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Nicholai nods, glad that someone suggested it.
"Of course, I shall be delighted to try to detect any magical auras. Any descision we reach regarding this should only be undertaken after gathering as much information as possible." He says, sounding a little more high-falutin' than usual. Possibly a reflex due to nerves?
He casts his simple charm, and stares with slightly glowing eyes at the plug, then slowly turns his head to sweep the entire room. As he examines the ruins for mystical auras, he continues chatting softly.
"We also have the other direction to explore. Perhaps we might find a clue regarding this room down that corridor?" He suggests.
"Now, That's odd." Nicholai mutters, scanning the room.
"The room and corridor all are tinged with that faint, lingering aura of necromancy, death magic, like the cellar above. So that's consistent. Not necessarily good, but consistent." He observes wryly.
"But the stone plug, it looks like illusion magics. Now why would a stone seal be covered in an illusion aura? Abjuration or evocation I would understand,..." He muses, then snaps his fingers.
"Of course! We're all so busy being careful about disturbing anything, we've never actually touched the stone plug! It may be a simple illusion!" He declares brightly. "Nobody saw any signs of traps, right?" he asks casually. A little TOO casually. He floats his mystic disk over near the plug, and leans over the top of it, prodding the stone disk with his club,...
"Well, THAT was anti-climatic." Nicholai mutters, leaning over for a better look.
"So, what's the illusion aura for?" He mumbles, leaning over and, with only a slight hesitation, feeling the top of the stone plug, trying to see if the figure on top feels like the same shape it appears to be,...
"Probably some sort of aura-masking magics, hiding the fact that there's an arch-devil underneath or somesuch,..." He mutters darkly, wishing fervently that he was back up top in the fresh air with Wij.
"Well, THAT was anti-climatic." Nicholai mutters, leaning over for a better look.
"So, what's the illusion aura for?" He mumbles, leaning over and, with only a slight hesitation, feeling the top of the stone plug, trying to see if the figure on top feels like the same shape it appears to be,...
"Probably some sort of aura-masking magics, hiding the fact that there's an arch-devil underneath or somesuch,..." He mutters darkly, wishing fervently that he was back up top in the fresh air with Wij.
Laithe follows Nicolai into the room, figuring that he had been expecting to find trouble and so was possibly seeing it where perhaps there was none. He still treads as cautiously as possible, approaching the stone plug. He joins Nicolai in searching it's surface, looking for a mechanism or handle that would fascilitate the removal of the plug.
"Shouldn't we cleanse the place then Keildrithe?""I'm more concerned that in our present state, we would only unleash more evil upon the world, rather than cleanse it... at the cost of our lives," mumbles the Karand.
NIcholai looks up from his inspection of the plug, and gives the bard a half-smile. "A valid concern Keildrithe! It's a shame that we can't trust the rest of the world to be so cautious." He shrugs.
"I don't see how to get this thing off other than brute strength, and I can't explain the Aura of Illusion magics I can see on this thing. Perhaps we should explore the rest of the area? See if maybe we can find a clue to at least some of our questions, then return here and continue to explore this chamber?" He asks. He the turns to the plug, and in a moment of obvious frustration, points at the plug and commands, "Rise! Speak!, Open Sesame!"
He turns to the others with a sheepish grin.
"Well. It was worth a try!" He declares with a sniff, straightening his ascot.
"Why not ignore it? If there is an illusion perhaps there is no plug. Just a hole. The elves love their illusions to make the woods seem different and the best ones are those that no one tries to disbelieve. The ones that are most natural."
She plucks at her bottom lip and smiles at Keildrithe, "I sound like my mother. By Corellon's sword I wish I didn't. And I was only playing. Sometimes it is best to leave well enough alone. You may be right, Keildrithe. We have another corridor we could explore now?"
"Why not ignore it? If there is an illusion perhaps there is no plug. Just a hole. The elves love their illusions to make the woods seem different and the best ones are those that no one tries to disbelieve. The ones that are most natural."
She plucks at her bottom lip and smiles at Keildrithe, "I sound like my mother. By Corellon's sword I wish I didn't. And I was only playing. Sometimes it is best to leave well enough alone. You may be right, Keildrithe. We have another corridor we could explore now?"
Keildrithe smiles sympathetically, relief showing on his heretofore worried features. "Agreed... let us see if we may find answers elsewhere in this complex... and let us pray that our blades do not rise against us yet again... Be prepared, friends..."
Momentarily defeated by the odd chamber, the party retreats back along the tunnel to the large room with the swords. There may be a certain wariness upon re-entering this chamber, but it appears unfounded – nothing other than the slight chill in the air and the sound of dripping water assails the group as they pass back through the room. The rusty swords remain unmoving (and in many cases, broken) on the floor where they lie.
