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As Brady stops to work on the door, Dale gets curious and has a look at the fountain "I've always heard that fountains in old mystical temples can have magical powers... I wonder if it is indeed the case? Tad my good grippli, would you check to see if it has such powers?"
Dale takes a look and sniffs and checks the water through his trained alchemist's eyes.
As Faliana starts to apologize Dale waves her off "Don't you worry about my feelings, I'm fine. Fritannia is a bitter old woman that hates men, you don't need to apologize for her feelings on the matter." And he returns to his analysis.
Brady, moves quickly down the hallway to the first door on the left, Faliana, and then most of the others following behind. You don't immediately realize Dale has gotten himself distracted again and is no longer behind you.
Brady tries to push the door open, but fails to get enough leverage... it doesn't help that Faliana assistance seems to get more in the way then help the endeavor... Even after Drusilla moves in to help out, the door refuses to budge.
You step a little too close to it on the way by, and even though you do not look, or even glance that way, you suddenly feel a malign force trying to invade his head!
With a great force of will, you manage to push it out, and step further from the crack, before it can really get a hold of you!
It takes a couple more tries, before your combined forces are finally able to push the heavy door open wide enough to allow entry to the room beyond.
The camp dishes laying forgotten nearby seem to imply that the archaeologists have been using it freely... so probably not poisonous. Unless its a more subtle or longer lasting toxin, of course...
As you study it closely, you realize that it far too clear, not even the dust of time has touched it, nor any moss or algae built up over the millennia.
Along the edge of the fountain are murals, depicting cyclopes drinking from water with their hands... that imagery continuing along the edge of the basin and onto the wall on both sides, eventually stopping at the larger carving overhead of the cyclops breaking from of the grasping tentacles.
On the far side of the door, once you finally get it to swing inwards, is a crypt of some sort. The walls feature more stylized mosaics, and there is a large slab in the northern end, with some smaller shelving above it along the western wall.
With his divination spell, Tad will notice, after a few rounds, that the water in the fountain has a moderate magical aura to it... though he does not have the arcane training to determine anything more than that.
Interestingly, the fountain itself does not have an aura of any sort, only the water in it.
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Faliana smiles at Dales words. "Thanks. I know she can be bitter, so thank you for putting up with her."
Faliana extends an arm out before anyone moves into the crypt. "Let's check and make sure there's no malignant magic in here before we go in blindly." She takes a moment to close her eyes and focus her thoughts, shaping her emotion and straching her thoughts into the shape needed to sense the presence of magic, and then washes the room with her magically charged gaze.
__________
Nothing happens to Tad, as he drinks from the fountain, other then having his parched throat eased by the cool crisp water.
Her arcane knowledge and more mundane senses are not able to determine more than that from the doorway.
Nothing horrible happens, otherwise.
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Monty yelps as the others are investigating the hall, and bounds over, whipping his staff around and glaring in the direction of the crack.
Guuuuuys... we're gonna wanna hurry this up... that THING apparently doesn't need you to look in to snag you! Thing just gave my mind a good goosing!
He backs away slowly, pointing his fingers to his eyes, then to the crack, then giving a rather rude gesture to it.... just in case whatever is there can tell.
I do NOT like things monkeying about with my mind! I'm the only one who gets to monkey with my mind!
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Faliana nods to everyone after a few seconds, letting go of the spell and pointing a far corner. "There's something on the shelf to the back there, but otherwise I don't sense any magic. But be careful still, that spell wouldn't be able to find a haunt if there is one."
As Monty comes bounding over, Faliana throws caution to the wind, rushing into the room, picking up whatever seemed to ping her senses and running out. "OK. Out of the sight of that thing, and NOW!"
If whatever is on the other side of the crack is still able to target you with spells through it, you would probably have to be pretty close to the crack to do so!
You think that, as long as you're not adjacent to the crack, you'll probably be ok... probably... probably not the sort of thing you want to test too rigorously right now.
