Dizzy breathed a sigh of relief as the last of the fairies disintegrated. She then immediately coughed as she caught a whiff of the increasing smoke.
"Find yer teeth, then tell me when yer ready," she cried. She then turned her attention to the fire, and began summoning water over the burning dummies. She worked quickly as she could, calling on the goddess for help, and dumping gallon after gallon of water on the fire.
Once all the teeth had been recovered, she took a moment to channel healing energy over all of them, then returned immediately to working on the fire.
"Thank you," Vilhelm murmured after Dizzy had summoned the blessing of her goddess. The invoker spent a few moments poking the newly attacked tooth with his tongue, pleased that what the blasted Fey had done, Dizzy had so handily undone.
"Now there is the matter of this little lass, I believe," Vilhelm said, giving the little Avie a courtly bow. "For some strange reason, the thought of hurting her for the straw emperor's pleasure doesn't sound like something we'd want to contemplate. I'd rather risk the effigy's ire. Do you all agree?"
Jibril, having the fairies stench about him, stepped away from the little girl. He instead looked around at all of the doors. He was suddenly worried about where the tile might be. To Dizzy, "Yes, thank you blessed rajul din" <holy servant>
Quinn took her tooth from Jibril and got in line for Dizzy's help. She watched the others fawn over the child and make a fuss over how important it was to reattach her tooth. "You guys do realize that it's unnecessary to reattach a baby tooth, right? She's not old enough to have her permanent teeth."
Seeing the fire beginning to spread, Quinn suggested, "Why don't we take our ire out on the emperor. We take the fight to him and take out his spectators. Maybe the token is buried in one of the straw people's heads. Or maybe it's behind one of the doors."
"Of course we're not going to kill a kid," Rex responded to Vilhelm. His contempt fot the idea was clear in his voice. "I don't even what to believe that's the goal. Surely even fans of this crazy game have some standards..."
Rex agreed with Quinn, "Our priority should be figuring out where the tokens are. Lets have everyone check a gate. And yes, if the emperor has it and won't give it up..." His eyes narrowed, "I say we beat it out of him..."
Jibril nursed his twisted finger and jogged over to the 'Tooth Fairy' gate. If it was opened he stepped inside and searched.
All the gates except Avie's are still open. More soon...
Dizzy called down gallon after gallon of water, and after several minutes, had reduced the blaze to a soggy mess of ashy straw. More than a third of the straw dummies had been destroyed, but the danger was now over.
Teeth back in place, Team Orra split up, looking for the tokens. However, there was little to be found during a thorough search of the animal's holding pens. Just food and water troughs for the larger animals, the basket of snakes (now basket of snake), and a large, clay container that had clearly held the ants. Nothing at all was to be seen in the tooth fairy's pen.
Through all this, the emperor was grinning madly, clearly enjoying the spectacle and their growing frustration as they couldn't find the tokens.
Through his elven calm Jibril's grasping determination was still audible, "Is there any way to get Avie's gate open? Rex ... Dizzy, do you think we can force it? Quinn, is there a way to find out what controls the emperor? If we're lucky there is some connection between that mechanism and the one that controls the gate.", Jibril called out to the team as he checked to see if the door back to the game halls was locked. Can we at least leave this place token-less? Somehow, I don't think the game officials will just let us walk out of here with the girl.
Rex moved to the game and put all his strength into trying to force it open.
"I don't know..." He said through gritted teeth. "It seems pretty stuck." Looking up at the gleeful emperor, he said, "Let's check out what chuckles has over there..."
He began trying to clamber up the stands towards the emperor.
Quinn was already on her way over to the machine when Jibril suggested she take a look. "I've had enough of this arena." She glared at the Emperor, "If this doesn't work, you're next strawman."
Over her shoulder she shouted, "Someone check Avie's doll. Maybe there's something buried inside it."
Quinn got her tools out but first she studied the machine to see if there were any safeguards in place to prevent tampering.
"The effigy did seem like it understood what was happening here before," Vilhelm mused, leaning on his glaive as Rex and Quinn began tearing the stage to pieces. "Do you understand still?" he said, raising his voice as he addressed the straw emperor. "We refuse to play your game, refuse to hurt this little girl for a chance for a reward. What say you to that?"
