"Yes, but that's not going to stop us." he says offhandedly. "Just think about what they'd say in the ship if a couple of statues scared us off. We'd be called the scarecrows."
"Bullets and axes and fire may be enough to stop us, but we've got a fighting chance against that."
Aramant steps near Aam, looking at the structure as well.
Well, whoever it was, there's definitely talent in it. It all looks handcrafted... Masterfully, and quite a long time ago.
His eyes look with particular more attention to the gates. He's obviously much more humble and less regal than most dwarves, as if someone coming from a "lower caste" - if there was such thing.
It doesn't look like 'ye' can force it open. Maybe if we were like a hundred dwarves, heh. - he isn't really funny, and follows by pointing at something in the center - ... However, there. Over there. It's a lock, and it's on our perfect reaching level. It intrigues me, however, that 'tha locka' would be on the outside...
Torgar squints his eyes -more than normal underneath this vehement sun- to look at what Aramant is talking about.
"Well then! You're right! That's right strange..."
He speaks as if he was a master of civil engineering, which he is obviously the farthest thing from. His bewilderment is genuine, however.
"I ain't scared of no crows, though. I've eaten cave crows alive before... This can't hold a candle to Orv."
For a moment, the wind whistles through the mountain peaks, sounding almost like the mournful keening of somebody who has lost what was precious.
The wind doesn't reach the bottom of the crevice where the gate is, though. No breeze ruffles the beards of the explorers. Down here, the air is stagnant and warm, like a gnome's fizzy drink left out too long.
No breeze ruffles the beards of the explorers. Down here, the air is stagnant and warm, like a gnome's fizzy drink left out too long.
"So, do we just turn the crank? Can anyone figure out if it's trapped?" He'll look over the mysterious handle for anything that appears sketchy.
The massive and smooth stone door doesn't look trapped, and the locking mechanism is obvious. It works just by turning the crank. There is not an obvious opening mechanism.
He will turn the crank, ready for anything.
The crank is pretty difficult to turn, and it rotates around several times as Dargrin spins it. A creaking, grinding, sliding sound comes from within the walls. Eventually, the crank stops being able to turn, but the door still doesn't open.
"Let's hope this wasn't locking something nasty in."
Aam tries to push on the door to see if it swings inward now.
Aam (or really any singular dwarf) isn't nearly strong enough to push the massive doors, not to mention the fact that it appears they swing outward. He pushes on the front of the doors, attempts to scrabble at the edge of the door so that he can try and pull it, but to no avail.
After a slightly unsettling amount of time, though, a burst of air comes out from the crack in the center of the doors, smelling of dust and stone. After that, like a seal had been broken, the doors begin to swing open of their own accord. Anyone in the way must scramble to make sure they don't get floored, but the doors swing all the way out, ending up perpendicular to the walls. The inside of the doors are heavily scarred, pockmarked by weapons of all types with long cracks, dents, holes, and slash marks. It's also got the charring of burn marks, and various other marks. You can see (now that the door's edges are revealed) that the lock was very intricate, with over a dozen various bars and wheels and cranks connecting the two sides of it.
Just inside the door is a relatively small chamber, perhaps twenty feet square. Stone benches sit in three rows, allowing seating, but these have been wrecked, probably by hammers. Many of them are in pieces, with stone rubble covering the room.
At the other end was once a window and a door, both regular-sized rather than being a massive stone gate. Both were once made of glass. The door rests on the floor, just a metal frame with a large glass pane inside, though the glass is shattered. The window next to it seems to lead to another small room, apparently for viewing the first chamber. That window also is smashed, and glass bits litter the floor everywhere.
The regular-sized doorway (with the door removed) leads farther inwards, though it's too far into the darkness to see anything important.
From somewhere far away the echoes created by stone bring you a high-pitched, whooping cry, like a goblin who just found a dog small enough for it to murder without fear.
"Yep. Definitely locking something nasty in. So, we foolish enough to go in?" Fully expecting an affirmative answer, Aam digs out a piece of chalk and writes in Dwarven on the outside of one of the doors :
Planet Exploration Team went inside. Marks on inside of doors indicate many people trying to excape. If we do not return, DO NOT FOLLOW.