Faliana ducks quickly into the tomb, ignoring everything else, to hurry to the back corner and snatch up the item she was detecting with her divination. It is covered in dust, so would not have been immediately obvious, but once she knows where it is, finding it is easy enough.
She quickly moves further down the hallway, out of sight of the crack, before looking at what she holds in her hand.
It appears to be a mask, if a somewhat large one, though it only sports one eye hole. It takes a moment to brush the centuries of dust off it, but once she does, she can see that it seems to be made of interlocked scales of some kind, with a leather strap that wraps around the head to secure it in place.
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Brady looks at the mask that Faliana brought out with interest. "These scales..."
"Everything we're seeing in this place is telling the story of some kind of eternal conflict between the cyclops and some kind of serpent creature... like what's behind that crack."
He points to the eyehole in the mask. "One eye, and made of scales. Who wants to bet this was made to protect a cyclops from that serpent-thing's mind effect!"
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Dale starts rattling off questions to Tad after he drinks the water and reveals there is a magical aura "What color? How strong? What school? Does the water make you feel different? Queasy? Full? Hungry? Gassy? Angry? Tired? Weakened? Alert? Depressed? Happy?" His questions continue to run the gamet as they walk back to see what the others have gotten in to.
Dale's eyes go wide and he quickly pushes his hair back out of the way as he comes in view of the mask "Hot damn! Where'd you guys get that thing? Is it magical? Can I take a look at it? I bet its very old, I wonder what sort of scales these are... dragon maybe? Hydra or Snake?"
He nods along excitedly at Brady's hypothesis. "We could test that! I volunteer!" He reaches his hands out for the mask like a kid trying to get a lolly pop.
But the feeling quickly fades, and you realize it wasn't that bad at all. In fact, it was actually kind of nice.
You can't wait to meet the creature inside!
Tad and Dale rejoin the others, and Dale's attention is immediately focused on the strange cyclops mask that Faliana found.
Dale will not be able to identify what sort of creature the scales came from, though based on their size, it was probably quite large. Many of them have small runes and images etched on them... though more a style choice, then anything else.
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Faliana gladly hands over the mask to Dale when he comes closer. "Here, maybe you can find out what it does!"
She then gives Brady a smile. "That'd be wonderful, especially ass I have no idea how we are going to handle Mr. snake-thing to grab those two other discs."
She gives Tad a worried look as he mentions being magical now. "Well, you aren't dying so that's a good sign. Here let me take a look." The medium then retunes her magical senses to the small grippli to reconfirm that he is indeed magical.
Confirming (or possibly denying) Tad's claims, Faliana tells hima bout her discovery and gives s shrug over what it might actually be. She then turns and decides to press on with the exploaration fo the ruins. Starting with the door infront of her.
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Faliana will be able to confirm that Tad does indeed have some sort of magical effect on him! In fact, once she spends a few rounds studying him, she will realize that he has not one, but two! Both of them faint, but clear.
Unable to determine any more than that, she then turns to the next door in line, quickly joined by Brady and Dru. Between the three of them, they manage to push it open with a couple of concerted efforts.
The room beyond is much like the previous one, a tomb of some sort, though this one does not look like it was ever used. The slab at the back empty, and no shelves on the wall.
Under your light though, you can see that the millennia of dust was clearly disturbed recently. It is not difficult to track the fact that someone came in, walked over to the slab, and removed something from it. All you see now is a circular void where it must have once rested, about fourteen inches across.
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"Hrm, look at that. A missing disc right?" Dale pulls out his yellow wood club to get a rough measurement to compare to the other discs.
"Arletta, do you know if anyone from your party came in here? Or is there something else sneaking around here maybe?" Dale checks the prints to see if they are bipedal humanoid or something else.
The size of the void in the dust is a match for the two discs you've examined, though which one was here, you're not sure. Arletta did mention that they had found one over on this side, though not which or where exactly.
