Liam gives Doritan a dirty look. "Death threats are not necessary. He was only trying to haggle."
Mimips happily accepts the items that you offer them. He studies each with an appraising eye, seeming to be quite the good judge of an object's value. Once you've given him enough, he trades you the items that you request.
After all of your trading is done, the kobold grins and settles down into the chair behind the desk. It seems like he's planning on setting up shop here for at least a little while, should you want to trade further.
Bernal has no objections to the trade offered, though he is still a bit lost as to why there's a merchant kobold under the senate building.
Katria hands over the items she'd like to exchange and points out what she wants in return. Assuming the deal if completed, the group returns to Factor-12 and swaps the key out for the axe -- I hope we don't have to turn right back around and swap these back, Katria thinks -- and then proceeds on with their escape.
She'll head to the next door first .
If only we could communicate. Mimips could probably tell us where Diago is and any other things we need to worry about.
Mimips exchanges the items with you. Realizing he's a few coins short of a fair deal, the kobold slides you a flask of acid to make up the difference.
Factor 12 diligently returns the key to its locker and provides you with the enchanted battleaxe. Once you return to the previous room, Katria opens the western door.
A wooden hallway suddenly gives way to a stony cavern. A series of two sharp slopes lead south, eventually ending in a sudden hole. Roughly half the width of an adult human, the hole descends into the darkness, winding off in a gentle western curve.
Katria blinks. Some sort of cave-in, maybe? This might explain how a big rat -- and a kobold, for that matter -- got in here.
Her breath catches for a moment as she realizes that this leaves the Senate incredibly vulnerable, but she relaxes a second later. If this wasn't something new -- and it doesn't look like it -- clearly it's not been a problem; the Senate's biggest danger came from within.
"Should we investigate?" she asks her companions. "This might be a way out, but it looks like it's going deeper, not up... And I don't know that we could fit through that hole even if it were the right way."
"Perhaps this rat-creature's lair? I don't think we want to go there, but let's try to see if there are any tracks - even a few stray hairs - that might indicate this Diago has passed by."
There are a few small boot prints leading from the hole towards the door. It looks like they were made only a few days ago. They likely belong to Mimips. You don't find any other tracks in the area.
"Well, I guess we know how Mimips got in here, then," Katria says. "Why he thinks it's a good spot for a store, I don't know. I have learning Draconic on my list of things to do -- it's very useful among a lot of non-humanoid races, and they play an important role in Taldor's expansion as well, of courses -- but maybe I'll have to do it sooner."
Satisfied, she heads with the others to the final door.
"I hope this is right, because I don't think there's any other way out," she says.
Your senate aide badges buzz and you hear Martella's voice. "Out of the senate building. Guiding a dozen or so of the servants to a safe haven..."
A leering statue stands atop a plinth in the northwestern corner of this L-shaped hallway. The statue holds a scepter, which it points toward a door to the east. The south end of the hall is a heap of collapsed dirt and wood.
The east door seems to have a complex locking mechanism with two keyholes. As you look down the hall, circles begin to appear along the walls and door, dripping with fresh crimson blood!
"Do we need to go back and trade in the axe for the other key? And does anybody know what would make this blood appear?"
Liam suspects this is a blood sacrifice, with the blood of the slain up above completing some Asmodean rite or other fiendish ceremony.
If this is the case, he doesn't know for sure - it's just a hunch at the moment.
As Maya stares down at the hall now dripping with fresh crimson blood, part of her can't seem to accept that the blood is real. How did the blood even get there? Are there dying people on the other side of the walls that somehow had their blood soak through to the other side? It doesn't make sense to the bard.
Poking her longsword into some of the 'blood,' Maya tries to figure out if it's real or not.
To Liam, Maya says, "We should probably make sure we can get past this blood or whatever it really is before we retrieve the other key."
As Maya pokes the bloody circles, a jolt of icy energy courses through her body. She has a brief vision of a large, circular chamber in which a terrible arcane ritual is taking place. A high-pitched scream echoes in her ear as magical energies crackle and pop, then in a flash it is gone. The bloody circles vanish just as quickly as they had appeared.
Maya stumbles back from the wall, her mind racing from the vision she had just seen. That was fake, right? It had to be. Something like that surely couldn't happen down here, even in Taldor.
"I guess I'm determined to get myself killed," Maya says as she notices her longsword feels a bit heavier in her hand than before.
She stows the weapon and pulls out her sling instead. Sighing, she gestures for Bernal or Doritan to lead the way. As she does, she says, "If I try to be the first one in line again, please restrain me. I'm clearly too curious for my own good. And I would have sworn the circles and blood on the wall were nothing but an elaborate illusion..."
Deciding against giving many details of her brief vision, Maya says simply, "There may be something horrible ahead. Be on your guard."
