Alignment: LN - Ayaal has her own code and rules she follows, not societal ones.
Zayid lowers himself slowly down the slope toward the water, then examines the pool and the bodies therein.
Zayid ends up scootching down the steep ramp on his butt, sliding the last five feet or so and splashing down in the shin-deep brackish water.
Behind him he sees a wide aperture set back into the ramp, slightly reminiscent of one of the city's sewage drains. It is slick with the oil that pools around the mangled lanterns. It takes him a moment to realize that the lanterns belong to his group. They are the ones that were dropped during the fight and crushed and pulled under by the coils.
It seems as though the room full of snake-coils flushed the crushed lanterns into this room. Based on the bite marks covering the three bodies, it looks like it did the same with these three surveyors as well.
Carefully keeping an eye out to avoid a nasty tumble, Mahsati slips down to join with the others. "Hm..." She wades over to one of the bowing statues of man-snake hybrids, leaning in to inspect it closely.
Cahal looks around and realizes that the only thing nearby that might serve as a suitable anchor is the large statue of Set in the other room. Glancing back he sees the ruby light of the statue's eyes wink out and Ayaal, Apedemak and Farooq standing there looking a little dazed.
Mahatsi makes her way to the outer edge of the pool, looking up at the statues that line it. It occurs to her that the design of the place is similar to the bathhouses in the city, only this one is mostly empty.
The statues are stone, accented with gold and expertly carved. The dust and grit of ages fills many of their crevices, detracting a bit from the intricacies of the sculpture, but the over all effect is hardly diminished. The anatomy seems very life-like, if grotesque. None of the statues quite match any of the others. The one closest to Mahatsi depicts a serpent with a mostly human head and two stunted vestigial arms.
"Come on, let's get going." Zayid suits action to words, moving toward the exit carefully, his eyes roving about for traps and any signs of recent passage.
Giving himself a shake, Farooq carefully joins the others down by the corpses.
"Unpleasant. Hopefully the rest of the group didn't encounter a similar fate. Either way, we had best be about finding them."
Zaraiah makes her way down after Mahsati.
The pool is long and narrow, with a slight curve to it. For the first time, the ruin shows signs of humanoid architecture. At the sides of the far side of the pool are narrow stairs leading to a flat stone landing. Footprints that have not quite dried show where humans had left the pool and continued through the archway.
Zayid's quick check of the bodies comes up with a sopping satchel full of fine metal excavator's tools, a scroll case full of surveyor's notes (which end abruptly at the room where the snake alter was), and a fine set of charcoals, inks and quills in a waterproof metal case, and an elaborate harness made for making difficult climbs easier.
This pool breaks the pattern the ruins have displayed so far. In every room so far (except for the Observatory, which was probably the top of the structure) there are three archways. One leads up the curve of the structure, the other down, and the last opens outward to a smaller chamber that probably used to have windows to the outside back when this was a tower standing tall in the desert. The chambers are separated by curving halls.
This pool is where a hall should be. What, if any, significance to that escapes you.
The architecture of a place is always designed ergonomically for the people who live in it. So far, the structure has been inhospitable to humanoids. The doors are low, the floors are slanted beyond what is comfortable for human legs. The tables are low and there have been no chairs at all. Now, suddenly, there are stairs, but they only go out of the back end of the pool. The statues, and the reverent designs seen so far, all suggest that they upper areas of this structure are places that are revered.
The only architecture designed for humans so far leads away from that.
This denotes a sort of caste-based hierarchy where things with legs are lower than things without them.
Zayid ducked beneath the archway to look into the next room. He absently noticed that this archway was nearly a foot higher at the top of it's arc than the others and was certainly easier to duck through.
The usual archway was across the room, presumably leading to another curved hallway, as well as the arch leading to an "outside" chamber. He couldn't make out what was in the outer room from here, but he did notice a number of large scrapes on the floor, like someone had dragged something heavy under the archway.
Around the perimeter of this room were alcoves, each with low, slightly angled platforms that looked something like a pedestal for displaying a book or tablet. The golden opulence they had come to expect was abruptly gone here, replaced instead with iron. The carefully carved runes and pictographs were dotted with metal fixtures that had rusted over time and bled down the walls in a sinister-looking reddish grime.
It looked like the iron had once been sculpted into religious imagery set into the alcoves and on the walls, but they were gone now, only bleeding smears and holes where bolts and nails had once been marking their passage.
Interestingly, the grime got worse up the wall, instead of down. The stone floor and the lower walls were practically clean...
Zayid moves into the room carefully, watching for traps and trying to understand the strange patterns of grime-stain. He walks slowly around the room in a counter-clockwise motion, examining the alcoves and the stains.
