Connor waited for Sammark's opinion on the well-oiled door. Selvan and Alys seemed ready to go in.
Swift action: activate Altered Defense, +1 attack vs enemy who hit me since last turn
Standard: Disrupt Pattern (does not provoke AO) on the one who hit me
for x2 dmg
"Let's say hello and then murder them once they try to do the same to us," Sam says starting into the room.
"Say hello or murder?" Selvan says.
"He means to say hello and murder them once they try to say hello and murder us.", Alys says obviously having trouble wiping a grin off her face.
"What if they're saying hello while murdering us?" Selvan says barely suppressing a grin himself at her expression.
"Then we murder them that much harder," Sam says nonchalantly.
The doors are very heavy, with very large and heavy hinges. The hinges are made so that the weight of the heavy door causes them to close when they are not held open. There are bars on the other side of the door, but they are not in place. The thick heavy wood beams are still in their brackets on the wall.
No traps go off as the party continues forward in 'lighting bolt' formation. The next door opens as easily as the last one did, and Hero and the construct move out into a large open area. It's about 10 ft tall, with four ornate pillars holding up the stone ceiling. The reliefs on the pillars depict wingless halvavians working in fields set between hills, with small chimneys puffing merrily from the hillsides.
There is a lot of dust on the floor of this chamber, and there are fresh footprints all over, all looking like your target's footprints. The area feels more like a common square in a village than it does a chamber in a dungeon. There are corridors going east and west, and a doorway directly across from the one you entered, going south.
No traps go off as the party continues forward in 'lighting bolt' formation.
-------------------
"Those are either the skinniest Dwarves I've ever seen, or..." Connor paused, thinking. Hero decided to poke around on the other side of the chamber, while the astral construct stood passively, awaiting new orders.
Connor played his ring's cone of light on the reliefs on the pillar he had stopped at. "Wingless? Halavians? No, halflings! This is a halfling colony!" he concluded. Connor looked around, going in a slow circle. "I know the Halfling language, but, uh, there wasn't that much cultural training. Just the alphabet, syntax, tenses, that sort of thing."
Connor remembered their search-and-find mission. "Which way do the footprints go?" he asked the others.
Selvan remembers from his military courses that the Northern Continent, up until about 1200 years ago, was dominated by a mostly human empire. An alliance of non-humans, from orcs to drow to hobgoblins to ogres, allied against this empire, and managed to embroil them in a war with the Elves and Dwarves. Halflings, as he can remember vaguely, were basically stomped into nothing as they fought back and forth. The entire northern continent was cleansed of humans, dwarves, and elves. Likely gnomes as well.
If this is a halfling ruin, Selvan estimates that it's probably between 1000 and 1500 years abandoned.
The footprints are all over, and seem to go in every direction. It's as if he spent a day or two walking around once down here.
"We should search those corridors one by one, I don't think any one of us is particularly trained in tracking." Alys says. "Left, right or straight ahead?"
"Start left and establish an outer edge? Don't want to be wandering down here aimlessly."
"A halfling town." Selvan muses aloud. "A cautionary tail of neutrality on a continent of total warfare. PRetty good condition for being abandoned for over a thousand years."
Selvan shrugs at the mention of directions and digs in his pack until he finds a large piece of chalk. "MArk things so we don't get lost. Not complicated."
"Good point." Connor remarked, surprised. He got out several pieces of chalk from his own backpack, passing out a piece each to Sammark and Alys. Connor also handed the three each a signal whistle.
"Left it is, first." Connor stated, mentally commanding both Hero and the silent construct. He pivoted his fist to keep the cone of light from his ring ahead of the construct and the psicrystal.
Hero scuttles down the corridor, complaining in Connor's head about being the trap finder in a party with no thieves.
When he reaches the end of the corridor, he finds another door, and a set of stairs leading down.
Fewer footprints here. The chamber looks like it might have been a central common area for something. There are relief's on the wall, that show halflings doing various things, from harvesting to riding on an eagle.
The reliefs here show tales of the two Halflings Gods, Tenfa The Thief, who rides her eagle, and Verin Talespinner, her Bardic mate. Tenfa delights in trickery and stealing, while Verin delights in Tenfa and song.
Tenfa was the first, and only, halfling. She became lonely, and flew her giant eagle up to the heavens and distracted the stars with a flowing and convoluted tale. While the stars were distracted trying to follow her tale, she stole some of their essence, and sent it crashing to earth. Then she fled the angry stars, and returned to earth to form a mate from the star stuff. Her mate delighted in song and story and all manner of dance and fun, but not in trickery and deceit. He is known as the earthbound bard, for he refuses to fly. There are rumors he is afraid of heights.
"So far, so safe. These pictures are like the previous ones, right?" Connor asked cheerfully. He got out his map maker's kit and started sketching a small map in colored chalk on the slate. "We're what, a hundred-and-twenty feet below now?" He looked around the second room. "All right, we have left again or straight ahead. I say straight."
Connor did use the thicker white chalk piece to mark a section of the wall next to the stairs they had come down.
