Halsere slides the staff into the right hand.
Thyra will read the inscription and grumble a bit at it, "Ai don't like this, he'sa Vamp, right? What if this "Life" is a Vamp Life"
Spidre, accompanied by his spider, hisses at the statue.
Halsere slides the Staff of Life into the grip of the statue's right hand. Much to everyone's surprise, it vanishes into thin air. However, at the same moment, a large gemstone appears upon the open palm of the statue's left hand.
The gemstone is a whopping four inches across in a generally square shape, and about two inches thick. It's blood red, its color swirling about like red clouds inside it. Every now and then, you can almost make out the image of a skull amid the shifting crimson hues.
Pietro nudges Spidre toward it.
Thyra, watching what happens intently, "Ai urge caution. . ."
If no one will grab Thyra will brave it and pick up the gem.
Spidre commands his spider to crawl onto the gem.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Spidre's spider crawls up the statue to the gem. It obeys the command to crawl directly onto the gem itself, but does so hesitantly, and keeps picking up the ends of its legs in a sort of "I don't like touching this icky thing" dance. Despite its obvious discomfort, it appears unharmed.
Halsere casts detect magic as a ritual and then tries to determine what this thing does.
"Anyone want to give me any odds that we've found the Death Gem? Let's hope we don't need the staff to find it's partner."
Thyra, isn't necessarily scared for the first time in her life but this is the closest thing to fear she has felt, however she will put on a brave face.
"Its justa gem, can't be that bad!"
Thyra will reach forward and grab the gem, she likely has leather gloves will lobster-plate mail gauntlets so it shouldn't be touching her bare skin.
Thyra retrieves the Death Gem, and seems to suffer no harm from it, though she can clearly feel its foul necromantic energy. Now all you have to do is find and acquire the Diamond, then get out alive and take both artifacts to the Order to have them neutralized.
Opening the other door, you find stairs that take you downward, lower than you've yet been. At the bottom of the stairs, you find yourselves at the corner of two wide passageways: one runs northward from where you're standing, and the other eastward. Each is about 15ft wide and at least a hundred feet long.
Looking down the length of the northward hallway, you see that the eastern wall of the passage is punctuated irregularly with junctions to other passageways, while the western wall is smooth and unbroken. Similarly, looking down the eastward hallway, the northern wall of the passage opens into multiple other paths while the southern wall is unbroken.
You also note that the stonework here is of a purplish marble rather than more "common" stone.
"What do you think? Head along the north wall to the end? We should be ready for attack from all directions."
Thyra will look at the routes open to them and then count the members of the party, "Lookins like we could split up and covah more ground" She'll heft her battleaxe and prepare herself.
"Splitting up sounds like a recipe for disaster in a maze. I think the navigation here should be left to the wizard, but perhaps I can offer some guidance from Njord."
Thyra will nod, "Ailright, strength in numbars"
While the others talk, Spidre's spider crawls along the wall ahead. Spidre nods to the others, waiting for Halsere to take the lead and keeping his spider at least 10 feet in front of the wizard's chosen direction.
Halsere begins cautiously advancing northward into the maze, aided by Pietro's blessings, and with the Spidre spider 10ft ahead of him.
Halsere proceeds slowly and thoughtfully. For the first few minutes, very little actual travel is made, but he looks around corners and down hallways, learning as much of the maze as he can before inevitably wandering into a teleporter.
To nobody's surprise, eventually the coal mine canary spider vanishes ahead of you, revealing a teleporter.
Your familiar reports danger!
You react quickly, and get your familiar out of there.
After the spider disappears, Spidre suddenly flinches, and in a few seconds his familiar has reappeared at his side.
Thyra will look to Spidre and nod at Pietro and then charge through the teleporter, axe at the ready for whatever is on the other side.
Spidre, accompanied by his spider, jumps through next to Thyra.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Pietro will follow close behind Spidre.
Mirrel follows the others.
You all head into the teleporter, ready to take on whatever danger lies beyond!
You appear in a 15ft by 15ft alcove on the side of a passageway that runs to your left and right. The passageway is 15ft wide (for a total of 30ft between the back wall of your alcove and the far wall of the passageway).
In the passageway stand two bugbears, a human cleric and a half-elf mage, all lined up like they had been patrolling single-file before seeing you all appear next to them. The group attacks!
Itching for a fight, Pietro casts a spell to summon the spirits of the great warrior priests of Njord before him, then sets himself to guard his allies.
Halsere casts hold person on one of the bugbears. Wisdom Save DC 15
Pietro summons some ghostvikings and advances on the enemy, while Halsere tries to freeze one in place!
The bugbear goes rigid!
The mage starts to move, then winces and slumps to the ground.
Mirrel sneers at the bugbear on the right, infusing an insult with magical power.
Spidre calls forth an icy hand to rip away the lifeforce of the bugbear.
,
Spidre and Mirrel launch magical assaults against the bugbear!
The non-paralyzed bugbear winces in pain, then steps forward to try and break Pietro's concentration:
,
He can't land a blow!
Other bugbear:
Thyra will move forward into a position that lets her attack the Non-Paralyzed bugbear, while continuing to defend Pietro's concentration.
Cutting viciously into the bugbear, she'll shout at her foes.
"Ya wont be tha ones ta defeat us, betta surrenda!"
Thyra, remembering her greater capability will swing at the Cleric as well.
Thyra is a fury of steel, first finishing off the bugbear and then felling the cleric in a single strike!
-Posted with Wayfinder
Foregoing the obviously-worthless bugbear cudgels and such, you quickly gather up a couple of coin purses (later counted to contain 23.7gp), an arcane focus (crystal, if it matters), and an unusually nice-looking sling.
You resume your explorations with a bit of a hustle, and quickly discover that you're in an entirely different part of the maze, with no idea of your position relative to where you started. Halsere will just have to hold both areas' layouts in his mind and attempt to connect them later.
A couple of minutes into your exploration you go through another teleporter (into a swarm of dire rats, who keel over pretty much instantaneously), which seems to perhaps frustrate Halsere and throw him off his game a little, as his leading is a bit less methodical this time and you backtrack more than once.
With about a minute left of ghostvikings, you come around a corner and...
...watch 6 dire rats and 2 carrion crawlers plunge into death throes.
Pietro's spell runs out, and you continue exploring.
Halsere continues to struggle, especially after a teleporter drops you within sight of where you entered the maze. However, knowledge of the maze is itself progress, and soon you are back into its depths. Spidre's spider scouts another teleporter...
...and reports danger. Spidre attempts to get his familiar out...
...and manages to retrieve it before it's killed.
You all dive through the teleporter, only to discover yet another group of vile vermin, looking at you hungrily!
The six big rats surge forward, mindlessly biting at you!
,
,
,
,
,
,
The trio is injured!
Pietro fires one of his lesser spells at a rat attacking the wizard.
A rat is obliterated!
Thyra will strike two rats down viciously,
"Vile vermin!"
Halsere puts 3 magic missles into one of the crawlers.
MM
Thyra pulverizes two of the rats, and Halsere injures one of the bugs!