The flask shatters on impact, igniting several of the warden jacks, they melt and pop from the heat, but there are still several hundred left!
Kip descended the tree to just above where the rolling balls could reach him, then outstretched his hand. A roiling burst of fire engulfed the swarm, then quickly extinguished.
Ema considered the problem of what to do about the swarm and then hit on an idea. She opened a gate, this one in the sky, and in a swirling vortex came a bird made of air. She pointed down at the swarm and made a spinning gesture and the air elemental swooped down and became a whirlwind, trying to pick up the swarm in it's spinning grasp.
Victrix sits in the tree and feels quite stupid that she didn't bring anything to deal with a swarm this size.
The swarm of warden jacks dodges the worst of Kip's fiery blast, then Ema summons an air elemental. It turns into a whirlwind and swoops down, trying to catch the tiny constructs in its grasp. The balls scatter and split up to avoid it, but the elemental is able to fly up each time back out of their reach before trying again. Finally, it scoops them all up inside of its swirling tornado. The warden jacks careen about, battered by the winds as the elemental takes up as high up as it can go. Then it releases them, and they plummet back to the ground, shattering on impact! All of the constructs have been destroyed--it's safe to move on now.
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"Nice teamwork, everyone!
Ema, that elemental was amazing"
Seeing Victrix's long face, he sympathizes, "Don't worry, Victrix. Not every battle will be won through superior physicality. Most will, but occaisionally one of the rest of us will need to step forward.
Nobody doubts your value. Next time we're in town, we'll ask Alba to make some Alchemist's Fire for all of us."
Victrix snorts and climbs down from the tree.
"Well... now that THAT'S outta the way, what's in this tower here? I wanna know."
With no more guardians standing in your way, you continue forward. The sun has begun to set when you finally reach your destination.
To the north, the hills give way to sharp, rocky inclines. A solitary stone structure, a tower at least three stories high, is partially embedded in the rocky cliff wall behind it. The cylindrical edifice is oddly undamaged, however, as if the rock were only the tide lapping at the tower's lower half, frozen in time. The structure has no windows or rooftop battlements. A metal double door is set in the base of the southern side and is slightly ajar.
Azlanti letters are carved into the doors: Spindlelock Research Facility: a division of the Spindle Solution, making tomorrow's humanity, today. Authorized Personnel Only.
In addition, the tower has what appear to be stone posts directly abutting either side of the door, hinting that there was at one time a walkway or some other structure attached to the tower.
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Simon looks around curiously. "A walkway? It doesn't make any sense to have a walkway on a ground level.
Perhaps this was a higher level before Starfall."
Simon will look around attempting to figure out where the walkway might have lead.
"One thing is for certain, there must be some powerful protective magic to have preserved this tower through the calamity and the millennia that have followed. Can anyone detect a resonance?"
While waiting for others to respond, Simon will carefully inspect the door for more mundane traps.
There's no obvious indication of where the walkway might have lead. Simon doesn't discover any traps on the door.
Ema was relieved at the success of the air elemental in dealing with the swarm, it's final solution wasn't quite what she expected but she shrugged since it worked. When the elemental had finished it's work she gestured for it to fly and allowed it to do as it would until it was returned home to the plane of air. "That worked quite well, much better than I thought it would."
As they proceeded to the tower Ema watched the elemental as best she could until it returned home and when they reached the tower stopped and stared. The place was incredibly well preserved, unbelievably so given the water lapping around it, and considered casting a spell to try and figure out how this was done. She second guessed herself though and decided it was best not to try it, such magic could cause harm if she looked at it like that. "It looks like someone has been here, the door down there is open."
When Simon commented about the walkway Emalliandra looked at it in interest and then said, "If I had to guess either the base of the tower was much higher at one time or there is something that needed to be bridged like that." She looked back at Simon, "Looking at such magic as would preserve this place for so long through a spell might be hazardous to the viewer, I don't know that I would recommend it. Let me think on it and see whether it is safe or not."
While such magic would be powerful, it wouldn't be dangerous to view its aura unless it was of artifact-level power.
"I think it's safe to view magically, give me a moment." She caste a spell and Ema's eyes began to glow as she examined the tower through her magically augmented sight.
The tower glows with faint abjuration magic. It likely is the reason it is so well-preserved, it it doesn't seem to have any other effects.
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Simon will sit back for a few minutes making a detailed drawing if the tower and entrance. He will also make a rubbing of the warning plate, writing down the translation.
Once done, he will read the translation to the others.
