"...Uh , without being able to shoot fire form our hands?"
Kaelaah, his flames still pouring heat into the room, smiles at Oliver...
Oliver's question nags at her as she laughs Sal's and Kaede's comments about her. After a moment, the word dummy in bright pink letters and an arrow pointing to her appears above her head as she covers her face with her hand.
"This would have been much easier with silver," she grumbles.
The only outward sign of emotion from Kaelaah could be read from his flames which, now more for light than they are for heat, skitter nervously along his wrists... whether it is the uncertainty of what lies below, or maybe the fact that Sister Amet'Ra is here - and maybe observing the shoanti - is impossible to tell... but the tall, crimson-haired man is unusually unsettled...
With a fairly minimal amount of healing, the large group presses on. Tera and Sal lead the way down to the lower level, across the door covering the trap in the hallway, and to the unopened door just south of where they battled Nualia. The door opens into a vaguely L-shaped chamber that spans roughly twenty-five wide and deep, with the south-east corner missing . To the east, a niche contains tens of thousands of gold pieces in neatly stacked pillars from floor to ceiling, although a cursory examination reveals that no individual coin can be pulled out. The southern wing ends at a pair of stone doors carved with the depictions of two skeletons reaching out to clutch a skull between them.
The stone doors show no sign of being trapped, so the scouts move to the back of the formation while Kaede and Orin swing them open. Beyond lies a fifteen foot by thirty-five foot chamber with polished stone floors and a high, domed ceiling. Spaced around the exterior of the space are alcoves containing standing sarcophagi, each decorated with the image of a proud but not exactly regal man. In the center of the southern half of the chamber stands a life-sized statue of a stern man wielding a glaive in one hand and holding a book in the other.
Tera shakes her head.
"I'm not much of a student of history," she admits while giving the others an embarrassed smile before helping Sal look around the room.
Kaede taps the end of her glaive and causes it to light up in a soft white light. "Is this a tomb of some sort?" She asks as she walks into the room. "I don't think it's Lamasthan though...."
When Kaede enters, Orin moves in with her, on the lookout for dangers.
"No idea. It might be dedicated to some forgotten god. Just look at the statue there."
Sal and Tera, and Marcus set about their investigative tasks, and everyone senses a strange chill in the air. As Kaede's light spreads through the chamber there is an uncomfortable sense of movement just out of view. Suddenly that uneasiness is given form as three shadowy figures emerge from various sarcophagi!
"Shadows! Don't let them touch you! Holy power can harm them, but they just shrug off any physical attacks." Tera relays the information as she grabs one of the wands from her belt. With a single word, a bolt of arcane energy streaks forward to one of the shades.
"I guess whoever these guys are, they don't rest easy!"
"Where there is darkness... let Sarenrae shine her light!!!!"
Gouts of flame pour from Kaelaah's wrists towards the nearest of the shadows...
"I'm as clueless as you are," Zache mutters, "but those sarcophagi give me a bad feeling."
As the shadows emerge from the sarcophagi, and Tera and Salomae reveal what they know, his eyes widen as he runs through his mental checklist of gear. Realizing he has nothing much to offer in the fight, he begins, as he always does in such occasions, to speak, his voice resonant and bell-clear in the chamber.
"A darkness lurks in every ancient hall,
Kept hidden from the march of time outside," he begins, already forming the next lines in his head as the action flies before him.
Unable to damage the shadowy figures, but unwilling to retreat and let others face the danger, Orin stands his ground and tries to be spry.
As Marcus scans the new enemy, and considers his options, he ponders a strange idea.....
concentrating for a moment, Marcus shifts his lifelink to the 3 ghosts and Orin.
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Kaede pauses for only an instant when the calls for the shadows comes up. While the Tian priestess is more then willing to offer mercy to a great many foes, the restless dead fall immediately onto her 'end without hesitation' list. As she steps into a range to strike at a foe, she cries out, "菊の婦人、これらの拷問された魂を適切な休息に送る力を私に与えてください！" In response, the light from her glaive shifts from a pale white, to a more golden shade, as she welds it toward the shades.
Sister Amet'Ra looks wide-eyed at Marcus as barely discernible tendrils of green energy connecting him to his companions dissipate and new ones coalesce connecting him with the shadows. She grimaces with the realization of what the young man is doing. Desperate to intervene before the boy is seriously wounded by his brave stunt, she conjures a plum sized replica of the sun in her hand and throws it into the furthest corner of the room, where it explodes into a fire that consumes the southern half of the chamber. Kaede can't help but flinch as the flames stop mere feet from her.
The fire vanishes as quickly as it appeared, and with it the shadows that Kaelaah and Tera had damaged disappear as well. The final shadow, either undaunted by its companions fate or unaware of it, glides forward towards Sal and reaches out its inky-black ice cold hand to grab her...
