The dwarf takes a spot flanking with Aurora.
Adelie attempts to bite or scratch through the gargoyle's skin, doing his best to shrug off the pain caused by the gargoyle's attack.
Tragershen nods his thanks to Anzath for her quick blade work and casts a defensive spell to ward off further attacks.
Putting away dagger and casting mage armor on himself.
Anzath returns the nod, then hastily runs off to rescue Adelie.
Talathel rapidly repositions himself to coordinate with Anzath for additional gargoyle stabbing.
Anzath hacks (16); Tal stabs (12), Adelie bites (2), and still the gargoyle won't fall!
So Mone gives it a try:
...no luck.
Bedlam chips away at Aurora's goyle (10)
And we roll around to the gargoyle turn.
vs. Addie
vs. Aurora:
Aurora's swiftness and armor protect her entirely from this round of damage. Adelie takes eight points.
Lolygert grunts in satisfaction seeing the stony creature crumble under his blows, but his eyebrows furrow furiously when he sees yet another gargoyle harrassing Adelie, now in his feline form.
His anger beyond words, he attacks with vicious intent...
Talathel stabs and stabs and stabs, aiming to put down the gargoyles that can still threaten his companions.
If the gargoyles haven't been put down yet, Aurora presses the assault.
Bedlam pauses to admire their Cleric's battle prowess!
Be gud 'nuff ta be un dwarf!
As threats turn to dust and rubble around her, Anzath turns her attention back to the mausoleum for signs of any more danger. She still has to squint her eyes in the sun.
Silence falls across the ancient graveyard once more. All you can hear is your panting breaths. As your eyes flicker over the ancient structures, you can't guarantee exactly that there's nobody else here. But you're satisfied that there are no more gargoyles.
Talathel casts his gaze about, in case any foes were drawn to the sounds of battle, in support of Anzath's efforts.
Once satisfied that the group is not in imminent danger of being ambushed, he will say:
"Let us try the key."
Tragershen recovers his club, then contributes his part of checking the door for relative safety.
Lolygert takes a moment to realize that the danger had passed, still glaring around, swiveling to and fro to see the next adversary.
Slowly though, his breathing calms and his brow smooths, and he takes a knee, taking a deep breath, "Ah...that's fun while it lasts....but the hangover..."
With a grunt he stands and levers his large sword into its harness on his back, rolls his shoulders and with a wink at Adelie, ambles over to the others looking at the door...
Anzath lets her guard down, slightly.
"Vait... vhen did ve get big kitty?"
She produces the key and approaches the mausoleum door, looking for traps.
"Iz pretty door..."
Adelie likes being a cat, and he really likes not being grappled by gargoyles anymore. He and Mone trot over to the door together, and Adelie squints up his eyes and does his best to grin at Lolygert.
Anzath, satisfied that the metal door is untrapped, nonmagical, and nonpoisonous, slides the key into the lock. With the quick, determined motion of one pulling off a bloody bandage, she flips it and darts back--but she shouldn't have worried.
The door slides slowly open.
Inside the mausoleum is a sarcophagus of the same dark metal. A ring of candles throw an impossible dark-blue-purple glow across the room. The air is stale. Several broken and rusted weapons litter the floor, alongside a few burnt out torches.
"Ve are not first onez here," Anzath points out the left-behind weapons and torches. Curious, she unsheathes Kritfisher a bit and tests out the blade's light against those of the candles.
Talathel gazes ahead, using his mind to work out the possible dangers of the design of this apparent sarcophagus.
Once Anzath opens the door and starts to look inside, Tragershen looks for a decent rock that he could set in the door opening to keep the door open behind them. Maybe a good ten or twelve pounder if something like that's around. A hacked off gargoyle limb might do it; based on some of those crits earlier, I'm guessing there are a couple around.
Thinking the same thing, the dwarf lifts up a gargoyle, placing it in the doorway.
He grins at the Elf.
The double door opens inwards, but still, the adventurers slide a significant chunk of gargoyle into the gap where it would clap shut, should it clap shut.