Jowuan accepts Maya's coins and prays to Abadar to heal the halfling's wounds.
The key you have fits one of the locks on the door. You'll either have to return to Factor 12 to retrieve the other key or try to pick the lock.
Liam takes the axe back to the strange construct. "Greetings, Factor 12. I am returning this axe and would like to check out the key."
"Very well," Factor 12 replies. The creature seems neither surprised nor bothered by your repeated exchanges.
With both keys in hand, you are able to unlock the door. Wide stairs descend into this tiered, circular chamber. Chairs stand in odd positions throughout the room, collected into circular patterns, even outside of the greater circular patterns of the hall itself. Circular gouges mar the surface of the wooden walls and floor here, some left to stand alone, while others are multiple circular scratches overlaying one another, joined by lines and scrawlings. The greatest concentration of circles gathers on the ceiling, some forty feet above, where multicolored circles inscribed with artistic fanaticism surround a five-foot-wide hole in the ceiling.
"Well, at least it sounds like Martella's safe," Katria notes, breathing a sigh of relief.
She winces a moment later, wondering if she's given away the badges' abilities to the non-agents.
"I mean, she's not down here with us, at least."
She glances at the statue, wondering if she can figure out who it is.
She also tries to figure out what hurt Maya, though she's happy her companion seemed to have survived the trap ... or whatever it was.
"Maybe this is where Diago is? It's ... strange," Katria murmurs. "Maybe now that we have the door open, we should go get the ax back?"
She looks around without entering, trying to make heads or tails of what's in front of her.
Katria doesn't recognize the figure in the statue. The bloody circles that hurt Maya were likely the manifestation of a minor haunt.
She looks at the concentric circles in this chamber, but the arrangement makes no sense to her. If the patterns serve a purpose, she cannot discern what it is.
"There are like the other circles, I think," she reports. "They don't seem to make any sense. I think we can go in, but carefully. Maybe those of you who don't have weapons should wait here until we're sure it's safe."
She pulls out Dignity's Barb and loads a bolt in and then will advance with the others.
”Thank you, Jowuan,” Maya says before venturing into the new room.
Maya’s eyes widen as she sees the new chamber. “This… this room,” she says to her companions, “I saw it when I touched the bloody wall with my longsword. The circles weren’t present, but there was a terrible, terrible ritual happening here. This is not a good place.”
The halfling holds on tightly to her improvised sling, placing a small stone in it should she need to fire at a moment’s notice.
She looks up at the five-foot-wide hole in the ceiling. “I wonder where that goes?”
After casting dancing lights again, Maya directs them upward toward the hole, trying to see where it leads.
Katria looks up.
"Maybe up and out?" she asks. "Though it wouldn't make sense that they wouldn't give themselves an easy way out. Perhaps there's some way up there, though."
As their investigation continues, she notes that she can leave an invisible sensor up there in case anything comes through. It won't last long, but could be useful.
The lights illuminate a small creche in the ceiling. Several scraps of paper are gathered here into what appears to be a nest for a small creature.
As you look around, a shrill voice rings out. "Humans! You dare intrude upon my underground kingdom? You are interrupting my important research into the will of the circles!" The echoing chamber makes it impossible to pinpoint the source of the voice. "Do you not know who I am? I am Dagio the Great! Hierophant of the Arc! Archduke of Tangencies! The Beginning and the End!" The voice continues listing self-aggrandizing titles.
Maya looks around the area, trying to ascertain Dagio’s location. It’s no use, the chamber makes it impossible.
Once Dagio has listed out more than enough titles for Maya’s tastes, she shouts, “Excuse me, O Dagio the Great! We would like to have a word with you. I don’t know what you mean by ‘the will of the circles,’ so maybe we should have a chat about that, too.”
"It is true, Dagio, we have heard many reports of your greatness and wish to learn about the Will of the Circles ourselves!"
"Oh, ho! I see what you're after," Dagio says. "You have come to steal my secrets! The secrets that I have spent centuries unraveling. Well, I will not give them up so easily, not when immortality is so close to my grasp. On my authority, I sentence you to death. Now, my loyal subjects. KILL!!!"
And with that, hundreds of rats begin rushing out of hidden cubbies within the descending tiers of the chamber. Two squirming, roiling masses of squeaking rodents draw closer, teeth flashing and claws scratching everything in their path!
The duelist grits his teeth, falcata held firmly in front of him.
"There's so many of them...", he mumbles. "I was never trained for this."
Bernal takes a deep breath in and looks over his shoulder at his teammates. "Anyone has any advice as to how to overcome a swarm of rats? I doubt my dueling tactics will work."
The rats surge forward, moving to envelop you. Bernal swings his falcata defensively, scoring one good hit than slices up several of the chittering creatures. But a moment later they are all over you, biting, scratching, and making you very uncomfortable!
