Anzath ties her end of the rope around her waist, believing fullheartedly that Bedlam is holding the other end securely. She stands on against the pit wall opposite the button, getting ready to push the button with the pole.
Bedlam does indeed see that the door is something to be careful about, though he can't quite tell why.
Anzath: let me know if you're gonna press the button.
Pointing at the evil wood door, the dwarf asks Tragershen.
Dere be sumting off 'bout dis door. Any magicks?
Brand has been traveling along toward the back of the party, rather quite other than his random intuition spotting a trap or two. He now stands at the edge of the pit, holding Anzath's crowbar, and strangely seems to be a bit wet. No one is sure why...
Brand looks down at Anzath as she calls out her warning. With a chuckle, he calls back, "I'd rather be 'oldin' yers!"
At Bedlam's prompt, Tragershen casts detect magic on the door, button, then the room in general.
Aurora is content to leave this busywork to the trapping folks, observing with one arm folded over her midsection.
So dat'z vhy de halfling haz been staying in de back...
...is probably the last thought to go through Anzath's mind.
Tragershen: the door has magic on it. The magic fluctuates when...
...an enormous stone slides out of the ceiling and crashes down on Anzath in the hole.
Anzath is suddenly crushed almost to the floor. Thankfully, there's enough solid stuff in the pit to arrest the sudden descent of the enormous stone. Cold comfort, though, since she's probably only got a couple minutes of air to breathe, and is pinned down so that her salvation will have to come from the people above.
How are you going to raise a 10 ft enormous square of stone? At least it has a sufficiently heavy chain connecting it to the roof.
Bedlam begins taking out his Blasting Jelly.
Do anyone be having Resistance Fire potion or spell fer her?
Anzath hears something fall from the ceiling and has just enough time to hit the deck. She’s lucky the stone block didn’t fall on her head, but she’s pretty sure she’s got a broken rib or two. She cries out to let her comrades know she’s still alive, for now. They can probably hear it muffled through the slab on top of her.
"The chain connecting it to the roof may help. That is probably how the trap resets. Brand, can you figure how to make it reset now?"
"Perhaps opening the magic door will cause the stone to rise?"
"Perhaps if we put a lever through that chain, we can raise it. We would just need a fulcrum." Knowledge (engineering)
The sudden crashing of the massive stone causes the cleric to lurch a step back in surprise, eyes widened in surprise at the (perhaps not entirely unexpected) turn of events. Alas, poor Anzath, we hardly knew thee.
She looks to Bedlam and shakes her head, "I could beseech the All-Seeing Eye for such a spell, but I would need to touch our new friend to place the spell on her... which I cannot currently manage. But, if there is another useful spell, perhaps I could try..." Aurora brings a hand to her chin, walking as close to the edge of the pit and staring down it as she contemplated, pale brows furrowing. "And it looks like the slab has fallen rather solidly, I don't think there's enough of a gap to get the ring through to her, but... if there is..."
Another shake of her head. "I think Tragershen's idea to try and reset the trap is likely our best bet, unless you truly have a great deal of that... substance... and the confidence that the detonation will not simply kill her in another way."
"And it looks like the slab has fallen rather solidly, I don't think there's enough of a gap to get the ring through to her, but... if there is..."
While the stone was clearly cut to fit snugly into the pit trap, centuries of impacts have left its edges cracked. Some of these cracks go clear down to the bottom...
As for Tragershen's attempted engineering, he sees that the mechanism must be inside the roof, behind heavy stone. He also realizes that a lever would have to be both incredibly strong and probably longer than the available space...
Bedlam continues to prepare his Blasting Jelly.
"While a trap reset is logical, it is not a practical option in the time that Anzath has likely available. Thus, the blasting jelly."
And with that, Talathel logically withdraws to a safe distance, preferably behind a pillar or wall.
Tragershen will cast detect magic on the door again, concentrating on it to determine the type of magic it bears.
The door has conjuration magic on it.
Bedlam absently fishes out the Curse-Ring. The dwarf (still prepping) holds it out.
Tragershen, would you Mage Hand, or similarly handy spell this down ta our drow.
Tragershen says "Yes, a prestidigitation should handle that." But he moves away from the pit, towards the magic door. "The door contains conjuration magic, the same magic that fuels unseen servants and teleportation. It may be what removes the stone."
With that, he jerks open the magical door.
Oddly enough, nothing happens. It's almost as if the trap was supposed to be triggered by someone trying the door, instead of someone crawling into a pit and pressing a random button...
Instead Tragershen finds himself in a mysterious room filled with those flowing lines of light that shine off of pools of water--there is a pool, and the light is shining from an object that appears to be several feet below the surface. It is a golden skull with red gems instead of eyes.
As the others above try different things to save her ass, Anzath tries to save her own. She inches her fingers toward the collapsable pole to try to grab it and maneuver it to push the gargoyle button again.
Once Anzath gets the ring, Bedlam will start the count down to blasting the bouldee....
Tragershen grimaces when the door opening doesn't make the block retract. He races back and casts a spell to slip the ring down to Anzath. Once he gets it down below the block, he slowly moves it around under the block until he feels something actively take it from his magical grasp.
Anzath's collapsible pole was struck by a ten-by-ten block of stone that currently has smushed her below the level of the button, which itself is covered by the stone. The pole is wedged underneath her, but it might take some Mending before it will collapse properly again...
