Seeing the walls slam shut at the end of the corridor, and Mort knocked backwards, Tynan looks over at the second carving.
Ahh, I'll bet that's what you control. You probably maintain air pressure so the floor panel won't be triggered. Sneaky...
Tynan places his hand over the second carving, and watches down the corridor for any change this time.
As Tynan tickles the ivory-smooth stone, he can feel the wind stopping as before, but the new stone wall at the end of the hall remains.
AC 17, 21 on AoO; 26/26 HP
BAB = +3 (level 3)
ToHit = 1d20+7
RHit = 1d20+7-2 (-1 to hit, +2 dam on Power Attack)
LHit = 1d20+7-2 (-1 to hit, +2 dam on Power Attack)
Throw = 1d20 + BAB + Dex
Fort+4 (+4 vs inhaled and contact poisons, +2 vs. disease)
Reflex+5
Will+2
Initiative+2
CMD = 18, 16 if flat footed
Mortimer instinctively and deftly jumps backwards out of the way of the slamming stone blocks and softly curses under his breath.
"Anyone else see that coming?"
He pushes on the lower block.
When it doesn't budge, he turns to the others.
"Now what?"
He glares at the blocks blocking passage.
What's behind you? What are you trying to hide from us?
"Mort, look out!" Solrisa says way too late to alert Mort or pull him out of the way. Sol quickly checks Mort's injuries, wondering if she needs to call in some help for the large man.
"You should let me go first, Mort. I don't like seeing you hurt," Sol says seriously, her eyes going over Mort's injury...before realizing Mort's mostly okay and her face turns again into a smile.
"Oh, you had me worried. Ha!" Sols cheers. "Why don't you help me move this stone out of the way so we can continue on?"
Hmm... that didn't work.
"Mort, let me see what I can find up there." Tynan moves up beside Mort, and begins searching the wall for carvings similar to the others.
"Thanks, Sol. Sure I'll help," he says, retrieving his crow bar from his backpack.
He tries to wedge it between the blocks to push down and use it as leverage while simultaneously pushing forward with his foot on the top of the bottom block -- leaving plenty of room for Tynan's study.
Rae lends her shoulder to trying to open up the new wall.
Try as they might, the giant, maiden, and warrior all fail to budge the giant stone slabs, so smoothly aligned, and wonderfully thick.
Tynan looks for recessions... and finds them. Although they are not the deferring adorers depicted in the entry hall. Instead, he spies four bore holes, two on each side of the depressible trigger plate, just below the level hall floor. He needs must step on the plate to reveal them.
Sol steps back to let others work, her offer to break though the slab still outstanding.
"Hold on... I think I've spotted something here. These holes hold the pins which set the plate in place." He sighs, frustrated. "I tried covering the second carving, hoping it would reset the pins, but it didn't seem to work. We may need to cover both carvings at once, but I'm not sure if that will do it either."
"Pillette, do you have any insights? Maybe your work with your previous employer involved some mechanical knowledge? I can show you everything I've found, so that should help a bit."
Ascaria moves up, both to bring his light in on the situation, and to see himself the stone blocking their way.
"I dunno Sol, that looks like a lot of stone. We'd be here a while I think trying to break it. But if Pilllette and Tynan can't get us through, we may have to!"
He replenishes the light on his hat, and waits for more perceptive eyes to solve the puzzle.
He thinks a while, staring at the stone, "Nope, none of my spells will help either I don't think."
While Sol waits for others to do stuff with the slab, she retreats to the rear and dons the quicksilver shirt that Ascaria was offering about.
"Rae, look, a new shirt!! It's silvery!"
Mort ponders the situation for a few minutes.
"I don't think I quite understand that, Tynan," he says, inspecting the borings in the plate. "Do you think this would be of any use in making pins or covering things?" He produces roughly 2 lbs of clay from his backpack and offers it to Tynan.
"The pins are already there, just in a retracted state, but thanks for the offer. That clay may come in handy elsewhere though. Come help me test out a theory, if you would."
Tynan leads Mort back to the first carving. "Hold your hand over this carving. It will bring the tube down, but will also let me see if the two carving are linked. I can't reach both at the same time."
Tynan walks over to the second carving, and after Mort covers the first to activate the tube, Tynan covers the second to see what happens.
As Mort touches the first recession by the shaft, he can feel a light breeze on his palm extinguish as his palm meets the stone. Shortly thereafter, the Cylinder arrives on this floor, and its doors snap open.
As Tynan covers the second recession's pores, he can still feel the light breeze on his palm as well. Extinguishing its flow doesn't seem to change anything regarding the Cylinder's position. The Cylinder remains open, and ready to lift its occupant to the floor above.
Pillette will step from the shadows, intently examining the pins as Tynan and Mort's exploration of the handiwork, looking around a bit nervously after Mort's encounter with slamming trigger plates.