Zayid's scan of the area completely failed to notice the danger in the next room. Just as he turned to announce the all clear, Cahal caught movement behind him. Cahal started to call out but it was too late.
Ravenous insectoid creatures the size of dogs rushed Zayid from behind. They swarmed his ankles and began searching his body with their long, sensuous feelers. There was no pain, in fact it was similar to being tickled with a feather duster. For a moment he thought they might be harmless.
Then his armor began giving off puffs of hissing grey smoke and his the dagger in the sheath at his belt began crumbling away to reddish dust.
Perception DC 18
Init
Attacks
Zayid backs out of the room as quickly as he can.
Usually the studs on studded leather are made of metal. Do you think Zayid's would be made of something different?
The two that had reached Zayid stop and begin voraciously eating the red dust on the ground. The rest continue to swarm forward making an excited clicking keen. One reaches Zayid and sweeps it's feathery feelers at him again.
The remainder of the metal studding on his armor disintegrated into reddish dust and smoke, leaving it as normal leather now dotted with a great many holes.
These creatures are commonly called Rust Monsters, for obvious reasons. They feed on a diet of metal and so are considered a dangerous nuisance but are mostly harmless to those not carrying metal. There is a tribe of nomads known to keep these creatures as pets.
Because of their diet, their carapace is very dense and metallic. Skilled craftsman sometimes make weapons and equipment out of a carcass. Because of the scarcity of metal, these creature's hides are quite valuable.
The ones currently facing the party are quite small and are probably very young specimens.
Im not sure what the RAW would be on the situation, but I'm ruling that they can go after things that have metal in them. It makes sense to me and makes them more dangerous.
Normally two hits would render something destroyed, but in cases like yours I'm going to say the armor is still usable, it's just normal leather armor now, and because of all the holes in it it provides 1 lower AC than normal, until it can be repaired. It is essentially Broken leather armor at this point, but the repair DC on that is really low. A 12 I think. Basically you just have to sew the holes shut, or put new studs in them.
Sound alright?
Farooq moves closer to the commotion.
Wading out of the pool, Mahsati left her hammer behind her as she worked to pull out a sling and bullet. Seeing how these creatures ate metal, she was going to ensure that these beasts had to put up a good fight if they were to consume her weaponry...
Keeping her weapon sheathed, Zaraiah rushes forward to engage the first of the odd creatures , her hand blossoming with flame as she touches it.
The creature recoiled from the flames, it's feathery antennae flaring up with a crackle. It let out a surprisingly humanoid scream and tucked it's head and legs down beneath it's chitinous shell, waving it's flare-ended tail defensively.
Hasani, not having any wooden weapons, seeing no one hurt, and not being able to get a clear shot for a blast of flame, stood paralyzed by indecision.
Cahal's heavy boot slams down, squishing the creature to a pulp. Then he sees the wisps of smoke rising from his sheathed throwing axe. It was rusting over and beginning to flake. The creature must have brushed it during his attack.
.
Zayid moves farther away from the bugs.
The bugs continued to rush forward, ignoring their dead and dying brethren, suicidally intent on the precious metals carried by the creatures before them.
Two lunged at Cahal. A third found the lantern that lay on the ground and knocked it over in it's zeal, happily munching away at the powdering bronze.
Farooq moves close and then tosses a flask of Alchemist's fire at one of the creatures (m6)
1pt fire splash damage
Zariah darts forward, her hand flaring as she touches the oil, bringing the area to life with flame.
Even with the blocked view, Mahsati wound up her sling to attack the creature...
Ayaal, Hasani and Apademak stayed back, not wanting to get pulled into the chaotic scene before them.
The lantern oil was running down the ramp when Farooq and Zariah let loose with fire. Two of the bugs went up in flames and suddenly the ramp was on fire as Cahal stomped down on the bug in front of it. The sudden flames threw off his aim and it lashed out at him with it's strange metal-destroying feelers.
The fine tools he'd picked up earlier corroded over with thick layers of rust. The flames spread with a liquid rush, washing across both the bug's feet and Cahal's boots.
Zayid drops everything metal he's carrying behind a statue, then waits for the water to put the fire out before heading back into the fray.
The flames run down to the waterline, the burning oil having a hard time staying lit as it's pulled out onto the surface of the choppy water.
As one, the remaining bugs flee from the flames, stopping a ways away, keening and waving their feelers, torn between hunger and instinctive fear.
With the creatures' retreat, Mahsati moves along the slope as best she can, reloading her sling for another assault at the creatures.