"Back in Osirion, when you entered an unexplored ruin, it was only polite to warn anyone who comes by later. We can wash it off on the way out - if we make it out."
"Finally, something inviting."
Torgar yawns as he scurries outside the reach of the dreadful sun.
The ugly one scans the hall, discerning features and temperatures to decide if it's the right time to summon his companion.
I dunno how I'll force him back cross that land bridge tho...
"Whatever, or whoever was in there, it spent a lot of time and effort trying to escape as opposed to fighting whatever was chasing them, they must have known how sturdy those doors were, that worries me."
Reginald shall dismount and use the trick "Watch" on Dobin at the gate.
"Hopefully whatever it is has been weakened by its long-term imprisonment, I'll go in first however, I'm the best armored, and worst come worst, will take the longest to get eaten because of it."
"Or perhaps they were looking for new prey." He says ominously as he looks at the door. "Does anybody have a way of jamming the lock? I'd hate to add to these scratches."
[Pic]It takes an hour to attune to a weapon. Do you want to spend an hour here?[/ooc]
Torgar gets out of the sun and into the entryway. Seems like a pretty normal cave, seems safe enough to summon your dinosaur.
Aramant follows the others in silence. These doors were closed, supposedly to keep something in; the signs (and screech!), so far, seem to only validate the assessment.
He doesn't pull his warhammer; it stays on his back. Instead, it feels like rocks fly around his fists as he closes them and seems focused on the environment. He stays some steps behind Reginald.
If nobody else has any other ideas for not getting locked in, he'll try and jam rocks into the door mechanism to prevent them from being locked in.
When they go in, he'll take one of the end slots.
Reginald and Torgar take a few steps into the room, their darkvision extending a bit into the hallway that lies beyond. They can see that in the hallway, there is a closed door on the left side, and that the hallway itself continues even farther into the darkness.
The door on the left side seems to lead into the room with the window that looks out over this room. That room seems to contain a few tables, chairs, and other various pieces of furniture (all wrecked). Its door is broken as well, and debris litters the floor.
Trudging into the old corridor, Torgar begins to look beyond what is visible, and begins focus his soul on discerning what lays ahead.
"HUMMMMMM....."
His meditative huff is almost laughable as he drones forward.
While the others deal with the doors and whatnot, Aramant walks around the room looking for clues - or traps. He takes his time.
Looking gravely at the door, he steps in, senses peeled for danger.
Before entering the room, Aam speaks some arcane words and glowing runes appear over his eyes and fade away in order to grant him the ability to see magical auras. He examines the doors first before scanning the room.
The doors give off a fairly strong magical aura, one of abjuration and transmutation. Slightly more interesting than that is the magical disturbances once you get into the cavern. There seems to be some kind of interference that makes looking through detect magic to be slightly disorienting.
There are no traps in this room, and no loot either.
Aramant simply waits the others, staying some steps behind and getting ready in case something tries to jump them.
Torgar proceeds further into the darkness, stopping only for whatever may actually impede him.
He focuses further as he meanders deeper into the alien pit.
"HUMMMMM........"
Dargin will move in, hands ready to blast anything that pops out at them.
The tunnel continues on, leaving room for two dwarves if they walked exactly shoulder-to-shoulder. There is no need for light, as every member of the party is equipped to see in complete darkness. The group passes by the door on the left, but the room beyond doesn't have anything but refuse and rubble within. The door lies shattered on the ground inside the room.
The tunnel continues forward, and there are arrows painted on the walls with strange alien glyphs within. After about two minutes, the group comes out into a much larger room. Also dark, this room is too large to see to the far side of. To your left and right, there are more passageways, and directly ahead is a room. The room is about a hundred feet long, and more than sixty feet wide - you cannot see past sixty feet. There are benches near you, and just beyond the benches are deep grooves in the stone floor. The grooves are more than five feet deep, and there are metal rails at the bottom of them - three rails. You can see a second row of benches and a second groove beyond the first row.
