"Deities are all kind of weird." Azri observed. "I don't really understand religion that well." Possibly because the majority of it was meant for the living, not for the dead. She didn't have a negative view of most of it, it just... felt like something apart from her, where her presence wasn't desired.
The next room is the Artist, a large mural showing, ironically, a man painting what appears to the mural that you are observing. In the image the same scene can be seen within the painting the same mural again.
Scattered around the room are various easels and paints. Most simply seem to be sketches and outline, but one painting seems to be almost complete, that of a tall man in an unusual headdress clashing against a demonic creature that appears as a massive, eel-like Merman. Various others fight against lesser demons, and some are incomplete, but the focus of the piece is complete.
"Trust me Az, invisible pickpockets in your temple are weird by most religious standards." Selena says, entering the room and looking around "This looks much better!"
Looking around, the half-succubus glances at the various paintings scarred around, before giving a better look to the almost-finished one and the mural.
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Ayreth takes her journal back gratefully, quickly thumbing through it, but keeping its contents hidden. Satisfied, she continues to follow, trying to make sense of the place. Her attention is definitely drawn by both the infinity mural and the painting of the demonic battle. "Do you think there is a story being told throughout the temple, or is it just a mishmash of ideas?"
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There is definitely a theme to this place. The twelve statues, the murals inside, and the related themes of the rooms make it seem like some kind of story is being told.
As you study the mural, your eye is drawn to the mural in the picture. Your eye is then drawn again to the version in that one, and then the next, and the the next. No matter how far in you get, the details are still crisp and clear, and your eye continues to be drawn to the next one...
Mental images bombarded Azri's mind - and they were clearly more than a bit potent. To put it bluntly, it was hard for anything to affect her mind - as an undead, she had a natural resilience against that sort of thing, though she was still lively enough that she wasn't totally immune...
Nigrum cared nothing for art, he had shown more interest in the training dummies earlier. He simply watches the entrances and exits of the room for anything. Fine craftsmanship on armor or weapons, that was something he could consider art.
Those who fail feels continuously drawn in to the strange picture, there eye constantly drawn to the next in the chain. There was no desire to move, to look away. Only the next image was of interest.
Selena and Aibek, however, managed to wrench there eyes away from the painting before falling into it's effects.
Aibek blinked, shook their head, and spun to look at the others. "Still getting weirder." Aibek commented as the witchwolf saw most of the others intently staring at the mural.
Watching the others for a few moments, Aibek moves with growing concern up to Mihara. "Maybe if we can get them to break eye contact with that mural. Sorry about this..." and putting both hands on Mihara's shoulders attempts to carefully spin her around...
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Shaking off the hypnotic spell, Selena goes for a much more direct approach to snap her friends out of the daze.
Starting from Ayreth, the half-succubus picks her up and brings her out of the room, out of the painting's reach.
Both approaches work. As long as eye contact is broken the spell fades almost instantly, returning the person back to the normality.
Mihara remains silent for a moment, before dropping a word Tian folk usually don't pronounce in polite company.
"I can't believe I fell for that!" She exclaims, angrily, as she helps retrieve the rest of the party from the room.
"We'd better cover it up, though I wouldn't destroy this. We might be able to put it to good use eventually."
Nigrum was already moving backwards his hand on Tsui as he intended to smash the painting.
"I suppose."
He walks forward away from the room. The temple seemed like a place of training to him. Not just the dummies but now the painting to test one's will. He was a little annoyed he failed but only a fool thinks he will succeed in all things.
Aibek chuckled softly while watching Selena carry Ayreth out of the room, though laughed more with eyebrows shot up at Mihara's impolite Tian words before motioning toward the door.
We can close up the room and mark it to ensure none of us do that again...I'm not sure we have anything big enough to cover that. Aibek commented to Mihara before moving over to spin around Azri.
Azri had to be pulled away, given that she didn't even need to blink and probably would've had unbroken eye contact for literal years if nothing had happened to get her away from that.
"No smashy, no smashy, no smashy..." she muttered.
"Yeah, yeah, no smashy." Selena sighs, shutting the door after they got everyone out of the room. "But seriously, why would anyone put magical traps in their own temple?"
When everyone is ready and de-mesmerized, Selena peeks over the corner, hoping that there wouldn't be any more weird traps this time.
This corridor is open on one side, overlooking what appears to be a garden...or was, once, before a lack of water and the brutal sun destroyed almost all of the plants. Only a handful of acacia trees, dotted here and there, have survived the blasting heat.
At the far end of the corridor you can see a single door.
"None of what we've encountered just yet would pose any true danger... assuming proper supervision. It seems likely to me that these traps are intended as training tools or deterrents, rather than an outright line of defense. Still, we ought to exercise caution."
Aibek ensured the art-trap room door was firmly closed before fishing a piece of chalk out of a pocket and writing a short caution note on the door before putting the chalk away and following the others.
The witchwolf mulled over what Mihara said for a moment, "Still weird, but agreed. The whole place seemed designed for training -- and we should be careful what they were training for next." before the witchwolf's eyes were drawn towards the trees. Pausing and gazing at them for a few long moments, Aibek said, If we can start gather seeds from those... Aibek thought outloud mostly to themself before looking around at the garden and building around them in deep thought.
Azri just blinked a few times. Training? Well, maybe... she was still a bit unnerved after a divine thing in a temple had managed to distract her, though. She'd stay with the group, of course... but was growing increasingly uncomfortable with this place.
Nothing obvious stirs or moves in the garden or in the corridor. However, as you turn the corridor the final stretch comes into something does become obvious - there is a large section of the interior of the temple you have yet to get to, and a quick glance outside shows some windows in the upper parts of the temple that look like they overlook the area.
