Maybe we can get Andretta her stuff and just work around this place clockwise?
Andretta smiles wainly. "I have an ability which allows me to share understanding between willing participants, but it only lasts about ten minutes and I can only do it three times a day. If we need to plan something, or clear anything up between us, and you can explain to the others what I'm doing, it may prove useful."
Considering the offer of this new woman for a moment Fraejia finally responded, "I think that would be a wise idea, to help calm everything down for the moment at the very least." She turned then to Aurexil and said in a flurry of breathy sounding words, [b]"દરેકને સાથે આ પાસ કરો તો તમે છો. કોઈ મહિલા અહીં Andretta તેથી તે અમે બધા એક ટૂંકા સમય માટે દરેક અન્ય સમજવા કરી શકો છો. તે પણ ઘણીવાર ન કરી શકો, પરંતુ તેનો ઉપયોગ કરવા માટે કે જેથી અમે બધા શું કરવું પર કરાર કરવા માટે આવે કરી શકો છો તૈયાર છે. હું માનું છું કે તેમણે જણાવ્યું હતું કે અમે માત્ર દસ મિનિટ હશે તેથી તે ઝડપી હોવા જ જોઈએ. તે દરેક વ્યક્તિ સ્પર્શ તે છતાં કામ કરવા માટે હોય છે. Bahgra કે સ્વીકારશે?"[b]
Yeah let's get everyone talkin' for now and then get your stuff and then open the next door in this madship
Aurexil nods to Fraejia. "હું કે સાથે પસાર કરશો," she states.
She turns to the others. "Konan hér getur látið okkur allir skilja hvert annað í nokkrar mínútur. Hún verður bara að snerta okkur. AefPakka, held að þú getur fengið að yfir til Bahgra?"
AefPakka nods and turns to the bahgra. "Ggrargle glargaga buragoo rullarago lalariggeru grr."
As he says this, he points first at the newcomer, and then mimics touching his arm, and then points to the lady and then touches Aurexil's arm, and then points to the various people and finishes with spreading his arms wide, indicating everyone.
The Bahgra agree to allow a representative from among them participate in this first go-round while the others watch "just in case". The leader from the Bahgra group from your room acts as this representative.
Artirian walks into the room, waiting for translation.
Once everyone is agreed, Andretta pulls you all together and has you all lay a hand on her while she concentrates.
"Did it work?" The Bahgra Leader asks.
Andretta smiles "Yes, of course. Please tell your people I am sorry for the misunderstanding, and I hope there are no hard feelings."
"Feh! Feelings can be mended. The greater threat is whoever had us in those tubes. Once we have avenged ourselves against that crime together, we'll worry about feelings." The Bahgra leader says.
Aurexil stands awkwardly close to the others, wings tightly furled, waiting for their newest rescue to cast her spell or whatever it was.
Alright let's get on with clearing out this place and then head upstairs on the elevator.
Accepting the woman's gift with fascination Fraejia tried it out in something like giddy delight when she heard the Bagrha spokesdog speak, "Wow! This is kind of neat, I've heard of similar abilities before, it's even rumored some of the eldest of my kind can do this constantly." She paused then to collect herself, schooling her expression, and continued, "I agree that we should get on with things but it would be wise to plan how to handle combat now, while we can each reveal what we are capable of doing. I'll go first," she paused to gather her thoughts and said, "You've already seen what I can do, I manipulate cold, freezing, thawing, if it's cold it's my play thing. I can't do a lot with creating and forming ice yet, I'm still growing into my powers, in particular I can create alow barrier of ice at will, and send blasts of sheer cold at targets. I also am a decent mechanic and engineer." She looked at the others, "How about the rest of you?"
Neve pauses, she'd been so focused on getting out of the madhouse of a ship that Fraeja's suggestion hadn't even occurred to her. She looks around. Well, uh I'm Neve.. Neve Aurora. I've always been able to pull of some... magic, I think. Heal people, make lights. Like some of you saw. I'm feeling kinda drained at the moment though. Other'n that I've been on ships my whole life and I've never met anyone who's as good a navigator as me, and that's, like, not a boast.
Artiran is overjoyed at getting the spell cast on him. Finally a way to communicate with everyone! "Thank you so much!" He gratefully thanks Andretta."May I know whom I have the pleasure of addressing?"
Then he turns to the party."I'm Artirian. And this is Jaxel. He's my dog and he's the best doggy ever!" He gestures at Jaxel.