The room's walls to your left and right have massive - at least twenty feet high and ten feet wide - cavern entrances, carved carefully and precisely.
You can hear something beyond veil of darkness that you can't see into. The scrape of leathery skin of stone, quiet growling, and the tink of something pointed and metal lightly tapping stone.
"Psst. I hear something up ahead. Be ready." he says softly to the others. He'll stay a little behind the front line, advancing with them.
Aramant doesn't hear anything, but prepares himself when Dargrin warns. He's legitimately afraid, but will never confess it to his comrades, and tries to keep some composure. His skin becomes a little more "stony-like", however...
"This is starting to feel like home now... unfortunately. Eyes sharp, fellas." Aam follows the first row in keeping a few steps between them while looking around watching for any attack.
Somewhere, water drips. The splash of it hitting stone echoes throughout the stone chamber, but no vicious beasts leap out to attack the stoic and stationary dwarven team.
"Keep your guard up then, we have no Idea where an attack could come from."
"Cant see anything myself though."
Reginald shall advance very slowly into the room, he's nervous, he has experience with tough fights, but its been a while since he last did anything other than practise.
The strange, precisely carved trenches in the ground prevent easy traversal of the room for Reginald, who is both heavily armored and also basically made of stone. However, he can advance 20' or so with no problems, and back and forth on the nearer side of the closest trench. Still, he doesn't see any creatures, nor is the far wall of the room visible.
From one of the large tunnels in the side walls, a mechanical rumbling sounds. Though far, the sound is deep and loud, and reverberates on smooth stone walls to reach cacophonously to the chamber that the research team is in.
Torgar carries on without fear into the trenches, in a hunter's stalk.
On the side of care, he does draw out his trusted dwarven spear.
It was one of the only things of worth that they gave to the world, in his mind. What he didn't know or care to know was the fact that the spear's design was merely adopted from the kellids, and stylized with dwarven crafting traditions.
Torgar clambers into the trench, one hand on his simple weapon of wood and a bit of sharp metal. Proceeding over to the other side, he notices metal rails beneath him. One buzzes with a strange sound, and the other two shake with some vibration. From the tunnel connected to this trench, a bright light appears.
Dargrin will leap over the first trench to get a better look at what's over on that side. As he lands, he'll push the wind to soften the impact.
Aramant tries to keep up, but at the same time gives some distance from the others, waiting for the "scouts" from behind on the room.
I might need a rope, guys. Do you see anything?
Aam stands next to the trench that Torgar is in, weapon ready and facing the bright light. "Torgar, you ok down there? Not sure what that is, but if something unpleasant is coming our way, you don't have a lot of room to maneuver down there."
Dargrin leaps over to the other side of the first rail, and that bit of distance allows him to see the other side of the platform. While he jumps, and the others discuss what to do, the light and sound get much brighter and louder. The tracks rumble and shake, and the tunnel becomes the focus of a blinding flash of light. A metal capsule, rusted doors on either side and windows all the way around, comes rumbling into the room, moving slowly towards Torgar.
Aam's detect magic spell detects no particular spells or magic, though the air is filled with a magically-infused haze of some kind.
"We've got company over there!" He says as he drops to the ground and reaches out to Torgar. He's not the strongest of the group, but he's not going to let him get hurt.
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"We've got company over there!" He says as he drops to the ground and reaches out to Torgar. He's not the strongest of the group, but he's not going to let him get hurt.
Aam steps back a few paces and then attempts to leap over the trench.
... and winds up awkwardly landing on the ground by Torgar.
"Pharaoh's spit!! That sure didn't help."
Aramant tries to jump beyond too - and hopes to throw a rope to Aam.
He holds his rope, trying to tie it up a sturdy rock, then throw the other end to Aam.
Aramant manages to leap across the gap much more easily than Aam does, who falls into the metal tracks and smacks his face on the ground. He and Torgar can't help but look into the face of the brightly-lit rusty metal contraption headed straight their way as Aramant rushes to loop a rope around one of the nearby stone pillars.
As the group struggles to rescue Torgar and Aam from being crushed, the strange creatures on the far platform disappear down a tunnel.