Jibril and Rex tried to open the main door, but it remained firmly shut. The thick stone door wasn't going to budge through force alone.
Quinn checked the card-slot device carefully, then began dismantling it. As she used her tools to lever off the front panel, she received a nasty shock as she triggered some sort of trap.
Vilhelm questioned the emperor, who continued his mad grin without changing expression at all. Rex pushed his way past the straw audience as he climbed the first level of seats. Their painted faces all looked delighted, but up-close there was something decidedly creepy about the wide eyes and smiling mouths.
The emperor was on an extended balcony, about ten rows up. As Rex climbed over the second row of seats, he heard a loud thunk, and suddenly the seats he was climbing over crumbled beneath him, falling in large stone chunks into a pit below.
"Son of a...!" Quinn shook the feeling back into her hands as electricity coursed through her arms.
Now that she knew there was a trap and that someone didn't want anyone tampering with the machine, it made her even more determined to mess with it. She redoubled her efforts while the others looked for other ways out.
"You find that funny, I presume?" Vilhelm growled as he was the seats go down beneath Rex's feet. "So let's laugh at this together."
The invoker let the glaive fall from his hands, focusing his thoughts. The moment the silvery polearm hit the ground it exploded into tiny motes of light with the sound of silvery bells tinkling. As soon as the lights faded a new weapon took shape in Vilhelm’s hands, this time a slender javelin with a redwood haft and a rune-carved silvery head. Without another word he took a running step forward and threw it, watching the Fey-gifted weapon hit the emperor effigy squarely in the chest… only to vanish a moment later in a cloud of light as another identical javelin materialized in Vilhelm’s hands.
”I can do this all day, and that’s just before the lady here starts tossing flames around,” Vilhelm said, gesturing with his free hand towards Dizzy. ”Can you still keep on smirking with your face on fire?”
Rex tumbled and fell, landing under a heap of rubble. Coughing, he struggled his way out of the pile. He cursed loudly and kicked one of the chairs, cursing again from the pain that the impact caused. Not taking his hatred filled eyes off of the emperor, he growled towards the others, "Someone have a rope?"
Dizzy turned to the child and said, "Can I see your dolly? Did the mean emperor put anything in there?"
Jibril grabbed his rope and tried to clamber up after Rex to see if he was ok.
Vilhelm's javelin hit the emperor square in the chest, doing little damage to the straw effigy other than put a hole in his royal-looking robe. However, the smile on his face vanished, to be replaced with a scowl and angry, downturned eyebrows.
Rex had fallen into a pit 20 feet deep, full of jagged chunks of the stone arena benches. Jibril was able to climb over the first row of spectators and lower the rope to Rex. In a matter of minutes the brawler was out of the pit.
Avie reluctantly handed her doll to Dizzy, who felt the cloth doll carefully and didn't feel anything inside of it.
Quinn, aware now of the danger, was able to avoid getting zapped a second time. She took off the panel, and found the wooden cards inside. Each was sitting on a pressure plate, that looked connected to a series of wires. After a bit of experimentation, she was able to circumvent the timer, and open and close the doors at will. However, none of the wires seemed to be attached to the main entrance/exit door, and that one remained firmly shut.
Figuring out the workings of the machine, Quinn immediately opened Avie's door. "Someone check inside where Avie was. It's the only place we haven't searched other than the arena itself. If there aren't any tokens there then we start tearing the arena apart." Meanwhile, Quinn closed the doors to the areas they had already searched just to keep anything unknown from sneaking out.
Once Jibril and Rex were face to face he smiled oddly ... the left corner of his mouth went sideways and up a little - it clearly meant mischief. "Well, now that we're here, shall we take the emperor for ransom?"
Watching for more pits he tried to make his way to the emperor with his gandasa out to hack the effigy from it's post.
Rex nodded back at Jibril, though he did not meet Jibril's smile. His face only showed stone cold determination. "Yes. Let's smash him...".
He began climbing up the rows of seats once more, this time paying closer attention to the stability of the area and trying to avoid any attempts of sabotage by the emperor.
