Pavel gives Dave a hard stare, trying to find out if the man will break and let things lie. A tense moment passes before Pavel sighs and finally admits, I do need the money. For a plane ticket out of the country. That's all I'm willing to share with you. He then turns to Joey and replies, you could say I was informed, but the source is strictly confidential, and neglected to inform me of Lovecraftian horrors, owl-headed bears, or trapped doors, so I was taken quite by surprise. Pavel lets loose another deep sigh, so now you know more that I would have cared to tell you. NOW what heppens?
Glancing back to the others, Joey shrugs and takes a step back before whispering, "What do you guys think? Seems like a harmless Indiana 'Find-it-and-sell-it' Jones type to me.. He could probably use our help getting out of here, but we can't let him have the artifact. Hell, he may end up finding something else to sell down here instead... Maybe your Order can even pay for his ticket if he offers to help us, Izzy?" The Investigator suggests before casting a quick glance back to Pavel.
"What do you guys think?"
Valda shrugged. "If he's happy to travel along for airfare and whatever loot Izzy's bosses give him, I'm happy to have him along. Maybe he's better equipped to deal with jell-o hentai beasts that we are."
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Isagoras' fertile mind was a million miles away, contemplating the disturbing implications of monsters of this particular magnitude found in this local. It could mean little, but it could also mean much. The owlbear should have been expected, since Venus is high in the House of Saturn, but Mars is also in conjunction with Neptune, so that would mean the murderer is....
He is drawn, slowly, out of his reverie, and calculations that would confuse a dozen Matt Daemons are scattered as the implications of the new-found stranger become apparent.
His gaze turns balefully on the stranger.
"Sed ego veritatem. Artificium Albo Angelus Ordinis restituatur. Si auxilio eris compensari et nulla. Si non habent finem et optimum: ergo pugna nunc. Quia minima de anxium esse nightmarish terrore erit."
This room contains nothing else of interest, and the only direction to go from here is a continued spiral down into darkness.
"Dude, seriously? You're going on and speaking in weird nerd languages when we're all well aware that he speaks English?"
Hearing Dave leaves Joey with a smile as takes his opportunity, and says, "Ecce! Nolite audire nostro! Linguam Latinam profundissima! Quid, quod alio animo sunt Isagoras et tam sacro sanctum detineat ideas ab aeterno et curiosæ aures auscultatores! Hi postquam in se intellectualia, de fornace, ut sit commutatio exposita..." The Investigator pauses as he dramatically turns to face Dave and finishes with, "Spoilers! And we can't have that, now can we!"
Joey turns to glance down the path before them and notes the descent into darkness before before asking, "Isagoras, if your Order is of the Light then why is this place so dark?"
"I hate both of you." He manages out, after staring blankly at the two for several seconds.
As you reach the next lowest level, Valda's light illuminates the darkness to reveal a large flooded room (more a cavern, really) with columns every 20' or so. Liquid is continuously dripping from the ceiling of the cavern. On the far side, about 5' vertically higher than you currently are, is a doorway.
Joey scans the room before taking a deep breath and whispering, "I have a very bad feeling about this room..." Picking up his, he sets her to lay across his shoulders before suggesting, "Everyone be on your guard."
Cautiously setting a foot into the liquid he assumes to be water, he slowly anchors as he tries to gauge how deep it is before anything else.
Visibly bristling at hearing mention of ANY order, Pavel nonetheless lowers his head and says, Iam ego sequar. But I think I should, another grimace, take the lead. Much as I despise strangers at my back, none of you look very well armored. Wouldn't want some sort of demons summoned by a secret organization to devour my new escape plan, he mumbles as he shoots Isagoras a distainful look before turning back to the dark room and drawing his sword.
"Could say the same about yourself, honestly." He mentions, as he joins Joe in the dark shitty cave. "I seriously hope we don't have to come back here, this place sucks."
Cautiously setting a foot into the liquid he assumes to be water, he slowly anchors as he tries to gauge how deep it is before anything else.
