Packing all his equipment back together, Connor very carefully put his bag of storage over the finished figurine, taking it inside the extradimensional space. Carrying the bag in his hands outside the relief room, Connor approached the frozen room. Upending the bag upon the pedestal, Connor retrieved the crafted figurine. He tucked the bag under one arm as he adjusted the copy on the pedestal until it faced the original across the freezing moat.
"Here goes." Connor warned everyone, standing back quickly from the pedestal.
Once the statue is placed on the pedestal, and properly arranged to mirror the statue on the small pedestal, there's a grinding sound, and stone extends from the pedestal over the frozen moat.
Carefully stepping over the stone bridge , the group finds a small merely cold room, as opposed to a bitterly cold and freezing room. However, beyond that, there is another bitterly cold and freezing room, with a pool of the freezing water that bubbles as it flows into the room.
To the east is a smaller room with an obelisk inside with unknown writing on it. Stairs lead up to the north.
Connor confidently led the way, walking across the bridge.
Muttering to himself when the temperature dropped yet again, Connor saw the room to the East with the obelisk. "Keep moving - Adran, check out the room North of here, but be careful. I'm just going to memorize the writing here, since we lost our god-touched guide."
"Telv, Flann - are you both all right?" Connor shouted behind him as he moved to walk around the obelisk.
Adran finds himself in a much larger room, with a huge vaulting ceiling. There are stairs to the west leading up to a bridge. The water stays at the same height, so unlike the previous southern room, the water is not 6 inches from the stone surface, it's 5 ft below, making it somewhat safer to travel near it. The floor here is relatively un-icy.
There are more stairs in the center to the north, leading up.
There is a door to the east.
Adran can just make out a doorway to the northwest, beyond the moat around the platform the wooden bridge connects to.
There is a doorway in the north-northeast wall, next to the stairs going up.
The wooden bridge is 30ft up, and leads over to a landing with a doorway.
Flann crosses the first bridge without much trouble. He follows Adran up the stairs...
Flann hisitates on the stairs, but makes it to the top, rubbing his fingers and ears to work away the encroaching numbness. He heads to the second set of stairs to see if he can get a better look at the room from the edge of the bridge.
About halfway up the stairs, Flann is blown backwards by a sudden gust of freezing air...
...and then goes tumbling down the stairs!
Flann lands, upside down with his back against the wall. ~There is a set of stairs up here that won't let me up to the bridge they lead to. Wind blows you back down. I'm a little banged up, but mostly fine. Should I try to fly up to the bridge, or let Adran check around for traps? I only ask because we're pressed for time.~ While waiting for a response, Flann rights himself and re-adjusts his equipment.
On my way. Connor sent back. He carefully went up the stairs .
"Given the lava flow before, the colder it is, the more direct a path to the other side, I would guess." Connor grumbled out loud. He took off his backpack, acquiring a piton and a hammer. Connor tied some string through the piton, in such a way he could still draw the string through it with a tiny attached weight. He stood, judging the distance above him to the Eastern landing, the look of the ceiling, and the look of the water under the Eastern landing.
"I wish I hadn't lost all my rope. If there's a band of extra-cold air above each water source, we can either fight it...or learn to work around it, Flann!" With a standing hop, Connor leaped into the air, beating his wings as hard as he could.
(hammer in the piton!)
"I am fine." says Telv back to Connor as he continues into the large room.
When Flann mentioned something about a set of stairs up, Telv will say "I can probably climb up there. Let me see if I have some rope."
Telv scrounges through his pack and says "I don't really have any. I could check out that stairway regardless though, if you want me to."
Adran finds himself in a much larger room, with a huge vaulting ceiling.
There is a door to the east.
Adran can just make out a doorway to the northwest, beyond the moat around the platform the wooden bridge connects to.
There is a doorway in the north-northeast wall, next to the stairs going up.
The room to the southeast has no door (there are no doors anywhere). Inside is a corscrew stair way with a platform, rising up to a raised platform in the center of the room. There is, on the center of the eastern most wall, a picture of the raised platform with a vase and flowers in it.
In the room on the upper floor to the east, there are dozens of reliefs of a statue of a hawk on a round pedestal with water around it. Like the relief's in the first room, touching the relief's alters the view of the statue.
A small white tiled round pedestal with a miniature statue on it also sits in the center of the room, surrounded by a miniature moat of cold water.
To the north east, the room holds reliefs of a statue of a woman holding flowers standing in a semi-circle room with a tiled floor.
The northwest entryway leads to a short hallway and then a room split nearly in half by a moat of water.
Telv will turn back into his native form and then climb the wall up towards the hallway that was discovered above.
"I've got a room with a hawk-statue-panorama this time!" Connor called back to the others. "Telv, I can put you in my bag of-" he offered as he looked down from the platform. Telv was already changing. "Never mind." Connor said.
"Flann - use your wings, but aim for the ceiling! The water here is like magic: deadly to touch, or even get close to!" Connor shouted across the room.
"More rooms here!"
"Sounds like we have a choice." Connor monotoned. "Make a hawk, a vase with flowers, or a woman with flowers. What's the difference?"
Connor wished he could have read what was on the obelisk; maybe it would have given hints. Maybe it just read "Go away, interlopers". The first room had required the statue of the panther to continue. Success meant dropping a ramp over the freezing moat water. Here, except for the Wingless, they had little trouble getting to the next relief room, this one with the hawk statue.
But the statues, according to Flann, were designed to delay them. Unless told ahead of time, interlopers wouldn't have a sculptor with them. Like not having someone who could have figured out the sand-puzzle traps.
The room to the southeast, with the raised platform and a single image of a vase with flowers, was suspicious. It was not a typical relief room. But the room to the north, just before the split-with-water staircase, was more like the first relief room. But with a woman holding flowers, not an animal.