"Pins are retracted? Breeze suppressed when Mort presses on the recession... Hmmmm, it's all Qadiran to me."
While the others fiddle, the halfling will peer and stare and squint at the "retracted pins" a good long time...
Mortimer glances over at Tynan and reads something akin to disappointment in his expression.
Nothing?
Looks at the vacant cylinder beckoning to him.
"Umm...O.K. I'll try moving the sarcophagus upside to see if it'll reset things down here. Give me a second to exit the thing topside, then bring it back down. After I summon it back up -- give me a minute then to safely get back into it, then bring the cylinder and me back down."
Before letting go of the recession, he adds, "You might want to keep back from the blocks -- just in case."
I hate this place.
With any luck, Mortimer heads topside and waltzes once more with the crypt, then heads back down to see if anything has changed.
"Great idea Mort! Hopefully that will work."
As Mortimer enters the Cylinder, the doors snap shut, and the winds pick up, lifting the Cylinder upwards. As the Cylinder rises, so do the Stone Slabs move back into their resting positions. The hallway is open once again.
You're only missing Mortimer.
...
About a minute later, Mortimer descends, having successfully called the Cylinder back up by his Sarcophagus rotations.
"While we wait for Mort to return, is there anything we can do to avoid the pressure plate? I don't think I can step over it easily..."
He looks to Pillette and Tynan for help disarming the trap.
Tynan yells up the tube. "That worked Mort! Stay in the tube and we'll bring you back down."
Tynan waits a couple of seconds, then presses the first carving to bring the cylinder, and Mort, back down.
With Mort rejoining the others, Tynan places his hand over the second carving. "If one of you could cautiously walk down to the trigger plate, I'm wondering if this might keep the wall from dropping."
Ascaria, eager to help out where he can, walks across the plate carefully.
If it doesn't immediately trigger, he jumps up and down on the pressure plate where Mort stood before to trigger it.
Pillette, observing the back and forth, can hear the pins set into place as Tynan places his hand on the second carving.
Ascaria finds the trigger plate quite immobilized. There is no sound, no sinking. The hallway seems quite navigable. Almost inviting.
Solrisa claps gleefully at the total, complete, and safe success of the others.
"That's good work!" Sol smiles with infinite joy at her companions.
She moves forward, torch in one hand, her other hand free to wave others forward into the total safety.
Mortimer nervously watches the gnome saunter across and then bounce upon the plate. He immediately gets into position to catch Ascaria in the event that the slab knocks him down the corridor like a croquet mallet on a croquet ball.
He visibly relaxes when no such thing happens, realizing that Tynan -- with his hand on the other recess -- is likely preventing the trap from tripping.
"I wonder if there's one on the other side?" he says, passing Tynan and pointing to the recess he's currently activating. "I'll look." He bows slightly and gestures "after you" to Sol, inviting her to lead, then either proceeds or follows.
Mortimer cautiously makes his way over the plate, past the slabs, looking for more traps and another recess.
A dull gray stone pillar reaches from floor to ceiling in the center of this large chamber. Halls extend to the south and north. The floor to the north appears to be coated in a brownish-red mold. The northern direction seems to drop in temperature quite briskly.
Sol looks at the mold, her nose wrinkling.
"Rae, smell! It's like that cheese we like so much!" Sol cheers her sister while looking around.
"Cold huh? Maybe we could scrape some off and use it to store food - like an ice box!"
Ascaria is very fond of this suggestion, and looks to the others for support of his idea.
"Cold huh? Maybe we could scrape some off and use it to store food - like an ice box!"
"What box? Uh -- no. I don't want food near that."
Mortimer gazes at the dull gray stone pillar, at least this side of it that he can see.
"Hey Tynan -- can you get past the plate too now? What do you make of this -- room? Do you think the center of this pillar is directly under the sarcophagus?"
"Ascaria, is there anything magic here?"
Frowning at the stinky mold, he turns to Sol.
"Which way, Sol? Should we see if we can make our way around the pillar to the South? See if there are additional corridors?"
He tries to assess how difficult the pillar would be to climb by trying to climb it.
"I'll join you in there as soon as everyone else has safely made it past the trigger."
Ascaria obligingly casts Detect Magic and looks to see what can be seen.
Mortimer is able to work his fingers into the seams of the stone of the pillar, and makes a reasonable attempt at getting up to the ceiling for a look around. He's very sure there is nothing of note along the upper walls of the chamber, including the pillar, at least from this side of it.
Ascaria brings forth his detections, encountering only the magics of the party itself.
Sol looks at the mold, her nose wrinkling.
"Rae, smell! It's like that cheese we like so much!" Sol cheers her sister while looking around.
"Great! Now I'm hungry. Did we bring anything to eat down with us?" I doubt that stuff actually tastes anything like the cheese we like, and I sure didn't bring any with me.
