.
Seeing a target down but not out, Niadroub Kliip casts scorching ray at her.
Niadroub cooks Yellow finishing her off with his first ray. :)
Vibenia, Dusk & Zelera have Red left.
Easily shrugging off the waves of chaos that hammer at her mental defenses, Vibenia surveys the mayhem of the battle, noting her allies tactics as they take down one, then another of the strange witches. Focusing on the final target, she unleashes a volley of bolts in her direction, calling to Dusk to finish her off.
Dusk slams into the witch, tearing into her with savage fury.
Vibenia makes Red do the stagger dance as she pumps her full of bolts.
Red is put out of her misery as Dusk nearly rips her leg off.
.
Loot:
MW Breastplate (3),
Dagger +2 (keen) (3),
Unholy symbol of Gyronna (3).
What are you doing now? Double doors south and east of you
Niadroub Kliip states that each door seems as likely as another. He asks Mouse if he can hear anything beyond either door that might distinguish one of them. He also explains how when their baron Colwyn still travelled with them, he was adept at unlocking doors that were locked. He asks Mouse if he had that skill.
"Yes, locks and traps are common to my people, as they are to those that decided to attempt to own others." Mouse says with practical seriousness, already nodding and moving to the doors.
The fight was quick, as fights often were, and Zelera was relieved that they had made it through in fairly good shape. She looked around at her companions and asked, "Is anyone hurt?"
D2. Test of Strength
Four boulders of varying size lie within this long chamber. At the far end, progressively larger steps rise toward another set of iron doors. Each step bears a round depression corresponding in size to one of the boulders below.
.
What are you doing now?
Mouse shakes her head at the question Zelera asks, once again making it through the battle without a scratch, thank Cayden. In the new room, Mouse looks at the boulders with a worried look. While the small halfling has proven quite deadly, strength is not her strong suite it seems.
So she waits...
.
So, what ya doing?
"Hmm. The brute strength method to this would be for a few of us to try to push the boulders and roll them into place. Could perhaps even construct a harness for Tracer to move one, though not sure how maneuverable that would be."
"Niadroub, what's the smart way?"
.
"While brute force isn't necessarily my preferred way of doing things, I can help if you want to give it a go, Marten." Vibenia says, looking at the task that lies before them.
Zelera considered the issue at hand and said, "If it helps I can change one of you into something more suitable. I am unsure how long the effect will last but it should be able to help us with this problem."
With some grunting, Marten rolls the smallest boulder up into its socket.
"Well, that was doable, but not easy. Might not be possible with the bigger ones," he says.
"We should put some ramps here anyway, if we're going to try it like that."
"Zelera, if you can polymorph something, you might as well polymorph the biggest boulder into a tiny pebble, then put it in its socket and dispel the effect."
Since nobody else responds, Gorman goes outside to get some wood and start carving down some planks.
"Niadroub, what's the smart way?"
Niadroub Kliip purses his lips and starts rattling off ideas.
"Eff we hed a beg of hoolding, we could rooll a boolder een it, end then turn the beg oopside down over the step. But we doon't heve a beg of hoolding."
The arcanist quickly discovers that a handy haversack doesn't hold enough weight or have a big enough opening to work, either. He pulls out his portable hole, and while he feels confident that they could roll one of the smaller boulders into the hole, there's no place above the step to spread the hole back out to roll the boulder out of the extra-dimensional hole.
The only other way to cheat the test that he can think of is to keep piling smaller things on top of the steps until the steps support the correct weight.
"Well, it was worth a shot, Niadroub," says Marten appreciatively.
"Let's see if I can get the second one moving."
Marten manages to muscle the second boulder into place.
The third one, at last, proves too much.
"I think that's my limit, barring other magic."
While you are discussing this there is a click and the stairs tilt forward, rolling the boulders back onto the floor with a heavy thud.
If you'd been in there you would have been under an avalanche of rock!
The stairs then reset to their original position.
What now? Once the first boulder is placed you have six minutes to get them all in place or you get rolling rocks coming down on you!
