Ah yes... a cube-shaped lump of ooze... definitely something Aurora wants to whack with a staff. NOT.
She'll adjust her position if necessary to get the melee line, then casts Guidance on herself and activates Divine Vessel. There is a dim flash of pale light as the magic arcs to her allies.
Feeling emboldened by Aurora's magic and Gelver's suicidal charge, Anzath moves forward, Critfisher a flash of purple light.
Unwilling to leave his more enthusiastic companions to their own devices, Talathel switches to his branched spear and charges against the cube in a calculated path.
Bedlam seems disappointed that nothing glowed magical.
Talathel and Anzath dart around Gelver to the cube of gel that is somehow stuck to the floor by Bedlam's bombs. While the flashing blades each dismantle part of the thing, it's Talathel's graceful thrust that finally pops it like a soap bubble. Cold goo splashes onto everyone, and so does a bunch of coin and jewelry. Whoever Mr. Chainmail was, he was rich.
All told, it's likely around 500 GP and gems worth a further 500 gold. And yet another suit of masterwork chain.
"Ugh..." Anzath frowns deeply as slimy goop drips off her form. Then she looks down at the pile of shiny coins and gemstones at her feet. That's enough to turn her frown upside down.
Bedlam seems to smiles, as he gathers the loot.
We Be need'n ta find the anuther one!
As the party debates whether the goop on the coins will fall off into the handy haversack's interplanar space and prove exceptionally difficult to clean out, they wander on.
You find yourselves in a new room.
In the southern part of the room, there is a stairway leading down into
the darkness, flanked on either side by iron, hobbit-sized statues of cobras. Both cobra statues are coiled, but with the head raised and the hood out, as if ready to bite. Each of the statues sits upon a short stone pedestal six inches in height.
Tragershen casts detect magic on the cobras. Then pondering them for a moment, he casts another spell to see if their form may denote a themed trap.
Bedlam sticks his tongue out at the cobras, while awaiting the wizard's findings.
Talathel allows himself a thin smile of satisfaction at his finishing blow, then assists with the retrieval of coin.
On sight of the cobras, he places himself ahead and to the side of Tragershen and Bedlam, spear ready to intercept and trip any suddenly mobile snake statues.
The party cautiously approaches the metal sneks.
While Detect Poison's limited ability to pierce metal and Detect Magic's limited ability to detect constructs both interfere here (why they are made of iron, most likely), as does Bedlam's memory fail, Talathel's caution allows him to take an AOO versus the one of the statues that starts to uncoil.
Anzath is too busy daydreaming about that sweet crossbow she’ll buy with all that slimy gold to realize what’s going on.
Talathel's spear lashes out, fast as a proverbial snake, at a metal snake.
Talathel flips the spearhead and tries again!
He readies himself to strike the moment it rises. And in case more show up.
Talathel tries to flip the snake onto its back, but it just keeps slithering. His second try fails, too, because a snake's back is just a wriggle away from its belly.
The snake darts under his guard and tries to bite him:
Talathel darts out of the way, just avoiding the metal fangs.
"Huh? Vhat?"
As soon as Anzath is distracted out of her revery she moves in to flank with Tal, and tries to crush the metal snake with her mace.
Knowledge (arcana)
Tragershen lobs a bit of acid at one of the elusive metal snakes.
Acid splash to hit touch attack
Damage
Tragershen knows he's looking at an Iron Cobra, a rather dangerous construct that is usually for assassination, but here seems to be doing guard duty. It has DR and a good AC, and it carries a poison.
Trag's acid quickly corrodes the iron of the cobra. Anzath's mace glances off the metal of the construct with a resounding clang, but fails to really hurt the thing.
Irritated at his mistake, Talathel attempts to correct it by stepping back and stabbing.
Bedlam quickly gathers together a Tanglefoot Bomb. The Alchemist attempts to include both Iron Cobras into the blast radius; tageting one, or a square to get both.
Aurora closes the distance between her and the metal snake, bringing her quarterstaff down onto its casing.
Trag says "Take care, they are poisonous." Then he lobs more acid.
Acid splash to hit touch attack
Damage
Everyone but Anzath and Gelver gets a hit in on the thing. Tragershen gets two. While nobody does a really decisive pile of damage, the collective effort brings down the construct.
