"How about we head back to the room with the statues? We might need to sweep the stone chips away as best we can, but at least it will smell better than this room. Or the room before that. It means getting back past the trap, but worth it I think."
"If Angelica's up for disabling the trap again, I have no objections."
"Anything that gets us out of this area is okay by me."
You made your way back over the trapped floor, towing Harbug's body behind you on its floating bier. The floor seemed weaker than before, and Jam nearly fell into the pit below, but managed to make it across.
Settling in for the night, you assigned a watch, keeping an eye on the newcomer as much as on external threats, but the night passed without any sort of encounter. Shabbezz and Zaphomil awoke, knowing from their renewing powers that morning had indeed broken on the surface world.
Shabbezz shut her spellbook and began packing up her gear.
"Rise and shine," she says through the gloom of the dungeon. "We've got things to do, unpleasant as they may be."
She turns to Jam.
"Mr. Urthadar, I trust you will be traveling with us until we reach the outside?"
Rousing from his somewhat comatose sleep from all the energy he expended the previous day he turns at the sound of someone calling his name.
"Yes, please. Prior to my recent predicament, I was trailing a group of Grey Maidens that slaughtered a merchant caravan. I lost them in the cave tunnel system down here. Tried to weave my way through this dungeon until I was caught and hung out to dry... Getting back to the surface would be a nice change of pace."
Jam stands up with a stretch, packs up all of his belongings ready to go.
Jakscar uncurls himself from his bedroll and stretches, moving through a series of acrobatic stretches and exercises. Clearly the magical healing of yesterday, with food and sleep has rejuvenated him."Well Mr Urthadar, we have our rather unfortunate friend here who we are taking to a safe place, but our route out will not be an easy one. We may have to fight our way onward and hopefully out at the end rather than going back the way we have come. I hope you can handle yourself, you wouldn't happen to have a good means of smashing walking statues would you?"
Packing his kit and checking his weapons, Jakscar moves to Harbug's body. "Shabbz, would you be so kind with that spell of yours? Harbug is a little heavy for me."
"Yeah I think I can manage to smash a few statues with this..."
Jam glances down at his longbow and looks back up to Jakscar.
"No need to worry, I can handle myself."
"Good to hear," Zaphomil says, calling upon Desna to preserve Harbug's corpse.
"Of course, Jakscar."
A drop of mercury, more chanting, and another concave disk of force appears in an empty space next to Harbug's corpse.
"We'll still need to lift him onto it, but it will last for the next five hours. Combined with Zaphomil's preservation spell, we should be able to move the poor soul to the burial site."
You easily got Harbug onto the floating disk, with a combined effort, and then towed the body out to the beach. From there, you had to make the decision to brave the rapidly flowing water around, or to inter him in the sand, near the gray maiden burial mounds.
Shabbezz frowns, considering their options.
"I'm afraid that the disk I've conjured will only maintain its integrity above the ground. If we take it over the water, it will likely disintegrate after three feet of travel. I can re-cast the spell once we're across, but we'd still need to transport the body along the way.
"I know that we wanted to inter Harbug's remains in the sarcophagus, but we may have to settle for burying him in the sand near the Gray Maidens, unless someone has a better suggestion."
"I can cast fly on one of us, allowing someone to take him back to the sarcophagus alone. I'm not much in favor of that idea. I believe interring him here will be fine for now," Zaph says, still saddened by the circumstances and the choices they were forced to make.
Angelica looks at the body of Harbug, a quiet somberness not commonly found in the woman plays across her features. "If we don't think we can row back up across, especially without Buggy's arms rowing the other boat, we may have no other choice than to bury him here." She squats on her haunches and tries to get Fang's attention, holding a hand out to encourage a petting.
Fang ignored Angelica's hand, laying on Harbug's chest and not moving. The interment of Harbug was a somber affair. The sand was easily enough to dig deep enough for a grave, but Angelia had to hold Fang as they laid Harbug's body in the hole. Even after the body was laid down, and the sand covered it, the cat wanted to curl up on his master. When set back down, the feline walked to stand on the fresh mound of sand and curled up, tail over nose.
Jam simply looks on as his newly met compatriots bury their friend, he kneels and prays to himself in hopes that harbug has moved on peacefully.