Connor made his choice, and manifested ectoplasmic creation again as he shrugged off his backpack and got out his crafting tools. "I'm doing the hawk statue!" he yelled out to everyone.
Flipping his bag of storage over the hawk statue again, Connor went out to the platform, the wooden bridge before him. Rather than walk the wooden bridge, Connor decided to fly up to the ceiling again, then drop down directly onto the white-tiled circle in the middle of the water. Like the image of the hawk on the round pedestal, it seemed to match.
Meanwhile, Adran decided to scout a little further to the West.
The pedestal, with the hawk statue on it, begins to shift, and Connor has to shoot straight up to avoid being swallowed as the pedestal sinks into the water!
As soon as the water rolls over the pedestal, the ecotplasmic statue freezes solid and shatters into a trillion shards that are washed away by the flow of cold water.
A few minutes later, the platform, now washed clean, pops up out of the water, looking no different than before.
Connor let out a string of oaths.
Flann carefully heads up the marble steps to the north on the left side.
Flann finds two rooms, one with a square pedestal with small icy pools next to it, and a different room to the north that is just blank stone with two exits, both north. One set of stairs goes up, and a hallway continues north next to it.
Flann finds two rooms, one with a square pedestal with small icy pools next to it, and a different room to the north that is just blank stone with two exits, both north. One set of stairs goes up, and a hallway continues north next to it.
"Got a room over here to the South with a big pedestal with four square pools, everyone, and to the North a set of stairs going up!" Adran called out as he returned to the double-split hall room.
He saw Connor flapping his wings above the pedestal in the middle of the water. "What are you doing up there, boss?" he asked.
"Saving my tailfeathers!" Connor gruffly replied.
Connor only manages to get 5 ft above the platform before it goes under water, and the cold slams up into him like the very grave itself trying to suck the life out of him. His pinfeathers ice over, and he nearly falls like a stone into the cold water, but manages to slam his frozen wings down hard and jerk straight up in the air, nearly hitting the roof. Frozen feathers rain down over the water and pedestal as it rises back up.
He manages to hobble and slam to the ground hard away from the water.
Acting on Connor's pain and panic telegraphed over the network, Flann immediately begins to manifest Body Adjustment. Feathers are foreign, but certainly something he's had practice with. When he lands, Connor goes through a molting.
~Connor, watch out. We need something safer than just flying across this water. You've got those pitons, could we rig a harness? All I know is, you don't want to touch that water directly. The odds that I could maintain your vitals through such contact are... nominal.~
"I am officially annoyed." Connor said through gritted teeth as he felt Flann's healing through the network. Sitting up, Connor let out a yelp of pain and went back down into a half-crouch. "I've got plenty of pitons, just no rope." he replied as he carefully took off his backpack. Taking his dojre of body adjustment out with one hand, Connor manifested it.
"Ohh, that's better." he replied. "But now we're down to three charges. I don't have the mental energy for vigor to counteract that water, either, Flann."
Standing up carefully, putting his pack back on, Connor walked over to Flann and Adran. "We need a better plan." He looked around. "Telv?" Connor said loudly. "Where'd you go?"
"The water is lower here. Maybe a plank? The air is rough, yes, but we need some insurance against the water." Flann shrugs. "There's some stairs to check."
"Remind me to bring a plank next time." Connor deadpanned, fatigue in his voice.
"Let's check those stairs."
Stepping up the stairs carefully, Connor steps into a large cathedral like room. There is a bubbling fountain of the water here, cascading down into long channels that fill the room. Stairs provide a path over to a massive pedestal in the north that's blank. The floors appear to be icy marble.
There is a small doorway to the northeast, directly on the other side of a channel of water.
There is a large door in the south western wall of the massive room that leads to a smaller room, although from where Connor is, he can't see details.
Flann carefully walks to the northwest corridor and checks the doorway beside the stairs.
Flann finds a room with more reliefs scattered around it, the reliefs show a tall warrior in full plate holding a bastard sword aloft.
There is a soft gurgling sound coming from the stairway.
"Looks like a throne room here. In marble fashion." Connor said loudly behind him.
Connor walked slowly, carefully, to the West to look at the southwest doorway.
Connor sees a room with a set of stairs leading down, however, there is a marble slab that is blocking the stairs, preventing anyone from walking down them.
"Avoid the water. Got it, boss. Meanwhile, let's check out the East side." Adran said.
Flying up and over the water, Adran landed on the other side of the room. Going up the stairs, he took a look around the room Connor was in.
"Water and ice seems fine to me, boss." Adran commented nonchalantly. "Maybe you should lose a few pounds. The heavier you are, the harder you fall, y'know."
Adran doesn't see anything Connor didn't earlier.
Flann suppresses an urge to tell Connor he can reach them through telepathy. ~I've got another panorama. No luck finding the tiny companion. This one's a warrior with a sword. I'm thinking the pools around the platforms might be clues to an order? Like that first one had no water, then a moat, then two Rivers, and here four pools... Just a though.~
Telv oozes his way back down the walls and shares what he learned with the group.
"Thanks, Telv. I lost you there for a while." Connor said.
To Flann, Connor 'pathed If the pools aren't just to delay us. One, two, four? It doesn't match a pattern. I was thinking how the circular platform in the big room made a match to the all-tile room with a circular pool in the bottom room. But "hawk" did not mean "room to fly in" like I thought. And what do flowers or a woman with flowers mean?
Connor told Adran on the other side of the room "I think I may have the exit - it's a blocked staircase going down. And anytime you want to carry all the gear, just let me know." He repeated to Flann I've got a blocked staircase going down here. But which statue will unlock it?
Adran moved North to look at the doorway in the room.
There was a narrow staircase there too, Flann. Adran sent over the network.