"It would be more appropriate to say that he's my human." Jaxel replies in a deep gravelly voice as he gives Artirian a sideways glance.
"Do any of you have any idea how we all ended up here? I don't. If we knew how we got here, then we just need to follow the route we got here back..right?"He sounds a little uncertain. "You know I've never been...kidnapped by bad people, stuffed into a jar, I don't really know what to do." He looks at the ground, ashamed. "I don't know what to do in a fight! I spend all my free time in the library reading books!"
Sorry if I'm being rude but.. Neve says Some of you people seem like you've never even been on a ship before
Jaxel gives a sigh. "Let's just say he needs someone to keep him out of trouble. And I'm that someone. Now, since I have a tougher hide then most of you here, I suggest that I'll take point."
AefPakka's face beams at being able to all understand each other. He looks at his hand, still resting on Andretta's arm, "It seems only right that it would be a simple touch that could bring us together in understanding." He gives Andretta's arm a gentle squeeze before letting go. "You are a blessing."
He holds his 4 arms wide, addressing the group now, "Friends, I am AefPakka Shantiss. We must have been gathered from quite far away from each other, because I have traveled far with my clan but have never encountered those like yourselves. True, the circumstances of our gathering may have been... less than ideal and sadly, death has visited us. But can we take a moment and appreciate how wonderful it is that *we* were brought together? If not for this, we would likely have lived our entire lives never meeting one another." AefPakka puts his arms at his sides and looks at each person and smiles broadly.
"As for how I can assist, I have some magic ability but would take an hour or so to prepare. It isn't anything as spectacular as what some of you have been capable of, so it can wait. (Wow, you really are an amazing group. You should be proud of your talents.)
"Otherwise, I can fight... some... but do seem better skilled than much of my clan at subduing opponents without killing them if that can be of help. I can play some music as you heard earlier, although nothing particularly special. (Apparently, I also tend to talk at great length, my apologies) Mostly, I seem to get along with people really well, but that's because people are generally pretty decent folk once you get to know them, like our furry friends here."
Turning to the bahgra, AefPakka says, "I'm glad you are here with us. Your people are brave and strong. You represent them well, my friend."
AefPakka looks back to the rest of the group, awaiting further introductions before remembering something, "Oh, and Neve... what's a 'ship'?"
Fraejia considered how best to respond and said, "And good thought, I'm Fraejia, the youngest known of my people, the Esper. As for what a ship is, I assume you are familiar with water going ships and boats of different kinds? Well, a ship, in this case, is a vessel that is capable of sailing the blackness between the stars. Your world's sun, it's source of daylight, is a star as are all the lights in the night's sky and many of them have world's like the one's all of you came from."
"I'm not sure what's more amazing - that we are from different worlds and stars, or that your worlds have enough water for vehicles to go on! Wow. I have always been most at peace gazing up at the stars, and now I travel between them. This really is a day of wonders! Thank you for explaining that to me, Fraejia. When we have time to rest, I would love to hear more of the Espers and these other worlds."
Aurexil listens to the others for a while. It was a relief not to have to pass messages back and forth through two or three different languages just to talk with everyone.
She narrows her eyes at Neve and Fraejia's claims about ships sailing between stars, though. "You really expect me to believe that you've..."
She catches herself, thinks it over for a moment, then shakes her head slightly. "Well, I suppose ships sailing between stars isn't any crazier than the rest of this. So I'm Aurexil, a Wyvaran. I'm a warrior and hunter, and while Jaxel's hide might be tougher than mine, I'll bet I can take more of a beating anyway, so we should both take point."
She grins, half joking, half serious.
Fraejia seemed pleased at AefPakka's interest as she said, "There are whole worlds covered with nothing but water, I've seen one once, though I didn't get to land there. I..." she paused then, as if she were reining her enthusiasm in and obviously changed what she was going to say, "as for talking of my kind, we'll see, we generally keep most knowledge of ourselves from outsiders." By the time she finished she seemed almost frigid in demeanor. She focused on Aurexil then, as if needing a target to be gruff towards, and said, "Whether you believe me or not, it doesn't change the truth. Fortunately you seem willing to suspend that disbelief. An open mind is a good thing."
