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Vehemence snorts at the thief as he strides into the next room, faithful to Capilli's aid.
He stood more to gain with the choice which bore the threat of mortal risk, and mortality wasn't something Vehemence was all in all afraid of...
If it were another imp, the furnace king may be given to a more indignant rebuttal, but Vehemence was fond of Thratch in all his young fury.
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Aterro's heart skips a beat as thee lovely sorceress is pushed over the stair and he rushes to the side, looking down. As Ashlyn gets back up and appears not-killed, the WarCleric's vision hazes with red and he turns on the malignant bird.
"Faith without deeds is worthless," he intones to no one as he points at the murderous creature and calls the fire of a thousand suns
Vehemence wanders into the left chamber after Lady Capilli and the Negamancer.
This circular chamber is floored with pale silver stones in irregular blocks. The stones are uneven and the shadows ebb in regular time. There is no sign of Lady Capilli or the Negamancer. An unseen light source circles the room at around 10', moving at roughly the same pace as the second hand on a clock.
Wan'di searches the dead Thrall Mammals and finds the following items:
1. The head of a morningstar. Light enough to throw. Coated in a substance which makes it smell like fresh meat.
2. A rolled up painting of an Alien Sun (20"x10"), which emits slight light. Looks to be worth about 150GP.
3. 8GP
4. A day's worth of rations.
5. A healing potion. The pictographic label indicates it requires a finger from a dead humanoid to become active.
Tenchi wanders over to the right chamber and looks down the winding staircase to see Ashlyn far down the stairs, and Aterro fighting a strange mechanical bird. Both are sideways to your perspective.
Aterro casts Sacred Flame, and the mechanical bird shatters into shards of thin jeweled parts. The remnants appear to be worth about 500GP.
You hear that the shouting in the other room has died down. Ashlyn looks up and sees Tenchi at the top of the stairs leading into the other room, looking puzzled.
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Aterro nods, satisfied with himself, and bends and scoops up the remains of the bird. He doesn't have an intimate knowledge of gemcraft, but even his eye can tell that the thing was made with skill and care and used valuable materials. He deposits such treasure as he can find in his belt-pouch and takes another look at the situation.
He looks at where Ashlyn is, and where Tenchi is. He runs his eyes along the twisting stair, wondering if he can get from where he is to where they are.
And, failing that, if he can leap down much as Ashlyn did, but with minimal risk.
Looking at Thratch, Seriously, smell this thing.
"Perhaps it is a poison of some sort?" says Tenchi, who after looking through the door where he heard his travelling companions, begins moving quickly down stairs, if the receding clacking sound of his sandals quickly tapping stone steps is any indication.
You hear Ashlyn call out to you, "Tenchi, what is my name? I want to verify this is not another trick. Answer quickly."
"You have never actually given me your name, but I can tell you when we met you were dressed as a bar maid. Now why did you two wander off? The room with the others is this way." Tenchi will gesture behind him without looking.
Lys looks around, everyone is splitting up, a little co-ordination would be nice after a moments thought she follows after Vehemence, since he seems to be going on his own and well... no-one should be alone.
Thratch let's out a sigh.
Well, old man, which group of fools do you want to follow?
Lys follows Vehemence into the left chamber. She sees the light source moving around, and as it moves in front of Vehemence, he casts a long shadow over her.
As the shadow hits Lys, the floor beneath her disappears, and she falls into a pit about 6 feet deep. The light source continues to move and as his shadow moves away from Lys, the pit is covered over with stone!
About a minute later, the pit reopens as the light casts his shadow over the same spot, then passes seconds later, covering the pit again.
"We should return to the others. They will probably be getting into trouble without us. Especially Vehemence. He is ruled by his emotions which stand raw from overuse."
With that, Tenchi will attempt to return the way that he came.
As Vehemence turns the corner, he sees the light and the peculiar room before him.
The lady and the fool mage are nowhere to be seen; thus his instinct is careful.
With a wave of a hand he begins to peer into what is before him with his true eyes, concentrating on that which is not easily seen.
Lys reaches her hand out to Vehemenence but before she makes contact she suddenly finds herself falling - she lets out a small scream which is quickly cut short as she hits the bottom.
She crouches down a moment, half expecting some sort of blade or spear to hit her.
As the pit reopens and rapidly recloses she assumes it must be on some kind of timer, she slides her broom from her bag of her holding, and starts to count, trying to gauge the time between opening.
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Aterro finishes picking up the bits of bird and looks about him. Ashlyn and Tenchi seems to have made honest contact. They even have established that neither of them are doppelgangers, always a good sign.
Aterro cautiously tries flying toward Ashlyn. Alert that there should be a swift change of gravity, he goes gently.
Ashlyn gives Tenchi a polite smile, "As soon as Attero catches up, we'll happily follow your lead. It's Ashlyn, by the way, since you have yet to ask."
As Lys lets out a small yelp, Vehemence steps closer to the source of the sound.
His shadow moves forward, and when the next minute passes, Lys sees that the pit opening has moved with his shadow, so that the opening is only partial now.
Vehemence attempts to detect magic in the room, but is overwhelmed by its presence. It's everywhere within the chamber, and he can't discern anything specific.
Aterro attempts to use his boots of flying to attempt to join the others.
As he reaches a certain point, he's sucked forward and reoriented by the shifting gravity, which causes him to land fast and hard on the stairs about 10 feet below Ashlyn.
He dusts himself off and they join Tenchi in the main room.
You see Tenchi emerge from the right chamber with Ashlyn and Aterro.
