As Hilde futilely pounds on the solid stone door, Kit bobs and weaves his head in time with the pounding. Finally Dilwyn puts a hand on her shoulder, and suggests that another way is found. Iskender pulls out his chime of opening, and points the device at the door and raps it so a soft tone is emitted and you can hear the lock on the other side, change positions and when Hilde grabs the handle, the door opens with ease.
This octagon-shaped room has a low, 7-foot-high ceiling and a recessed alcove to the east. Along the far wall, on a pointed, three-step dais, a black stone statue of a hooded figure stands within a pristine pentagram. It clutches a black crown in one hand and a raven in the other. Perhaps more disturbing, a dancing, magical aura surrounds the figure, bathing the room in a soft, violet light, while a long tentacle protrudes from the figure’s hood where its face would normally be.
The eastern alcove floor, walls and ceiling are jet black, just like the statue.
Hilde feels revulsion in her stomach, and a cold sweat bathes her skin. For the first time she don't barge into the room, but remains on the doorframe, frozen with fear of the alien and unknown room and statue.
Kit starts to say to Hilde, After you but then he notices her frozen in place. He instead says to her quietly, I'll take the lead and takes a few steps into the room. He holds his axe in front of him and his eyes do not leave the statue.
Iskender tries to hide his discomfiture with the room and the situation. "Hmmm, yes, you go ahead and I will follow along."
Iskender will throw down with some detect magic before he enters the room though.
Dilwyn saunters into the room after Kit. He was expecting some sort of creature, or a mind-controlled person, but it many ways the silence of the bizarre statue is worse. If Iskender doesn't detect magic coming from it, he'll tap it a few times with his staff as a means of reassuring himself that it's just stone. If Iskender does detect magic, though, he'll keep his distance until they figure out what sort of magic it is. In either case he keeps an eye open for things that might be hiding in this room waiting to ambush them.
As Hilde freezes at the door, Kit looks on with sympathy and enters the room first. Everyone else follows in, but keeps near the door. Paying close attention to the statue, you are relieved to find that all of it is stone, and nothing more. As Iskender scans the room for magic he finds none, till he glances towards the southeast alcove, and he notices an old leather bag with something or somethings inside of it that are emanating a slight magical glow. As he points this out to the group, Dilwyn goes to the statue and taps it a few times, just making sure that it is only stone.
Hilde keeps at the door, looking out, like if protecting the others from an ambush, but just trying not to see the statue.
Iskender moves over and attempts to discern what exactly is magical and what it is.
Kit keeps his axe in front of him. Anyone know who..or what that's supposed to be of?
"It doesn't look familiar to me," Dilwyn says, shaking his head. "Perhaps whoever sculpted it had lost their mind? It's quite unnerving." He shudders a little, eagerly latching onto Iskender's discovery to stop thinking about the statue. "So what have we got here?" he asks, ambling over. If Iskender points out that he wasn't able to identify the magical properties, then Dilwyn will try to back him up with it by casting a detect magic of his own and making the attempt himself.
Noticing that there are magical auras in the leather pouch on the floor in the alcove, Iskender and Dilwyn head there to check it out. As they step into the alcove, they pause and stiffen for a moment.
DC 15 Will Save - Pass, nothing further happens. Fail, you are shaken for minutes.
Dilwyn freezes for a moment as the strange and bizarre images flood his mind upon stepping into the alcove. It's not any place he's seen before, and stranger skill the sky seems all wrong as well. As the vision passes from his mind, he takes a few deep breaths to steady himself and remember that it's not real, no matter how weird. He'll try to finish his attempts to identify the magic as quickly as possible, then use his staff like a hockey stick to slide the bag out of the alcove before actually touching it.
"I don't like this room," he says, wiping beads of sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. "Everything about it just wrong."
Hilde keeps outside the room, trying to thing in nice beautiful things.
Things she could kick, in the crotch if possible.
Iskender commences to become very concerned about the entire room. Is the floor falling away? Or is it coming up to crush them? Are hordes of creatures about to come in and kill them all?
He begins to curl up into a ball and whimper.
Kit still does not like the look of the statue and continues to watch it. To Dilwyn he says, I agree! Starting with that statue!
Zaladrel considers the situation wordlessly, but hesitates as he sees the normally upbeat Varisian seem to stop and curl in on himself. Moving over to Iskender the elf gently moves to lift the bard and escort him out.
