Jasper's mighty blow sends the skeleton flying apart.
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With the last skeleton scattered, Tabitha nearly trips over herself to make sure there are no more arising around her. With not seeing anymore, she puts her hand upon the wound and checks her allies. "Is everyone alright? That... That was scary..."
She walks over to one of the fractured skulls and kicks it. "Evil undead creature... I- I am definitely ready to get out of this cave and find Master Khonnir." She looks at the skull with a frown and a furrowed brow. Deciding quickly, she kicks at the skull once more and barely connects to send it flying about four feet.
Dejah sighed softly for she had been of little use during the fight with the skeletons. Fighting was not her strength but she would do what she could to aid her companions. She had suffered for her efforts - Dejah could still feel the claws as they had raked her skin; especially the deep cut she was given across her stomach. Looking to Kadosh, she said quietly to the shaman, "I thank you for the healing. If you did not have the forethought earlier, I surely would have fallen from their multiple attacks."
Dejah watched as Tabitha kicked at one of the skulls and then again - clearly upset by the ambush. The Changeling wondered if the skeletons would reanimate even after the males of her party and Malin of course had tore them asunder. Is there magic, here? Dejah cast Detect Magic over the area with the skeleton bones.
As she watched and noted, she said quietly to her companions, "There is a strong lingering aura of necromantic magic on the skeletons. It does not seem to be abating. Be careful." She fell silent and her mind pondered what/why this could be ...
Jasper rolls his shoulders and pats Malin firmly on her side to show his appreciation of her battle prowess. Looking at the others he says Perhaps we should continue, battles are not exactly quiet and we may have attracted attention.
"Some of us have incurred minor wounds." the android notes. "Attending to those wounds before proceeding would be prudent, if we have the means."
"Of course," Kadosh says, shrugging off Dejah's thanks. "The spirits have granted me their favor and through them I can help others.
"That's more than any machine can do!" he finishes triumphantly.
"Who else is hurt? I can see if the spirits will heal them. Otherwise, Jasper is right. We should be moving on. There's a path there; let's follow it!"
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Tabitha checks the wound that she was pressing her hand against. Looks like it stopped bleeding, but still a bit painful. She thinks and then sighs. Turning to Kadosh, she has a pensive look about her. "I am still a bit hurt, but... It does not bother me greatly." She shakes her head and there is a bashful look upon her face. "Thank you Kadosh. Tabi.... I don't know what would I have done with faced with such horrors while in such pain. But your spiritual allies saw fit to help, and you helped me refocus myself."
Looking back at the skull she kicked, she nods. "I agree. I do not wish to be around these bone fragments any longer."
"My own wounds are fully healed", she answered Kadosh.
"A powerful Undead reanimated these skeletons. If we can find this creature, we should destroy before it gets another opportunity to reanimate its lesser brethren." Dejah added upon her final inspection of the skeleton bones.
Upon Jasper's remark they should continue on in case they had attracted the unwanted kind of attention, Dejah nodded. "Aye, once all are hale, let us move on, along the path." She had attempted to move toward the path earlier when the skeletons had come forth and attacked them. I hope we are able to move farther along this time, she mused silently, her keen gaze surveying the area.
The atmosphere is eerily silent as the party gathers their bearings and begins walking down the dirt trail anew. No breeze follows them, no noise issues from the sand dunes around them... everything seems peaceful for now.
The sheer expanse of the desert eventually gives way to another rock wall on the eastern side of the dome. Following it leads the party to another cavern hewn into the rock face--this one with strange drawings surrounding it.
The drawings are of the four-armed creatures you saw before--these ones, however, seem to be depicted as living beings. One of them is being struck by a bolt of lightning as its comrades look on in surprise & fear. A soft teal glow is coming from the cavern's northern wall... but no light source is readily apparent.
Dejah's curiosity with the drawings made her pause to study them a little more closely.
She cast Detect Magic on the northern wall.
"This is madness," Kadosh grumbles as they walk. If you want desert, just go to the desert. This shouldn't be underground!"
As they arrive at the wall, his eyes light up upon seeing the drawings.
