Moving towards one of the doors, the one next clockwise from where the friends retrieved their gear, Rikkan examines the surface of the door, the green disk adjacent to it and the wall surrounding the door. Satisfied that it isn't trapped, he does however conclude that it will be tricky to unlock... removing the disk, in the way that Drancis previously did, will make the attempt easier but there still remains the risk of an electrical shock.
Whilst Rikkan examines the door, Zoreck takes the opportunity to take a look around, discovering something peculiar - the central column of stone within the chamber, some ten feet by ten feet in width, has a door within it... there are two disks within the wall, arranged vertically, they are unlit.
His attention focused on the next locked door, Drancis notices the odd room in the center of the lobby. "What do you suppose is inside this room? Should I try opening it or try one of the other doors?" He shakes his head. "I don't think it offers a way out of here. Maybe it is a vault of some kind?"
"Interesting. There are more doors than we realized... Perhaps it is some form of staircase inside?" Locke rubs his chin ponderously, "Still, Since we have already inspected this door," he motions to the door Rikkan and himself are in front of, "Perhaps we should continue here for now? Do you think you could remove the device again Drancis?"
"Yes, I think so Locke..." Drancis nods even as he carefully surrounds the bubble around the solid green disk with his mind, extracting it as carefully as he can.
Once again, gripping the pronounced features of the disk with his mind, Drancis rips it from the wall – revealing the tumblers, gears and latching mechanisms that are holding the door shut.
Far more cautious after the first time he attempted to open a lock, and got a vicious shock for his troubles, Rikkan slowly moves the tumblers and gears until, with a ‘click’, he pulls the latching mechanisms clear of the door. Zoreck and Illonna, working together, then manually slide the door into the wall. The further into the wall that the door is pushed, the harder it becomes to move – almost as if they are working against a coiled spring…
The stone chamber beyond the door is lit by a glowing metal panel bolted to the ceiling. Eight metallic cylinders, each with transparent hatches stand in the four corners of the room – vague humanoid shapes can be observed through the thick liquid film that fills the cells. There are no other exits apparent within the room.
Still unsure of how best to proceed, Astraea will peek into the new chamber and do a quick sweep of detect magic.
Reaching out and feeling for auras, Astraea detects nothing; whatever... whoever is within this chamber - within the cylinders... none of them seem to be wielding magic...
Drancis feels a sliver of fear run up and down his spine as he takes in the scene. "More prisoners?" He says in a hushed tone. "Should we try to free them? I don't know if they will be hostile like the others we saw...but to leave them here..." He adds in a hopeful tone.
"Hmmm..." Zoreck furrows his brow in thought. "I say we leave them here for now, until we can figure out what the f--k is going on here."
"Whrr, yes, leave them be. Don't want to fight more gnolls!". Rikkan looks around the room for anything else interesting.
Perception
"We can always come back for them after checking the other rooms, but if they are hostile then it would only slow us down. So I agree with Zoreck and Rikkan." Locke nods to the others and follows Rikkan's eyes around the room, waiting for the go ahead to move on.
Drancis nods in reply, albeit somewhat reluctantly. "Yes, you are right. We can check out the other rooms." Drancis waits for Rikkan to finish exploring the room before leaving and heading over to the next clockwise door .
There is little more to discover within this chamber, the humanoid shapes within the cylinders suspended in the murky liquid are near motionless within their strange housings... but when Rikkan draws close to one of the cylinders, intrigued momentarily by the sound of machinery coming from somewhere beneath the floor, the figure floats close enough to the 'window' to be able to see what it is... The inhabitant of the cylinder appears to be a hobgoblin - with tubes fed into its nose and mouth, its eyes are wide open and its unmoving hands appear to be clutching at the tube inserted into its throat.
...it takes a few moments, after the initial shock, to realise that the hobgoblin's eyes are focussed on a point in the middle distance and that it hasn't 'seen' Rikkan...
