Aided by his companions, Varg is able to pull the door off of it's hinges with a resonating clang. Behind you, the party hears the basilisk smashing into it's bars, trying to get to the party.
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"Eh-buh-uh-I thought it would knock it out! It kinda did for a few seconds there!" Erenst and Snouts opens their eyes at the other end, ignoring the death-gaze cage. The various pressures have clearly gotten to Ernest and make themselves prevalent in the fact his one eye's sclera has become is become blood-red due to a blood vessel popping.
Looking down the hallway, the party sees three passages on the right and what looks to be a larger room halfway down on the right. Luisila notices nothing of note.
Varg moves down the hall with the party following. After thirty feet, he comes to hallway on the right. Looking down the hall, there is an opening all the way at the end of the hall and another just inside the hall on the right. Both openings have black curtains painted with a white, seven pointed star. There also looks to be a side hallway intersecting from the left near the terminus of the hall you are looking down. The party also begins to hear faint chanting and drumming echoing from somewhere deeper in the structure.
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Roland nods at Linnea and then look to Zynep and Luisila.
He does a double-take back to Linnea...
Did she just call me Roland or Orlando? I forgot...should we use our real names now? I just know I am going mess this up. Ok, stay calm, it will be fine. They are professionals. Just walk casual-like and follow them. But turned to stone??? Really. Ok, breathe.
"Right."
No one in the party is able to determine the nature of the faint chanting.
Linnea walks down the hallway a short ways.
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Luisila closes her eyes and grasps her forehead with an open palm.
"The star is known as a sihedron rune." She then opens her eyes again.
Don't look at me like that, I don't know why I know this stuff - I just do!
"Apparently the Lissalans use it as a religious symbol."
"I bet they'd be mad at anyone who defaced them."
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Ernest lags a step behind, not being able to see hand-signs due to his averting gaze to pay as much attention to the scenery as possible. "Yes, us, alone, not us, erp-r-right." Snouts, however, simply closely follows Luisila, still in eager anticipation for round 3 of snacks. In a few moments, he hears the footfalls of those in front of him moving away, and he hustles to the back to the group.
Linnea creeps further down the hall and peers around the corner. She sees that the next continues for some fifty feet before ending. There are to halls on the left that appear to return back to the main area you were just in.
Zynep goes up to inspect the larger room. Several tunnels meet in this room. Three wooden tables and a number of chairs are stacked here, out of the way, along with a shipping crate about two feet square. To the east, a portion of the stone wall stands ajar a few inches.
Linnea finds the top of the shipping box loose and upon opening the container, finds forty identical wooden dolls, each depicting a glaring woman with no mouth.
Zynep throws open the curtains of the two central rooms, only to find that they are storage rooms containing mundane goods and furniture.
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Linnea picks up a couple of the dolls and shows them to Luisila and Ernest.
"What do you think? These dolls look like they may used for some kind of cult-ish activities. Let's cut the heads off - that should get the Lissalan's riled-up."
Linnea pulls out her dagger and begins dutifully removing the heads off of the dolls.
After a little while of this, she notices the curtains to the north. She decides to sneak up and try and hear if the chanting is coming from behind there.
Linnea sneaks toward the curtains to the north of the large room. Listening, she can hear that the chanting is louder, though it is not in the next room.
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“Good call on the dolls’ heads, Thestil. I guess they represent Lissala??”
“I’ve been thinking about all of this chanting stuff”
“Raven, you know all the … let’s call it chanting … that goes on in Calistrian temples? It is usually a part of the build-up leading to the … point … in the ceremony in which the faithful feel at their closest to the Savored Sting, right?”
“I’m thinking the climax of a Lissalan religious experience might involve disfigurement or death of some innocent party.”
“What I’m saying is, maybe we’re on the clock here a bit more than we thought.”
Linnea throws open the curtain to the northern room. Looking inside, she sees, the centerpiece of this stark stone chamber is a low stone dais designed to display a statue. The western exit is a set of doors consisting of iron bars an inch in diameter and six inches apart, like those of a cage. Upon the dias stands a stone statue that suddenly begins to move when Linnea opens the curtain.
Special Attacks: Slam
Saves: Normal, Fort and Will highest.
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Linnea flicks her wrist and a wand appears.
She moves into the room with the living statue just enough past the curtain. As she waves the wand and points it at the statue, the ground beneath the statue and in some of of the adjoining spaces, though not the one that Varg is standing in, seem to instantly be coated with grease.