Gazing around at the indicated artwork, Alorah shifts her gaze into the arcane spectrum.
Grey and Taedric carefully approach the arras and pull it aside. There's nothing there but a section of wall with bas relief of Iomedae in various victory poses.
But...
You can see dust shifting about on the floor. From a current of air blowing from a crack where the wall meets the floor.
Gesturing a warning to Taedric, Grey examines the crack for possible surprises...
"Everyone good? I still have a few charges of healing in a wand and a little bit of positive energy to spread around. . ."
He offered his friends sounding... undoubtedly the least stressed some of you had ever heard the young cleric.
Taedric nods and the wolf takes a step back, giving Grey a bit of space.
Sapphiria smacks her fist into her hand, draws her fingers across her mouth, and then draws her falcata again.
Grey felt around the wall next to the air current, and found a small trigger in a crevice.
Pressing it, he heard a *click*, and the wall behind him grated softly as it slowly pivoted in place, revealing a secret room!
Cautiously walking into the secret room, you all see two statues standing midway into the room facing each other.
They each depict an armored woman with her sword raised.
Numerous smashed and empty money chests sit on the floor, padlocks broken and scattered about.
The treasure room has already been looted.
Kyra looks around with a frown. "This could have done much to rally our cause and bring in fresh soldiers and equipment. These demons and their ilk truly have no equal in their avarice and ability to sniff out that which does not belong to them. We should be careful, I imagine those statues are trapped... or at least were trapped at one point."
Taedric nods, "Honestly, I'm surprised they didn't rearm whatever traps might have been here. "
"Pointless room. Let's get going."
Inside the hidden chamber, Grey finds his attention caught, not by the displays of Martial ostentation or looted wealth, but instead by an incongruity of the stonework along the Northwest wall...
His curiosity piqued, he attempts to fiddle along the length.
He paused in the room with a sigh looking over his companions. That was his duty.. his role here. He frowned as his lover lamented the greed of the demons... it was an excellent point.
Sapphiria frowns in thought for a moment, then she taps Kelden's arm to get his attention. She gestures a square shape in the air, then makes a small two-fingers-walking gesture as if to indicate someone walking into the space, then spins her hand around in a circle to indicate "jumbled up," then shrugs. Then she lifts one finger in an "ah-ha!" gesture, pantomimes placing palms against various parts of a wall and then pushing open a door, then makes the walking gesture again, followed by lifting both of her hands up, palms up, in a sort of "triumph" gesture.
He paused tilting his head as he watched the gestures coming from the mute woman.
"I believe that Sapphiria believes there is something more here? Is that correct?"
He asked her trying to make sure they were on the same chapter in the book at least
Sapphiria nods. She runs a hand along the stone walls, then bends her knees to make herself squat, and draws a hand down her chin along an imaginary beard, like a dwarf. Then she gestures around the room, pantomiming actions of mining with a pick and polishing the stonework. Then she uses one finger to draw a small line along the wall in the outline of a door. Finally, she shrugs, as if to indicate that she's not sure where to look.
Sapphiria, remembering something, gestures towards the NW corner of the false vault.
Grey, noticing something in the stone paneling, trips a cunningly hidden trigger.
A stone door moved almost silently aside, revealing the actual secret vault.
Sapphiria bounces on her toes and quietly claps her hands together a few times when the secret is revealed!
Inside the secret vault...
You see a metal rod on which hangs a magnificent banner depicting a sword before a sunburst is raised up in the hands of a statue of an armored woman against the North wall.
Just South of the statue sits a gleaming alabaster altar.
Another four statues flank the room, each wearing a real suit of metal armor, while against the South wall hangs a tattered red and gold tapestry.
You have discovered The Sword of Valor!
You detect a strong Enchantment magic coming from the Banner (power 13).
You detect a lesser Enchantment magic coming from three of the armor sets (power 3).
You detect multiple divine magic types coming from a set of mithril plate armor (power 7).
Kinda odd though, that alabaster altar should be radiating some kind of Divine aura, but it's not.
Hey, did that alabaster altar quiver for a moment? Like it was alive?
As he has found becoming more & more common of late, Grey casts inward, recognizing the 'him' which is more than him. Answering that one's challenge, Grey notes 'what doesn't fit?' here...
Gesturing peremptorily at the others as a whole, he signals that Taedric & Thrall should assume an 'at ready' position in this new chamber.
Sapphiria bows her head reverently for a moment before she makes a slow circuit around the room to see the museum-quality display of the special collection on display here, stopping by the hanging tapestry with the sunburst.
At the sight of Grey's preoccupation, Thrall sniffs the air around and looks everywhere in search of a potential danger.
He's not as discreet, though...
"Hey! That damned thing just moved!" he says, pointing at the altar.
He was pleasently surprised at the hidden hidden door to a secret stash, even more so when they discovered their reason for even being here. His eyes wandered along the armor next... it all looked pristine and amazing... He wondered if it were magical.. it had t be magical right?
