Grit studies the Murals and then the doors. Realizing that they might need the key again he looks more closely at the door then came through.
Sensing something about the door he bids Chech-Ka and the other Tari good by. Thank you for your help Chech-Ka, We will not forget the Tari and their aid.
He places his hand on a panel and concentrates on the key.
Safia looks around at the murals tracing them and making mental note of when an important figure died, <<How long ago do you think this happened?>> She wanted to know if there still was a chance that memories of the events remained in the Grey. Powerful people hung on to theirs longer so maybe there was a small chance.
<<I am unsure.>>
The kreen clicks its mandibles despondently.
<<We should continue>>
-Posted with Wayfinder
Having bid farewell to the tari and retrieved the iron key, Grit inserts it into the western door, which slowly grinds open to reveal a narrow passage that extends about 20 feet to the west before opening into another, oval-shaped room.
The walls in the far chamber are covered in stylized diagrams and ancient, flowing script.
Carved marble statues depicting female figures stand at opposite ends of the room. To the north, a blind-folded woman holds a sword and shield. To the south, a woman with a skeletal face carries a two-handed scythe.
To the west, another black door is carved with the likeness of the three-eyed man. It appears the iron key will fit this door, as well.
Grit will again recover the key once the party is in the new room. These statues, are they suppose to represent deities?
Raun lumbers to her feat as the way back closes behind them, tucking away the scraps and a sharp stone she'd being using to scratch at them with. She eyes the closed door warily, before slinking after the others. She wanders up to the statue with the scythe, giving it a poke and general examination as she waits for the others to finish staring at the walls, proceeding to the other after a time.
Bored, Raun pokes the skull-faced statue.
The statue pokes back, brushing the half-giant back with the haft of its scythe as it drops into a defensive position, its movements accompanied by the crack and pop of splitting stone.
To the north, the other statue raises its shield and points its sword at the rest of the party as both statues intone:
"Erantzun galdera hau: Non datza nire maitea?"
The words are unintelligible, but as the statues speak you "hear" their voices speaking directly into your mind, as well, in words you immediately understand.
<<Answer this question: Where lies my beloved?>>
Raun stumbles back a step in surprise as the statue starts to move. She'd been half expecting the statues to do something, but moving and speaking hadn't been it. As soon as she recovers her balance from the shove she mirrors the statue, shifting her earthbreaker from a one-handed grip to two, and hunching down, ready to swing. She glares at the scythe wielding construct, for a few moments before risking a glance over her shoulder at the others. She seems to want to say something, but keeps quiet, erring on the side of caution.
The kreen is likely near where the staff was or toward the entrance to this room.
"<<who was your beloved?>>"
-Posted with Wayfinder
Safia was slow to follow the others. Once she saw the statue of the woman with the skeletal face however she was stunned. Somehow she felt a connection with the woman depicted in the statue. She had no clue why or who the woman was, she just knew that somehow.
She reaches out, ignoring the riddle posed, <<No need to be so defensive, we are kindred spirits, you and I. Let us talk.>> Only then did she realise she was probably talking to some magical alarm system, but she did not care.
Unfazed by Safia’s appeal, the scythe-wielding statue takes a step off its pedestal.
“Hori ez da erantzun bat,” the statues intone. <<That is not an answer.>>
Both statues raise their weapons, on the verge of attacking.
” Galdetu berriro egingo dut: Non datza nire maitea?” <<I will ask once more: Where lies my beloved?”
Raun's grip on her hammer turns white as the statue in front of her steps down of it's pedestal. She casts a quick gaze at the others, silently urging them to some up with something, before turning back to the statue, meeting it's stony gaze with her own. If they were smart enough to talk like the kreen and move around, then maybe...
Grit will respond both verbally and mentally as he raises his shield and readies to defend himself. <In the ground?>
Both statues turn to Grit as the mul relays his answer.
"Ez duzu hemen sartzen dira," they say in unison, raising their weapons to attack. <<You do not belong here.>>
Seeing that this is likely going to come down to a fight, and not wanting to damage his bladed weapons, Grit casts Shillelagh onto his club, and steps back 5' drawing the now enchanted weapon. He gets his Tigone to also step back 5; and ready to attack should the statue move to attack the group.
Finally! As Grit steps up and offers his answer and the statues pull back for their attacks Raun is already swinging, lashing out at the scythe wielding statue with a mighty blow. She has yet to lose her temper however, and perhaps because, or even despite that, her swing proves particularly clumsy, passing well wide of the mark...
Nnn'tkklik'l will focus his mind, envisioning his clutchmates covered in a chitinous carapace, buffering their precious blood from the blades of their foes.
Safia sighs audibly when the statues move to attack, releasing a puff of grey smoke. With it her form changed, shrinking to that of a Tari. Then she took a single step back, away from the scythe.
<<How are we supposed to know where your beloved is when you didn't even introduce yourself and thus we don't know you you are?>> Gorkhan sighs draws his weapon and readies to attack if one of the statues comes close, but waits to see if he can later take advantage of better positioning. <<I guess next time we shouldn't touch anything before reading the label...>>
The sword-wielding statue to the north advances, following Grit and his tigone as they retreat. Unable to reach the mul, it swipes instead at his companion, but the agile cat evades the blow.
To the south, the skull-faced statue ducks under Raun's clumsy blow, advancing as she brings her scythe around in a sweeping strike. The curved, ivory blade of the weapon slashes into the half-giant's thigh, shattering the carapace raised by Nnn'tkklik'l's power.
