Flann see's a hallway through the doorway, about 5 ft across, and running north/south. He can just make out another hallway branching east.
Flann walks to the top of the adjacent stairwell, rubbing his stair-bruises. If he needs to go down the stairs to see better, he'll do so slowly.
Connor moved slowly back to the central room split in half by the flowing water with the circular platform.
Flann, Connor sent over the Vitalist's network, seeing only Telv in the room, I think the flower-vase statue is the least dangerous statue to make next. I'm going to that room on the East side here.
up to ceiling
across S-SE
across S-E
down to floor
Connor was a bit shaky on his takeoff and landing, but more confident near the ceiling. Away from the freezing water. He landed on the right side of the room, near the lower East doorway.
Connor went up the corkscrew stairs and studied the vase portrait Adran had reported on. Then he got to work.
Connor put away his tools back into his pack before slowly, carefully putting the vase on the central platform in the room. He tensed up, ready to flee in a second if anything bad happened.
Now doing flower vase. he sent to Flann and Adran.
Connor puts the ectoplasmic vase and flowers on the pedestal. Once they are there, there is a click, and water begins to pour from the ceiling onto the ectoplasm. As soon as it touches the ectoplasm, the statue freezes solid and shatters! The water continues to pour for a minute, washing the pedestal clean. The water runs out of the room via small ducts at the bottom that previously went unnoticed.
Cursing again, Connor sent to Flann and Adran Vase with flowers had freezing water poured upon it, so it shattered! So much for that idea.
Flann walks up the stairs, and oddly finds them not icy at all, and very easy to traverse. At the top, he finds a pool of water, but this water instead of being icy blue is suffused with a golden glow. There's no aura of cold from the water at all.
~Found a bunch of water that isn't the immediate-frozen-death kind. Looks like it glows.~
Flann approaches the pool and lobs a bullet in, waiting for it to explode into snakes or something.
The bullet splashes in the water, waves and ripples form in the pool, and slowly fade away over a minute or so.
~Anyone have a container? I've got a bottle of brandy, but I'd rather save that for when the doors lock.~
I've got two empty clay jugs; another jug full of water. Assuming we don't get a creeping-freeze like before, we could use the jug of water to make sculpture material with. And you can use an empty jug to get this "glowing water". Connor sent through the network. Think the glow-water might counteract or nullify the freezing water? he asked.
Leaving the corkscrew stairs, Connor called out to Telv "Flann's found some glowing water that doesn't freeze. Sounds like magic to me. I'm going to check it out."
Connor flew over to the left side of the room split in half by the freezing channel and went to the North room with the stairs as told by Adran. Meeting with Flann on the stairs, Connor got out his backpack to get the clay jug.
Flann is muttering to himself at this point. "If this water freezes without shattering, we might want the first thing we make to be a container. If we do that, then we might even be able to draw some of the water of mostly instantaneous death... then, what if we poured that into this pool... Or take it back into the lava room."
"So if I understand we need water from here back in the other room? Lets do it then. What can I do to help?"
"Okay, I'll head up there." says Telv as he moves across the wall towards the entrance after Connor.
Handing the empty clay jug and some string to Flann, Connor said "Don't touch the glowing water. Just use this string to lower it into the water. If anything happens to the jug - like it freezes or changes into something else, just drop the string. Don't let yourself get hurt."
Over Flann's network, Connor sent to Adran We're trying to get some of the glowing water now.
Flann widens his stance and holds the string over his head with both hands as he slowly lowers the jug into the water, maneuvering it so that it tips to one side once it's in the water.
If it fills without issue, and no one objects, he'll slowly lift it out of the pool, and take it down the stairs toward the long pool of blue water. He would stop five feet away, set the jug down, then tip it over in the direction of the blue water, scampering back up the first few steps before turning to watch.
The clay jug lowers into the water without issue, and when pulled out, the jug has a light glow from the opening, as if the water was still glowing inside.
Flann, as he's walking toward where he planned to set the jug down, notices that as the gold water drips off the outside of the jug and hits the floor, the drops freeze solid before they can form a splash, not in mid air, but upon touching the floor, so the drops are slightly flattened on the end, but they skittle across the floor after dripping off, hard and solid teardrops with flat bottoms.
