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Nicholai slaps himself on the forehead at Kajetan's hypothesis.
"Of course! Shadows of a Shadow! That, IS brilliant, actually. I don't know much about illusions personally, but what I DO know is that you always want to craft one that gives the viewer no reason to doubt it."
The dandy shakes his head ruefully. "Well, as a defense it certainly worked well enough. Caused us to retreat before we returned, and I wasted powerful magic on it. Twice! " He mutters.
Nicholai perks back up and nods in agreement with Kajetan.
"Yes, let us continue, while you have the benefit of your spell! I wonder what was so creatively guarded?" He asks aloud. Entering the room with the others, he retrieves his now-dark coin from yesterday, flips it in the air, catches it, and puts it in a vest pocket.
Keildrithe is both relieved and intrigued by Kajetan's analysis. "Hmmm... that certainly is ingenious... whatever lies in the passages beyond must indeed be of great worth if someone went to the trouble of setting such a well-conceived arcane trap. I am really curious now... and hope that we face no greater traps or guardians along the way. Let's move on..."
Having said, the bard waits for Laithe or Alton to take the lead (too much of an old-fashioned gentleman to expect Pharris to do so).
"I don't know," mutters the girl. "Illusions work best when layered with reality. I'd expect some of the undead to be involved either already or soon. Take care in there and we should remember to do this while our magical protections are at their strongest."
Pharris legs it in, not thinking about being a lady and fetches the javelin from the floor where it skittered to across the room. Then she turns expectantly.
Pharris legs it in, not thinking about being a lady and fetches the javelin from the floor where it skittered to across the room. Then she turns expectantly.
Laithe follows Pharris into the room and quickly retrieves the sling stones he can. Though the magic on these ones has been spent, they may still prove of use. He offers the two that still radiate magic to whoever would like them.
"I'm with Kajetan as well; given the magic we have expended we should push on while some of it remains of use. We can always come back and give this chamber a more thorough search later." He moves over to the passage on the far side of the chamber, ready to go if the party is in agreeance.
These type of cairns would normally have an entrance from the side of the hill (either open, barred or collapsed), but you entered through a hole in the top of the hill … it is quite possible that you entered somewhere in the middle of the cairn, and are headed towards the proper entrance to the tomb.
"Ah, so the statue faces away from us, indicating we are heading towards the true entrance of this tomb," Kajetan exclaims, "This place is full of intrigue."
He spends a few precious rounds poking and prodding the statue, looking for anything else out of the ordinary.
Keildrithe nods in agreement, explaining the rationale to his companions.
"Interesting,..." Nicholai reluctantly agrees, still not fully appreciating the statues craftsmanship. "If a bit base for my tastes. Why a Narog Sya-Negan warrior I wonder? I mean, I'm at best a casual student of history, but wouldn't that make this tomb,... I don't even know. A lot older than we thought?!?" He asks as they press onward.
"Hm. The good news is that if we ARE nearing the entrance from the inside, that the traps should be easier to spot and avoid. As most defenses are to prevent a person from entering, not leaving!"
"Interesting,..." Nicholai reluctantly agrees, still not fully appreciating the statues craftsmanship. "If a bit base for my tastes. Why a Narog Sya-Negan warrior I wonder? I mean, I'm at best a casual student of history, but wouldn't that make this tomb,... I don't even know. A lot older than we thought?!?" He asks as they press onward.
"Hm. The good news is that if we ARE nearing the entrance from the inside, that the traps should be easier to spot and avoid. As most defenses are to prevent a person from entering, not leaving!"
"But if we are heading for the entrance now," muses Keildrithe, "this would mean that we are heading in a direction opposite to the one where we would expect the tomb's most important secrets to be kept. If we wish to learn all there is to learn, does that mean that we should head back towards that room with the giant plug in the floor?"
Nicholai nods, then stops.
He gives Keildrithe an embarrassed grin.
"Um,... could be? But since we couldn't figure out how to get past the plug, this way seems as good a direction as any to look for answers. Perhaps there is another passage that leads to where the 'important' part of the structure was? If not, perhaps we'll find another clue about this place. Like that statue."
The dandy shrugs. "Either way, there is a,... pervasive, evil here. I can feel it, like an oily feeling on my skin that I can't get off. I have to find it's source. And stop it."
The dark, damp earthern tunnel bends around to the east, and after about sixty feet in which Alton discovers no dangers, comes to a junction. To the north east, a short tunnel appears to open up into another chamber, although the halfling cannot make out much detail of it from here. Another way leads south, a straight tunnel paved with large slabs of stone that ramps gently downwards.
Nicholai, examining the passageways with Laithe and Alton, indicates the NE passage and the barely visible chamber at its end with a questioning glance and a shrug. He looks back at the tapping sound to see Pharris tapping her foot against the statue. He gives a grin at the remnants of cobwebs on her person.
Once her hair is clean of the cobwebs she waits tapping one foot against the statue's base.Tapping her foot against it, Pharris realises that the statue is hollow.
"Now that's interesting... do you think something may be concealed within?" Despite his curiosity, the bard seems inclined to let someone else conduct a thorough search of the statue, making no mood to examine it himself. "I believe that others have sharper eyes and more sensitive fingers than I," he says, as if feeling the need to justify his inaction.