The candlelight does seem in a similar spectrum to Kritfisher's.
Talathel notices that the roof has a cutout that would fit the sarcophagus perfectly.
He also sees what must be a trapdoor cut into the stone towards the back of the room, behind the stone coffin.
Talathel points to the cutout, then to the trapdoor.
"I suspect that there is a crushing trap in here. I recommend careful movements."
Aurora will go ahead and cast detect magic and look around the room, although those gorgeous candles hold a particular interest to her.
There's magic all around. The candles are magic. The walls are faintly magic. The trapdoor, magic. This place is magical!
Magic, you say?
Aurora's quick analysis reveals that the building is powerfully enchanted to be self-repairing and effectively indestructible. The trapdoor lid, too.
The candles are enchanted with a continual flame, but they seem a little bit more than your average everburning candle.
Guided by Talathel's observations, Anzath tries to figure out how the trap is triggered and how to disable it, if she can.
Aurora shares the magical properties of the room, before she gestures to the candles and looks over to Tragershen, "These aren't coated in some form of poison, are they?"
Talathel contributes to the search as best as he is able.
Tragershen keeps his own light spell ignited, suspecting that the Evil candles will suddenly plunge us into darkness when the Evil is ready to strike.
Once Anzath starts in and the others follow, Trag follows as well. He'll check the candles for poison first, and then some of the other objects in the room.
Bedlam rummages throughout the chamber. The dwarf appears to be searching for another secret treasuree chamber door...
Me be knowing it be here!
Grumbling a bit, the dwarf marches over to the trap door.
Aurora spots that the candles are decorated in the votive-to-Orcus style.
Talathel's intuition about the presence of the trap leads Anzath, confident in her skillz, to begin messing around with stuff.
This... may have been an error, since Disable Device carries penalties for failure by more than 5, and even with her deep background in traps she couldn't avoid that failure with a nat 20, far less a measly 19.
The doors slam shut, with the stone gargoyle flipped out of the way by the Big Magic of the trap.
Bedlam, though, manages to flip open the trap's associated trapdoor. He's peering into a shaft that drops straight down into darkness. There's a rope pinned to the side of the shaft, but it looks pretty questionable. A terrible scent wafts up to his nostrils.
He also notices that, as expected, the floor is rising, but slowly. You're all tomato paste in about five minutes, unless you find a way out--good thing you just did.
“Sh!t.”
Lolygert jumps out of the way of the closing door....but into the room!
He unhurriedly walks over to the revealed shaft, opining "Looks like we're going down this way..." his nose wrinkling from the stink, he hawks up some phlegm and proceeds to launch an enormous glob of spit into its depths, cocking his head, listening for its sound of landing.
SPLAT goes the loogie--it's probably about 30 feed down.
Aurora picks up one of the candles. Assuming that does not cause anything horrific to happen, she'll take it over to the shaft and drop it down — perhaps a tad more accurate at determining depth and what it below them than Lolly's spit baby.
Bedlam shrugs.
Be expected.
The dwarf prepares to descend.
Who be hav'n a climbing kit?
Anzath takes out a grappling hook and 50ft of rope. She secures the hook to something, perhaps the sarcophagus, and before tossing the rope down, winces, "Kat and dog vill have hard time."
Adelie returns to a human shape and retrieves rope from Mone's bag. He begins tying a harness around Mone with the intention of lowering her down.
Lolygert watches Adelie's preparations with interest, "Mono can rest on my shoulders if you want, Adelie."
As various partymembers continue to monitor the traptrapdoor, they notice that, as the floor rises, it is starting to slide away from the shaft, which will soon be blocked by the living stone of the mausoleum. It's closing up fairly quickly. You have seven rounds before it will be too small for the slenderer partyfolk, and it looks like Lolly and Bedlam need to get through in half that time.
"Is the piton still secure? Could we attach a new rope?" He glances up at the ceiling as it nears. "Bedlam, if I could grant you the power of flight again, could you ferry us all down before certain and utter doom?"
Anzath has a pristine, never been used, rope ready to go.
Anzath will be the last to go.