"What about the batons next to the sarcophagi?"
They are trap free.
The door has no opening for a baton, or any opening of any kind. As far as you can tell, the door is just a solid block of stone.
"Let me know how and when and i'll get the door open."
"I think the door has a locking mechanism,
I'm guessing the batons are the key.
Why don't we search for holes that fit the brown batons."
Many thanks, milady. Toledo, my familiar, let one rip, and the air was getting really rank in there!
Ferod will check out the sarcophogi, checking for magical auras of the magic used to move them.
Interesting amount of transmutation magic, teleportation is generally considered conjuration magic, so what got us here?
Ferod then checks out the holes in the floor.
The holes look to be the same diameter as the brown rods.
You detect hints of conjuration around the room, probably forming the system of spells that brought you here. There are slight auras of each school present in some form or another, especially abjuration, but Transmutation is the majority, by far.
Ferod shares what he is finding with detect magic.
If Omar has said anything about having recon gloves, Ferod will ask him if there is a means of unlocking the door from the other side.
I think I may want to be a little more careful pushing rods into strange holes.
"Agreed, Mr Coulserk. But the rods may be the keys to the doors."
Rathis snorts at Ferod's comment: "A wise choice.
"But perhaps this has to do with the riddle: Follow now the Spider Star / Behind the wall that hides its face.
"I wonder if that wall is simply there to fool us, and it's one of the others that we should be examining."
Something seems wrong with your gloves. You are sure it's still should be a bright, shining day outside, but the environment into which you're looking is definitely shrouded in the silvery light of the moon.
You place the batons in the holes. Thankfully, another teleportation event doesn't happen. Each rod produces a metallic click from the medusa head as it's inserted. When all four holes are occupied there is a louder sound like a great latch getting released and the head moves slightly!
The medusa head is very heavy, even when simply rotating. The mechanism underneath must take some torque to turn.
Valeria has difficulty at first, but once it started going it moved.
With an impressive display of strength, Valeria forces the head into motion. 45 degrees later, there is a loud grinding sound and a bang from the vicinity of the door.
The door stands closed, but the medusa carving is now glowing slightly.
"I think it got jammed a bit somewhere, like a rat's nest on a bunch of gears.
Corso, and Mr Thrice-Scorned can you give me a hand."
"Rathis is fine. We hardly need to stand on formality here," the former assassin replies with the hint of a smile.
He steps up and adds his strength to Valeria's.
He lets out a grunt as his grip on the head slips and tries again.
The mechanism groans and flexes, but doesn't budge.
You peer at what few gears are visible and notice that time has been passing here even if it doesn't seem so in this room. The gears don't seem to be rusted, but they have settled slightly and a few of the smaller ones have become locked. A bit more force should get them turning again.
"Just need a little more help here, and we should be able to do it," Rathis says, eying the others.
Finally, the gears pop and grind back into position. The grinding from the door continues, and the whole thing jerks to a halt with an echoing slam. The medusa symbol is now glowing more brightly.
The door begins to grind downward at about a foot per second, taking about ten second to fully recede into the ground. Beyond is the landscape described by Omar earlier. The open spaces of the Necropolis stretch out for hundreds of feet. In the distance, perhaps 200 feet away, is a tall, grey stone building. Half way between here and there is a wreck of some kind. Looks like a coach. Beside the paved path that leads directly from this building to that one and stretching out in orderly rows are hundreds of exposed sarcophagi and many, varied headstones. Where there should be a bright, shining day outside stands a nighttime vista bathed in the silvery light of the moon.
Shaking his head to clear out the cobwebs, Corso will move out through the door, weapon drawn, looking for any threats. Barring any appearing, he will start making his way to the coach.
Several tombstones on the western side of the path here have been crushed and shattered in a wide swath. The back of an ancient carriage is visible through the overgrown weeds and shrubs at the far end of the array of destruction.
Even a cursory examination of this crashed carriage makes it obvious that this open carriage hearse was once a very fine conveyance. However, time and the elements have taken their toll, and the once-rich wood is soft with decay. A crumbling coffin lies in the bed of the carriage, with the rotted leather straps that once held it fast lying beside it. The driver’s bench has two arrows embedded in its seatback.
"Given the time difference and your notice of difference to what you saw before,
I take it that this place is area is likely partially or wholly separated from reality or plane of origin."
"A coffin, If it's empty. We are going to have to be on alert if it looks used."
As soon as you approach the carriage, a vision overwhelms all of you.
The carriage hearse barrels along a hard dirt road, drawn by four frothing, maddened horses driven forward by your frantic whipping. A quick glance over your shoulder tells you that your mounted pursuers are gaining ground in the hazy moonlight.
“Aroden save us!” shouts a beardless old man sitting beside you as he desperately clings to the wooden seat.
“We no longer serve fools, Parsimus,” you growl with irritation. “Best get that through your thick skull.”
You glance behind again, this time to the bed of the hearse, where the fine silver coffin lurches dangerously, despite the five straps of stout leather securing it in place.
“Forgive me, sister,” you think. “It was I who was the true fool.”
You hear a dull thud as an arrow strikes the seatback. Another arrow sinks into Parsimus’s shoulder, knocking him from his seat to the hard ground below with a cry of pain. As a third projectile thuds into the carriage, you cry out to the starlit sky.
“Asmodeus! Have you abandoned me?”
With the cry still in your throat, a strange shimmer surrounds the hearse and the scene about you flickers
and fades. The dirt road is suddenly replaced by a paved walkway, and the surrounding woodland by a graveyard. Startled by the sudden change, the horses shriek and careen to the left. As the carriage leaves the road, the shimmering bubble of energy that encompasses it crushes the tombstones in its path. Suddenly, the horses seem to smash into an invisible wall, and their cries of terror abruptly cease. You are propelled from your seat, hurtled through the air as you and the carriage crash to the ground. You feel bones break, and as your neck snaps with a nauseating crunch, you hear a sinister voice behind your ear, whispering with an intimacy that terrifies.
“No, my puppet. I never forget a bargain.”
The open coffin reveals an empty, richly pillowed interior smelling vaguely of roses and decay; the cushions bear the impression of a slight, frail body. On the other side of the carriage a tangle of rotten tack and horse bones lay in a jumbled pile.
Lying face down on the hillside near a tree is the strangely mummified body of the driver, dressed in a carriage driver’s livery. His right index finger bears a gold ring etched with the cross-eyed medusa emblem. Clutched in the corpse’s left hand is a horsewhip.
"Ok, this coffin is empty, and it was used.
Looks like we has some undead roaming around here."
Valeria looks at the driver
"Looking at the ring we can assume this gentleman was one of the Adellas, and the fool made a deal with Asmodeus."
This is just getting better and better.
Parsimus, what relation to the Adellas? A brother and sister, the sister deceased first, him next. Ferod nods to the mummified body.
I have a thing about leaving dead that may become a problem later, anyone else inclined to ensure those corpse' causes no problems in the future? Ferod indicates the pile of horse bones and the mummy.