Kael looks to Percival, then nods towards the roped down passageway. "No sense in setting off traps that might have a way of being disarmed later, I suppose. Let's head up." The half-orc starts to work his way back up the rope, straining a bit more this time. "Percival, come up last, in case there's something waiting around to pick us off as we're split up."
After a bit of coordination, you decide to explore the upper passage next and everyone climbs up the rope. The group gathers, a bit cramped, at the mouth of a long tunnel leading into darkness. Long scratch marks are visible down the near entirety of the hall, made more obvious by Pythia's light. The tunnel is five feet wide and maybe eight feet tall.
There's a big screaming stone face at the end of the hall. It's uh... Percival takes a few steps towards it, slightly scared and slightly brave at the same time. I have a suspicion that the scratch marks were made by some sort of trap getting pushed down the hallway. He touches one, looking at it closely.
Only direction is forward.
"Did the corpse below have a dagger?" Cerise asked.
"Given that this is a crypt of powerful beings of air, and there is a corpse at the end of a long drop, and an angry face there, I'm guessing there is some sort of defense mechanism here involving people who get to close being blown to their deaths."
While she spoke she sent her magical lights down the corridor to light up the face.
With the light right up against the face, a couple things become apparent. The face looks like it's made of solid stone; and this is a dead end. There's nothing here but a hallway to a giant face.
"Fascinating," Pythia breathes.
She examines the face closely, scanning it for magic, strange symbols, or clues as to why it's here.
While there's something magic about this whole place, there's no active magic here right now.
Unfortunately, the face is completely bereft of writing or symbols of any kind. Its expression makes it seem angry, though.
As for clues, the scratch marks in the floor and the fallen skeleton seem to say a bit more.
Chaetris ties a rope around her and attaches it to Kael's piton. "I'll take a look at this passageway. Do we have time? This could take a while if I'm really thorough."
How about you walk forward ten feet, then if nothing's happened, we'll add another piton and you can go forward another ten feet. The rest of us should probably descend, to be safe.
It doesn't quite sit well with Kael having Chaetris go alone down the hallway, but he doesn't see a much better plan. [b]"We should probably have all but one or two people go back down, with Chaetris searching, and possibly Percival or I at the end holding onto the chain to help catch.
Chaetris nods, "Ten feet at a time, then resecure. Kael and Percival secured at the passageway entrance. Pythia and Cerise down below. Take it slow? I've been through a couple cave-ins, don't want to do it again."
I don't think there will be a cave in, Percival says, tying himself to the the piton at the end of the tunnel with a 10' section of rope, but you might still want to go fairly slow. To be honest, I'd rather not spend a long time on just this tunnel, but once you get close to the end I would. I have a feeling that our rope system will eliminate most of the danger. He hands Chaetris the hammer. Good luck.
Chaetris takes a careful pace toward the face at the end of the hall, hammering a new piton into the floor every ten feet and re-securing her rope. As she approaches closer and closer to the face, the scratch marks fade out until there's just one long scratch mark that ends twenty feet from the end of the hall.
Pythia pats Chaetris on the shoulder and smiles encouragingly. "You were meant for this." she tells her.
Then she backs up, as requested, and descends down the rope to await news of Chaetris' exploration far from the danger.
Chaetris calls back to the others, "I've found a pressure plate about ten feet from the end. It'll be tough to disarm. I'll try to see if there's a safe path."
Is there any way to rig some sort of zipline suspended from the ceiling? I have a bow and grappling arrow.
So, this is what the SRD says about grappling arrows and grappling hooks.
Arrow, Grappling
This small grappling hook is designed to be tied to a silk rope and fired from a bow. When fired, it has a range increment of 30 feet. An equivalent item exists for crossbows.Hook, Grappling
Throwing a grappling hook requires a ranged attack roll, treating the hook as a thrown weapon with a range increment of 10 feet. Objects with ample places to catch the hook have an AC of 5.
I guess it's up to you if it'll work.
Chaetris considers her options and pulls some rope from her pack. Pulling out an arrow with a large barbed head, she ties the rope to the arrow. Taking careful aim she fires the arrow at the face, hoping to find a chink for the arrow to catch.
Percival relays the message down to those on the ground. She found the trap, some sort of pressure plate. There must be something up here that's worth investigating, I bet it's the red lantern.
Pythia smiles knowingly. "She was meant for this," she states with conviction.
The small grapple lands softly in the darkened mouth of the massive stone face with a tink. The rope follows and falls ominously onto the pressure plate...
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but nothing happens. It seems like you need a heavier weight to set it off. Chaetris pulls gently on the rope to try to find purchase but the stone is too smooth and round. It doesn't seem like this plan will work. The grapple rests casually in the stone mouth.
Percival watches Chaetris carefully. How wide is the plate? Maybe if you had something to jump off of, you could get farther. I could get down on all fours for you to jump off of, if that would help.
Perival's pack, which he took off to climb the rope, holds a pint of lantern oil in it. He calls out to those below, See if you can investigate the lanterns, maybe try turning that sarcophagus and see what happens, while we worry about what's up here.
Turning back to Chaetris, Percival holds out his spear. Maybe we could make some sort of bridge to the mouth? You do seem fairly nimble. This sparks an idea, which causes Percival to look down at the floor for a moment. You could, um, do the thing you talked about earlier, you know, shrink yourself. Them maybe...uh... he has a devilish glint in his eyes, but he cannot look at her, ...maybe I could throw you. If you think you could catch yourself on the face.
