magical object or item could cause some effect (like a monster summoning) to happen by proximity.
Without moving through the room, there's little more to notice other than the room is, basically, empty other than the various foot lockers at the ends of the cots used to store personal effects and such for the soldiers that used this room...well, used before their obvious gruesome deaths.
At least one of those foot lockers seems to have been thrown open and is showing almost nothing inside, a few minor pieces of clothing, a pair of boots and little else of interest.
Straightening himself, Dirk says to the mage, "Thantos, I've seen you move things from afar, can you reposition the shard so it is face-down on the cot?"
Straightening himself, Dirk says to the mage, "Thantos, I've seen you move things from afar, can you reposition the shard so it is face-down on the cot?"
Hmmm, an interesting idea, Dirk. I wonder if it would work though. So far, the shards have been reflective on both sides, but there is something I could try. Accompany me into the room, if you would. This effect only works at close range.
Thantos pushes up his sleeves, and incants a nonsense rhyme.
Prestidigitation
School universal; Level bard 0, sorcerer/wizard 0
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range 10 ft.
Target, Effect, or Area see text
Duration 1 hour
Saving Throw see text; Spell Resistance no
Prestidigitations are minor tricks that novice spellcasters use for practice. Once cast, a prestidigitation spell enables you to perform simple magical effects for 1 hour. The effects are minor and have severe limitations. A prestidigitation can slowly lift 1 pound of material. It can color, clean, or soil items in a 1-foot cube each round. It can chill, warm, or flavor 1 pound of nonliving material. It cannot deal damage or affect the concentration of spellcasters. Prestidigitation can create small objects, but they look crude and artificial. The materials created by a prestidigitation spell are extremely fragile, and they cannot be used as tools, weapons, or spell components. Finally, prestidigitation lacks the power to duplicate any other spell effects. Any actual change to an object (beyond just moving, cleaning, or soiling it) persists only 1 hour.
Thantos moves into the room until he is about ten feet from the mirror, then attempts to lift the shard up and release it.
If he is unable to lift the shard, he conjures a thick shower of multi-hued, magical leaves over and over again until the shard itself is completely covered and hidden.
Concentrating on his task Thantos tries to get his spell to lift or move the mirror, unfortunately other than slightly shuddering a bit, the object is obviously too heavy to move. Getting a better idea he shifts the focus to the top of the mirror, effectively "tipping" it over from it's propped position so it lands face down on the hard bed.
As guessed by Thantos, the back side of this piece of mirror glass substance is a mirror as well, as are the jagged edges.
Seeing the back side as shiny as the front, Thantos switches the focus of his spell to the creation of crinkly leaf shaped objects, multi-hewed (none of which seem to be "right" for actual leaves, either too bright or too dull).
Within a few minutes of hand waving, the "leaves" cover the mirror in it's entirety, mounding up significantly high on the bed before Thantos quits his summons.
Smiling and bowing at you, Thantos backs up to the doorway of the room, allowing Dirk to proceed...
Slowly, pace by pace, Dirk edges closer to the completely covered mirror. You can feel the leather wrap around the hilt of your sword getting wet and warm from your nervous sweat, the temperature in your body rises as the tension in the room slowly increases the closer and closer you inch to the mirror shard.
Feet moved turn into inches moved as you edge up closer and closer to the mirror. Then, standing next to it Dirk takes a deep breath and closes his eyes...
And turns his back to the mirror, taking one shuffle step back toward the group.
Counting to 5 Dirk quickly whips around drawing the sword parallel to his shoulders, dipping it slightly to angle cut as he comes across the point where his accoster should be.
And swings through empty air.
Relaxing, after a few more tries to trigger a magical effect from the mirror (approaching it from different angles, etc.) and doing a more thorough investigation of the room itself (peeking behind/under things, not necessarily in the chests yet), Dirk shrugs to the rest of you at his lack of luck.
"Could be that the leaves prevented an attack?" Dirk says as he shrugs.