"We can't know what types of defenses they would have had in such a structure. Based on the swarm, the guardians of the shrine, and the spy robot we encountered in town, it is likely that we may find other constructs whose purpose it is to keep intruders out.
If we encounter such, we should do our best to appear unthreatening until we are attacked. Perhaps we will ba able to convince the constructs that we belong.
Likely there would be some type of indentification researchers would have used. Keep your eyes out for anything like that."
With that thought in mind, Simon will retrieve the Azlanti compass and examine it. Dies it appear any different?
Victrix scratches her head at the mention of all the various constructs the party's seen so far.
"Who even has the time to build all o' these?"
The compass looks the same as it did before. Despite the door's weight, it swings open effortlessly at Simon's touch. The ceiling of the room beyond begins to glow, shedding light into the chamber.
This spacious chamber appears to have been designed to awe or impress the entrant. Pale gray tiles decorated with faint, intricate geometrical designs cover the floor. The walls of the chamber are pure white, illuminated by the unnatural light emanating from the ceiling in a way that makes the chamber appear slightly larger than it really is. Another double door at the far side of the room leads to the north.
In the center of the chamber is a lifelike statue of a man in simple black robes with a helmet that obscures most of his face. It appears to be the same man whose image spoke from the dais you discovered earlier.
As Simon approaches the statue, you all hear noises coming from beyond the east and west walls of the room--the slap of bare footfalls on stone. The little bit of warning is enough to avoid being surprised as two skum step through the walls like they're not even there, tridents raised to strike!
Victrix blinks in surprise. "More of you slimy bastards? Alright--let's go then!"
She runs up to the westernmost one and lunges with her spear...
Realizing that they may have fights to come Ema decided to summon once more. While the air elemental had been good for what it was she knew it would be less effective in these confined spaces. It took her a moment to decide what to call forth and when she did a gate opened behind the skum that Victrix was attacking. Unlike the previous ones this one opened on the floor and rising from it was a dog like creature made of rock. She pointed at the skum Victrix was fighting and spoke tot he thing in terran commanding it to attack the creature in front of it. The elemental gave a rumbling agreement and lunged at the skum fiercely, slamming into it with it's head..
Victrix runs up and lunges at one skum, driving her spear into its gut. Ema gestures and summons an earth elemental dog. The creature slams its head into the skum's back, shattering its vertebrae, and the monster goes down.
Simon cracks his whip at the other skum, an inspired strike that trips the creature. Kip bounds up to stab with his rapier.
As the skum stands up, Simon and Kip stab it again, badly wounding it. It snarls and stabs at Simon with its trident, but the half-orc barely manages to parry the strike with his sword.
Ema gave a command in terran and sent the elemental after the remaining Skum. The elemental charged at the thing but it looked like it was going to miss while Ema consumed some of her magical energy causing her eyes to glow faintly purple for a moment.
"Where are the other colonists?" Kip cried while slashing with his rapier.
The skum sidesteps Ema's elemental, but it moves right into the path of Simon's blade. He slashes open its throat, and it falls with a gurgle as blood sprays from the fatal wound.
The berserker rests her spear on her shoulder. "There's gotta be more of them in here. Keep your eyes peeled."
The wall becomes hazy and transparent to Simon's eyes, verifying its illusory nature. Peering past the image, he can see a room that has a simple stone floor and undecorated gray stone walls. The stark nature of the room is interrupted only by a large circle of silvery metal set into the floor in the corner.
The illusory wall on the other side of the entrance chamber conceals an identical room.
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Simon will be careful to stay away from the circle.
Turning to Ema, he will ask her opinion. "Ema, that circle on the floor. Could it have something to do with how the Skum got behind these walls?
I find it a little hard to believe that they are just waiting there all the time. Could it be a teleporter?"
Leaving any further investigation to Ema, he will examine the doors heading into the rest of the tower, looking for traps, but also examining any markings on the door.
The door appears unremarkable. Simon does not find any traps on it.
With the skum dealt with Ema turned her attention first to the walls like Simon did. She was pretty sure there was an illusion involved, it was the simplest solution, but she wasn't going to assume until she had studied it for herself even after seeing Simon stick his head through it.
After seeing for herself the unreality of the walls Ema cast her normal spell for examing magic and checked the walls first for more illusory areas and then the circle on teh floor.
The walls are likely the result of the illusory wall spell. Besides the two walls, there are no other illusions in this room. The circles in the floor seem to be infused with transmutation magic that will repair any construct that enters one of them. The magic would only affect an individual construct once per day.