Jibril follows from about ten feet back
Dizzy cast an anxious eye as the boys made their way up to the emperor. "Careful, lads. Thar's bound ta be more in the way o' traps and the like."
On Quinn's request, she moved into Avie's cell, and looked around.
Noting the emperor's displeasure with a grim smile, Vilhelm called his favorite glaive back into his hands, just in case the straw man had more tricks up his sleeves, now that people were ganging up to him. As Rex and Jibril began working their way up to the effigy itself, Vilhelm moved a few steps towards the cell Dizzy was heading into, just so they wouldn't spread themselves too thinly, yet maintained a clear line of fire at the emperor.
As Rex climbs, he sees that each section of each row of seats is held up by a small pin, and any added weight will cause it to collapse. It's likely that the fall will be greater as they climb higher, thus increasing the risk. A quick look in both directions confirms that there is no safe way to climb up.
Dizzy and Vilhelm check out Avie's cell, but find nothing other than her squalid living conditions.
Quinn felt a faint vibration in her chest before she actually heard anything. But when she began to concentrate she could hear it. It was very faint but it was there. A deep, low rumbling that was coming from...from...her blood ran cold...below. "Guys! There's something making noise under ground. I think we're about to have more company."
"Guys! There's something making noise under ground. I think we're about to have more company."
"Can you tell where the sound it coming from?" Vilhelm said nervously, straining his ears as his eyes scanned the arena floor. Of course, now he could well imagine himself hearing all sorts of unnatural noices from down below, but that might just be his nerves. Anything big enough Quinn could hear it as it tunneled around under their feet, he was not in a great hurry to meet.
Jibril's mischievous smile faded. He looked at Rex, "It sounds like our recreation has come to an end - it's time to go back to work. I would say 'I wish we never came into this room' but who would be here to help the little one?"
He jogged lightly to the bottom edge of the seats and leapt to the ground. He ran to grab his backpack.
He had a look of compassionate concern towards Dizzy, "Do you think you could take some of my things? Can someone hold onto the tiles? I think Avie might fit inside my fathers ruck sack." He unhooked his gandasa and dropped it to the ground and started throwing out any unnecessary equipment from the bag.
Rex sighed. "Looks like the whole thing is rigged to fall anyway..." He hopped down to the arena. He pulled out his longspear and began listening carefully.
Dizzy quickly packed Jibril's stuff into her own backpack, then picked up the halfling child. "This scarecrow o' a man will be your pony, lass. You climb in here, so we can keep ye safe. Unnerstand?"
She picked up the child, and placed her carefully but securely in Jibril's pack.
The dwarf then turned her ear to the stone arena and the packed earth floor.
Avie allowed herself to be lifted into Jibril's pack, though she was whimpering with fear and clutching her doll tight.
The rumbling sound grew, so they all could hear it. Suddenly, all the doors in the stadium slammed shut, raising puffs of dust. The dust near the south door (snake door) continued to rise, making a small cloud. The ground there started to shake and vibrate, then suddenly fell away. The entire south end of the arena tumbled down into darkness.
They couldn't see the bottom, and it was clearly deeper than the trap Rex had fallen into earlier. A dim, red glow could be seen, though it didn't shed any light, nor could they tell how far down it was. A very hot, smokeless wind gusted up out of the hole.
The rumbling sound continued, and the rest of the arena's floor was vibrating faintly underfoot.
Alarmed, Dizzy glanced up to the emperor, expecting to see him smiling again. "He's tryin' ta force our hand! Quinn? Can ye stop the floor from fallin'?"
"He's not getting the girl! I won't let him win!" Rex growled. He turned to Jibril. "Do you have a hook? Can you get a rope up there? he asked with an almost crazed look in his eye. Pulling out his sling, he wound up and tossed a bullet toward the scarecrow emperor's head.
Quinn was not about to let the floor fall out from under them. She was already looking for any sort of panel or controls that were attached to the floor when Dizzy's question rang out over the rumbling.
She overheard Rex's question to Jibril and offered as she searched, "I have a grappling bolt that Jibril can use if he's willing to use my crossbow. Attach a rope and shoot it at the emperor."