"Well, looks like we still have at least one floor to go." Selena says, moving to the door where Azri is "We found six of these rooms with the murals, so I suppose we'll find the next six on the upper floor?"
Unless someone objects, Selena opens the door, trying to gleam any weird sounds coming from behind it before opening it.
No mural covers this wall. An elegant stairwell leads up, the Holy Symbol or Aroden boldly placed where the stair well splits. The wall itself, however, has cracked and split the symbol in half.
"Well, that's ominous. Think it happened when he died?" Azri asked, glancing at the symbol. A broken holy symbol generally didn't have any power... but she was going to avoid touching it regardless, just in case.
"It's possible." Selena nods while ascending the stairs "The rest of the temple is in decent conditions, and it's weird that the symbol split just like that."
"That is definitely a worrisome sight." Mihara observes, holding Daikitsu's holy symbol tight in her pocket.
Selene journeys up to the second floor. The central area is clear, but instead of a wall a heavy wrought iron fence seals off this balcony from the huge room below. A simple glance down shows you what you missed - the inner sanctum of the temple.
The inner sanctum has the same murals as the other rooms, with a number of which you haven't seen yet. Torches flank each of them. The torches by the mural of the Thief have lit up.
Pews line the floor and a large altar. Standing before it is the golem you've been seeking, and the wall behind it contains some kind of heavy container.
The Golem is made of white and gold metal, and stands without motion. Blood stains the ground around it, and it faces a hole in the floor. The blood leads back to it. Several bodies surround the Golem in broken, contorted shapes.
There's no obvious way down, and no obvious way into room below, other than smashing the way through the fence, but three doors lead off this balcony. Perhaps on e of those doors has a way inside?
"The most direct route would mean breaking through the bars. Should we try?"
He would make the attempt personally, but the others may wish to explore more. He looks over the golem that would no doubt be their adversary, studying it.
Azri stared at the murals for a moment. "It... lit up... by the one about a thief. On an ominous scale of one to ten, that's about an eight and a half." the lich girl noted. Either that or it was a message that someone ELSE had been a thief. Either way, she didn't think any good was going to be coming from this.
Sighing, she headed off to the right and opened that door.
"I don't know. That sounds like it would piss off the golem." Selena comments Nigrum's proposal "Maybe we could find a way to deactivate it. Yarl's men may have been pushovers, but I'd prefer if we could avoid to get hurt altogether."
If it was just me, and that golem would give some responses, I'd love to fight it...but I don't want the others to get hurt.
"Let's check these rooms and see if we-Ah!" the half-succubus lights up, moving to the fence and pointing at the hole in the floor.
"That's were Yarls men came from, right? We know that they probably just dig from below and tried to get into the sanctum: the golem recognized them as intruders, and turned them into red paste." she then points to the torches that have lit up near the mural of the thief "We just got a quick look of most of the rooms, but we did something only in the thief one. Sis, could you check if in that book about the twelve whatevers of Aroden we found there's something about the thief thing?" the half-fiend asks to Ayreth. "Maybe getting everything right will make it so the golem recognizes us as not-intruders and not attack us."
"Perhaps this would be a good time to open that mysterious locked book, risk or no risk." Mihara suggests, producing the locked book the party had gotten from Yarls's lair.
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Unresponsive to Selena's request, Ayreth looks out over the inner sanctum and begins to chant in a very quiet, singsong voice:
"They are now facedown
Trying to workaround
Strategy most unsound
It's my belief
We beat the thief
We can find relief
Avoid their doom
Won't be our tomb
If we defeat each room."
Aibek sucked air in quietly, wincing at the unnatural positions of the large amount of bodies around the guardian.
"Finding a way for that not to see us as an enemy, if possible, would likely make this go better..." Aibek comments before further investigating the area...
As Azri entered the well-lit room, she disturbed a small cloud of dust on the floor. The ceiling here has partially collapsed, although not into the room itself. Along the far wall is a mural of a tailor at work. Before it a number of stands, holding bolts of cloth, sowing kits and other tools of such a trade stand ready. Several dressmaker's dummys also stand ready, some with partially completed clothes of an unusual but elegant design. None of them have any dust on them, and the cloth seems to be in perfect condition.
Azri shrugged and moved on to the southern door. The garments inside were probably either useful or some kind of trap, but she remained extremely hesitant to do anything that could even vaguely be interpreted as robbing a dead god's temple. That was the kind of thing that made her expect smiting, and so she simply nudged open the next door so she could keep looking around.
"E-everything okay, sis?" Selena asks hesitantly to Ayreth, worried by her impromptu singing: she had been getting more weird by the day, and the half-fiend was worried by that.
"Any way, I think we should check Yarls' journal, too."
When they open the Tailor room, Selena asks to borrow the Aroden holy book from whoever picked it up. Flipping trough its pages, the half-succubus searches for some clues in the section of the book about the Tailor.
"Do you think that if we finish that dress, the torches will lit up? Anyone here can sew?" Selena asks the others.
"I can't sew, but... Hm... Let's see if I can't..."
Mihara tries to get an idea of what one of the more feminine garments may look like once complete, and manifests upon herself using her Dleeves of Many Garments.
"Perhaps a model to replicate might help," Mihara suggests.
The garment, even to the untrained eye, is clearly amateurish work, and Mihara knows it upon looking at it.
"It... looked better in my mind," she adds, cutting off any comments as she hastily undoes the illusive garment in favor of a more traditional Tian robe.
Regardless of the quality of the work, Mihara's work apparently satisfies something. The torches near the mural of the Tailor in the Sanctum ignite with a loud pop.
"...Oh." Azri said.
She was paranoid about divine retribution, not stupid. Quite the opposite, actually.
...
"Ominous scale is still pretty high. Who stole what, and why?"
"Perhaps the thief's light was about dealing with a thief, as opposed to being one?"