"Let's go this way." she says, her mind still on lunch. The sooner we're out, the better.
Ascaria merrily follows Rae down the other hallway, though his thoughts are on cold iced tea...
Turning the corner, Raella and Ascaria take in the next side of the central pillar, which, to Ascaria's cloudy eyes, appears to house a shower stall, a light carving of a drain on the floor. To the left, a room that seems to house furniture reminiscent of a bed chamber.
This wide chamber must once have been the living quarters of an important figure. A large stone slab that suggests the shape of a bed rests against the south wall, under a huge bas-relief of a robust, long-nosed bald humanoid figure with outstretched hands. The figure wears a lovingly sculpted wind-tossed robe that gives him the appearance of a triumphant god. A glyph that looks like a stylized arrow marks an amulet worn around the figure’s neck. Wardrobes and dressers seemingly carved from the stone walls look to have been ransacked a long time ago.
Assuming the magic detections are still going, your eyes set upon the bed shape, and you can see a light aura of magic along the entire top of it.
The aura detects as Transmutative. It feels eerily similar to the Air Column in the domed chamber.
Mortimer follows along on the pillar near the ceiling, keeping his senses peeled for any approaching danger.
"Well the bed is magical, but of what sort I do not know."
Ascaria heads into the room and looks around further. "Cozy place"
With the group finally beyond the floor trigger, Tynan moves to the spot and leaps over it.
Taking in the sight of the brownish-red fungus, he studies it carefully.
"Yeah, we need to stay WELL clear of that mold... it could easily kill us."
Checking the strange stony bedchamber, Tynan pays particular attention to the glyph that looks like a stylized arrow.
I wonder what this means...
Sol trundles along, keeping company and looking at stuff while others explore.
Tynan jumps over the trigger plate with ease. Catching up with the others, he makes his way to the statue, and takes in the glyph.
It strikes you as a glyph much like Zosiel's- a personal name glyph. This one starts to sound in your head like 'Neroc', or possibly 'Madroc'.
Just around the corner, you can just make out a single doorway, as well as a basin's edge. The basin has the same characteristics of the basin previously encountered with the beetles down the Green Lantern shaft.
Tynan moves closer to the bas relief carving, and places a hand on the glyph carved amulet.
Here goes nothing...
"Neroc"
"Madroc"
Tynan touches the figure, and speaks two words. The chamber resonates with his voice, but nothing seems to occur as a result of speaking.
"Does anyone recognize who this might be? His name might be Neroc, or possibly Madroc. I'm not completely sure about his personal name glyph."
Tynan scans the bedchamber in greater detail, hoping to uncover something missed earlier.
The top of the bed-shaped stone slab is... audible. A light wisp-sound can be heard in between armor rattles of your companions. Closer investigation reveals a light air hiss, passing through pores, very much like the first and second carving you touched before.
Tynan cocks his head slightly, then leans closer to the surface of the stone bed. Placing a hand on the surface, he repeats the name's possible pronunciations.
"Neroc... Madroc"
It worked on the vault above... couldn't hurt to try.
Sol stands and watches Tynan, unsure how quite to help yet. Despite the association with cheese, Sol avoids the mold.
Despite his ministrations to the stone slab, Tynan doesn't seem to activate the Bed Chamber's bed with his words.
As Solrisa wends her way around the central pillar, the basin comes into full view. Within her torchlight, an orange reflection appears at the very lip of the stonework. The orange paste looks quite familiar, when compared to the beetle sludge, except this paste seems to be much purer, without the taint of beetle dung.
She can also see a smallish doorway to the left. Its door is slightly ajar, and it doesn't come near the grandeur of the 10' height of the Bed Chamber.
Mortimer listens to the others describe what they see.
"Well the bed is magical, but of what sort I do not know."
Hmmmm...?!
Mortimer climbs down until he's just hanging by his fingertips at the chamber's doorway, then he drops the remaining (5?) feet in order to observe the room more closely.
Ooof!
"Does anyone recognize who this might be? His name might be Neroc, or possibly Madroc. I'm not completely sure about his personal name glyph."
Mort's eyes fall upon the bas relief. Allustan. Almost. Less hair.
"Is it an Air God? I don't know the Air Gods."
He follows after Solrisa to the West.
"Ascaria, do you think the bed itself is magical, or could it be something inside? This is covered with the same kind of pores as the triggers down the hallway. This could be hollow."
"Is it an Air God? I don't know the Air Gods."
"I'm not sure either, Mort."
Sol moves over to the bed.
"Rae, look, a bed!" Sol coos tiredly to her sister, stifling an oncoming yawn. "I didn't sleep much last night after our guests and the visit with that nice man. I don't suppose this bed is good for sleeping is it?"
Sol tests the matress, running her fingers along the fancy robe and checks out anything currently within the bed.
If there is a figure in the bed, Sol will adjust the robe carefully, then check it out.