Getting his big sword ready, Storn clanks over while the people who are good at spotting things go do that.
Slowly getting up, still a little sore from the battle. Kipa makes his way over to where the others are indicating.
"Lets take a look"
"Well, look what we have here. Lets see what we can do about that"
"That looks like that should take care of that" Kipa moves aside and lets the larger people head in first.
"It looks like it should be ok to go forward."
The secret passage does not appear to be trapped, though the water level is high enough that the halflings will have to wade in at chest level. The narrow corridor curved around the north end of the chapel and the dust on the walls and where the floor isn't covered by water show that the tunnel has lain undisturbed for many, many years. At the far end of the passage, there were three large stones. Each was nearly two feet in diameter and weighed more than anyone but Storn was able to lift.
"I have an extract to get bigger if you think that will help," Sander offers.
Storn stomps over to give the giant rocks a looksee, muttering a detect magic orison.
Storn cast his orison and then flinched back, shielding his mind at the overwhelmingly strong evocation aura. Focusing more, he could tell that the aura wasn't uniform, but blotchy, as if the insides of the stones contained different pockets of the magical energy.
Kipa slowly makes his way around, a bit stiff from the fight. He looks for anything that could stand out or be interesting.
Quill couldn't identify any specific form of applied magic, but could definitely tell that the magical aura was emanating from the rocks' interior, and that it was based on storing fire energy.
Sander backs away, more than happy to go to the other doorway.
More importantly, he wants to get out of the tunnel before Storn ignores Quill's unusually-sensible-for-the-elf advice.
"Now why would someone store stones full of fire energy down a corridor in a temple dedicated to… what was it, some evil Giant fire-god?" Molly muses out loud. "Maybe they're weapons? Like Sander's bombs, only… well... bigger?"
Carefully walking towards the rocks that Quill was pointing at. "Lets see if these are safe enough for us to be around, shall we?
"These seem safe to be around. Just be careful ok? Now, would one of you magic flingers be kind enough to look closer at them to see if we can find a way to use them later down the line?
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Quill waits well back of the stones, leaning against the wall and keeping an eye out for anyone coming in from behind.
"When you all are done there, maybe we go through that door to the east of the main chamber?" Though he cautioned for, uh, caution, Quill expects to hear explosion and the sounds of burning flesh, followed by a weak apology from Storn any minute.
That's how life works.
"If they are like my bombs, maybe we can figure out some way to use them?" Sander suggests, though he's also eager to check the other door and make sure it's safe. Or at least anything here can be safe.
Molly also was unable to determine the nature of the stones. It was a true mystery. The next room not so much a mystery, as it appeared to be the main living quarters of a giant-sized humanoid, long abandoned. The ceiling in this room remains whole, but dark mildw and splattered patterns of modl cover pretty much all of the surfaces, except the floor, which is hidden by a 4-inch deep layer of brownish sludge. The smell in here is muskier than the rest of the chapel, but not unpleasant.
At the far end of the room, next to a raised platform that could have been a bed at one time, resides another 6 stones, similar to the ones you found in the secret passage.
"The plant probably wasn't intentional. Best guess, it grew here on its own after all the Giants either buggered off or got shanked by their neighbours because they didn't like their god."
"That's possible. If it's warmer here, plants can like that," the halfling herbalist agrees with Molly.
He takes a closer look at the mold and sludge.
Looking around the room for anything interesting, be it gold, a door or what ever catches his eyes.
Sander is fairly certain that the plants and mold here are natural, and that the shelter of the temple, combined with the moisture, just encouraged massive growth. The only exception might have been that flytrap, which didn't seem natural for this part of the world.
Kipa scurries around looking for anything else of interest - big stones the size of his body apparently weren't interesting enough - and came up with a locked stone coffer. Shaking it didn't yield any telltale tinkling of coins or gems, but it was locked so that meant it had to hold something good, right?
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Kipa smiles an easy smile, approaching the locked coffer with the grace and easy of a Calistrian approaching her working corner. He ways everyone else back in case something goes wrong (which it won’t) and eyes the coffer, taking in every detail, every scratch, every piece of it, looking for something out of place or wrong.
If nothing is found, he offers a smug smile to the party as he breaks out his theiving tools, and reaches for his second favorite tool...the ol’ coffer cracker. A long thin metal wedge that was usually just right for cracking what shouldn’t be cracked.
