Selene strikes at the water, "Sorry Malya, the powerful magic reflected by this pool compelled me to think you were eventually going to try to harm me. It seems Tane and Essa found it overly convincing enough to worry them so."
Mayla keeps her eye on the door and nods. "It is okay, my image tried to show me harming Essa and Roguk. But, it is not in my nature." Shifting she would start to back to the door. "In case this alerted those on the other door we should at least back to the door just incase. Shall we wait for them or go retrieve them."
"Let's meet them halfway. I don't want to corner them unnecessarily, but I also don't want to let them flee recklessly into danger."
It takes you several minutes to find back Tane and Essa, and some more to help them overcome their irrational fear.
Then you come back to the pool room together.
Another door waits to be opened, and you start wondering how many doors are left...
"Do you think someone comes through and closes all this stuff up every time? I'm curious to know what the actual trial was supposed to look like." Selene says moving to the door and listening.
Tane follows, a little more meekly then he was a few moments ago. He pointedly avoids looking at Essa and when going through the pool room he stares at his feet the entire time in the room silently.
"I would imagine so. I think they try to make it safe enough that it won't kill us outright but dangerous enough we won't think lesser of its challenges."
She would look at Tane and touches his shoulder. "You want to get the door this time?"
Tane flinches at the touch.
"Hmm? What? Oh, the door. Right. Yeah, I'm on it."
Tane strides purposely to the door and throws it open, ready to be away from this room.
All Tane can see when he opens the door are three closed stone tombs.
There's a drift of air, but the whole area stinks.
Tane looks up, from where the drift of air comes... and sees bats. Plenty of them. The ceiling seem covered with the rodent-like aerial creatures.
And they don't appreciate you're paying a visit.
Essa feels disturbed at the nightmarish image still in her mind. She is quiet for a bit, and holds tight to Roguk saying nothing. When the door is opened and the bats swarm out, she is ready though.
More animals. Too many though, I don't have a chance to calm them. If they would even listen.
She waves her club about hoping to scare them with the faux fire. If that doesn't seem to work, she will whap them.
As everyone rushed past Takeshi, he looks at the situation, amused. He whistles a silly song, trying to focus their attention on the adventures of Billy the Bobcat, but waiting for them to return.
I love enchantments and illusions, he quietly muses.
When the door opens and the bat swarms become obvious, he enhances his humming and starts actually singing the song. Everyone arounds him starts to feel the vigor of the bobcat run thorugh their veins, bolstering them.
Selene scrambles for her torch to light it with a tindertwig hoping real fire will help.
Tane frowns, "Bats. There are sure a lot of them, do we have a plan?"
"I might be able to burn them if you guys all back up... umm..."
She scrambles pulling out her scroll.
Tane looks at Malya doubtfully, It's better than whatever you can do Tane.
He quickly gets out of the way.
A great fire could destroy some of them, but a torch won't be enough.
A great, loud sound would disturb them too.
Bats, however, can't swim...
"BAT's CAN'T SWIM! To the pool. If we are under the water they can't really hurt us."
"To the pool!" echoes Essa.
Mayla would usher everyone out keeping her eyes on the swarm to keep everyone covered in case she needed to use magic.
Tane freezes. The pool. Seriously? I am NOT going back into that horrific place!
He plants his feet firmly, refusing to budge as Malya slams into his back
The fighter stammers, "Uh, Malya surely there is a better suggestion than returning to that room. I, uh, think we can fight them. I changed my mind."
"The big one with the keys. Not the Mire!"
Selene prepares to get in the water if the bats start getting ornery.
As you start running, you notice the bats out-fly you...
"Get in the mire water Tane. We dont have time. I dont want your blood drained out of you" Mayla would bodily grab Tane and drag him in with her.
Or try
"Oh the one with the keys? Ok, ok!" When everyone else stops and gets into the water, Tane freezes again. "YOU SAID THE OTHER WATER!" Tane doesn't budge when Malya tries to grab him. "I-I can't! I can't go back in there again!"
Recognizing the danger Enev intervenes. He reaches a hand out to Tane, "Here, take my hand, I'll go with you to the other water." Tane tenatively takes his hand just as Enev wraps both hands around Tane's arm and pulls him backwards into the pool. Tane's eyes widen in fear and he opens his mouth to scream "NOoo-" in horror as he splashes into the pool water.