The tracks on the floor do look like human-sized footprints, coming in and out... though there are perhaps a few snake trails as well, wending their way through the dust.
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Faliana eyes widen as she gets the results from her divination. "Wow, not only one effect but two! That must be some interesting water... Are you sure that the water's fine? If you start fe3eling odd let us know, okay?"
Inside the room, Faliana gives it quick sweep with her eyes. As she sees Dale move in, she decides to check the magical conditions of the room, giving it a mental sweep.
When she hears Tad's comments, gives a nod. "Oh, so that's what was in here. Dang, I hope we can find soemthing useful in these rooms. So far it's been a mask and a now empty space."
Faliana pushes onto the next room, taking up a palce at the door and deciding to let Brady take the lead with opening it as she can't seem to not get the leverage or something right.
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Faliana will detect no unusual magical auras in the empty crypt. Nor do the tracks lead anywhere obvious once they exit the room as following them at that point becomes extremely difficult... though there are not a lot of options, and you suspect Tad is probably correct.
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Monty thinks when Falina mentions that Tad has a new aura on him.
I think we all should drink from the water. Everything here seems to have been designed for assisting the Cyclops in dealing with whatever is behind that door. The mask, powder on the orb, and now magical water? Seems like a good idea to me.
He'll take a sip of it as well. When they move on to the next door, Monty gets off his lazy keaster and helps.
well, he tries to. He apparently just can't get a good grip on those doors.
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As Monty heads off to have a drink of water Dale shifts an eye in his direction, curious to see if the water will have a visible effect on someone not of Grippli biology.
Dale continues checking out the mask as the others work on opening the door. He doesn't even feign interest in the hard labor of pushing on the giant stone slab. I hope they get that open soon, I can only look over this mask for so long before its obvious I've already covered it all!
,
Monty goes back down the hallway, intent on drinking from the fountain as the others head to the last doorway.
Like before, through sheer force of will, you are able to pull yourself away from it before it takes hold!
But as soon as you do, you feel it trying again, and you are forced to back away from the corner entirely.
Perhaps the fountain can wait...
He barely reaches the end of the hallway, before you hear a startled yelp, and he's backing back towards you.
Clearly, whatever is on the far side of that crack is not done yet, and Monty stepped too close once again!
Whatever is there though, you seem to be fine where you are, so eventually turn back to the door.
Tad says a quick blessing over Brady, before you move to push on the barrier. Monty seems too rattled by his recent experience to be much help, but the rest are able to push the door open without too much difficulty.
As the lights from those in front pierce the darkness, you find yourselves looking into a wide room with large alcoves on either end. Much like the previous two crypts, but larger. Before you have time to take it all in though, you see slithering movement in the shadows, and realize that there are a number of very large snakes hissing aggressively!
Two of them are already far too close, as a fanged mouth darts out sinking its bite into Faliana's arm as she recovers her balance from pushing the door open.
Almost immediately, she feels the burn of poisonous venom coursing through her veins from where its fangs sank in!
It is only then you start to realize there are actually only a couple of creatures here, but each with more then one head, making it look like there were more at first glance. They are not ordinary snakes, by any means, both of them with large angry fanged heads on either end of a thick, sinuous snake body.
- Round 1 ---------
blue serpentine creature
Dale, Monty, Tade, Dru, Brady (-10), Faliana (-3, poisoned) <-------- We are here!
red serpentine creature
Party is up!
Unfortunately, he has only heard mention of them, he does not know anything else... though his mind ponders exactly how it works, biologically speaking...
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Faliana gives a jump as the snakes across the room can be seen behind the opening doors. Panicking and trying to keep ahold on Fritannia and her knee-jerk reaction, Faliana completely misses the other snakes until they snake into view and latch onto her arm. With a sharp intake of breath the two women scream from the shock and pain. Taking her right hand they immediately start smacking the head of the snake, trying to get it to come off. Their voices mingling the two start to curse the snake.