"I know other worlds exist. It’s all in the books. Golarion is the material plane, then there’s the Astral plane the connects the material planes to the inner and outer planes. The inner planes are the elemental planes, while the outer planes are the places like Elysium, Heaven, Nirvana, then there are nasty ones like the Abyss…” He recites to the rest of the group, not caring if anyone is listening to him lecture."Yes, Fraejia, from your make up, you probably come from the elemental plane of ice..."
”Wait a minute. From a ship we can travel to the different planes? Which plane are we in now?” He asks the party.
Freajia almost seemed relieved for a distraction, at least until Artirian spoke. She rolled her eyes in exasperation and said, "No, not planes, worlds. Golarion is a world, it orbits a star, it's son, there are likely other worlds in orbit circling the same star. Those other worlds may have life, or they may not. When taken all together your star and the worlds around it are a star system, each star in the night sky has it's own star system, there may be life there, there may not be. When you talk about planes you are describing your universe and it's various parts." Her tone had become very instructional, much like a teacher reciting a lesson in an impersonal fashion, "Your planes combine to create your universe, then you take your universe and add it to the whole of existence which contains countless universes. As a whole there has never been a limit found to existence, at last count there were some five-hundred million universes and counting and almost all of them are made up of more stars, like yours, so many the number would be meaningless to any of us but Neve and myself."
"You're saying that all the stars that we see in the night sky have celestial objects called worlds orbiting them, like the moon orbits Golarion." He mutters, his eyes lost in thought, as he begins to digest what Fraejia just said. "And that there many worlds to each star. Each world has different lifeforms."His eyes begin to glow with excitement. "Oh my god there's so much out there I haven't seen! And we're on a ship thay can bring us to all those different worlds!" He begins to bounce up and down happily. "Lets go get to the control room so we can visit all those wondrous worlds one by one! Fraejia, can you show me your world?"
"Showing you my world isn't possible, I do..." She stopped herself then and seemed slightly annoyed, "That isn't possible, we don't even know if we're on a ship, this could be some enclosed facility, it might not even be in space but on another world altogether. Even if it is a ship I can all but garuantee you it can't travel between universes, that takes technology far beyond most universes to accomplish. Even to the beings that built this such might seem as much magic to them as this place does to you."
Let's talk about alternate dimensions and, like, the nature of spacetime, and stuff, when we're safe Neve breaks in with a grimace If you guys hadn't noticed we still haven't figured out who even put us in those gross tubes.
Aurexil is warily watching their surroundings as Artirian and Fraejia talk. When Neve speaks up, she nods in agreement.
"Right. We've got to fight our way free before we can think about where we're going." She looks over at Andretta. "Our gear was in that room," she points at the room in question, "You can try using one of the keys we took off the guards and see if the door will open. It was being strange--suppose Neve could tell you better what that means. I think the rest of us should check out this last door," she points at point 1 on the map, "To see if there's anything useful before we go in that thing in the middle, if that's where we're headed next."
"Neve said we're on a madship, and Aurexil said ships sail between stars.But why can't we travel anywhere we like? I mean ships in Golarion can travel through the ocean, so why can't ships travel through the blackness between stars?" Artirian answers Fraejia. "Well..I don't know how long we'll be able to talk to each other so I want to make the most out of it! Or maybe we could all learn a language so we can all speak to each other properly?"He replies to Neve.
Jaxel moves silently towards .
Your human talks too much Neve mutters to Jaxel as he moves forward.
"Yeah, but he's got a good heart, really.Maybe a little too good of one."
Jaxel tries to open the door with his hand-like paws.
"No worries, Fraejia, I'm interested in as much or as little as you are willing or able to share. But Neve is right, let's make sure we are safe first. There are many of us and these hallways are tight. So, although we should not split up, we should at least perhaps spread out to both avoid getting in each other's way and to watch for more of those creatures coming up behind us."
He turns to the bahgra that is speaking with them. "Do you want to have some of your people watch those doors - I think Neve called it an elevator? The rest of us and whoever from your people you want, can see where this other door leads."
Sounds good to me
"We'll watch the door to the small central room- elevator- I'll have two of my best accompany you, Aefpakka Shantiss, since you are the only one capable of some understanding of our words with out the witch's spell." the chief Bahgra says. "Growlf, Skrahp, stick close to Aefpakka and watch him well."
Andretta seems almost as confused and fascinated by the talkof ships and worlds as Atirian. "I'll see if I can retrieve my gear, then, and perhaps your fellows who were in the room with me can retriev theirs as well." she says to the Bahgra spokesperson.