"Now, this makes sense. Early storytelling of some sort... Though this looks pretty primitive to me."
"You working assumption is that it was always desert. Perhaps that is not the case." the android comments to Kadosh.
"Perhaps the ideogram is a warning to dangers that lie ahead?" it hypothesizes. Triax scans the way ahead and cautiously begins to move down the hallway.
These creatures have never been sighted in deserts from elsewhere on Golarion--you suspect that they come from a different plane, or even another world entirely.
The entrance to the cavern appears to be free of hazards, as far as you can tell. However, once you reach the strange teal glow, you notice that the cavern just... ends. There's a solid rock wall right next to the glow.
"The way seems to end here."
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Tabitha peers at the pictographs a while before coming to the realization of what those skeletons once were. "Hmmm.... Hmm.... Hm? " She exclaims. Looking at the others, she sees their probable confusion and becomes embarrassed. Now quieted down, she continues. "Er... Kasatha are a weird people. Their bodies are well suited for desert environments. Able to leap great distance as well." She ponders slightly. "...I haven't seen nor even heard of them before coming to Torch and reading about them in one of Master Khonnir's journals. They are clearly other planar or possibly even other worldly."
With her explanation over, Tabitha follows where Triax went when he mention that the cavern ended. "No way... The trail leads to here. Why would it end now..." She looks around the cavern, feeling disappointed that they might not find Khonnir this time either.
Upon Tabitha's words, she placed the knowledge of the Kasatha in her memory in case she had to recall the creatures later on.
She moved to stand beside Triax and peered into the cavern.
"I did not discern any magic from the cavern", Dejah quietly relayed.
She cast Sift to determine if there were any secret doors or hidden features around/on the northern wall of the cavern (in and around the vicinity of the soft teal glow).
You think you can make out an outline of a circular door beyond it...
"I can make out an outline of a circular door. There's an opening behind the rock wall", she quietly informed her companions.
"As I said, if you want a desert, go to the desert. Whatever this is, it's not meant to be here," Kadosh says emphatically, as Dejah discovers the door.
"Let's get out of this place..."
He strides toward the door and tries to open it.
As Kadosh strides towards the wall, it flickers before his eyes, and he passes right through it. It seems to be an illusion born of technology, not magic.
The circular door takes some work to open, but the shaman is able to roll it to the side to reveal the room beyond. This metal room is brightly lit by glowing panels in the ceiling above. To the left and right, complex machines consisting of spiral tubes & nozzles twitch & hum.
The machinery in here is letting off blue sparks intermittently, seeming to grow in intensity every few seconds. There is a door leading to the rooms beyond across from the entrance.
"Looks dangers... Maybe you can talk to it and get it to play nice?" Kadosh says to Triax, waving toward the open panel in the wall.
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Tabitha grins as it is shown that the path continues on. But when Kadosh said that the route is dangerous, she begins to worry. "Dangerous? How so?" She walks forward into the cavern and wonders what it could be.
When she sees the room, she looks around. Including the panel that Kadosh pointed out.
Seeing how it may be malfuctioning, Tabitha places her backpack onto the floor. She then pulls out the brown e-pick and the the masterwork thieves tools from the bag. She then turns to the open panel and begins to examine and possibly turn the room off. She nods. "Lets just look at this a little bit..."
As Tabitha tinkers with the panel, the lights in the room dim briefly and the sparks briefly stop flying. It appears she's on the right track so far...
Kadosh harumphs, crossing his arms as he waits for the inevitable technological disaster to strike.
He backs up a step.
Jasper looks at the panel as well.
Tabitha is able to power the machines in the room down, for now.
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With the room dimmed and powered down, Tabitha nods. "I think that did it..." She puts the tools back into the bag and hefts it up onto her back. "Um... But I don't know how long it will be like this. So lets hurry before it comes back on."
She takes a deep breath, and takes a tentative first few steps into the room. Looking back, she smiles nervously before she turns back and heads to the doors on the far side.