Maya winces as the rats crawl all over her, but she manages to keep what she ate at the gala in her stomach. She had tried to be reasonable with this Dagio fellow. No more pleasant words. It's time to end the rat's threat.
Liam moves out of the swarm, drawing his Morningstar, and strikes to crush as many rats as possible.
Bernal exhales sharply through his nostrils as he slices up a few of the rats, an early life in the gutters of some backwater Taldan town protecting him from the rats' squirming and chittering.
HP 16/17; 5 nonlethal
AC 15, touch 12, flat-footed 13, CMD 13
Fort +4, Ref +2, Will +3
Inspiration (Knowledge/Linguistics/Spellcraft checks): 0/3
Mental Focus: 7; Abjuration [0/1]; Divination [2/2]; Enchantment [4/4]
Resonant powers (+1 Perception; +2 Charisma checks)
Spells/day: 1st [][][]
Effects:
"You can --" Katria starts to answer Bernal, before the rats suddenly crawling all over her make her shudder and start to heave.
Doritan barely notices the rats- he's dealt with worse, after all, but chops down at them, trying to scare them off as much as kill some of them.
"Ew! Ew! Disgusting!" Malphene wails as she stomps and kicks at the rats, moving away from the dirty rodents. Liam manages to smash several with his mace, but Doritan doesn't land a good hit.
The disembodied voice chants arcane syllables, and a sizzling arrow made of acid streaks down from the ceiling to strike Liam in the gut! As its invisibility drops, you can see now a rodent of unusual size clinging to the ceiling, its fur emblazoned with tiny circles. A wand is strapped to its back and a ring encircles one paw.
"Don't you see your struggles are useless?" Dagio shouts from on high. "I have pierced the veil to see the truth. Circles within circles! None but I know the glory of the immaculate circumference!"
Maya decides it's time to finally put her unique brand of bardic performance to use. This Dagio deserves a piece of her mind after sending swarms of rats after them.
"Hey Dagio!" Maya shouts up at the over-sized rodent. "You really are the best, you know? No one could possibly draw such massive circles better than you. They're just sooo perfect and pretty. And your jewelry, it's something to behold. Simply perfect."
While Maya's comments have the facade of compliments, they're clearly hyperbole and intended to hurt rather than help the rat's confidence.
After beginning her litany, Maya takes a step out of the rat swarm.
HP 16/17; 5 nonlethal
AC 15, touch 12, flat-footed 13, CMD 13
Fort +4, Ref +2, Will +3
Inspiration (Knowledge/Linguistics/Spellcraft checks): 0/3
Mental Focus: 7; Abjuration [0/1]; Divination [2/2]; Enchantment [4/4]
Resonant powers (+1 Perception; +2 Charisma checks)
Spells/day: 1st [x][][]
Effects:
Clutching her stomach, Katria retreats, hoping the rats won't follow.
"Someone take care of the mad rat", Bernal says, not taking his eyes off the swarm. He steps away from the mass of rodents, slashing at them and making hissing noises to try and scare away as many of them as possible.
,
Bernal's initial chop falls short, but as the rats surge towards him, Doritan, and Malphene, each takes an opportunistic attack that hits home. Dozens of rats die from falcata, axe, and high heels, and the few remaining members of the swarm disperse and seek shelter in the cubbies. The other swarm moves to engulf Liam and Maya, and while each of them manages a good attack of opportunity, the remaining rats continue to bite and scratch them!
Liam staggers out of the swarm. Between the ongoing acid, the rat bites, and whatever spell Dagio flings next, he considers that the end may be near.
I know many die a martyr's death in your service, Milani, but... rats? If it is your will.
He tries to rally his comrades. Liam straightens up and begins using Sermonic Performance (round 1 of 7). His voice is loud, clear, and confident.
"We came in PEACE and you chose BLOOD. Have at you, Dagio!"
Doritan steps forward as the first swarm disperses, swinging his axe again at the remaining rats.
They need to hire an exterminator down here. he thinks to himself
Liam's sermonizing inspires Doritan and Malphene as they chop and kick at the remaining rats. They manage to stay enough of them to disperse the second swarm, leaving only Dagio as a threat.
"How dare you insult my noble personage so!" Dagio exclaims in response to Maya's haranguing. "The cycle of your death begins anon!" He casts a spell, sending two circular missiles streaking into the halfling's chest. The acid continues to burn Liam before finally fading away.
Maya grits her teeth from the biting of the rats. They’re more of a minor nuisance than a real threat.
Dagio’s missiles, however, prove to be Maya’s bane. Perhaps she shouldn’t have taunted him so, but she doesn’t regret doing so even as she falls to the ground unconscious.
Thankfully, she manages to stabilize with some time to spare.