The half-drow bumbles a bit, understandably considering that she's pinned under an enormous slab of rock, but she manages to put on the ring. Now she just needs the command word...
Anzath curses beneath her breath, not that she has much breath left. Plus, it hurts to breathe, the pain of her broken ribs keeping her breaths quick and shallow. Her plan with the pole won't work, given the circumstances, and she starts to wonder just what is taking her comrades so long.
Just then, she hears a small noise, and she is just able to turn her head to see a small ring floating through a crack in the slab, glowing with faint magic.
A ring! They sent a ring? She just able to wiggle her finger through, but then nothing changes. What was this supposed to accomplish anyways?
"Vhat iz?" she is barely able to call out, not sure at all if anyone can hear her.
Yelling the Cursed-Ring's activation word down into the crowded pit, Bedlam lights a torch after applying the Blasting Jelly to the boulder.
Counting ta three!
Tragershen will try to advise Bedlam on the positioning of the explosives to minimize the chance of harm to Anzath.
"Based on where she stood when she pushed the button and where the ring was when I felt it seized from my arcane grasp, she is likely about there. I would suggest placement around that area to maximize the chance of getting air to her."
Knowledge (engineering)
"Vhat happenz on three?" wonders Anzath.
Examining the area from afar, Talathel nods.
"I concur."
Brand scurries over to the door into the next room, one eye on the golden skull submerged, the other on the frame."Afore ye blow it, lemme take a look at dis door. Dere may be sum way teh wit'draw de stone..."
Focusing all his attention and each ounce of luck, Brand searches for some way to reset the trap located within the door.
Not knowing Abyssal, Anzath repeats the magic words as Bedlam says them, oblivious to their meaning. Suddenly it gets a little less claustrophobic under the stone slab. Still, she wonders just what is going on above her.
As Anzath intones the prayer of the fell god of this place, she has a feeling that the very stones hear and commend her words--even though she does not understand them.
The party hears hysterical laughter resonating in the dark halls beyond...
Brand quickly grows frustrated with the skull room--there isn't anything here. He examines the trap itself instead. Before leaving the room, he wedges it open with a large rock.
He swarms up the chain and examines its connection to the ceiling. By chipping out a little space with his any-tool, he sees a few wires and gears connect the trap to two separate inputs--one seems to head down towards the button, and the other is connected to a little eternally-running magic clock. He uses a short sword to nudge the hands of the clock, and when the move forward an hour, the chain suddenly starts to move upward.
Bedlam might be a little disappointed at wasting a jelly--but the trap's disarmed and Anzath is free and breathing. Once she is clear, Brand rips out the little clock and cuts it free from the mechanism--the stone smashes down one last time, and Brand's got a neat curio to take home!
Edit: Also, he obviously would have to ride the chain down as it falls.
He hops to the ground level easily, grinning as a sudden roar of noise and dust explodes from the broken trap behind him.
The door to the skull room is juust wide enough for Brand to slip through without touching what he and Tragershen have surmised to be a second trigger to the danger.
"Excellent work. Is everyone well enough to continue?", asks Talathel, especially looking in Anzath's direction. "Some healing may be in order before the next round of excitement."
"And is anyone a good swimmer? Beyond that door I saw a pool with a glimmer of gold and jewels below its surface. Just don't touch the door itself."
A swim might not be so bad...
"I am unemcumbered by weighty armour, have some proficiency in swimming and would be willing to make the attempt, should no superior swimmer present themselves."
Anzath winces and holds her side after she climbs back out of the pit.
"Dat vaz stupid," she points out. She's definitely not ready and willing to volunteer diving in a pool next.
Whether it is Tal or someone else stepping up, Tragershen will say "Take the cursed ring, in case it is more than a simple dive and recovery of the item."
"Ring iz cursed?" asks Anzath as she hands it to Talathel.
"Only in that you must praise the pig demon to use its enchantment, and the dark history it bears."
Talathel looks at the ring, looks at Tragershen, and then with a note of reluctance, nods his head as he reaches for the proffered ring.
"Tragershen's description of 'cursed' is accurate, for the reasons he describes. The followers of that *thing* have a malicious excuse for humour."
His newly acquired prize, a magnificent mechanical clock, tucked into one of his many pockets, Brand comically rides the falling block to the ground, jumping off just before it makes impact, inevitably triggering the blasting gel Bedlam had already added into the cracks. As the dust settles behind him, Brand walks over to the narrowly propped doorway, utters a simple incantation and magically lifts up the skull from afar, causing it to drift across the room to this waiting hand.
Brand's tugging at the skull with magic doesn't achieve much... it's too heavy.
Anzath isn't sure what all this pig-demon talk means exactly, but she knows the Drow that kept her in chains worshipped a variety of demons, so she's sure it doesn't bode well.
After taking a moment, she lifts herself to her feet and watches the others fuss with the next room, happy enough to sit this one out.
Anzath will approach Brand, "I am guessing I owe you one, halfling."
Once Anzath is safely freed from her confinement, Aurora comes over to provide some healing... in the form of a halo of positive energy that shines from the cleric's holy symbol and momentarily lights up the room with its glow.
Ah. Hm. That's... probably enough. Maybe. Potentially. ... "Do you feel well enough, or would you like some more healing?"