Mird chuckles softly at the display. "It was certainly a valiant attempt. Perhaps we should take the shard as with the others so as to not have it at our backs."
Thantos grins. If you'd like to test that theory, I can always get rid of the leaves...
Thantos pokes through the open chest, looking for valuables, or an explanation for the slaughter in this tower.
Selena turns towards Armand.
"Does anything here radiate evil? I am not skilled in seeing evil auras, but there might be divine magic at work here that you can find better than I."
"So essentially these mirror shards would be somesort of...gateway?" Lash shakes her head looking at the shards.
"It would explain how every room so fare seems to be thesite of a surprise attack. And honestly, if you think like an assasin, I can't thinkof abetter way to get your target alone than to jump out of a mirror."
Armand shakes his head sadly at Selena's Suggestion.
"Alas My Dear, the power to detect the ills of this world is not one my Goddess has granted me yet."
"The creature obviously intends us harm, it seems, so it would make sense for it to be a being of evil, however, given we cannot see it, nor hear it, it is either very good at being silent as our friend Lash here is, or the creature is not actually here right now."
"Stay prepared as we search and we will so find out which of those two it is."
As Thantos notes the nods from Dirk and Mird, he moves into the room, turning toward each of the chests in turn to check contents for clues to the owners and their position within the castle. Each of the chests contains mostly the same items: Clothing, mostly the same for each of the six chests, you take them to be a type of uniform, personal effects and trinkets of little to no value other than to the owner of the items themselves, and a few papers and notes, even a personal diary or two.
Flipping through one of the diaries, you find more information about the tower you are now in. The tower belongs to a pair of ex-adventurers none of you have ever heard of by the name of Retameron and Halia. Somewhat successful, the two seem to have made enough money as part of an adventuring group hiring themselves out regularly to none other than Duke Stefan Karameikos himself, to have built the tower. Retired for almost two years now, according to the notes in one of the found journals, the pair had the tower built with the hard earned winnings (both from the payments for services from the Duke and with the standard fare of adventurer findings) they obtained as a place to settle down and enjoy the rest of their lives. The soliders (for this room is a baracks from what you can tell) were hired shortly after the tower was built to help the Lord an Lady of the estate from having to fend off attacks from the wild. The last journal entry is from a week ago and identifies nothing out of the ordinary, but a prior entry in one of the books from about a week or two before the last entry identifies a gold inlaid floor mirror as having been gifted to the Lord and Lady of the tower.
Inspected and passed off as magical but harmless by Halia and some of her apprentices (you gather she is some kind of Wizardess), the mirror was hung somewhere in the master rooms upstairs for decoration.
Being a typical soldier the man has written that he was uncomfortable when the mirror was first brought into the tower with nothing more written about it.
The search of the rest of the room has proven fruitless.
"A gift... does it say from whom?"
Unfortunately not, Selena. I had hoped for some indication myself. Perhaps we shall learn more as we ascend. Thantos purses his lips in thought for a moment, then says, If the owners of this tower were adventurers, and one an arcanist of some ability, we should use extra caution. Who knows what traps, magical or otherwise they may have encountered in their adventures, and thought to use to protect their own home and people. For the moment, I think we should leave this fragment here, and proceed onward.
"Sometimes weapons are disguised as gifts. That is why I asked." Theras flutters excitedly and settles on the tip of the healing staff she is carrying.
Dirk nods at Thantos' suggestion to leave the shard.
Then, on a hunch, he grabs a piece of clothing from one of the chests and lays it over the leaves (and shard). "I don't know how long those magic leaves will last. But, I don't want to risk something catching us from behind."
Making eye contact with Lash, "Ready when you are."
"I'll keep an eye out here in the hallway. We should search the rest of the rooms as soon as possible, we are not being very quiet, and the longer it takes, the more places anything will have to hide."
Mird quietly creeps a step into the hallway towards the next room, keeping his senses fully engaged.
Nodding towards Dirk Lash stealthily makes her way forward, masterfully honed senses seeking any possibility of a trap of any kind
Stealth
Perception