Dru's words draw helps to unsynchronize the two and remind them of the bigger picture. Reasserting control, Faliana gives a nod, "Sounds good Dru, I'd rather not be near that snake thing if I can help it."
Taking a step back she draws her longspear with a small twirling flourish before shooting it forward and trying to land it into the side of the creature.
After finally giving the thing a good look she glances at Dale. "These wouldn't happen to be more hydras again, would they?"
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why this obsession with many-headed things, in this part of the world? Too much heads can be a bad thing for your health... Here, I said it. I had this dirty joke in store since the hydra.
For all her bravado and foul mouthery, Dru seems a little bit hesitant, after her near death experience with the hydra.
But she nevertheless takes the frontline.
You can feel still fear, even after countless battles, especially when encountering a foe you know can best you.
But you do your best to overcome that fear, and you hold your ground to protect the others.
Dale lobs one of his bombs over the heads of his companions towards the two-headed snake at the back of the crypt. Luckily, the ceilings and doorways are sized for giants, so he has room to throw. Still, he just barely manages to connect. The snake writhes away from the flame, though too slowly to avoid getting badly burned!
Dru steps back, to give Faliana room to retreat, and the medium takes the opportunity while simultaneously attacking with her longspear. Her arm burning from the venom, she doesn't get as solid a grip on her spear as she'd want, and fails to penetrate the serpent's scaly hide, but it does give Dru enough of an opening to move into the space, her armor and shield set to deflect the creatures' fangs.
While Monty resists his normal urges to leap into the fray, and instead works to help keep their fangs off of Dru, Brady hands a healing wand back to Tad, who immediately uses it to heal the worst of Brady's wounds... and just in time too, as the second snake, both heads hissing angrily from the flames, moves forwards with a strange sideways winding motion. The lead head, lashes out with unnerving speed that Brady only just manages to avoid as the venom-dripping fangs snap closed where his face was only moments before.
The second amphisbaena seems to have focused its attention on Drusilla, both sets of fangs snapping at her, but both of them deflected easily by her defenses.
- Round 2 ---------
blue amphisbaena
Dale, Monty, Tade, Dru, Brady (-3), Faliana (-3) <-------- We are here!
red amphisbaena (-10)
Party is up!
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After doing some quick calculations in his head, Dale takes a step closer to the fray and pulls out a vial of light green liquid from his bandoleer. He gazes into it, swirls it around and smiles, before lobbing it over the fray to 'hopefully' land just behind the two snakes.
"Heads down, acid away!" He chuckles as the vial turns end over end, tumbling into the room.
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Faliana takes a moment to center her breathing, trying to recall the fighting style she saw when she visited the Linnorm Kingdoms a long time ago and the interesting way they fought with spears.
After a second, she gets a spark of inspiration. Calling out, she warns Brady, "Brady! coking in from behind on your left! Don't worry I think I have this in hand!" before striking out at the snake thing in front of the half=orc.
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Dale lobs a second missile over the others, this time a small vial of acid, not even trying to hit the snakes, but to splash them both with the caustic liquid. Neither seems immune to the effects, as the acid burns them both lightly... though it mostly seems to anger them further.
Dru and Brady continue to fend off the twin sets of fangs from the two amphisbaena's, both of them able to keep them at bay, but at the cost of their accuracy, as neither can land a solid shot on the snakes in turn.
Faliana, from the back row, has better luck, as she calls on some previous training to line up a thrust just over Brady's shoulder, scoring a long gash along the serpent's thick scaly hide!
Tad finishes healing up the last of Brady's lingering wounds, before turning back to the combat itself.
- Round 3 ---------
blue amphisbaena (-5)
Dale, Monty, Tade, Dru, Brady, Faliana (-3) <-------- We are here!
red amphisbaena (-25)
Party is up!