The other one? It never wakes up. Broken, out of gas, or a decoy--it holds its peace.
Beyond the silent snake, you see a staircase descending into darkness.
Anzath stands at the precipice of the stair well and tries to peer into the darkness below.
After a moment standing there, she turns to the smart elf and asks Tragershen "Vhere have ve not explored yet?"
"Ah, this way." Tragershen directs Anzath, but let's her lead the way.
Talathel spent the time searching the remains of the downed snake for any valuable pieces before moving back into formation.
Anzath sees a staircaise running down to a reddish glow that must be the light from the fire room outside of the shadow crypt. She remembers the staircase going up that they never took just outside of the portcullis, and the whole picture comes into a bit crisper focus.
Talathel calls Bedlam over to help him with his search of the mechanism.
Bedlam extracts a dose of Black Adder venom from the machine.
As you continue your explorations, you discover a large room lit with a lurid green glow.
This large room contains three rows of pillars running north to south,
leading to two deep bronze fire pits that stand against the south wall. Each fire pit contains a wide bronze bowl ten feet across, and these are both blazing with eerie green flames that rise ten feet into the air, throwing emerald sparks toward the chamber’s arching thirty-foot high ceiling. Both bowls are decorated with leering gargoyle heads around the rims, and have two massive handles at the sides. The pillars in the room are also carved with a multitude of small gargoyles.
Wizards can make sum emeralds wit dis stuff, me thinks.!
The grinning dwarf peers into the chamber.
Anzath looks down at the dwarf and simply shakes her head at his crazy ramblings.
He'z only barely better dan dis Gelver.
She draws her weapons, having a bad feeling about this place, and carefully looks about, paying special attention to the gargoyle figures.
Edited because I just saw Anzath's post:
Neither Anzath nor Bedlam see anything in the room worth troubling over.
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"All klear. Brand, you go first."
Anzath turns and remembers, the halfling is back in bed with his lover.
"S$##."
She drinks her remaining Protection from Evil potion and steps into the room.
Talathel advances, eyes open.
Wide open.
Is it the dancing of the flames? Or did that carved snake head just move a little? Did it just flick out its tongue? Talathel is sure it did.
Remember how the iron cobra was about as big as Brand? This one's HEAD is about as big as Brand. And it is clearly tracking Anzath's movements. The only sound is the crackling of the green flames.
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Anzath quickly jukes in one direction, only to put her back to the nearest column.
Talathel does not hesitate, but charges forward, spear in hand.
Tragershen charges forward as well, but not too quickly. He let's Tal get there first and stays a couple of paces behind him. He utters a spell as he stops abruptly, sending a wave of bright, scintillating colors at the snake.
Can Trag tell anything about it now that he is closer?
Knowledge (nature) check . If it is arcana, add 3. If it is dungeoneering or planes, add 1.
Aurora adjusts her position to catch as much of the group as possible, then utters a blessing of Nethys..! Time for the Guidance and Divine Vessel boogaloo once more, brave adventurers.
Be having sum snake-k-Bob's!
The massive snake is unimpressed by Tragershen's magic.
Tragershen can tell that this snake is no construct: it is a snake, it just is very well camouflaged because it has bright green scales and the room is entirely green. Maybe he deduced this when Color Spray added other possible hues to the palette? But whoever put it here so close to construct snakes is a jerk.
He is a little confused why the snake isn't harmed by the flames themselves, but other than that, he deduces that the party should beware of poison.
Talathel's brave charge draws a little blood from the beast.
Bedlam may back his bold talk with actions.
Bedlam drinks his Targeted Bomb Admixture Extract.
The snake rears itself up and unfolds a horrifyingly wide cobra hood, before lunging at Talathel, who happens to be within its striking distance. A lightning-quick flash of scales and malice later, and...
...Talathel ends up with two narsty lookin' puncture wounds, but the elf either has absorbed less poison than expected, or he's sturdier than he looks.
Discretion is perhaps the better part of valor. Instead of closing into melee, Aurora opts to loft her holy symbol at the vile serpent—from it forms a lance made of white energy, sparking with pale embers, that quickly shoots towards the snake.
With her spell cast, Aurora proceeds to drop her quarterstaff and retrieve her crossbow.