Rikkan points out to the others that he could see through the tube and saw a hobgoblin in the same straights they had been shortly before.
Illonna shakes her head "We have to free them."
A quick examination of the panels within the cylinders reveals that they may be readily removed...
...and, looking at each of the cylinders, the occupants are all perfectly motionless...
Drancis peers at the cylinders for a moment then shrugs uncertainly. "They could still be alive..."
"Or not, sadly. We should still open the container and check."
Unless someone stops her Illonna will open the container and try to check on the hobgoblin.
"Remember what happened when the gnolls came to, click. Are we sure we want to do this?"
Locke hesitates, "We can't guarantee they will be our enemies if they still live, and if our inaction leads to them dying when perhaps we could have saved them..." He is leaning toward allowing Illonna to open the container.
"I agree. Illonna, let the poor guy out of there. We can't just leave him." She sighs. "Just be careful."
*sigh* "OK. Fine. Let's just be ready for them to mistake us for their captors."
Rikkan moves to the back of the room, and waves at the others to go ahead. So long as I'm closest to the exit, he thinks.
Ready for a hostile response, Illonna and Locke tentatively open the hatch to the cylinder... the semi-opaque liquid within the structure instantly starts to drain away through the floor and, no longer supported by anything, the hobgoblin suddenly comes crashing forwards - still attached to the tubes inserted into its nose and mouth... The friends jump backwards and prepare to retaliate before Rikkan, standing a safe distance away, shouts that the occupant isn't moving...
...a cursory check quickly confirms that the creature is dead.
"Huh. Lucky that didn't happen to us! Is there anything in any of the other cylinders?"
Drancis notes the fluid draining from the dead hobgoblin's mouth and shudders. "He drowned on that fluid, which apparently keeps you alive...but something went wrong."
Each and everyone of the cylinders in this room contains an unmoving humanoid shape...
Drancis reaches out with his mind and pulls on of the tubes out of the cylinder. Holding it in front of his face he nods excitedly, "Look! The fluid going into the hobgoblin's mouth is not clear, like what we had stuck in our noses! Something is terribly wrong here in...well whereever we are..." He shudders briefly.
That could have been US...
He lets the tube fall to the ground. "At least we can tell which souls are still alive now..."
There are transparent tubes connected to the top of each of the cylinders... and each of them is filled with the same pink-ish liquid that the figures are suspended in...
Illonna frowns and shakes her head.
"What is this place, and what's happening here? This is terrible."
"What has collected all of us, gnolls, hobgoblins, whrrr? What is his place?"
Locke feels genuine sorrow as they realize every other being in the room is dead. What an awful way to die... "Do you think all this could have to do with those 'masters' Vuelib mentioned? I can't think of anyone else that would kidnap all of us at the moment."
"That makes the most sense to me, Locke." Drancis replies. "This place must be controlled by those like Vuelib. Whoever they are...kidnapped us and kept us prisoner in here. But something must have gone wrong...We have not seen any guards at all. What happened to them?"
Zoreck nods at Drancis' observation.
"Yeah. I was just wondering that myself."
– the technological items here – the cylinders in which the friends, the gnoll-creatures and the latest discoveries were placed, the lights in the ceiling, the strange disks across the doors – bear certain physical similarities with the equipment that was discovered beneath the Aravenhode Manor… but that may just be a feature of the technology rather than the origin of the equipment…
Without opening anymore of the cylinders, the friends peer through the murky liquid to try and identify the species within – even through the semi-opaque substance, it is possible to conclude that the occupants numbered three hobgoblins, two fetchlings and three lizardfolk… and that each of them has perished within their cylinder.
"Hopefully we will find the answers to our mysteries if we keep moving. There's nothing more we can do for those in these cylinders." Locke will head for the next clockwise door if no one else has anything to do in this room.
"Next door is good," Rikkan says.