"Let's see if the area is self-contained," Sam agrees raising the stick to get a better look at the relief. Lovely work but nothing really struck a cord with him.
"A find like this must be a true treasure. Shame I was raised a soldier and not a historian." Selvan muses as he marks the door they just came from with an elfavian mark. "Thought we were sticking to the left wall?"
"Yeah let's keep with the plan. Stick to the left wall. That way we'll get everywhere eventually, if we have to.", Alys pauses, then smirks, "Except maybe a room surrounded by a corridor, but that's what we have the chalk for."
"Ok, we go in left-hand circles." Connor agreed. He mentally directed the construct and Hero to take the lead again.
Hero scuttles under an ornate door, and enters what seems to be a small room that was once dedicated to a woman. There are relief's on the wall of a pretty halfling woman, the same woman in all the reliefs. Four statues sit in alcoves, each showing the same halfling woman in various poses, one holding a diamond, another holding what looks like a bag of coins, another holding a rapier, and a last one holding what looks like lockpicks. Finally, opposite the door, there is a larger statue of the same woman with a cheeky grin and wearing what looks like leather armor and holding out her hands, palms up.
In the middle of the room, Hero see's a glowing orb that floats about 2.5 feet off the ground. It's purplish in color, and jagged arcs of energy arc off it to the walls and ceiling and floor randomly. There's a slight buzz in the air.
"Hold up!" Connor commanded, stopping in mid-stride, arms outstretched. "I'm getting something from Hero. He just went under the door. I think we've got magic in this room." Connor paused, mentally listening to the dialogue from his psicrystal.
"We've got a big glowing ball in the center of the room." Connor relayed, relaxing his arms, "A halfing woman as four, no, five statues. Four statues sit in alcoves along the walls, one holding a diamond, another holding what looks like a bag of coins, another holding a rapier, and a last one holding what looks like lockpicks. A larger statue wearing leather armor is opposite the door, grinning at whomever comes through the door. This statue's is holding out her hands, palms up."
Connor looked at his companions. "That just screams a trap or a test or both to me. Ideas?" Connor sent to Hero, Don't touch anything yet.
"I don't know anything about halflings. LEt alone their religions."
"We may want to at least get a first hand look at it."
"Well if it looks like a trap we might want to send a construct in to spring it first.", her mind bolt assembles in her hand. "And be ready for a fight just in case."
"Well, I'll have the construct open the door." Connor started. "I don't know if we're supposed to put coins in the larger statue's hands, or take the lockpicks from one statue and put them in the larger statue's hands to disarm the glowing ball, or what. But let's take a look."
You hide behind the larger statue. Connor sent to Hero, as he also directed the construct to open the door. Too bad we don't have the skill to check the door for traps, Connor thought to himself.
The construct opens the door and steps into the doorway. The purple orb floats over toward it, little bits of energy crackling and snapping as it does so. The orb drifts to a stop a few feet in front of the construct, and then just hovers there, drifting slowly on air currents.
Spellcraft. Just what am I looking at here?
Connor moves up and Selven moves with him to look around the corner.
As soon as they do, the orb bobs up and down, and floats over the constructs head toward Connor.
Once it floats into the square in front of Connor, Connor's breath catches, and an eldritch chill goes over his body. Selven also feels it around the corner, as if something cold walked up and down his spine. Both men grow pale as a sheet. The orb vibrates violently and purple energy reaches out and detonates on Connor.
This is an elemental of some type, but you are not sure what type of elemental. It's not a common one certainly.
This is a negative energy elemental, an embodiment of negative energy. It is the essence of unlife. They are dangerous, but very rare. They exude an aura of negative energy that boosts the power of negative energy effects.
Negative energy elementals are dangerous, and will almost always explode on death, generating a wave of negative energy that kills living things. The power of this wave is based on their size.
Large or Larger Negative Energy Elementals can channel negative energy, just like an evil cleric. Their negative energy aura also maximizes this channeling within a certain range of the elemental. This includes within the aura of other negative energy elementals.
Even as Connor was hit by the energy arc, his wings slamming up against the cold stone wall, he flashed a mental command to the construct, echoed by that splinter of his other self: Attack.
The construct whirled, its' face and body contorting as it ran at the purple sphere. Its' hands grew thicker, the right arm heavier, as the construct's hands formed fists.
Hero kept a close eye on the halfling-woman room, in case anything else happened.
Holding psionic focus (Energy type=Fire); HP=7/11 Power Points=8; AC=14/14/10; Active Powers=one Astral Construct active (Utility/Improved Slam Attack type; 3.5 hours/3 rounds left)
The construct seems a bit confused by the way the orb bobs and whirls and vibrates, and misses it with it's slam attack.
"Get out of the damn room Connor!"
Can I ready an action to swat it when it comes around the corner before my turn?
BEcause connor is going to get away from it right? Right?
Selvan backs awy letting his polearm fill the hall in front of him.
Reaghar wakes up from his fitful daydream and works on setting up a camp.