The tigome full attacks the northern statue.
Grit, now adjacent to the southern statue (I believe) attacks it with his enchanted club using power attack.
Nnn'tkklik'l, as before, raises another ectoplasmic carapace, this time replacing the one that shattered from Raun, and raising one on Grit and Tigone. (4 PP cost)
The savage attack from the statue is enough to send Raun into a rage despite the lack of real damage done. She looks quickly around the small room but can see no significant advantage available to her, and so simply hammers at the statue in inarticulate rage.
Grit's tigone howls in frustration as it claws connect with the sword-wielding statue but fail to penetrate its thick, stony skin.
The mul's own attack is more effective, smashing into the statue with an audible "crack." But even as the blow pulverizes a chunk of the statue's stony flesh, the shock of the blow causes a deep crack to appear in the enchanted club.
Raun's attack on the scythe-wielding statue has a similar effect. The crushing blow from her hammer sends chunks of marble flying, but results in a dangerously large crack in the head of her weapon.
The stone figure's counter-attack is equally brutal. The sword-wielding statue to the north slashes at Grit's tigone, slicing through a portion of the ectoplasmic carapace raised by the thri-kreen.
To the south, the skull-faced statue appears oblivious to Raun's glaring as well as the psychic storm the half-giant generates. The statue again slashes Raun with her marble scythe, almost cutting through the half-giant's psionic protection.
The kreen will try to bring one of the giants into the collective. Will DC 17 negates.
Grit calls out Focus your attacks on one target and I can only reach this one.
Grit calls for his Togone to to take the total defense action this round as he attacks the creature he hit last round, hoping to end it before his club breaks.
Raun glares at first her hammer, then the statue, then Grit, adding a sneer at his advice. She drops the badly damaged hammer, and completely ignores Grit's advice as she reaches behind her, taking a morningstar in a two-handed grip, and bringing it down upon the creature.
Seeing the lack of success her friends are having Safia tries a different approach. With as little as a though her small hands twist into vicious looking claws.
She then skitters behind the statue before lashing out.
From her sport behind the statue Safia lashes out once more, throwing herself in to it.
Gorkhan moves along the wall and around the pillar to end up flanking the northern statue with Raun.
Reaching out with his consciousness, Nnn'tkklik'l finds no life force within the statues that he can pull into the collective.
Others in the group, meanwhile, focus on obliterating whatever kind of animating energy is statue's may contain.
Bringing his club down in another echoing blow, Grit pulverizes one shoulder of the southern statue, sending a spider web of cracks through its torso. Creeping behind in her clawed, tari form, Safia reaches up to tear the statue's skull-like head from its shoulders.
Swiveling in place, Raun redirects her attack to the statue to the north, smashing into it with her morningstar.
Sliding up behind the slow-moving statue, Gorkhan hacks at it with his enchanted blade, sending chunks of marble flying.
Ignoring the man hacking at its back, the statue levels a thrust at Raun, carving a shallow groove in the half-giant's thigh.
Gorkhan glances down at his unharmed blade and over to Raun's damaged one before shrugging and taking another swing at the statue.
Raun continues her assault upon the remaining statue, bellowing her rage.
Grit also continues his attack while the tigone continues to defend.
With everyone focusing on the lone remaining statue, the fight only lasts a few seconds.
Chopping into the statue's hip, Gorkhan shoulders the statue into the path of Raun's crushing morningstar, which pulverizes the statue's head and sends its cracked remains to the ground. Grit moves up, ready to attack, but there's nothing left to target as the statue crumbles into dust.
The statue's longsword is all that is left behind, although it loses its stony appearance and is revealed to be a well-made blade of gray iron. To the south, the skull-faced statue also has been reduced to dust, but its vicious scythe has retained its marble-like blade.
The scythe appears to be magical.
Seeing that no one is seriously hurt, you gather up the weapons and move to the west door, which opens as the others did when the iron key is inserted.
Map
Beyond is a room with roughly-carved walls that appear to have been left unfinished - perhaps meant as a future canvas for carvings like those in the chambers to the east. At the far end, a massive marble archway leads into a smaller chamber dominated by a simple stone sarcophagus. A carving of a female warrior adorns the lid of the sarcophagus. In the corner of the room, a barred stone portal is set in the floor.
<<I know her! She was ... the Seeker. We were the same, somehow. I remember standing in a courtyard, under a stormy sky. There was crashing, a battle perhaps. It was so long ago ...>>
Raun looks down at the crumbled remains of the statue, frowning at them, and her now damaged weapons. The second blow hadn't seemed to make the crack any worse. Maybe it was just the initial impact? The issue fades from the half-giant's mind as an increasingly familiar lethargy overtakes her, the weight of the morningstar pulling it to the ground, Raun letting it slide through her hands to tumble to the floor as she catches her breath.
She eventually returns the morningstar to her weapon bundle and frowns at her earthbreaker, looking to Grit; he seemed the most likely to be able to do something about it. "Can you fix?" she asks, waving the heavy hammer in his direction, following him into the proceeding rooms.
She grunts when she notices the sarcophagus. "Statues' beloved." she mutters. she'd been almost right then, just the wrong direction... "Want me to open?"
Grit can indeed repair the weapons with his mending spell (I think Mending does it anyway). He will cast Detect Magic, examining the weapons and the sarcophagus.