"I can ask the blood god for some of us, but he does not favor greed too much; I can only grant you blood once each day."
The Druid came up to Krass and said, "Let's see about plugging some of those holes."
The hobgoblin groans as wounds forcefully close. While the flesh may be healed, the spirit needs more time to recover. "Thanks, Tia. I'm not feeling too hot, but I'm good enough to continue on for a while longer."
"So what now? We can check that last room and see what's inside? Or do we want to rest a bit?" Harbug asks while looking at the hobgoblin's injuries.
"I say we check out the rest of the tower, then take some rest and tomorrow check what is behind the doors?"
"I can certainly agree with that." Tia says as she looks at the group, "We certainly look the worse for ware. And I need to commune with the waters, for I'm drained."
"I concur. I've used up both the wand and the majority of my attack spells today, and would appreciate the time to recuperate before venturing forth into the rest of the tower.
Yes. It's a bit hard to say 'we'll also search through room x and y' since we don't have an overview map (for which I do not blame you), but I say that we should also search two or three rooms in the mean time.
While setting up camp in Ayala's quarters, you have plenty of time to examine the silvery metal doors. The doors are decorated with images of burning eyes that look inward toward two sets of runes - one set carved into the face of each door. The doors radiate a faint heat, which intensifies as you approach within a few inches. Touching the doors gives a small burn, as if trying to remove a pot from a cookfire without a glove on.
The runes and patterns look familiar somehow. The ones on the left door spell LISTEN in ancient Thassilonian. On the right, the runes for THE EYES stand clearly. Despite the ruination of the mosaics in the walls around the doors, the doors themselves look pristine, as if they were made just yesterday.
***
The night passes uneventfully, each watch going smoothly and without interruption. Dawn breaks with the sun spilling through the enchanted windows, revealing a cloudless day.
"I wonder .. should we get some barrels or buckets with water and some blankets at the ready, just in case the door explodes on us? Apparently the doors are touched by fire and I can't help but feel that that fire is going to come out when we open them.."
The hobgoblin looks a little lost as this is obviously not his field of expertise.
Tialara, regreting leaving her bedroll at the mansion, used whatever she could find from the rat's room to make herself comfortable. She, once again, sits cross-legged with her hands placed palms up on her knees, while she let the mystic currents take her into a Rift Walk.
"Very well done, Tialara." Farrigath said, "You're learning to control the raging waters within you. But do remember, that those waters can only be held back for so long before they overpower you. Learn when to release them, and you shall benefit." With that, the elemental dissolved back into the water. The Druid spent the rest of her walk bathing in the pools.
Tia awoke feeling very refreshed the next morning.
"I have a feeling that we wouldn't find much water inside here, at least not enough to put out a fire, Krass," Shabbezz says while crouched in front of her open spellbook. "The blanket idea may have merit, though. However, I feel that this is more likely some sort of puzzle that wants to be solved. If it was going to harm no matter what we did, why bother alerting us that there could be a trap in the first place?"
She tapped a long finger against the general area where her chin would be in thought.
"...'LISTEN'...'THE EYES'...Maybe it's telling us to listen to the sounds produced by the images of the burning eyes? Or perhaps we should be listening to the eyes to hear when the trap is about to be set off? This is perplexing..."
As they get setup to stay for the night, Angelica tries to get everyone to help consolidate all the different gear and supplies they found into the room with the fake wall. It being the lowest to the ground, maybe on their way out they can rig up a system to get it all down to the boats. She would like if they grab anything of value, weapons, armor, and all the goods they've come across.
------------
The next morning, having a decent rest under her belt, she looks at the door with a questioning eye. Having searched the room the day before when they first came in, she didn't find any traps in it or on the door, so she felt safe with them starting to mess with it.
"If it's a puzzle, maybe it's just like the last Thassilonian door we opened. The ones with the imps inside. That also had words on it. If this works the same, we just need to find what other words these could make. Now, if you wanna know if it explodes, then everybody step back. I should be able to get out of the way fast enough. I didn't find any signs of it being trapped yesterday." with that she waits for the others to get clear, then with as much cover as she can muster from beside the door and not in front of it, she cautiously reaches out a hand and touches the door.
Angelica pulls her hand back sharply with a hiss. A small burn on her finger showed glossy in the light of Tialara's torch. The doors themselves seemd to be as hot as a pot on a cooking fire.
"You know," Harbug says after Angelica burns her hand, "we could get water from downstairs in the bay."
"Or, we can do this."
Tialara walked up to the door, waved her hands in front of her while speaking a language the others didn't understand, conjured a large, amorphus ball of water, and threw it at the door.
Krass leans lazily against a pillar, trying to hide his discomfort with all the magick being flung about.
Shabbezz steps back while the others attempt to ply the door with water.
"'What other words these could make', eh? Another anagram, then?"
She starts muttering aloud as she mentally tries to unravel the puzzle.
"LISTEN THE EYES."
"Er..."EYELESS SENT IT?"
"SHEEN YETI LETS?"
"SHEET STEEL YIN?"
"TENSELY HE TIES?"
"TENSE THEY LIES?"
"SEE HEN TESTILY?"