Knowing that Harbug was not a follower of Desna, Zaphomil does not entreat his goddess, but voices a common prayer to Pharasma, asking her to guide his spirit to the deity that the fallen most worshiped in life.
After a moment's pause, Shabbezz speaks up.
"I didn't know Harbug very well. Frankly, he was the first full-blooded orc I'd ever met face-to-face. But he was a stalwart companion, and always had our backs. Wherever his soul resides now, I pray that his god protects and keeps him."
She lapses back into silence.
Angelica just scowls at the grave, and the stubborn cat, "Yeah, Buggy was swell. He looked out for me. Let's get a move on. If that stupid cat wants to stay here and starve let her." She seems to be in a dour mood, yet despite her words, she crouches one last time to get the animal to come to her.
Regardless of whether Fang does so or not, she turns and heads back into the complex. She calls over her shoulder, "Jelly, we ain't heading out as far as we know, just deeper in. If there's a way out from there, your guess is as good as ours." Her attitude has shifted from her flirtatiousness just the night prior.
After final respects has been paid (and after leaving out a portion of her rations and a little drinking water for Fang), Shabbezz continues deeper into the dungeon alongside the others.
"In the chamber where we had found Jam'Lamia, there were three exits: one west, one east, and one south. In the absence of a trail left by the Gray Maidens, I think we should continue traveling southward. A straight line is easier to double back on in case we need to return."
"Sounds like sound advice to me. If we happen to come through any areas I recognize from my trip in, I might be able to lead us out. While that is not the case, I'm quite happy to defer to you all in leading the way."
Quickly you return to the room where you found Jam ties up. There was still no sign of danger, though the hot, humid air was thick and moisture beaded the marble floor and walls. That strange grey flame continued to dance in the central firepit. As Shabbezz has recalled, there were indeed three exits from the room, as seen from your hallway.
Zaphomil approaches the flame cautiously, but with curiosity. He casts detect magic and tries to identify if there are any special properties, or if it is simply a fancy continual flame.
Following Zaphomil's lead, Shabbezz also cast detect magic, drawing on her arcane training to identify any magical auras emanating from the flame.
To the arcanists' minds, the gray flame in the center of the room radiated a faint transmutation magic. As did, surprisingly, an unlit torch on the east wall, near the staircase.
"This is odd," Shabbezz begins, her interest piqued. "I'm detecting an aura of transmutation magic around this flame, but also around that unlit torch near the staircase."
She pulls out a flint and tinder from her pack and holds it out in her open hand.
"It's very possible that the two may be connected in some way. Shall we try lighting it and observe what happens?
" Angelica, perhaps you should be the one to attempt this. You're skilled at disabling traps and dexterous enough to have a fair chance at avoiding a mishap."
Having kept quiet during Harbug's interment, Jakscar falls into his role following Angelica. As the arcanists study the room, Jakscar quickly appears to become bored and moves to scan the exits, placing himself between the party and any possible risk. " I will light it if you want, I must still have a couple of my nine lives left and I am pretty quick on my feet too"
Angelica shakes her head in warning, holding her palm up to stop her, "No, Shabbezz, never go across at an intersection. Always pick a wall and stick to that side of it." She creeps into the space, looking the room over, starting over toward the west hallway, the stairs and unlit torch last, before heading toward the center to examine the fire pit.
After doing her inspection of the room, she offers her thoughts on the course of action. "So, we're here looking for something, and the shard doesn't tell me where in here, just here. So. do we keep to this floor and clear all the nooks and crannies, or do we start heading back up with these stairs. East or west, really, is the question?"
"I agree, Shabbezz. We should light this mystery since and see what happens."
Jam moves behind Jackscar also preparing to defend if anything comes into the room, while at the same time glancing over towards the torches wondering what will happen when the unlit torch is set ablaze.
"My apologies, Angelica" she says. "I have no preference for East or west, but before that I really would like to see what happens when this torch is lit. I suppose that Jakscar can attempt it if you decline to do so."
As an afterthought, Shabbezz withdraws the metamagic Rod (hers now by default, she assumes), and casts an extended mage armor spell over herself. A magenta forcefield briefly outlines her form before winking out of existence.
