There aren't any traps on the door, and peeking inside you can see some sort of a lobby populated by mannequins.
Edda flies over to discover that the chimneys are very real, spouting pestilential smoke that soon has her sensitive nose retching. It smells like someone set fire to a candle factory.
Edda will return quickly to her companions. Not wanting to waste her flight abilities, she cancels the affect as soon as she touches ground.
Niklos cracks the door and peers in. Upon spotting the mannequins, he swiftly steps aside to hold the door for the rest of the group.
"Ladies and rabbits first," he quips.
"Ugh, wax. Terrible for my fur..." Basil complains, heading in.
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Creepy as they may be, the wax mannequins in this room appear to be just that. Two doors occupy the south wall, and a brass plaque, written in ancient script, hangs from the wall opposite the front door.
The plaque simply reads "Visitors will be scalded."
Edda sighs again.
"Shouldn't that say 'Scolded' instead of 'Scalded'? Anybody have any magical protection from fire? Looks like we might need it."
"Not I." Gisele admits as they look over the creep wax statues.
If any situation calls for a bit of strategic luck, it looks like this place might be it. She will cast Fallback Strategy on herself for extra protection.
While the statues look familiar, Gisele can't place where she may have seen them before.
To be safe, she will play The Waxworks card.
Niklos makes his way into the foyer, carefully inspecting the space for traps.
Edda will continue forward, calling out.
"Hello?"
Nobody answers Edda's call, and Niklos can't find any trap... Wait. Did that statue just move? No, must have been a trick of the light.
Peeking at the doors on the side reveals two nondescript rooms beyond them, equally uninhabited.
Gisele eyes the statue warily before peaking into the doors. "Creepy empty room #1 or creepy empty room #2?
Gisele is wanting to make sure they really are uninhabited before she goes in and nothing is lying in wait. Knowing The Waxworks is a Chaotic Evil card does not fill her with visions of safety and joy.
"Where is everyone hiding? Chimney was working, someone should be here. Unless..." Gisele eyes the statues again, before poking the closest one.
Quickly pulling a combat wand, Edda keeps it handy just in case she needs it quickly.
Basil will stand in the middle of the group, relying on his big ears and other senses to help warn him of danger.
The two doors open on nondescript rooms, each of them containing two wax statue. As those in the lobby, these appear to be completely still, inanimate and non-magical. A door connects those rooms, but there doesn't see to be any other exit. And it's lucky that you all were on edge, since Basil spots a small hole in the wall, connected to the handle.
"There, a trap." Basil directs everyone's attention to the handle and hole, tense and on the balls of his feet.
Taking heed of Basil's warning, Niklos moves in closer to inspect the door frame. The rogue peers in through the crack, trying to identify the mechanism connecting the handle to the trap. After a moment of deliberation, he produces a harrow card, rather unceremoniously mangling the sacred implement into various different configurations: first he runs it through the latch, and then folds it into a more pointed shape to root around in the keyhole. He finishes by crumbling the card into a ball and spitting on it, and stuffing the resulting pulpy mass into the hole in the wall—just in case.
"Presto!" he proclaims as he spins around on his heels to face the group. He bows and opens the door for them to move through, looking awfully full of himself.
With flair and style, Niklos manages to open the door to the other room you already had access to. Wait. Are there only these three rooms in the whole building? Doesn't seem right.
Edda moves into the next room after the trap is disarmed.
"Keep looking. Someone must be here."
Niklos tails Edda into the next room, keeping an eye out for similar traps as the one he just disabled.
"This building is obviously larger than just 3 tiny rooms. Trap door or secret panel maybe?"
Gisele will start looking at the floor & walls in the entry room.
Edda holds up her wand and twirls it casually.
"Or we can just burn the place down THIS time and see who runs screaming out of it. I'm so tired of these 'fake' people..."
Basil twitches his nose and stamps his foot, listening. "Mayhaps a false floor lies somewhere?" he asks.
"Or it may be that we have to narrate our way out of this, as with the puppet?"
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As you pound on the walls, one finally sounds empty, and stripping the wallpaper, a hidden door is revealed, and made short work of by Niklos' lockpicks.. As you walk in, you find yourself in a dusty, derelict hybrid between a bedchamber and a storeroom. Two beds, one covered in priceless silks hopelessly stained in blood and filth, occupy most of the western side, while a wardrobe and tool bench fill the remainder. The stained bed is large enough to accomodate four humans, while the clean one is not longer than five feet.
Gisele scrunches her nose at the filthy bed, "That's vile."
Upon closer inspection, "I think some..thing gave birth here."
"This is NOT a tale I'm interested in. Let's get our next token and get out of here! Let's see if it is hidden here."
No token is found, but stowed under the clean bed you find a lacquered wooden box.
As you start pounding over the walls, the eastern one seems to sound hollow, likely hiding another door. But it looks like the shadows coming from the room you came from, the one with the wax statues, seem to have shifted...