"We should definitely use Zelera's spell to transform the biggest one into something small and quickly put that at the top once the others are in place." Vibenia suggests.
"I wonder how the mechanism works. I heard a click when it reset. If we can get some of the floor tiles up, maybe we can figure out how to trip it."
At Marten's pronouncement, Mouse perks up, having little to help with this obstacle until now. She starts carefully looking around the room, where boulders are supposed to go the closest.
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Gunoke watched the way the others struggled to lift the boulders with a great deal of amusement and even had the audacity to start laughing when the boulder rolled back down. "Wow, don't you lazy lunkers know how to move things?" With that Gunoke focused and efortlessly caused one of the boulders to rise into the aid move at a fairly quick pace to the appropriate location before repeating the process for each boulder.
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Mouse easily disables the trap mechanism, while the door still doesn't open the stairs will no longer tip the boulders back down.
Then Gunoke gets over watching everyone suffer and uses his telekinetic haul to place the boulders in their spots.
The two doors at the end click open.!
D3
Columns of fused iron weapons emerge from a sheet of iron on the chamber floor. A single iron wheel protrudes from the floor in
the middle of the room.
What are you doing now?
.
Gorman wordlessly walks over to the platform with the boulders and kicks over one of the planks that he made (which was, of course, unneeded due to Gunoke's awesome powers).
Marten frowns slightly and says, "This is another puzzle?"
Niadroub Kliip suggests just turning the wheel, unless Mouse detects any traps or other dangers to doing so.
He then casts detect magic to see what he can glean.
Detect magic shows the metal pillars all radiate Evocation magic.
Good move waiting on the Rogue. :)
Vibenia rests a hand on Dusk, wordlessly telling him to wait before they enter the ominous-looking chamber.
Mouse approaches the wheel with an abundance of caution, then looks over everything she can about the wheel itself.
Mouse immediately spots the trap, anyone stepping on the metal plate triggers it. If triggered the metal pillars generate walls of freezing ice around the room, blocking both doors.
Anyone in the room will take freezing damage every minute until the walls vanish.
.
Once the trap is disabled turning the iron wheel 7 times unlocks the door to the next area.
What now?
"If Armag and his people made it this far I'll actually be impressed."Vibenia says quietly.
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Once Mouse gives the all clear, Marten bravely moves into the room beyond and turns the wheel with a grunt.
"Certainly getting my exercise for today," he quips. Gorman just rolls his eyes in exasperation.
After seven rotations of the wheel, Marten says, "I think I heard a mechanism disengage. Anyone want to check the door?"
Vibenia trains her crossbow on the door, ready should anything deadly lurk beyond it.
Mouse takes her time, since it could endanger her swarm. Finally is clicks and the door opens. The halfling woman smiles with relief. "I wonder what is next?" she saws simply then leads the others to the next potential death trap.
The door opens revealing a passageway with two side passages and stairs heading downwards. .
D8. Empty Chambers
Each of these chambers previously served as living space for those who helped construct the tomb. Now they contain a variety of historical relics and curious minor art objects from Armag’s age.
.
At the end of the passageway are another set of double doors.
What are you doing now?
"Two trapped rooms in a row. I don't trust those doors."
"My people uses cloth to cover openings in our den, easier to move, clean, and rush through when danger comes. They only build doors to block intruders, and they are Always trapped." Mouse says to validate Marten's opinion as she moves to the door and starts searching for traps.
Mouse finds the doors are not trapped.
D9
Four massive pillars hold up this large dome-shaped chamber’s
ceiling, which rises to a height of fifty feet. At the room’s center
stands a towering suit of spiked armor.
What are you doing now?
.
"They must've been in a hurry to finish this place, if they forgot to put traps on the door. Or someone else has already come through here."
Marten brings his shield up and advances cautiously just inside the room, with Falling Leaf in his other hand.
"I have a feeling that I'm going to be fighting that thing, Gorum-style," he says wryly.
Mouse slips behind the warrior, choosing stay behind the man in iron form of tactics and whispers a quick spell of detecting magic on the armor.