I need a Will Save.
"You'd be surprised at how deceiving appearances can be," Valda said with a smile, rapping on one of the plates in her leathers. "But go ahead, you can go first." She glances over at Joey. "How's the...liquid...stuff?"
Just after the whole exchange about everyone but Dave speaking Latin:
"Ita quod esset malum quam turpe nescire fateri etiam forma?"
"Ego Mariae in via."
Beneath his shades, his left eye twitches. Normally it wouldn't, even with this amount of f&+@ery. Normally he's able to maintain his cool even under intense pressure like this. Normally he can just chock a few jokes about everyone being nerds, get a laugh or two out of the ideal, and then get on with his life. But normally he hasn't just been fondled by a tentacle monster.
"You all suck." He turns to Valda, hoping, just hoping, that at least she can back him up here. It can't just be Dave left off of mount Olympus, right? He needs to have a buddy down in mortalsvile. Someone he can chat to about how everyone else is weird going around picking up dead languages. "Please tell me you don't speak Ancient Geek too."
Valda paused for a moment. "Īe, watashi wa ikite iru gengo o hanashimasu."
"Well my foot's still here.. Nothing's chomping on it. Seems just like ordinary water to me."
Swishing his foot around in the liquid just to make it's evenly coated, he shifts his weight towards his foot as he reaches towards the ground, if there is even one within reach.
"Pretty chilly, but hey - what do you expect, right?"
She smiles at Dave, then says "Can tute rakker Romanes?"
Then she turns to Joey and says, "Si quelque chose est dans l'eau, il va vous mordre."
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As the girls continue to taunt his lack of linguistic capabilities, his thoughts were starting to get a lot less unamused and a lot more bloody, as he thinks back to the battle he witnessed. His hand twitches towards his sword's handle, but he manages to restrain himself. "Voy a necesitar a todos a dejar de que antes de apuñalar a alguien..." He manages to mutter get out, in a tone that makes it ambiguous whether he meant it or not.
'Gotta keep it together, don't let whatever that thing did get to you...'
Joey's leg feels really heavy. Pulling it from the water, you find your pant-leg, sock and boot have all been transformed into gold. Probably about $50,000 worth of the rare metal, but you're out a boot.
"...Huh." Valda stared at the now golden objects in interest. "So, no one will judge us if we leave here naked, right?"
No judgement here... Pavel mumbles as he looks at his own boots, visibly debating the merits of gold versus going shoeless. Perhaps THIS could be my ticket out of Serbia...
"The hell... Izzy, what's the deal with the magic gold wishing well?"
Joey's eyes widen with delight as a genius idea comes to his mind, speechless at the mere sight. He feels as if the scene should be more frightening or bizarre to him, but he can't help but be enamored with the idea.
Removing his gun from it's holster, he gives it a good dip and swish around as if he were applying a hydrographic pattern to it. Quickly raising his gun back into the air, he smiles with delight and declares, "The man with the Golden Gun!!"
"If I didn't love your ebony fur, I'd dip you in here too, Blackfur!!" he casually says to his cat before suggesting to the others as he removes his other shoe and trench coat to drop them into the water as well, "If you have any mundane objects that you want to sell, why not give them a dip? We'll be rich when we return home!!" He can quickly be seen working his belt as he begins to remove his slacks as well, even though he feels that Blackfur is trying to get him to keep them on.
Seeing Isagoras delay gives Pavel pause as well, making him wonder if everything is as meets-the-eye. He steps up to Joseph and asks, May I see your shoe please? I wish to examine what may have caused it to change,and holds out his hand for the shoe, already beginning the process of detecting magic to determine what exactly caused this transformation, and what the inevitable catch is.
Joey laughs as he passes Pavel his shoes, his pants halfway down, and says, "Sure, investigate all you want! Dunno why'd you want to question such a great blessing though!"
Pavel simply mumbles, It may not be the blessing you think...
"Dude, seriously? None of us want to see that."
