"I can move a lot, a whole lot, but that looks like it may be too much, but I'll try."
Jarha gathers kinetic energies and tests whether he is able to move the plug, although he does not actually unplug the hole even if he is able to move the plug.
Melianthe peers at the plug. "I can summon an archon on the other side of the plug...and send my familiar through first, if there's a gap Hloire can scuttle through. Perhaps there's a mechanism to open it on the other side."
Melianthe releases her scorpion on the ground near the plug, ready to scoop up her familiar should the giant mass of stone suddenly move.
Jarha strains in his attempt to move the plug. Some grit and ancient dust sifts from the seam, but the massive block remains unmoved.
Melianthe determines the seam is too tight for even a tiny animal to crawl through, but it is not air tight.
"Well, unless someone can turn themselves into air, I think we'll have to investigate the other way."
Melianthe nods. "I don't have that spell learned, unfortunately. We should proceed to the North. Abby, Segang, if you will do us the trap-checking and spear-readying honors..."
Mel moves up near the entrance and begins to scan again for magic.
"This place is probably designed as a series of tests. That plug will move once we solve something later, or it's our way out."
"I sincerely hope we don't end up on the other side of that thing fleeing for our lives from something evil that wants to eat us," Seren mutters, waiting for the others to catch up to him at the northern hall.
Segang advances north, weapon ready.
You leave the stone plug behind and continue north. The corridor passes through a small room before turning to a short flight of descending steps. It opens into a wide chamber, the walls, ceiling, and floor of which have been painted to resemble a starry sky, giving the illusion of walking through space. A ten-foot-diameter stone sphere floats five feet above the floor near the room’s southern wall. Three short metal rods protrude from the lower hemisphere, radiating outward like a tripod, only the rods rest on empty air rather than a solid surface. The sphere appears to have been carefully carved with tiny rivers, mountains, oceans, and forests.
Melianthe detects strong divination magic from the globe.
Segang studies the globe in wonder. This almost seems to represent some world.
"I wonder how it floats here ... levitation magic of some sort? Only divination magic, Mel? No transmutation?"
Seren reaches out to touch the globe and then thinks better of it, "Uhh ... Abby?" she turns to look at their resident trapspringer.
Jarha makes way for Absinthe when she approaches, but in the meantime he examines the globe for any traps or interesting details.
Absinthe finds nothing that looks like a trap.
Melianthe shrugs "Thassilonians could be using some form of undetectable magic or some device that enspells it at a distance," she says, not sounding too certain.
Seren stares at the globe, "Fascinating ..."
He runs his hands along the outside of it and along the rods.
Melianthe cringes. "I hope you aren't accidentally crushing people in Casmaron, or something."
"If it's even Golarion."
Seren feels the hair across his arm and back stand up as he runs his hand over the globe, but nothing else happens.
Seren flinches in response to Mel's assertion that she might be crushing people and then relaxes, smiling, "Divination magic ... you almost got me, Mel!"
She returns to examination of the weird thing.
While the arcanists examine the globe, Jarha walks the perimeter of the room, looking for any hidden details, such as traps or secret doors.
"Oh...yes! I am quite the joker! Ha!" says Mel, a bit too late.
"You don't suppose this was used to eye-scray on us, Seren?" says Melianthe in her best pig-Draconic.
"Maybe, but who? Who enters this place? Would Captain Smells Like Herd Animals over there know?"
Segang stands ready with his earthbreaker in case a threat materializes.
"Undead Thassilonians, of course," replies Mel in Draconic.
Seren is confounded by the globe's function, but Melianthe puzzles it together.
"Ah...I've got it. You touch the globe...focus on the stars and sky...and you can view a distant place. Where do we want to look? Behind that big plug? Korvosa? Pit of Gormuz? Perhaps not that last one," says the elf.
"Korvosa ... the Castle ..." Seren speaks dreamily and touches the globe, doing as Mel directs.
"Careful--they are probably warded against scrying, and will detect us as well," says Melianthe, biting her lip. "Why not scry the rest of this puzzle-place?"
Seren touches the globe and concentrates.
Then disappears!
"You all saw that, too, right? What just happened?" Abby asks. "Sister Mel?"
"Oh blinkered lava suns!"
Mel attempts to figure out what is going on.
Mel has no idea what happened.
Jarha is dumbfounded and stares speechlessly.
Unsure what to do Segang stated the obvious No one else touch that globe
Melianthe tries to recall any sort of ancient, arcane mystery related to scrying globe-world-thingies, nodding grimly at Segang's suggeestion.
"I doubt Seren is dead; possibly transported somewhere, such as the place he chose to scry, which means he's in Korvosa. I'll spend some time working on this mystery, but eventually, we'll have to either camp or move on. I hope he can find his way back..."
"What's tricky is that this is basically the end of the line. From here we either go back up top or somehow get through the big boulder blocking the other passage. So I don't see any clear way to move on..."
More to occupy himself than with hope of success, Jarha will take 20 (for 33 perception total) searching this room and then the entire passageway outside for secret exits or missed details.
"Unless touching the globe is the way forward..."
Melianthe doesn't touch the globe.
"Or there's a secret passage somewhere," Abby suggests. "I'll check again - after we've figured out whether we can get Seren back or not."
Segang eyes the globe, then his hammer, then the gloe. It ate Seren. Perhaps if I break it open I can get him back.
"No. What if he's sealed inside it or something, and you smashing the damn thing kills him, like smashing an egg before the baby bird is ready to hatch? Hammer away from the big orb. Go stand in the corner!"
"Ahh, I don't think that sounds like a good idea. More likely it's the way forward, as Melianthe suggests. But I don't like it. Do we have any way of communicating remotely to each other if someone else were to risk touching the globe?"
Segang lowers the hammer but does not back away. Instead he bends to examine the three short metal rods closely.
This is a puzzle of some sort. If you do not like my hammer approach, perhaps I can find another.
Melianthe brings out her scorpion; the little greenish fellow waggles its pincers in a way that's rather charming. "Hloire could pass through, possibly; he does have a bit of a mind. However, I don't have a way to communicate with him once he goes--elsewhere. My empathic link with him will only relay emotions, and he's not that emotional. It has a mile distance. So, if he goes further, I'd know that much."
She lets him crawl up her greyish arm. "However, he's also my living spellbook, and I'd rather not risk that."
She ponders. "I can summon a hound archon and ask it to touch the globe. However--it cannot teleport back either. If we had a scroll of Sending, that would work."
With a pop of suddenly displaced air, Seren reappears as suddenly as he disappeared.
Seren is stunned a moment as her thoughts come back to reality. She feels an intense itching on the palms of her hands.
"Uh, hey guys. That was.. odd. I think it is way too powerful for someone like me to use. Appears to be some sort if world scrying device. And not just this world. All of them ..."
She checks the irritation on her hand as she scratches at jt.