"Good idea. You four, the Witch is going to get her gear. Go with her and get yours. Don't eat her."
A plan decided, you move towards opening the last door. Certainly it I possible for all groups to keep an eye on each other as you do so in this tight space.
This room is identical to the other prisoner rooms, with ten leathery tubes. The tubes in this room have not been opened, and vaguely humanoid shapes can be seen floating within the thick goo inside, although the goo obscures any further identification. The room is dark and silent.
Uhhh.. I think we should leave this room alone... At least until we get the rest of this place figured out Neve says nervously.
"We shouldn't leave those people there, right? I mean we were also stuck in that thick goo ourselves and would've been stuck there for god knows how long if something didn't let us out!" Artirian argues heatedly.
He summons a light and inspects the humanoid shapes, then tries to look for any mechanism that would let hem out.
Aurexil nods in agreement with Artirian. "We can't leave them prisoner here! Though..."
She pauses a moment in thought. "Only if we can make sure we won't kill them by opening these things. Seems like if we did it wrong it would be bad."
Or they could bite our heads off!
"Jaxel wouldn't let that happen." Artirian replies.
"Yeah. Harm a hair on his head...and they wouldn't like what they'd be getting." Jaxel bares his teeth.
Look, I'm not saying we leave them in there forever. I'm just saying, like, we find out who did this to us and then find a way of getting them out safely
"Also, don't forget that in two of the rooms, the tubes opened on their own and the result was conflict. Leaving them to open on their own may lead to death and more enemies that could have been friends. With many more of us, it will be quite cramped, but hopefully we will be more than a match for any of these captors we encounter.
"*IF* we can open them safely, perhaps we should try to look as friendly and welcoming as possible? But, of course, ready for conflict if necessary."
AefPakka smiles broadly, "Maybe I could play a song!"
Aurexil growls in frustration.
"I have to say, I think Neve's right. Do any of us have a clue how to even open these? The others opened on their own, so it's not like any of us have tried."
Fraejia could see both sides of the argument but finally said, "Remember the room before last though? Our captor's murdered their prisoners. I'm not willing to leave them here. Why don't the rest of you finish exploring this level while I see if I can figure out how to safely open these." She paused a moment and then continued, "Andretta, I want you to stay with me, it might be necessary to have you use your ability so we can understand whoever is in there when we open them."
If we split up and get attacked then we're dead meat! If we take care of the people who run this place then the tube people will be safer than if we get them out. Let's just find out who runs this place and take 'em out. Please? If we're going to open up the tubes then we should do it together.
"I agree that splitting up would be unwise. Besides, I'd miss all my new friends. I lean towards opening them, but I see the wisdom in both sides. If we can secure whatever this is that we are in quickly, then the best option might be to leave them and come back. However, do any of you have a guess how large this might be? It may be fast to secure it or it may go on for some distance.
"If this even is a ship between stars, how big are they normally? Unfortunately, I do not know enough about star ships or water ships to know if they are small or big. If they are usually small, then I agree with Neve, and let us finish this off first. If they are very large, then I say let's not leave these poor beings to a fate of awakening confused and possibly killing each other.
"So... uh... that's not helpful is it? I guess it's up to the rest of you, and I will support whatever is decided. Well, except about not splitting up. I do agree with Neve on that regardless of how big whatever this thing is."
Fraejia considered Neve's point and nodded before replying to her, "If this is a ship we can likely do as you suggest, it depends on the ship though. If it's a base or a very large ship we may not be able to come back here at all in which case they are as good as dead and we should kill them now so they at least die in peace." She sighed then and looked around, "Let's see if we can find a terminal and access some information about where we are before we decide to leave them." As she looked around she spoke to AefPakka, "Ships that travel the stars can be as small as am animal drawn carriage, those are usually short range ships, rarely able to travel far beyond a given system, to ships miles in length. Most tend to be somewhere on the lower to middle end of that with most being less than a mile or so long. Then there are some that are so large it would be impossible to explain to you. You lack a frame of reference to truly comprehend."
"The behemoth vessels, my people had a number of them at one time, are designed to ferry smaller vessels between universes. The largest I've ever heard of was large enough to swallow most of your solar system inside one cavernous hangar bay, the sun included."
"Its simple. We let these guys out. If they're friendly, we can explore the rest of the ship together. And I don't know anything about ships except for those that sail on seas. " He looks at his feet.
"Aurexil, do you think breaking the glass would free them?"