Looking back as he dips his newly removed pants into the water, he chimes, "Don't want to see what? Amazing swag-ass golden pimp pants? Don't hate, Dave - you could take off your pants too! I'm actually judging you for keeping yours on right now!"
"Well, if this all works, I'll have to work out how to dip my clothes. The ones under the bike suit, I mean - I really don't want to use my armour until I'm sure nothing is going to stab me." Valda shrugged. She could live with some underwear-less chaffing if it meant a large pile of gold at the end.
"Not sure I want this entire outfit gold, but my diklo? Sure, why not?" [ooc]a diklo is a scarf, in this case she wears it around her waist, as a belt since she likes to play up the 'gypsy fortune-teller' vibe[/b]
Removing his gun from it's holster, he gives it a good dip and swish around as if he were applying a hydrographic pattern to it. Quickly raising his gun back into the air, he smiles with delight and declares, "The man with the Golden Gun!!"
For whatever reason, Joey's gun did NOT transform into gold.
K(Occult): 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (2) + 9 = 11
K(History): 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (9) + 9 = 18
K(Arcana): 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (20) + 9 = 29
Between Isagoras and Pavel, you get the following information:
Occult and history give nothing, but arcane tells you that this is definitely a Transmutation effect.
While the shoe appears to legitimately be gold, and the result of a Transmutation effect, the water itself radiates strongly of all schools of magic. You're not sure if attempting this again would get the same result; obviously by Joey's attempt to dip his gun, some attempts with get NO result, but other results aside from gold or nothing are clearly possible.
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Isagoras raises his palm to his face and mutters, "I discern no malignant intent, tho there are many paths in line here." He sighs so hard it's -felt-. "You may continue your disrobment. My working theory is that it does not affect metal, but that is, as the kids say, some "weak sauce" right now."
To test the theory, Isagoras holds his whistle by it's chain, and dips it in. This is followed by a foot's length of his silk rope.
"Yeah, I'm not doing all that."
Pavel considers the situation for a time, watching people take articles and dip them in the water, watching for different things to happen other than the effect of a philosopher's stone. He pulls out his balalaika from his case, a old thing with its share of scuffs and scratches. He takes a seat and absently strums a song while he thinks and watches.
"Magic pool, great and all, but we still need to cross it. And that'll be a lot harder weighed down by a buncha gold."
Nothing appears to happen to either of Isagoras' items.
Dave wishes to examine the water, and get an idea of how deep it is without stepping right into the totally not cursed sub terrain spring.
Right near the "shore", about 2 feet deep. It appears to get deeper as you go, but lighting conditions are far from perfect, and the liquid is not entirely transparent, so you can't really tell how deep it is after about 15' in or so.
"Hm... Look, whatever we do here, at the end of it we need to cross an ambiguously deep pool of magic water without drowning or transforming into eldrtich abominations. Izzy, did that order of yours teach you any magic that could like... I dunno, make the water bend around us like Moses. Something equally useful to that."
The balalaika playing suddenly stops as Pavel stands and asks Isagoras, That rope. How long is it? I could bring the rope to the center and we could use it as a fathom. It won't help us get across, but it would tell us if we can reasonably wade across.
"Rope should be fifty feet or so. If we tie a rock to it, we can use it as a plumb line, and check the middle of the pond without wading in. Edges too. I can't imagine that everything this thing will is friendly - especially now it's robbed me of my dreams of a golden bra. If it had been flesh rather than pants that had turned to gold..." Valda shrugged.
"Look, even if it did turn my dick gold, no way I'd let you keep that."
I had no plans on wading in anyway. I can put the rope out about 10.5 meters with a thought, Pavel retorts to Valda, though it is a taxing thought, admittedly. I agree that we should tie a rock to the rope as a weight... he trails off and cocks his head towards Dave, thinking for a moment. Wasn't there an American film where the villain was a man with a golden курац?
Okay, so your planning to use a rope somehow to test the depth of the water?