On the other side of the room another tunnel entrance awaits. This tunnel runs west for about thirty feet before curving around out of sight to the north. The floor is paved with stone, but the walls and ceiling are bare earth and close packed rubble, supported by regular columns and beams of stone and petrified timber. There is a damp, earthen smell in the air, and the faint hint of decay. The passage is little more than five feet wide at the points where the columns jut from the walls on both sides at regular intervals.
The elf maiden draws her greatsword and leads the party back across the main chamber and into the first corridor she had tried to travel down.
Keildrithe follows close behind Pharris, exhaling with relief when neither the rusty swords nor his own blade shows signs of animation. He holds his own blade tightly in hand, ready to cover the elf maiden's back...
Pharris leads the way boldly around the bend, Keildrithe a step behind her, both of them keeping their ears peeled, but hearing nothing other than the sounds they bring with them, and the steady drip of water from behind.
Pharris’s keen elven eyes, seeing better and further in the light from the glowing coins than a human’s, can see that another thirty feet or so past the bend the passage opens out into an earthen chamber, roughly semi-circular in shape, perhaps thirty feet across. Swords, axes, helms and shields lay about the perimeter of the room, looking badly damaged by moisture and age. A dozen lances tall lances lean against the curved wall. The ragged, mouldy remains of a standard and a rusty gauntlet hang from the rotting shaft of each lance.
From her position down the corridor, Pharris can see no other exits from the chamber ahead (although there may be more to the room out of her sight).
Pharris steps into the room, then stops and looks back at Nicolai … so she doesn’t hear the faint jangle and creak of rusted metal, nor see the faint stirring of the old gauntlets. She does not notice anything is amiss, until the first pale, misshapen fleshy spider drops down from its gauntlet shell onto the stony floor – then another, then another. One after the other, thin, corpse pale, disembodied hands drop or crawl from the gauntlets and begin scuttling along the floor or along the length of the lances on withered fingertips and cracked nails towards the warrior woman.
At Nicolai's words she stops and looks back quizzically when he doesn't finish the sentence. "What?"
Nicholai shakes his head with a wry smirk. He opens his mouth to speak, just as Kajetan lets loose with a piercing, feminine, shriek.
"Noth,... AwfertheloveofArton!" He gasps, clutching his chest. "Please don't do that!" He chides Kaj with the weak grin of the startled. Then, noting the wizard's wide-eyed stare, follows it back to it's source.
"On the other hand,..." He starts to add in a soft, subdued voice, then smirks at his own unintended pun. He recovers from his shock faster than the frightened wizard though.
"Pharris! Get out of there! There are too many! Come back!" The dandy shouts, his hand wavering in position halfway between the position he uses to cast his flame burst, and the ceramic vial of alchemist's fire on his belt,...
Keildrithe's eyes widen in horror as he peers around the elf maiden. He shudders, then puts a firm, yet gentle hand on the maiden's forearm, trying to pull her back into the tunnel. "Cympharrisong, there is no honour to be had in risking life and... ahem... limb... fighting these dismembered hands with bow or blade... might I suggest we take a few steps back and let our sorcerous allies deliver the initial strikes against these abominations?"
As Pharris shakes off Keildrithe's hand and moves off into the chamber, to the left of the passage, the bard finds his request trailing off, largely unheard by the elf maiden. Cursing under his breath, he makes a step in the opposite direction, just to the right of the passage. He holds the blade that Alton lent him in a high guard, ready to slice down once the hands come within five feet of him. "Nicolai, Laithe, Kajetan... I think we're going to need fire!!!" he yells back over his shoulder, as locks of grimy brown hair come loose from his leather headband and dangle before his eyes..
"I think I'm going to regret this," he mutters to himself, then begins to recite the words of a Karandic ode...
Pharris steps into the chamber and spins and dips with her greatsword at the nearest crawling hand, cutting it clean in half.
The remainder of the hands keep scuttling towards her, and Keildrithe who steps into the room beside her, slicing down at another one of the hands as it gets close to him, chopping three of its fingers off, leaving it lying on the floor, twitching but unable to move.
But now the rest of the hands have reached the two adventurers, scrabbling around them, trying to climb up their legs, or launching themselves through the air from the hafts of the lances.
Kajetan's initial horror does not wear off and the young mage fires his crossbow off at one of the hands as it leaps through the air.
Light Crossbow
+3 Attack / 1d8 Damage, Critical 19-20 X2, Type P, Range 80 ft.
-4 for shooting into combat, I have NOT taken a penalty for cover, please apply it if they are shielded from my view, which I think they are.
He fumbles with the bolts as he attempts to reload the crossbow.
Nicholai's eyes widen in shock/fear as the crawling appendages swarm onto his two friends. 'Too slow!' Cursing under his breath at his indecisiveness, he extends the forefinger of each gloved hand and mutters under his breath. Two glowing bolts of force fly, each striking a different hand crawling upon Pharris.
"Need a hand my lady?" he hears himself saying, despite the seriousness of the situation.