Leaving the dead within their cylinders, the friends - increasingly wondering about their surroundings - move around the central chamber and head to the northernmost of the rooms. With a routine that is starting to become established, Drancis rips the disk from the wall before Rikkan, carefully, dismantles the locking mechanism... The same fragrant smell of the goo released from the open cylinders fills this stone chamber. Eight more of the cylinders stand in the four corners between the walls, their transparent panels already open.
In front of the friends, three unconscious gnoll creatures already lying on the floor, their fur still partially covered in goo. Standing among them is an attractive humanoid female... dressed in the same cotton-like strips that the friends were wearing when they stepped from the cylinders, she looks at the friends as the door opens... and then, in the friend's own language, "Stay your weapons... Please... We must work together..."
"Finally, someone with, click, sense. I'm Rikkan. This is group. We want to help! You know whrr where we are?"
Drancis feels a sense of relief finding another human in this place, followed immediately by a flushed sensation. Thoughts of Astraea flood into his mind briefly before he banishes them...for a time.
"I am Drancis." He nods a little quickly. "This is..." he quickly introduces the others. "What is your name?"
"Andretta... I am Andretta, and I am very pleased to see you", the woman smiles sincerely, "As to where we are? I'm afraid I am as lost as you are... I awoke in that cylinder over there... These bahgra awoke at the same time... actually...", Andretta considers the sleeping gnoll-creatures for a moment, "They'll be waking in a minute... not much more than that anyway... It mightn't be the best idea to be here when they do".
"I see you didn't have quite as much success in befriending the gnoll creatures as we did. Well I suppose we can close the door behind us and keep searching this place. We have yet to find much of use."
When he gets the chance to do so without being obvious Locke will be attempting to detect magic on Andretta.
"So they're called Bahgra, then," Astraea notes, having assumed that to be the name of the particular creature they had communicated with earlier. She turns to Rikkan. "Um, do you think maybe you could lock the door behind us? Y'know, just in case these guys wake up angry...?"
Astraea takes a moment to introduce herself. "Andretta, if you don't mind my asking, you seem to have seen these Bahgra before. I've seen gnolls- well, heard of them, anyway- but what are they, and where are they from? I've honestly never heard of them before."
Remembers strange illusion magic that seemed to read one's mind in that one Numerian ruin...
Zoreck places his hand on the handle of his holstered pistol.
"Andretta. Nice to meet you. So...do you have any idea where we are?"
Showing a little self-consciousness as she moves into the main chamber, Andretta enquires of Locke, ”You have found your clothing though… and your weapons? There was nothing in my room… and the Bahgra, they were unarmed also – although, maybe that was to my advantage”.
When Astraea asks about the Bahgra, Andretta explains, ”Seen a Bahgra? Oh no… they are creatures of folklore – there are stories of them, a slave race to an ancient empire that now lies in ruins, but no-one has seen such a creature for an age… The language they speak, a dead dialect known as Ultari, that is how I recognised them for what they were… what are these ‘gnolls’ of which you speak? Are they like the Bahgra?”
…and, watching the sleeping Bahgra, she replies to Zoreck, ”I have no idea where we are… I was on a trek with friends, on my way to the Temple of the Suns, and we camped beneath the shadow of the Uldenspires… when I awoke, I was in one of those cylinders… and now, the presence of the Bahgra? I am at as much of a loss as to what is going on as you appear to be – you have met no others?”
"Met the angry gnolls. Tubes malfunctioned next door, click, and those creatures won't be waking up. They drowned, looks like."
Andretta shudders when Rikkan mentions that the creatures in the eastern room drowned within their cylinders, ”I feared that I would suffer the same fate when I awoke… yet I was being fed air… someone or something has been keeping us alive. You say you have befriended some ‘gnolls’… they are from your lands?”
In the room to the north, the largest of the sleeping Bahgra starts to stir and Andretta, with a little bit of emotion in her voice, reiterates, ”We really should get the door closed”.