"The glowing water freezes on contact with the floor." He pauses and carefully kicks one teardrop down into the pool of blue water.
The drop lands in the water and floats, apparently unperturbed.
"Glowing water, after freezing on the floor, floats on the death-water. I think we've got a few platforms to build Ice chunks on. The hawk would probably get us closest to the end, since getting to that one seems locked behind another puzzle? Maybe we should make a production line? Someone to pour out water, someone to cut blocks, someone to carry them to Connor, who will be sculpting?"
"Chilly in here. So we have a plan then."
Connor watched dubiously as Flann experimented with the glowing water. "I'm ready to sculpt, but I'm very low on mind-energy right now." he told Flann. "But if this stuff can freeze on top of the freezing-death-water so we can safely stand upon it, I'm for that." He rubbed his shoulder which he had just healed with the dorje.
[dice=Fort Save DC 15 from mdt's post]1d20+4[/dice]
Seeing his breath in the air, Connor said "Okay, let's get this solved before we all freeze to death in here. My direct route with the hawk didn't work. Somebody come up with a better procedure."
Flann takes the jug under one arm, crouches on the bottom step, and pours the glowing water onto the floor to see how it freezes in larger volumes.
The water pours out of the jug, and as the first of it hits the floor, it freezes solid. The solid ice spreads upwards in a flash, and freezes solid inside the jug.
The jug shatters in Flann's hand as the water inside expands to 1.25 it's former size, sending shards of clay to the ground. What is left behind is a near perfect negative space ice sculpture of water pouring from a jug. The ice is crystal clear, with no bubbles inside. It also no longer glows.
"I have no idea how we're going to get that to work."
"Well, if this is ice now," Connor said dubiously, walking around the ice-jug-sculpture, "this is about the size of a vase of flowers or a hawk."
He looked at Flann again. "I think I have enough mind-energy to make a two-man carry container, like a bathtub, or a smaller but wider container, like a bucket. The 'rules' of the death-water and glowing-water seem similar."
"Maybe the glowing-water lasts longer when the freezing-death-water hits it." Connor said. "It's just a guess, but after the panther statue...the traps went up a notch. The statues have to endure additional freezing-death-water being put on them."
"I just wish I knew which statue went where." he groused. "Even with a bucket of glowing-water, and a ladle to dip it out with, the first time I finished the vase statue, additional water got poured on it. Why? What was the point of that? At least when the hawk statue sunk into the moat, that looked like normal machinery."
Flann sighs. "Okay, here's the thing. We're killing ourselves--more literally than I'd like--trying to solve these puzzles in time. I say we go back to a safe level, like the prison floors, and rest. When we do make it to our objective, we make a wish that involves leaving this place safely and immediately. That, or we cut our losses."
"If you're still up to this challenge, captain, I can man the reliefs and project their details telepathically so you can carve the ice in the room where it's needed, but we still need a reliable, reusable means of molding such a large block."
Despondent, Flann uses a piece of jug to splash more gold water onto a frozen piece to see if it leaves seams if the water is added a bit at a time.
The additional golden water seems to freeze onto the previous splash easily enough, adding to the ice.
"We're doing good so far - we can rest when we get to cell number 238." Connor said, pausing. He counted off the statues all of their party had found. "Vase, Hawk, Woman, Knight."
"Going for speed, forget the hawk." Connor declared. I don't think we have to solve every single puzzle to get out of here - I hope. The glowing water is here for a reason - to get us to make larger statues. We can still carry them using my bag of holding. The woman holding the flowers and the knight with the sword are the biggest. I don't want a knight with a sword coming to life, the woman with the flowers is more peaceful. I want to try putting her on what looks like the stairs leading out of here."
"And that means making enough ice to make the woman-with-flowers, or trying an ectoplasmic creation again and hoping a sluiceway from above doesn't open like it did with the vase. Dipping from a container and gradually making more and more ice upwards, until we get a good-sized block, sounds like a plan."
"Adran can fly a lot better than me." Connor mused thoughtfully. "I think he might be better for carrying the water from place to place. I just need to be at the end-result sculpture location. Or nearby. I can make a bucket designed to be held by a Halvavian."