"'Nothing ventured, nothing gained.' Incidentally, the rest of us might want to assume a defensive position just in case this goes awry in some way."
"I agree, Shabbezz. We should light this mystery since and see what happens."
Angelica, seeing that the others were dead set on lighting the torch, removed it from the sconce one she had checked it very carefully for traps. Carefully she moved to the central brazier and lit the torch. It puffed to life with the same gray flame as the firepit, but nothing else seemed to happen. She strained all of her senses, but nothing came to her.
Angelica just nods thoughtfully, as if pondering all the potential possibilities, before tossing the the torch to the floor over her shoulder with a shrug. "Well, that was uneventful, and a let down for all the hoopla, wouldn't you say?" She lifts an eyebrow and smirks at Zaphomil and Shabbezz. Back to her usual playfulness, she suggests, "You know, I think I said it with that summoning labyrinth in the Crow, always follow the right wall. I mean, right is always right, right?" She winks at Jam. "Let's go." This last one much less of a suggestion, and more a decision she made for the group. Pulling her rapier, she gets in her familiar crouch, and takes point once more.
Shabbezz seems lost in thought as Angelica moves on to the next passage in the dungeon.
"...Perhaps the solution is to light the torch with flame from the center of the room-- Huh? Hey, wait for me!"
She hikes up her pack on her shoulders and continues with the group.
"Definitely a disappointment. Ah well, onwards we go."
Drawing his blades, Jakscar drops into his usual place behind Angelica.
Frowning at the lit torch that has decided to do nothing special, Zaph tugs the torch out of its socket in the wall and follows the others down the West passage.
Angelica, tired of playing with the grey fire, moved on to the western passage, finding that there was a door on the far side of that octagonal room. The double doors were not trapped or locked, and she nodded to the others, throwing open one door to reveal a long hallway, lined with closed wooden doors on both sides.
Jam falls in line in the middle of the group being as quiet as he possibly can, moving along the corridor melting away into the shadows.
Angelica puts her palm to her forehead in frustration. A hallway of closed doors was always a major nuisance in her line of work; so much searching, listening, and unlocking. Grousing about it wasn't going to get them through this place any faster, so she creeps forward to the first door to have a check.
Until Angelica gives the "all clear" signal, Shabbezz waits with the rest of the group.
"We could clear those doors quicker if we all helped," Zaphomil observes, getting impatient.
As Angelica looked at the first door, she could see a message scrawled across it in a neat hand. She pondered the message, then noticed that the door itself seemed to be covered with a sheen of frost, and a faint glow of magic. Most likely, some form of trap resided here.
Thou wouldst enter to enjoy the company of the Runelord of Lust herself? Then thou must touch!
"The last time I tried helping her scout a room I just ended up getting in her way," she replied to the priest. "Besides, I can't reliably locate and deactivate traps, can you?"
Assuming that Angelica allows her to approach, Shabbezz is able to read aloud the Thassilonian runes, although she is careful not to touch the door:
"'Thou wouldst enter to enjoy the company of the Runelord of Lust herself? Then thou must touch!' My word, that can't be truthful, now can it?"
Her curiosity piqued, she begins scanning the door foe more information.
"Having seen her corpse, I'd be somewhat tempted if she were still alive, I must say. However, it's probably best we allow Angelica to disable whatever's on that door."
Angelica nods and winks at Zaphomil, "Rememebr Zap, we did touch her, and that didn't turn out so well. But give me room, I see the essence of the trap here, so let me try and disable it. Stand back, sweetie." SHe warns Shabbezz. Once the others are clear, she sets to work with her tools.
"Of course. Sorry." Shabbezz replies to Angelica, taking several steps backward. She will wait patiently for the changeling to finish her task.
Angelica carefully looked over the door, noting its magical nature even as Shabbezz pointed it out to her. Finally, she smeared some kind of unguent on her hand and massaged it into the sign on the door, disabling the trap for now.
Angelica smirks in satisfaction at her own work, pride being an appropriate shard for her. Indicating the deed is done, with a slight flourishing bow, she redraws Silverfang and opens the now cleared door as carefully as she can to look beyond.
Now that Angelica has safely cleared the door, Shabbezz walks up to the threshold, staying put but peering into the room to see what there is to see.