With Nicolai having brought his light close, he, Laithe and Alton can see more clearly into the north eastern chamber.
It is an oval shaped chamber with walls and ceiling of smooth, seamless rock. Four crudely sculpted frescoes protrude from the walls, spaced about ten feet apart in a semi-circle along the far wall. Each fresco depicts a four foot tall, vaguely humanoid shape, but with no real features carved.
The bones of countless beasts lie along the curved eastern edge of the cave floor. You see the skulls of hundreds of wolves, bears, hedgehogs, horses and boars in several five foot tall piles. Something gleams within the eye sockets of two of the hedgehog skulls that sit near the top of two of the piles of skulls.
"Alton? perhaps yo can see something in this hollow statue that we cannot?"
Alton turns away from the piles of skulls now clearly seen from the hall. 'That looks cosy'.
The halfling shrugs at Pharris' question and moves closer to the statue, running his hands over the surface
'If we cant find any way of opening it, we could always push it over..."
"Not something I'd want in my home personally." Nicholai murmurs, indicating the piles of bones and skulls in the far chamber.
"Maybe in a rustic hunting lodge,..." He adds, with a sideways glance at Laithe. He squints and peers down the hall.
"Did you see that? Like something glinting in a couple of those skulls? We should be careful. It may be another trap similar to the one we ran into in that first chamber." The dandy glances over his shoulder.
"It's not going anywhere. Let's see what Pharris has found!" He says with a gleeful glint in his eye as he turns back towards the group gathered around the statue. He draws nearer and shines his lantern on the base, a gleaming coin held in his other hand, and peers at the statue and base without kneeling down. Hoping that a different view might show a solution to this puzzle.
"Not something I'd want in my home personally." Nicholai murmurs, indicating the piles of bones and skulls in the far chamber.
"Maybe in a rustic hunting lodge,..." He adds, with a sideways glance at Laithe. He squints and peers down the hall.
"Perhaps one owned by an orc" Laithe mumbles dryly in repsonse.
With everyone heading back to the statue he backs away from the bone filled room and joins the others there. When Nicolai notes that it is not fixed to the floor he steps forward, testing it's weight.
"Maybe if someone helps we can shift it?" he suggests, putting his back into it.
Kajetan does not move back to the statue, his eyes transfixed on the pile of skulls, trying to discern the gleam that Nicolia mentioned.
Spot: +1 (+1 Wis)
He has a sudden regret of wasting his eyesight haunched over books by candle light.
"If those skulls grow legs and scuttle towards me, then I may just soil my pants," he mutters to the floating hand at his side.
DM
Pharris squeezes his bum as the druid starts to push, "go for it, Laithe."
"What?! More of the animated hands are attacking!" Laithe jumps for a second, before realising it was not an undead hand but Pharris. A deep blush spreads over his face which he attempts to hide by turning back to the task of shifting the statue.
Laithe, Nicolai and Keildrithe all lean against the statue and push, trying to tip it over – and it works! The statue topples slowly (leaving the three heroes slightly off balance) then smashes against the hard stone floor, pieces of glazed brown ceramic scattering all over the room – and from the hollow space in the centre of the broken statue oozes a disgusting, horrid blob of jelly-like flesh. The blob, the size of a large dog, quivers slightly, and then dozens and dozens of wrinkles and slits across its flanks open up to reveal countless staring and blinking eyes and horrible toothy mouths, all too human looking. The mouths all begin gibbering and babbling, a stream of nonsense sounds and words in a dozen voices, all slightly out of sync with each other, whilst the eyes stare, and blink, and roll. The words are maddening familiar, and confusing, you almost get a sense of some sort of meaning, rhythm to them, and then it is gone again, just nonsense. Maddening nonsense.
The blob begins to extend semi-formed tentacles and pseudopods out about itself, studded with eyes and mouths – one of the mouths suddenly opens wide and spits a stream of stinging, acrid spittle straight at Laithe! Meanwhile, thin tendrils begin extending from the creature into the surrounding ground, finding cracks in the stone, breaking up the surface, and covering it in a thin layer of slime.
Everything seems to happen in slow motion, but in reality it has been less than three seconds since the statue toppled.
DM
Kajetan stands alone in the corridor daring any of the skulls to move, staring unblinking at them. His vigil is broken by the sounds of crashing stone and the wailing of a hundred mental institute patients. The sound fills his ears, his mind, his every sense, he shakes his head to try and drive them from his thoughts.
Will: +4(class) +1(wis) = +5
Initiative: +1
If the save is good enough:
Kajetan shakes his head, clutching his hands to his ears and staggers to the room entrance so he can see what assails his companions.
His eyes goggle at the disgusting sight and his jaw drops wide open.
*Knowledge (Dungeoneering) : +5 (+4 Int, 1 rank)
"Oh my giant giddy god! What is that!" he screeches.
I have a standard action left, but no idea what the creature is, so I will cast chill touch on the spectral hand and try to touch the aberration.
Touch attack: +3, damage 1d6
Fort save dc-15 to avoid one strength damage.
The continual gibbering, nonsense rhyming and odd screeches that the creature makes with its multiple mouths – more appear and disappear all the time as the thing shifts and roils – makes it difficult to think straight, and almost impossible to hear each other speak (unless one shouts over the din). Its very disorienting.