Turning to the moving shadows, Edda shifts into her bear-like features, and points her wand at the doorway!
"Ware the door!"
Basil will give his starknife a spin and go on the search for what changed in the other room.
-Posted with Wayfinder
The statue look exactly the same. You don't exactly remember the position they had when you came in, but they look like unmoving, perfectly mundane wax sculptures.
However, you discover another trap on the door, again linked to a hole in the wall.
While the others stay watchful, Niklos tinkers greedily with the box of lacquered wood.
"Oi! Take a look, would ya?" he calls out as it clicks open. "Some of this stuff oughta be magical..."
As the more magically inclined members of the group inspect his findings, Niklos moves to work on the trap.
Wand still ready, Edda moves to the special items in the box, enacting a magic detecting cantrip.
Gisele palms her cards, alerted by Edda, and waits, watching for trouble.
With a small, harmless puff of steam, the trap is disabled. The door opens on a room occupied by, you guessed it, wax statues, more stylized and exaggerated than the others you saw. Each depicts an attractive, middle-aged Varisian woman in a different emotional state—carefree, worried, and distraught. A pair of double doors provides the only visible entry or exit from this chamber.
As for the box, the gemstones appear to be mundane, but the potions are curative (cure serious wounds) and the colours are magical, apparently a set of marvelous pigments.
Edda snaps the box closed again a little too loudly and stows it away for now.
"We can divide this stuff up later. Let's keep moving...together. I get the feeling that we are being watched: The air here is stretched with tension...you could cut it with a knife!"
"Well, you do know there's one way we could drag our watcher out." Basil mutters. He takes his starknife and gives it a spin before he jabs at one of the wax figures with a point. "I wonder if they'll come out if we start melting these down?" he asks loudly.
Moving into your room, your ears pick up sounds coming from beyond the double doors. You can't make up any words, but it sounds like steam hissing, liquid boiling, and engines cycling.
Niklos moves to inspect the doors. "Well, this is different..."
"Ugh, I hate this building already."
Gisele repositions to be able to catch any unexpected visitors as Niklos works on the doors.
"If there wasn't a chance of finding another token, I'd suggest melting the whole place down.
The double doors are unlocked, and swing open creaking. The sound is, however, drowned by the noise of the local you just entered. Noxious fumes, emanating from four enormous vats of molten wax, roil through this vast workshop. Tools and half-finished mannequins crowd the floor and hang from the ceiling, while tables hold squirming, undulating worms the size of a man’s arm. Mechanical devices pump the wax into the vats, their roar spreading throughout the large room.
As impressive as the workshop is, the enormous ant on the other side is what catches your attention. She is as tall as an ogre, wearing a golden crown, and she looks like she's dipping something in the wax.
"It's perfectly healthy, Mistress" says a feminine, elderly voice, the speaker hidden by one of the vats. "I'll place it in storage, and be right back."
Edda's jaw hangs open for a second.
"Kostichie's blue balls: That's a big ant! Who's got the Queen Mother Card? And we'll probably need...the Midwife card too as well. Unless I miss my guess?"
"Holy sh*t," Niklos says under his breath. "That is a big ant. Yeah, um... you guys should try talking to it. I'll be, uh... over there."
Without waiting for a response, the scoundrel slips to the side. He takes the chance to move into position—and out of any immediate danger—by using the visual obstruction offered by clutter and fumes filling the room, as well as the noise of the vats of boiling wax to hide his approach. He heads to the left of the doors, trying to get a better view of what is happening at the back of the room.
Seeing not many other options, Gisele takes a small step forward. "Hello. I'm Gisele."
She hopes to distract the ant long enough for the others to play a few cards.
Edda moves up behind Gisele, casting a quick Guidance cantrip while tapping her on the shoulder...
"Right behind you..."
Basil plays the Queen mother card and then the Midwife before moving closer.
"Hello." he says. One ear cocked.
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The cards' magic flashes, reacting positively with the two creatures. As soon as she notices you, however, Marzalee shrieks in blind rage, her alien voice screeching in your ears. "Thieves! Murderers! Kidnappers! You will not have them! I will flay you, then the Nightpeddler and the Ticktock Man!"
The woman, however, moves to look at you. She looks older than middle-aged, almost grandmotherly. "Wait, wait, Mistress! They may not be kidnappers! You aren't, aren't you?"
Already nervous of the situation, Edda realizes the situation could be untenable.
"NO! We...kidnap? Who? WHAT would we kidnap?"
"We are only travelers here. We seek not to kidnap anyone." Basil steps forward.
Niklos mutters a few arcane syllables, pulling the figurative mask of invisibility across his face as he does. He sprints out of his cover, across the room, vaulting over a barrel before skidding to a halt behind the midwife. He holds back for a moment to see if his companions are successful in persuading the ant queen, preparing to grab its servant and put his rapier to her back if necessary.