,
Kaede shudders faintly at the explosion of fire in front of her for a second. Thankful that the fire ended 2 of the shades, she turns to the last one and , after charging the blade with a fragment of the power her Lady grants her, stabs at it.
Holy light shines from Tera's hand as she goes around Orin for the last of the shades. It wasn't going to get a second chance to hurt one of her friends if she could help it.
Seeing his companions attacked, Kaelaah steps into the room and, once more, surges flame at the shadows...
In a frenzy of attacks, the marked make quick work of the final shadow.
Marcus keeps scanning the room, not sure if he can trust the calm. Then quietly moves lifelink back to Orin, Kaede, Sal and Zache.
"Are you sure? You look a little pale," Tera asks.
Once she'd been assured by Sal, she resumes her looking about the room.
Oliver stands awkwardly still, essentially stunned by the speed at which the heroes dispatched this shadowy figure.
”There is no doubt in my mind that you heroes are destined
to defeat whatever evils plague this land.”
I should at least help look around
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Kaede breathes a sigh of relief as the shades fade away. She releases the enchantment on her glaive and returns to using her glaive as a light source. As the others continue to search around the tomb, the Tian priestess begins singing faintly, giving the newly returned to the dead the Eternal Rose's blessing as they start the procession in the Boneyard.
The adrenalin which had surged through Kaelaah's body during the brief struggle against the shadows is quickly subsiding now... and with it, the nimbus of flame that had wreathed his forearms reduces to a gentle flow of warm light. Almost instinctively, he moves closer to Sister Amet'Ra and watches the rest of the group as they search this accursed place.
Sister Amet'Ra forces a smile at Sal's words. "Unfortunately, I can only do that once a day... I hope that we won't come to regret having used it now," she replies.
"Hold still," she instructs Sal as the Erastilian tries to begin searching again. The priestess takes a moment to cast a longer spell and Sal feels her strength return to her. As the younger woman returns to feeling herself, she remembers discovering something just before the shadows appeared....
Sal is easily able to slide open the lid of the questionable sarcophagus. Inside there is no body, and indeed no back- instead it opens into a dark hallway, twenty-five feet long with tunnels branching off to the north at the mid-point and the end.
"perhaps I should go first." Orin suggests, "If someone behind me could provide a little light?"
Yes....perhaps you should. ...I'm sure 'Sister Amet'Ra' will save you if anything happens. ...
Tera, who'd been about to step through, allows Orin to go first while she summons some lights to lead the way. She does her best to keep an eye out for any dangers that may be lurking in the gloom.
When the others are satisfied with their search of the room, Orin cautiously proceeds.
Both passages lead down short staircases and end at what appears to be some kind of tidal pool. The farther hallway simply ends at the water's edge while the nearer opens into a small chamber, or perhaps the small area that remains of a formerly larger room. What few walls remain intact here bear detailed and impressive carvings of incredible treasuries filled to overflowing with coins, gems, jewelry, and other items of value. To the east, the walls depict a carving of a towering mountain, its peak carved in the shape of a stern face just above a great palace. Below, the side of the mountain's valley cradles an immense city of spires.
In the pool, the remains of what must have once been an incredible treasury lie in the sloshing waters. Shattered urns, crumbled stone chests, rusted bits of once-beautiful armor and weapons, and other long-ruined treasures from an ancient past lie below. Most impressive of them all is a large, coral-encrusted helmet sized for a giant; the helm measures nearly 5 feet across, and its full-face guard bears an expression of twisted rage and fangs. The helm itself appears to be made of gold.
Tera looks on the ruined treasure with forlorn eyes.
"Awwww, did seawater have to ruin all of it?"
Kaelaah stands in quiet contemplation of the scene... the wealth and treasures from a bygone age.
"We could try to get the helmet out, but I'm not sure how," Zache shrugs. "These carvings, though..." He runs a hand over the images of the spires. "Does anyone recognize this place? It looks almost dreamlike."
"No," the Osirian priestess answers, shaking her head, "but it looks like it must be very old."
As they speak, the helmet in the water seems to shift... perhaps its a trick of the gently sloshing surface, but it feels like the golden facemask has turned to more clearly see people above... it also looks like a small mound of seemingly intact coins is now protruding from one side of the helmet...
"The place doesn't look like anything that I've ever seen,"Kaede says as the group looks over the room. As the Huge Helmet turns though, Kaede jumps back a little and drops her glaive into a defensive position.
Oh! Kaede, maybe try using your glaive?"
Kaede gives Sal a concerned look before nodding. "If you think it'll do something...," she hesitantly says before stepping forward a little to attempt to poke it from as far as she can reach.
Not realizing it until Sal mentions something is amiss in the water, Oliver Jumps back at the sight of the moving helmet.
"By the Gods! What is that!?" Oliver draws his bow and aims an arrow at the oddity not really sure if it would even help.
First hellish beasts and now this? This trip is turning out to be a lot stranger than I expected"