Dejah seeing Tabitha now had the door well in hand, quietly stated her desire to return to town. "It appears my skills and talents are not required in this expedition, and I do not possess great fighting prowess to aid you well, so I will return to town and my home and continue with my own duties/tasks. I wish you all well. May you find Master Khonnir and the mystery behind the extinguished torch."
With that the Changeling Archaeologist turned and set herself along the path and back toward the cavern with the water that led topside. She retraced her steps, cautiously and diligently, having travelled along the path twice now. When she reached the water's edge, Dejah looked for threats within and then waded in, pike still in one hand, and began her swim upward and out.
With Dejah's departure, the party continues onward, opening up the circular doorway into the rooms beyond.
The walls of this corridor are a tarnished white, with stray bits of sparking metal sticking out of the ceiling and floor in places. What little light there is in the corridor comes from the lights in the room prior. The corridor turns to the right after about twenty feet and briefly heads to the right before continuing to a pair of closed, handle-less double doors at the end--one to the north and one to the east, both of which have wall-mounted boxes with slots next to them. A pair of double doors is at the end of the corridor before it turns to the right, and next to it is a wall-mounted box with a slot on one side.
Triax nods, apparently ambivalent to Dejah's departure. "I do not reach the same conclusion as you Mistress Simin, but your destiny is your own."
Without pause it turns to Tabitha. "That was most adroit. I am impressed by your mastery of technology, Mistress Flynn."
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Tabitha is taken a it off guard by Dejah's choice to depart, that she isn't sure what to say. "Alright. But please be safe Dejah. Thank you for helping us in getting this far at least." She looks rather deep in thought as the rest of the group continues in their delve of the strange caverns.
When Triax complimented her on her mechanical skills, it takes a while for Tabitha to reply. "... Thank you for the compliment Triax. Tabi-I just learned from what I read, and what Master Khonnir taught me." With that, she draws her club and casts a spell on it to make it glow.
With club in hand, she holds it aloft while she walks down the corridor to the corner and checks out the area.
HP 12/15(NL0)
AC 16, touch 12, flat-footed 16
Fort +1, Ref +2, Will +3
CMB: +2, CMD: 14
Cantrips: acid splash, detect magic, light, prestidigitation
1st: air bubble[x], shield[x], shield[]
Hand of the Apprentice: 2/7
Arcane Bond: 0/1
Current Effects: Mage Armor +4 AC
The corridor gradually becomes more cluttered with rubble as Tabitha advances. The area seems clear so far, but there's a strange aura of unease in the air.
The air seems to get colder as Tabitha moves forward before she stops at the first set of double doors.
Kadosh's jaw drops as Dejah leaves abruptly.
"Well! Fierce women often have their own plans, I've found," he says, before moving on with the rest of the group.
"This chill? Could it be more of that mold? It doesn't seem natural..."
"This cold isn't natural," Kadosh grouses. "Mold would be fine, but this is like the chill of the grave. I think something is buried down here. Probably whatever animated those skeletons..."
Triax frowns and shifts its blade to the ready.
"Is there any specific action you would suggest in light of this information? And please, allow me to take the lead." the android notes as he presses into the room and readies to open the door upon assent fromt he others.
"Be ready for something dead," Kadosh growls.
He hefts his own morningstar, ready to bash whatever may come.
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Definitely not natural" Tabitha says, as a cloud of breath escapes her mouth.
She digs into her pockets and pulls out the brown keycard that was found before and looks at the little boxes next to the door. "Looks like these keys fit the boxes." She turns to the group and holds her glowing club above her. "I think we should prepare ourselves outside the doorway before opening it, what do you guys think?"
Kadosh hefts his morningstar.
"I think I'm as prepared as I need to be," he says with a grin.
He starts to gesture for Tabitha to open the door when there's suddenly a furious chittering from his pack.
"Wait, what? I ... Oh, yes, I suppose that makes sense," he grumbles to the angry armadillo that's poked its head out and is seemingly complaining furiously.
He turns back to the others: "I do have a spell that could let me detect if there's some undead in there..."
Without waiting further, he pulls a small creature's skull out from one of his many pouches and holds it up to his forehead, swiping it across his closed eyes as he calls out to the spirits.