Whether we can detect it or not I suspect this room has influence on us. We best move on.
Hilde sees Iskender panicking, and, making a face, sheathes her weapon and goes to him, with the purpose of carrying him, like a child, out of the room.
As Zal and Hilde pick up Iskender and leave the room, Kit will keep his axe between him and the statue and slowly back out of the room.
Dilwyn will follow, but only after taking an inventory of what's in the bag. He's not about to let a room defeat him, utterly strange and bizarre or not. They spent enough effort getting into the room in the first place, and he's not about to just let all that go to waste.
"Just a moment," he says, absentmindedly as they exit. "Almost done here."
With everyone removed from the eastern alcove, you can concentrate on identifying the magical auras contained within the leather pouch. You are able to distinguish six separate auras. Opening the pouch, you find three potions, a scroll, a jar with some liquid in it, and a magical throwing axe.
At least I nailed the roll on the axe!
As Ikender looks over the bag, Kit will mumble, I hope we got something good out of all that!
Once the items are identified (or not, depending) and distributed for safekeeping or use, Dilwyn is quite eager to move on from this bizarre room. He's once again content to bring up the rear, partially due to the fact that while the room seems to have affected them all in some manner or another, he seems to be one of those affected least, and he's not particularly troubled with having it be directly behind him.
"So far left turns haven't gone so well," he says, trying to keep the mood from becoming sour while he takes a moment to refresh the light spell on his bracelet and holds it up over his head. "How about we try taking the right-hand fork up ahead instead and see if that treats us any better?"
"The sooner we are away from here, the better."
I agree with Iskender but I think we need to check the rest. The right fork is as good as any.
potion of lesser restoration
potion of remove disease
scroll of speak with dead
universal solvent
+1 throwing axe
Between the spellcasters, you manage to identify the items that you found in the leather pouch, and distribute them as best suits the group.
Heading down the corridor, you come to the intersection. The diagonal to the north east looks like it opens into a room, while the corridor to the south goes fifty feet or so, and then turns to the west.
Hilde, still shaken by the statue, let's the others choose the way.
Dilwyn sloshes his way through the water after the others once he's safely stored some of the new gear. As they take the right-hand fork towards the corner, he'll keep looking over his shoulder periodically to make sure that something from the other direction, or the room into which it widens, isn't trying to sneak up behind them.
Hilde will go last, taking the rearguard place Dilwyn normally takes.
Dilwyn gives Hilde a quick 'are you sure?' look and then a supportive pat on the back before sloshing forward to the spot in the front that she vacated to make sure that there's still two defensive types as the group's front line. With a group made up mostly of humans, it's also probably helpful to have the light source of his bracelet lighting the way at the front of the group rather than behind.
Hilde nods, her eyes showing she is still somewhat shaken up by the statue.
Kit thinks about making a joke of going stealthily, but seeing Hilde and Iskender still shaken from their experiences in the room, Kit decided not to. He really did not feel like cracking wise either. He takes a place next to Dilwyn and proceeds in silence.
Moving down to the end of the hallway, you look west. A luminescent-green, gelatinous barrier blocks the end of the water-filled hallway here, separating it from a half-seen chamber beyond. Debris, of a type indeterminable through the translucent substance, lies scattered across the chamber’s floor.
"Huh," says Dilwyn, bringing up to a stop a 35' away from that barrier. "We should probably figure out what that is before we get closer to it. Didn't our source say Vuelib was an ooze? This might be him or it might be something related to him. Can anybody that knows anything about oozes confirm what that is? I'm gonna see if it's magic in the mean time."
Once he's finished speaking he will, as promised, cast detect magic down the corridor.
Anything I know about oozes or this thing?
Moving closer to inspect the gelatinous barrier, Iskender observes tiny black dots moving thru it.
"That is no ooze, but those tiny black dots going through it are peculiar."
Hilde looks for a rock or piece of wood she can throw down towards the creature. In a pinch a coin, and handles it to Iskender.
When you figure it out, let me know so I can whack it!Kit says holding his axe waiting in case the non-ooze oozes.
"I have a very bad feeling about this," says Dilwyn with audible trepidation. "Perhaps we should leave this alone for now and try the other direction first. Besides the clutter on the floor, it doesn't look like there's anything through there anyway."
I have to agree. Lets leave the assaulting of strange substances to our last option...