Eyes glowing as she peers into the magical spectrum, Alorah gasps in awe as she takes in the power of the banner, and the assorted armor, grasping the significance of their find.
At Thrall's exclamation she turns to face the altar, drawing her mace, warily.
Kyra shares a smile with Kelden as the room exposes its secrets, but before she could rejoice much more Thrall shouts out a warning. She quickly turns towards the altar with Dancing Phoenix drawn and ready to engage with any threat that presents itself.
Taedric nods at Grey's motion and then sighs, No room for a charge, not with everyone in the way..., and instead carefully slides Radiance from its scabbard.
Alorah moves into the chamber, her eyes still shifted to view magic.
"There's definitely magic in the altar as well as all the armors....though that one, and the banner are by far the strongest." Alorah says, pointing to the plate armor with the stronger emanation while shielding her eyes somewhat from the brilliance of it's magical glow.
As she studies the items, she lets out a gasp as her mind awakens in a rush of understanding, peering beyond the surface to perceive the very building blocks of the powerful magic woven into each item, bringing with it a complete understanding of the purpose and use of each.
The altar suddenly deformed into a rubbery creature that opened it's toothy maw and lashed out with a thick slime covered tongue!
for a possible damage, and automatic grapple by the adhesive slime. It starts pulling you into it's toothy maw!
Round 2 __________________
Players take their turn in order of posting, enemies will go last.
Except for one. That armor blazes with multiple magic effects of divine enchantments! The Armor of the Pious.
This gold-plated +1 mithral full plate armor has images of Iomedae’s symbol etched into its immaculately gleaming surface. The armor requires 24 hours to attune itself to the wearer and her patron deity, after which point the images on the armor shift to match the symbol of the wearer’s patron deity (or remain associated with Iomedae if the wearer doesn’t worship a deity). Thereafter, once per day the armor’s wearer can offer a prayer to her deity (or Iomedae) as a swift action to increase the armor’s enhancement bonus to +2 for 10 rounds. For this duration, the armor also grants a +2 sacred bonus on saving throws. A paladin wearing armor of the pious can use her lay on hands ability one additional time per day; a mythic paladin wearing armor of the pious also gains one additional use of mythic power per day. An evil character who wears armor of the pious gains 2 negative levels. These negative levels remain as long as the armor is worn and disappear when the armor is removed—they never become permanent but can’t be overcome in any way as long as the armor is worn.
But beyond that... your eyes dart to the banner of the Sword of Valor! And your heart darkens. No matter how you look at it, this magic banner, blazing with enchantment, just cannot believe this thing is an artifact that can block demons from teleporting for a 50 mile radius. It's some kind of fake.
Taedric blinks at the sudden shift, but then asks the wolf to step forward, bringing the blade in his hands to bear.
for
for
Aghast at this turn of events, Grey dashes past Thrall, nimbly avoiding the creatures tentacles as well. Once he has closed with the aberrant assailant, Grey slashes
As she takes in the wealth of information from the magically imbued items, Alorah's reverie is broken by the altar coming to life and attempting to devour Grey. With an arcane gesture and quickly shouted invocation, the divine sorceress sends a barrage of spiraling shards of pure force slamming into the creature, unerringly avoiding Grey as she does.
"light! What is that thing?"
The cleric called out pulling out his crossbow and taking quick aim shooting at the alter
As the alter bursts forth with teeth towards Thrall, Kyra quickly adopts her dervish stance before tearing through the small room towards the monster. Two blindingly fast blade strikes cut into the flanks of the monster.
"Aha!"
Glad that what he had glimpsed turned out being real, Thrall steps forward with the intention to split the strange creature with his sword. However, he reacts too slow and ends up entangled in the sticky tongue of the monster.
Desperate and roaring, Thrall tries to break out of the hold.
Multiple weapon attacks strike deeply into the Feindish Mimic, getting stuck on the cement like adhesive, but as the thing is about to suck Thrall into its toothy interior, a mythic magic missile blows it apart.
There is nothing left of it except spattered lumps all over the room and a slowly twitching tongue glued to Thrall.
The battle is over.
As the malevolent box begins to putresce & deliquesce beside him, Grey looks up at the focus of their delve. Turning back to face the other others, he mimes pulling it down, rolling it up & slinking off to return back to their basecamp before shrugging as if presenting one of several options & hoping for other opinions.
Taedric pulls Radiance free of the mimic, then looks for something to use to wipe the strange ichor-goo from the blade.
"We should head back. The armor is all magical (I can go into more detail later), but there;s something off about the banner... almost as if it's a fake somehow." Alorah says with a puzzled frown.
Taedric says, "Do we think it's corrupted somehow? Or is it a decoy? If it's that, we need to find the real one."
Sapphiria points to the corpse of the mimic, then points to the flag with a shrug.