Chaetris pulls out a handful of makeshift tools. "I really need to get a real set of these someday."
Checking her lifeline, she begins examining the barely visible seam in the stone. Sliding a probe into the seam she prods the machinery inside. "I'm not sure what'll happen if this doesn't work, be ready for anything." With a quick call over her shoulder, she crouches down, closes her eyes and reaches out to push the final prod.
Pythia wanders over to the central room with the hallways leading off of it. She strolls around, examining each lantern and alcove one by one, with both her regular senses, and detect magic.
When she's done in the alcoves she wanders over to the sarcophagus and does the same, careful not to open it because of the trap.
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Pythia examines the platform the sarcophagus is on. Carefully, Pythia pushes the sarcophagus, rotating it over one alcove (hopefully clockwise to yellow). She waits to see if anything happens.
Traps? Sarcophagi? Impending peril? I think someone was lying when they said that this Cairn was cleared out.
Kael retreats to the lip of the passage, holding onto both the chain and hedging his bet for preparing to catch Chaetris in case the trap goes off. He tries not to flinch as she works on the pressure plate.
Percival moves back to the lip and re-secures himself while Chaetris digs around with her probe. After a very cautious and tense moment, there is an audible click...
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...and suddenly the stone face comes alive. A terrible wind erupts from its wailing mouth and at the same time, its eyes spin with a hypnotic pattern of colors: yellow and blue, indigo and red, violet and orange.
After searching the tunnels again, Pythia comes up empty. Nothing new there. After examining the sarcophagus, she determines that it does indeed rotate, but only clockwise. After giving it a healthy push, the sarcophagus turns slightly before slipping back to it's original position, against Pythia's effort. You'll have to push harder.
Suddenly, you hear a terrible howling wind coming from the tunnel with the blue lantern.
Pythia looks around with curiosity, determining where the sound's coming from. She wanders over to the blue tunnel and calls up to her companions: "Is that you or me?"
Percival teeters and almost falls over, the rope just barely keeping him on his now frozen feet. Oh dear, if I fall from this height, I'll probably die.
Would I even catch myself if I unfroze right now?
Cerise immediately pushes the sarcophagus back the way it came.
Chaetris quickly pulls about 15 feet of slack through the nearest piton. With some effort she braces against the wind and attempts to move toward the animated face. Uncertain who might hear her over the howling wind she calls back over her shoulder, "Yellow! Blue! Indigo! Red! Violet! Orange!"
The howling wind carries Chaetris' voice clearly into the large chamber below.
Chaetris begins to carefully work her way back to the vertical shaft. She moves back ten feet at a time, moving her anchor as she goes. All the time, keeping her eyes on the flashing lights, trying to discern any further patterns.
"Try taking down the lantern! Quickly!"
Kael climbs to the bottom of the rope as fast as he half-humanly can, shimmying down, yelling out, "Percival! Snap out of it!" He lands on the ground and looks at the Sarcophagus. The color pattern didn't immediately mean much to him, but after Chaetris mentioned the pattern a thought struck him, as if blown by Strong Wind. "Wait! The Sarcophagus moves, right!? What if we need to move it in that pattern?"
If time allows and noone disagrees with his action, he'll attempt to start moving the Sarcophagus towards the alcoves in the specified order.
Yellow! Blue! Indigo! Red! Violet! Orange!
Pythia smiles with glee and runs over to the green lantern chanting, "Yellow! Blue! Indigo! Red! Violet! Orange!" over and over as she goes.
"They want us to take down the green lantern!" she explains to Cerise as she tries to take down the lantern.
"Oooh!" Pythia exclaims at Kael's idea as he charges into the room. "I like it! We'll try that next!"
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I would grab the rope, if I could. I would save myself, because there are too many people who would miss me being gone.
But sometimes, sometimes it's nice to fall. I wouldn't want to get hurt, but if I could just...let go...
That would be very nice. Just let go and float on the wind, drifting from place to place. Can't hurt anyone that way.
That's nonsense. You're just afraid that you won't be able to help people, that you won't be strong enough. But their suffering is great.
MY suffering is great. I have lived a long, hard, slow life, and I will NOT see it end until the memory if Diamond Lake is hazy and dim in the past. I am not strong enough now, but one day, one day soon, I will be.
Percival snaps back into motion, pulling on the rope and standing erect once again. He pants softly, looking resolved. Yeah, a little trap like that, no way it'd stop me for too long. He lies down to mitigate the effects of the wind, bracing one foot against his piton while he waits for Chaetris to work her way back. Want me to lower you, or would you rather try climbing? I promise I won't let you down, he chuckles, well, I'll let you down, but in a good way.
Like I let down Will?
As Chaetris approaches the face, the howling wind strengthens in her face.
The wind grows stronger yet.
Pythia, unperturbed by the dangerous events, heads over to the alcove with the green lantern and casually pulls out the torch that was lighting it. She's now holding a flaming torch as the green lantern goes dark.
The wind gets more intense yet. Percival slides backward, gaining momentum rather abruptly before getting launched, still paralyzed, off the lip. The rope goes taut and he swings into the wall below the tunnel. In his paralyzed state, he can't help but notice how calm the air is a mere few feet below the tunnel. It is still extremely loud.
Percival reaches out and grabs the rope they left hanging down to the floor. He begins to reel it up, getting ready to tie and lower Chaetris should she need his help. Seeing that Kael is already climbing down, Percival feels no need to communicate with those below.