We works carefully to open the coffer...cracking his knuckles because that’s what you do when you’re the best at such things.
Disable Device
”See? Not a problem.”
"Says the guy who didn't warn us about the great, bloody carnivorous plant," Molly grumbles under her breath.
"Well?" she asks out loud. "What's in it?"
Inside the stone coffer is a large bag. It looks like a normal bag, but why would a regular bag be locked away? The answer was revealed when Kipa crawled inside and completely disappeared. Inside, Kipa found an enormous space. The bag was empty, but could easily hold a whole house's worth of treasure.
Giant bag of holding type V
This appears to be a rugged leather sack about 4 feet by 6 feet in size. It functions exactly the same as other types of bags of holding, but weighs more and has greater weight and volume limits. Because of the larger volume of a giant-sized bag of holding, retrieving a specific item from it is always a full-round action.
Type V bag: weight 100 lbs., contents limit 2,500 lbs., contents volume limit 450 cubic ft.
Storn snaps out of whatever daze he's been in. "The stones are probably weapons. This a temple to a war God and if they kept them hidden, they are probably very powerful..."
He eyes the bag. "Maybe put them in the bag. We need weapons. Could blow up a lot of giants if we figure out how they work."
Sander badly wants to object to Storn's plan, but he has to admit the basic premise sounds promising. He's sure it will go bad in Storn's hands, but what else could work against an entire giant army.
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Quill shrugs, knowing that if Storn wants to carry a bunch of explosives on his back, he’ll let him as there isn’t much he can do to stop him.
”Yeah, brilliant plan Storn. Can’t see anything wrong will carrying a ton of exploding rocks with you.”
Quill is ready to move on, going further up the valley and always staying right.
"Gorum grant me the strength to lift heavy things for which to blow up my enemies," mutters Storn as he hoists the bag from the gropund without issue. He then stuffs the giant rocks into it and seems super pleased.
"We'll figure out a way to blow these up when some giants are around, won't we Sander?"
Storn also takes a bit to stuff his spare suit of armour into the bag, letting out a groan of relief.
"... Dibs on the opposite end of Storn in the marching order from now on!" Molly says.
"Pfft. We're out here to slay a giant king. You see a weapon, you take it and use it."
"Yeah, but you don't walk next to an alchemist fire-drinking torch-juggler with the hiccups."
Carrying the bag over to Storn, Kipa hates having to do this because more ways to carry things is always a good thing. "Hey Big Guy. This bag would help with a lot of that heavy stuff."
Looking around "Well lets head out or rest up for the night. But either way we ned to be ready for any more of these things that can pop up. " Kicking the plant "I like to eat salads, not eaten by one.
Confident that the ruined temple had been well and thoroughly searched, you discussed whether to press on or camp here for the night. Since it was only mid-afternoon, you decided to press on ahead. With Kipa stealthily scouting ahead, you resumed your exploration of the giant valley.
There were several branchings off to the left, but Quill's advice to always stay to the right led you on a long, long trek. Night came and went, this time without disturbance, and late the next morning the gully you were following narrowed significantly, creating a narrow pass that is blocked by an impressive wall that spans the entire valley. Sloppily cemented stone and timber make up the wall, which contains a large archway in the center blocked by a massive portcullis of sharpened logs bound together with thick hemp rope.
You can see two guards atop the wall, a hill giant and an ettin. Outside the gate, two enormous saber-toothed tigers prowl back and forth.
"It looks like we found it!" Sander says with a mix of excitement and disappointment and sheer terror.
"Now what do we do?" he asks, inching back in hopes the group will retreat to somewhere a little safer to plan. "One of us could maybe fly invisibly up high to scout it out..."
Storn's face splits into a huge craggy grin. "Send a scout up and let's figure out how to get past this."
"I can fly," Molly says. "Not so good with turning invisible, though."
"Here, drink this. Then drink this and spit it back out," Sander offers. [ooc]Using alchemical allocation extract to give Molly invisibility. Can also give someone else flight and invisibility in case they have a better Perception."[/b]
Im more then happy to join the fun... just need help with the fly and the invisibility and so forth. Either way, we may want to find a way to not alert these two just yet. Don't think we can take them down before they get the alarm sounded.