Andros moves over to the hidden doorway and activates the catch.
Laurelin dutifully and quietly follows. "Hope our luck holds out."
Tavius smiles. A simple skeleton. A big one, but not strong. Vulnerable to bludgeoning damage. Or being used as one. "Thank you for providing me a weapon."
Andros and Laurelin discover a wood paneled hallway with two identical doors to the South. From the door to the west, they can hear the sound of something enormous crashing to the ground.
Jovich moves into the room
He scans the room before moving any where. Looking at the floor, ceiling, walls, and the Skulls.
If all appear to be safe he moves to the closest doors.
Andros quickly, though cautiously, makes his way to the southern doorway and opens it.
Kjell waits for any input for a time, and then shrugs and trudges into the mossy room. He makes for the closest door he can see, and once again puts his shoulder to it, taking time to smash it down.
Troubled by Tavius throwing his minion around, the mummified caster turns to face Tavius. His eye sockets and mouth begin to smoke and fume, and pungent white smoke fills the space between the mummy and Tavius.
Andros and Jovich find themselves right next to each other, though they may not both realize it. The door between this room and the room with Tavius is locked.
On the floor of this room is a wooden inlaid labyrinth something like this. The whole thing glows with magical power.
Andros tries the door, "Blast. It's locked."
He studies the pattern on the floor, trying to determine if it's a puzzle.
Across many worlds and many faiths, labyrinths are used as meditation tools, as symbolic journeys through spiritual realms. Perhaps this inlay can lead to contemplation and knowledge. Of course, it could just as easily be a trap.
He smiles as he steps forward, "Oh, I've willingly exposed myself to worse than this." He raises his hands, and once more the troll skeleton bashes into him.
"Umm... Tavius said this one" Andros indicates the ring with the red gem, "Absorbs and redirects force energy, and I don't know what the other one does. If you need it, you can have one of my kukris. I'm really best with four, but I can make do with one if you need to be armed." He hands out one of the curved blades to Laurelin.
"I, uh, don't know how to use that kind of knife."
The troll skeleton is smashed to loose bones against the defense of the mummy.
Kjell waits for any input for a time, and then shrugs and trudges into the mossy room. He makes for the closest door he can see, and once again puts his shoulder to it, taking time to smash it down.
The Mummy grows frustrated with Tavius and these interlopers. He stretches a finger toward Tavius, "Enough of this, for a moment, this was amusing, but only for a moment." A ray of crackling black energy leaps from his outstretched hand.
As the mummy casts, Tavius strikes.
He then retaliates with a full array of strikes.
Andros looks at the labyrinth on the floor, and, on an impulse, decides to follow it, attempting to make his way to the center.
Tavius eviscerates the mummy. Well, he would, but the mummy's viscera have been transplanted into jars, so it is all just resin dust. Regardless, the mummy explodes into dust as Tavius rips it apart.
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As Andros walks, he finds that the room is growing foggy and the pattern in the floor seems to shift. For a moment, he is lost in the pattern as though it were a Mandala or something, but he finds that he is able to maintain his control and continue walking along the pattern of the Labyrinth. He has a sense that there is a secret here that is just out of his grasp.
Andros shakes his head to steady himself for a moment, "Whoa.... that was weird. What just happened? Maybe I should leave this for later. I wonder what's over there?"
He walks to the far corner of the room, looking at what seems to be a passageway of some sort.
Tavius will listen at the doors next to the mummy, and then check to see if he has anything useful.
Tavius can hear the alien talking to himself, but not a sound from Jovich or Laurelin, I'm guessing.
Kjell manages to bash his door down, and I'm guessing Tavius can hear that as a pounding far away.
Laurelin continues to follow her companion very quietly.
Andros hears the pounding coming from ahead of him, and goes down the hallway, opening the door in front of him with his weapons still at the ready.
Tavius will call out loudly, He expects that if there are other enemies, they'll find him, but so will the allies. He will stand in the center of the room and prepare himself.
Andros pauses as he's about to go through the door. He's pretty sure he heard his name coming from somewhere. He turns around, and heads to the other side of the room, then, after pounding on the door, calls out, "Is that someone? Tavius? The door's locked, and I think you might be better equipped to open it than I am." He then steps back, preparing for the door to splinter open.
"Please step aside."