"EELS THEN YETIS?"
"..."
"I don't think that I'm doing this correctly."
Angelica petulantly sucks the burn on her finger after pulling away sharply from the door, Tha hu waw.... Sorry, that's the way Shabby baby, throw those words around. What about, Ten Eyes... Slithe. Steel in The Yes. See Shy Entitle. Everybody, throw stuff out there, lets see what sticks. Oooh, Lets See in They? Or not."
"Silent They See?"
Tia's ball of water hit the doors with a hiss of steam. The cloud boiled out, making the air uncomfortably warm and wet.
"Why not try swinging your shard at the thing and commanding it to open? Or at least touching the doors with it?"
Upon hearing the catwoman speak, Harbug begins to slowly move toward the door.
;
"'SILENT THEY SEE'... That one has a nice ring to it, Tialara. You made that by breaking down 'LISTEN' and 'THE EYES' as separate phrases and then combining them, correct?"
Shabbezz peers at the engraved eyes and thinks while Harbug approaches it.
"I wonder... What if we were to cover up the eyes on the doors, or 'blind' them somehow, as if they were real eyes, before we attempted to open the doors again?"
Angelica gives a sidelong glance, "The last one was the word Lucre, and we didn't put any money on it. This one is a mixed up word too, why don't we see if we can move the letters on this too?"
"Fiery doors. Letters or words on 'em .. ", he mutters..
Shabbezz throws up a hand dismissively.
"Bah! Maybe we should try the direct approach first before we start getting too clever. Is there any way that we could try pushing them open without getting burned?"
"If we get some chains, some pitons and a ram of sorts, sure. Or, if we buy some kind of protective magicks against fire ..
As they discuss all the optional methods for opening the doors, Angelica leaves the room, looking for any one of the bodies of the women they killed. Once she finds one, she works to remove a hand. Returning with the dismembered hand, she walks up to the door and tries to use it to rearrange the letters to the answer Tia gave, Silent They See. It sounded the most reasonable, and it fit as it felt like the silent eyes on the door were watching her.
If it doesn't work, she tries to move them with the shard, which she really doubts. So far all it's done is show them the Crow itself. It doesn't seem to have any other powers for finding the other shard. Especially since the item itself almost gives her a knowledge of what it's capable of doing.
Failing the first two, she just decide to do it all by hand out of frustration. She should be able to switch Listen to Silent in only two or three moves if the blanks count as moveable, and The Eyes to They See with only two as well. A minor amount of injury, if it gets the whole thing over with quicker.
The touch of dead flesh did not move the runes, nor did the touch of the shard. Gritting her teeth, Angelica gasped as she touched the first two runes. Within a few swaps, she had locked in Silent. With a few more, They See. The doors opened with a hiss, showing nothing on the far side but a hallway leading to a set of stairs going down.
"You did it, Miss Nenaviste!" Shabbezz exclaims happily as she ambles toward the rogue. "Excellent work--"
Her face drops as she sees the severity of the changeling's burns.
"Oh my. Whoever's in possession of that healing wand, please get over here, quickly!"
Krass grins,"And of course, the only way we can go is down."
The Catfolk Druid came over and looked at Angelica's hands, pulled out the wand and touched each of the Rouge's hands.
Then seeing the Hobgoblin and noticing he still didn't seem completely recovered, she touched him with the wand.
"At least if we're going down we don't have as far to fall later." Harbug grumbles as they enter the stairway.
Shab, sweetie, please quit with the Miss stuff. Tia, thank you Hon, feels a lot better. So," she says with her crooked smile, her eyes alight with what treasures may lay beyond, "Let's go see what rests in the depths of this here piling." With that, and sure they have seen their last wererat, she draws her rapier and loads her hand crossbow before slinking down the hallway in the lead as she tends to do.
Keeping the wand and magicked coin in one hand, Tialara followed the rogue down, padding softly. Her tail twitching in anticipation as she looked around and kept her ears open.
Krass keeps his hand on the hilt of his short sword. No longer should he need the silver one, or so he hoped. He falls in behind Angelica, ready to defend her.
Although old habits die hard, Shabbezz makes a mental note to stop using formal titles when addressing the others; they're Pathfinder agents, not students or faculty back at Quantium. She takes her position near the rear of the party.
As an afterthought, she removes the wand of mage armor from her belt and quietly casts it over herself. A ruby shell of force winks over her briefly. Afterwards she slips the wand back into storage and keeps pace with the group.
Harbug watches as the others prepare their weapons, shrugs and draws his falchion, then motions for Angelica to lead the way.
You follow the stairs down, down, down, descending ever lower into the Crow. The stairs end on a landing, in a short hallway that runs a dozen feet or so and then turns to the left. Angelica skirted the walls and peeked around the corner to see an open area, partially filled with what looked to be a foot or so of somewhat stagnant seawater. The floor rose out of the water in a gentle slope and terminated at the edge of her darkvision at sea level.
"Do we want to throw a coin with magical light on it into the room? Or just continue on? Whatever we do, I'll be right behind you Angel."
A sly smile curls onto his lips when he calls her Angel. She was clearly anything but.