Vehemence mutters to himself as he tries to figure out how to retrieve the lass from the hole, stooping down and grasping for her nearly frantically.
His eyes were fixated on the exits, should a foe manifest from them.
He stands up and dusts himself off before looking at Thratch, Should we go find those other two?
Vehemence stops and observes for a moment. He sees that the light source takes roughly one minute to complete a rotation around the chamber, and his shadow moves along naturally with the light-source.
As his shadow passes over the location where Lys fell previously, the floor opens up and reveals her standing in it. The shadow itself is causing the floor to open up, and as his shadow moves, so too the opening moves. If he goes back to the spot where he was standing, his shadow will open the floor again in time for Lys to get out, but she'll only have maybe 10 seconds until his shadow moves again under the light.
Lys tries to prop open the pit, but as she does, the top of her broom handle is sheared clean off by the stone reappearing and trapping her.
"When we are finished and gave regrouped, we shall have a discussion about wandering off."
"As to where Vehemence and the young woman went, I am not sure. Did anyone else see where they left?"
Wan thinks for a moment, They went that way - pointing - but I scouted ahead over yonder. There is a strange mozaic room that appears to be some kind of trap or something, and beyond it a pit full of bodies with some bridges o'er it. Best thing I've found is the head of a morningstar that smells like meat. It's the damnedest thing. Wan digs through his bag for it, Seriously, you've got to smell this thing. Like a deadly doggie toy or something.
To Wan, he says, Yeah. Let's get them and maybe we can move through the maze in some sort of coherent fashion.
As Wan pulls out the mace - yet again - Thratch says, Gods Below, man, put that thing away! It's disgusting just thinking about it!
Vehemence mutters to himself as he tries to figure out how to retrieve the lass from the hole, stooping down and grasping for her nearly frantically.
His eyes were fixated on the exits, should a foe manifest from them.
"Very well, let us go and retrieve our wayward companions, and then we can walk the ways of this place as one."
Tenchi will draw out rope and hand it to each group member before saying "This should help keep us together. It would seem that this place assaults the senses, and my sensei taught that the simplest solutions are the most intelligent ones. This should assist with keeping our ki balanced."
With that, Tenchi will take point and lead the way into the next room, holding the rope in his right hand (clearly his non-sword hand).
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Aterro perks up as Wan takes out the Mace O' Meat. "By Torm's left ear what is that intoxicating aroma? O ho! You have a weapon part that smells of meat? This is a great find indeed! Hopefully we might find some smithing tools in here so I can fix it to the outside of my armor!
I found a bottle this is ever-full of weak, poor wine, and that pales next to your find!
Fine, fine, Kusinagi, I'll hold an end of the rope if you think this place so accursed as all that."
Aterro follows along.
The remaining group wanders into the left chamber, led by Tenchi, with Wan right behind.
This circular chamber is floored with pale silver stones in irregular blocks. The stones are uneven and the shadows ebb in regular time. An unseen light source circles the room at around 10' high, moving at roughly the same pace as the second hand on a clock.
Vehemence is stooped down, his eyes fixated on the exits. There's no sign of Lys, though you hear her muffled voice and a knocking sound from beneath the stones.
As the light source moves around the room slowly, Tenchi's shadow hits Wan, and he falls into the shadow.
Ashlyn is quick to move away from the others, ensuring she stays out of any shadows, though she doubts it will work she attempts to use a spell to snuff the light in the room out.
Huh. The shadows must make a pit trap. I bet if we move into the light and create a shadow, we can open up the pit long enough to climb out. Just got to dance around to keep up with the light.
Only one of use can do it. The rest better get out.
With that, Thratch heads back towards the precipice of the room they just came from, careful to avoid shadows.
You look around inside your respective pits, Lys using darkvision, Wan, Dancing Lights. You're about 12' down, and you see some dead lanterns and unlit torches strewn on the dirt floor, as well as the remains of body parts that look to have been sheared off their owners. They're in various states of decay, though some are fairly fresh.
Whenever the light causes a shadow to move away, the pit roof quickly covers over with stone.
A breeze rolls through the room, just strong enough that it would extinguish any flames, though none are present.
Ashlyn attempts to snuff out the light source to no avail. It doesn't appear to be natural. It continues to move around the room, completing one rotation per minute like the second hand on a clock.
"I want to test something." with that, Tenchi puts just the tip of his rope into one of the nearby pits that his shadow creates and then moves to see what happens when the pit closes.
When the shadow moves away, the tip of Tenchi's rope is quickly sheared off as stone immediately covers the opening.
Wan waits for the opening to appear once more and casts misty step to teleport out of the hole and into the main room at an angle and about 5ft from the ground to try and land on something solid. He sniffs out his dancing lights to make the light above him more vibrant and so he doesn't cast even more shadows.
Wan then looks immediately for a door or exit to the room and will attempt to get there ASAP leaping over shadows as needed and using his final misty step to avoid being caught in a pit and make it to the next room.
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Aterro looks up, trying to crush the source of the light with the power of his stare.
"We are not amused," he intones as his feet leave the floor.
He casts Light on the palm of his white gauntlet of Torm and holds it out. He flies slowly around the room, on the opposite side of the light source, using his light to extinguish the animated shadows.
"Now what?"
On the next pass of shadows, Wan'di manages to escape from his pit trap, easily avoiding the moving shadows, and bolts toward the nearest exit, which is on the opposite side of the chamber from where the group entered.
Aterro tries to negate the light source by casting Light and flying around the room. However this results only in a second shadow being cast.
Vehemence and Tenchi drop into pits as well. Ashlyn manages to avoid being dropped. Lys is still trapped.