Tavius will begin tearing the door apart. A steel door will take about 2 rounds, 1 for a wood.
The witch points to the secret door she found and asks Kjell whish way he prefers. Either way she backs the bloodrager up and encourages them to move quickly to try to find the others.
Jovich, in room 11, finds himself in a wood paneled room. Where Andros sees an inlay labyrinth on the floor, Jovich sees a spiral pattern created by wooden poles that protrude from the floor. Each pole is maybe 2 inches in diameter and 4 feet tall. Atop each pole is a humanoid skull. The skulls don't respond to your presence in any way.
Druhir and Kjell find another wood paneled room, this one devoid of mold. There is a strange skeleton on the floor, crucified in a sort of Vitruvian man pose. The vaguely humanoid creature was about 3 feet tall, but with arms that give it a wingspan of about 6 feet. Directly over the skeleton there is a hole in the ceiling that leads to a vertical stone shaft about 2 feet square and reaching up into darkness.
The secret door in the Northeast corner is a panel about 2 feet off of the ground and only 2 feet tall. It is currently hanging open into the room.
Kjell grunts as he looks at the strange skeleton, but he doesn't interact with it more than stepping around. "Big door, or the little one? I do not like small spaces, but I think I can fit."
Give me one moment to look things over Kjell. There might be a clue about which way to go.
Maintaining or recasting Detect Magic Druhir surveys the room.
Druhir thinks the skeleton might be some sort of choker? Not exactly like something she has seen, but it resembles that.
The skeleton is acting as a sort of ward, anchoring a Forbiddance effect on the shaft, keeping out anything that isn't Lawful Evil.
As Tavius steps through the ruined door, Andros gives him a nod in greeting.
"Umm... So, I found this on the other crypt thing. Any idea what it is?" He holds out a simple mithral ring.
"Also, now that the three of us are back together, should we find the others first or destroy the last Crypt Thing? There might still be useful items on it, and it looks like our captors planted them here with the gear we need. Did you find anything on the spellcaster?" the alien looks through the door at the mangled remains of the creature Tavius eviscerated.
"The mummy had nothing. Which at least means we wouldn't have to clean it off from their foul disease." He says as he examines the ring.
He will slip the ring on. "It should be just a gesture like this." and with that a gleaming disc of slightly bluish force appears. "It's the equivalent of a full sized shield, simply much more convenient." He'll take it off and offer it back, to either of them.
"Given that it has taken some time, I suspect we should kill it before it arrives. I expect that it's teleport will only affect those in the room with it. How about I break the ice with you two in the next room? then if I disappear or tell you I've broken through you can come up. I think I almost avoided it last time. What say you?"
"I'm... not sure I understand. Do you want to face that thing alone? Because the more of us there are, the better chance we have of killing it again before it can do anything. Hmmm... would moving it be possible, or might it disrupt the enchantment? If we could set it in a position where we were directly across from each other, we could easily flank it."
Andros shakes his head at the ring, "I'm not very good with shields, and hopefully I find a couple more kukris before long. For now, a free fist would be more valuable than a shield to me."
"Maybe I can slip past that skeleton, sneak around, see what I can find."
"If we all get scattered, that doesn't help us. If only I get scattered, they you two can finish it. It looks like we don't go far, and I may find the others." He seems confident. "It will only be for a moment."
"Hmph. Then let's crawl." With that, Kjell moves to the secret panel, hanging ajar, and clambers inside, scrambling forward as quickly as he can.
Kjell, that skeleton is some sort of guardian. I think we must defeat it before we go through the small door. Let us not wait for it to act. Crush it if you can. She will try to target the thing with her evil eye hex, lowering its AC.
Kjell nods at Druhir and cracks his knuckles. Once she says to go, he leaps forward and brings his foot down in a powerful stomp on the thing's skull.
Kjell crushes the skull of the skeleton. From the shaft over his head comes a loud keening, and some pebbles fall from the shaft, bouncing across the wooden floor.
Andros returns to the hallway, allowing Tavius the time to get by and try to destroy the skeleton.
Tavius will enter and begin chipping away at the ice.
Once it triggers off, he'll call the others in.
Through the small door Kjell, quickly Druhir will follow the bloodrager through the door.
"Right." Kjell moves to the small panel and clambers inside, skittering forward as quickly as he can on all fours.
"All together again," says Laurelin wryly.