"Better yet, I have a spell for walking on walls and other sheer surfaces, if you want it," Vilhelm offered, holding his glaive in a defensive stance. He was not sure what would eventually emerge from its underground lair but Vilhelm felt confident that whatever it might be, he would not like it. "There's only enough for one, though."
Jibril had discarded his gandasa like it was a broken cog. Out of his pack he pulled some silk rope, a waterskin, and the survival suit he had purchased and let them go with a bit of a sigh. "Please, these were my father's. Can someone hold onto them?" He set a survival kit and a healer's kit to one side "Perhaps we could spread these out amongst you?" He pulled out the four game tiles.
Earnestly and worried, "Quinn, thank you. You should keep the bolt. It could be a way for all of you to escape. Vilhelm, please do what you can and I will do my uttermost to keep Avie safe."
The rumbling stopped for a moment, but before they could breathe a sigh of relief, it intensified right by the exit door. The ten-foot width of the stadium fell away, taking the bear carcass with it, down into the same red-tinged chasm.
The emperor was grinning madly - his mouth was open in a silent laugh. It was eery to see so much emotion on a straw figure's face, especially when he didn't speak or react in any other way.
Quinn continued to scan the arena as another section of floor fell away. Finally she spots a stone that looks different than the rest of the wall but the problem was that it was also twelve feet straight up.
"Rex! I need you over here now to give me a boost."
The rogue scrambled up on to Rex's shoulders and then got the burly brawler to boost her up even further by holding her feet in each hand and extending his arms. Easily balancing and partially bracing herself on the wall, she went to work.
First she carefully looked over the false stone before attempting to remove the panel.
"Anything you believe you can do, now would be the time," Vilhelm said, watching in growing trepidation as more and more of the floor fell into the abyss below. The invoker touched Jibril’s shoulder while murmuring words in Sylvan to call upon the power of his patrons, granting the elf the ability to walk on sheer surfaces. that should get the archer with his precious cargo to a safe place, even if Quinn’s instincts were not on the money.
Rex cursed and grumbled as he lost yet another avenue by which he could take out his revenge on the emperor. "Fine. Coming" He grumbled, as he ran over the Quinn and gave her a boost up on to the ledge.
Jibril handed Vilhelm the dagger he once lent him then trotted in place a bit. "That should do it"
He gave everyone a serious nod and bolted for the arena wall up to the stands. "Please don't fret little n'sif-rewha <elvish for half-being>, everyone here will fight to keep you safe If we don't make it out do you think I can have my own cell? I'm not sure I could share a room like that with my whole team. If you could pick someone to room with whom would you choose? I think it's Dizzy."
Jibril tried to make casual conversation with Avie like the were just going for a little jog as he lept onto the wall under the emperor.
Balanced deftly on Rex's palms, Quinn made quick work of the panel's covering. Inside, she found three cables, coloured black, tan and white. They clearly operated three separate mechanisms, but there were no labels, and no way to determine what each of them did.
The cables ran up and down the wall, beyond Quinn's reach, and there was little she could do other than tug on them, or cut them.
Avie trembled in Jibril's pack, sucking her thumb and eyes shut tight.
Despite all that was going on, despite the peril they were in, Dizzy was momentarily hypnotized by the sight of Rex, effortlessly holding Quinn up stright-armed. The rock-hard biceps, the tight butt...
Grinning a bit foolishly, she came to her senses when the ground rumbled again. "Quinn! What have ye found, lass?"
Rex returned to pacing, the whole time watching the emperor like he was prey. He turned back to the others, "Where was that grappling arrow someone was going to fire?"
Quinn didn't like what was revealed when she got the panel off. "There are cables but I can't tell where they lead or what they're attached to. The best I can do is yank all of them and hope for the best. Either the whole floor will fall away or it'll stop the process. Any preferences?"
She added as an after thought, "The grappling bolt is mine and I've been too busy to use it. If someone else want to give it a go, it's in my quiver."
"Alright! I'm coming up!" Rex grunted as he tried to clamber up to Quinn.