Takeshi stops weaving his bardic performance bolstering his allies, and instead prepares to cast one of his "rabbit out of the hat" spells, should the need arise. He runs with everyone to the pool, keeping an eye out for the bats that might come to close.
There are loud water noises as, one by one or in small groups, our heroes jumps into the cold and filthy water
It take more than two minutes for all the bats to pass you, but finally you emerge from the water, gasping for air..
Selene slowly rises from the water and without a word moves to help the others up and out. There is a look of relief and disbelief in her eyes.
Mayla gets out and also assists. Once people are out she starts cleaning and drying people off as she looks around seeing if there was anything around them.
She felt disgusting, but...relieved that they were all okay.
"Everyone okay?" Takeshi says, to break the silence.
"Those were some big bats, my friend. Damn it!"
"I think I will be fine. I don't think I will want to leave a bath for a long while after this." She dried everything off and looked at them. "Shall we move on?"
'Its official, adventuring is nothing like they say in the stories. But, I see why it can be addictive.'
Looking around at the walls studying them for a moment to see what she could make out of the destruction. She started searching the room as everyone got their bearings.
Essa comes up from the water, "Is it safe now?" She pulls a feisty and fidgety and panicking Roguk from the water, uncomfortable with being dunked and being pulled back under whenever he sputtered and came up for air. Essa feels bad for the ape, and hopes he in some way understood the need to be unceremoniously dumped in the drink. Essa picks up her pack from the floor and grabs her club. She peels off her hide shirt and does her best to wring it out, failing mostly. Shivering in the cool underground, "Wish, my club put off real heat."
Shivering and wet, you get off the dirty pool. The next room is now safe to explore, as no bats is left.
Well, mostly safe, as the ground is slippery from guano.
You see a big hole in the ceiling that was probably the way the bats used to come here, but there is nothing interesting or of value in the room.
And there's another door, of course, after a small corridor.
"Shall we continue, ladies and gents?" while walking towards the door, before almost slipping and falling.
He looks down and sees the bat guano.
"Isn't this stuff flammable? Maybe we could use some to heat up, and make sure we don't die from shivers-disease or cold-rot?"
He tries to find a capsule in his pocket to scoop up some.
[b]"Lady wizard, this stuff is an important ingredient in some arcane spells your kind of arcanists loves to throw around. Maybe scoop some up now, instead of buying the stuff in a year at top dollar?"[/b
"I'd rather we didn't. The smell and fumes might be worse than a bit of chill. It's better than being covered in zombie juices regardless." Selene says as she readies to push forward.
Tane climbs out of the water as quickly as possible and keeps up with the group. He sighs and shakes his wet arms, "I think I had just finished drying off from the frog room."
"Why are dungeons so wet all the time? Brrr. " She gives up trying to wring out the thick shirt, and pulls it back on as it continues to drip. "At least you don't have fur." She looks at the poor bedraggled Roguk who is feeling quite surly right now at having been dumped into the pool. "Well, onward my friends."
Mayla would sigh and nods to their comments before moving ahead and would open the next room if no one else was.
The vaulted ceiling of this vast chamber shows significant signs of damage, with numerous cracks along its surface.
In the center of the room, a 10-foot-wide bridge crosses a deep chasm. On the other side, a pair of stone statues watch over the end of the bridge in front of a set of grand brass double doors.
The statues depict villagers holding shields and spears.
"Good place for another trap." Selene says looking down into one of the pits to see how deep it is.
The pit seems really deep: problably more than 30 feet deep, perhaps 40 feet.
You can easily fall to your death in this kind of pit.
"Maybe some rope would be safe to use here?"
"Would have been nice for these pits to have been filled with water too. Lets use the ropes."
Tane takes a look around for the aforementioned traps.
"Looks ok to me, I don't see anything!" Pausing, for thought he adds "I don't like random statues across a narrow bridge, trapped or not."
He shrugs and says, "I'll go first." He ties a rope around his waist and gives it to another party member.
Essa will tie the rope around something strong and immovable and grab the middle of it closer to the bridge for guidance.
"I have it here."
Mayla would look around and look above them before scanning with detect magic.
Malya perceives no magic around, and there is nothing much to see.
Essa finds nothing solid to attach the rope to.