Ema was excited over the circles on the floor when she realized what they did. It was an amazing find and one quite useful if they could find a way to make use of it. "This," she pointed at the circles, "Is a place that will repair any construct that enters it. It will only do so once per construct per day but still..." She began too look nervously around as she continued, "I bet this is how those swarms have stayed functional for so long. There may be others like this and if we could learn to duplicate it we could ensure the survival of the colony by working towards a small army of constructs to protect it from raids." Emalliandra's gaze shifted towards where the rest of the island lay from here and pondered aloud, "I wonder if there are more such places here..."
"They just automatically fix the constructs? That sounds exciting. Do you think if you figured out how it works you could make one that would work for people?"
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Simon considers the question for a moment.
"I'm not an expert in wondrous item creation, but I don't think it works that way.
Constructs are creations and thus their creators are capable of repairing them. It makes some logical sense that since living creatures are creations of the gods only the gods are able to repair them.
Then again, I have the ability to create arcane extracts capable of healing. Perhaps a fountain of some kind could be created that produces the same type of extract."
Simon taps his lips, deep in thought, then notices the trail of blood that Victrix is leaving.
"Speaking of healing, it appears our barbarian friend does not even notice that she is injured. Kip, perhaps you should be more proactive in making sure that she stays healed.
We'll all soon be fish food if she goes down."
Simon will wait for the healing, then carefully open the door and peer through.
A curving ramp along the northern wall of this chamber ascends to the floor above. The east and west walls each have a single door. Murals cover the east and west walls in this space, depicting kind-looking human adult figures smiling benevolently at children. The children, for their part, are smiling and appear healthy and happy. The figures, both adults and children, have tiny jewels orbiting around their heads in shining rings that resemble halos. Bold words are painted above the door in Azlanti: Ours is the Great Work to see humanity achieve its greatest potential.
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Simon will translate the words and examine the murals closely. After making a quick sketch, he will comment.
"Advertising? Motivational posters? Fascinating.
Perhaps this structure wasn't as secure as we first feared. I can't imagine seeing these types of images in an area that was closed off from the public or low clearance workers.
Does that mean there are higher security measures to come?
Ioun stones. See them there. That does solidify the idea that this structure was somehow related to the manufacture of ioun stones."
Such a happy face to put forward. Did they need to hide some cost or make the end result seem more palatable due to the overall "good"
Unless others want to do something here, Simon will quickly examine the west door for traps then open it.
Before Simon steps into the room, he spots concealed panels above each door. He's pretty sure they are part of a trap that guards the room, though no trigger is obvious. On the north wall, he spots another panel that contains some sort of clockwork mechanism. Accessing it might allow one to disable the trap, but crossing the room to get to it might trigger it.
Casting detect magic, Ema determines there is a faint aura of divination magic in the room. It's likely a magical sensor, though more information can't be gleaned.
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Simon breathes in and out to calm his nerves.
"This is where archaeology gets interesting."
He get the watch/compass out and hangs it from a pocket (or holds it in his hand, if it can't be affixed).
He gets out his rope and ties it to his waist, handing the other end to Victrix. "In case something happens, and I can't move, try to pull me to safety"
Hoping that the Azlanti items will help to identify him as an Authorized Person, Simon drops his pack to the floor and prepares to enter the room.
"All right, everyone. Stand back. We don't know what could happen. It could be an alarm, it could activate guardian constructs, it could release some type of countermeasure.
Since there are no bodies or signs of violence on the floor, we can hope that whatever it is isn't deadly.
I'm going to try to walk straight across the room and access that panel to see if I can deactivate whatever system is in place here. If Desna smiles on me, nothing will happen."
With that said, Simon will enter the room and walk straight to the clockwork panel. He will speak the words "Ioun Imperative" in Azlanti as he enters the room.
If no alarms or other obvious danger occurs before he gets there, he will Take 10 in the Disable Check. T10 +9 = 19.
Otherwise, I'll put a couple of reasonable rolls in a spoiler.
(+1 vs. Traps)
If something happens that will keep me from Taking 10, but does not involve me being incapacitated or under attack: This should also apply if the Take 10 doesn't work but I get a second chance.
As Simon starts across the room to the panel, the panels above the doors slide open, revealing crossbows mounted on clockwork mechanisms! They track the investigator's movements and fire--both bolts sink into his side, wounding him badly! He hustles to the panel as the devices load more bolts and starts turning some gears and removing key components. Fortunately, he is able to disable the trap quickly before the crossbows can fire again. It should be safe to traverse the room now.