"There was a woman with blue skin who I will show you a sketch of later that Vehemence was quite taken with who, as Thratch described, said that she was honorbound to destroy the maze but whose honor clearly meant little since she was attempting to skirt her giri. As we were conversing with her, a barbarian leading some sort of minion burst into the room and started complaining about us invading his maze, and claiming that his ancestors built it. I reasonably suggested that we would be more than happy to leave if he provided us with an exit, but he clearly did not know of one. He did not know the way out of the maze, but he was a rude host. When I pointed this out to him, he took offense and we crossed steel with his Yojimbo, who were ill-versed in their art. he fled and the blue-skinned woman gave chase, and that is when I discovered you and your monk protector." After pausing for a moment, Tenchi will say "Other than me learning your name, the rest I believe you know."
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Well it does seem a waste to leave this room empty-handed, and the lady of the mosaic claims only three can cross unharmed. I guess these are not your typical swordsman, Wan'di says looking over to the other room, Tell you what; Ashlyn, A Lys, and myself can scurry along the long route to get to that rope room and bock the door. You bird guys can split up how you want and take that painting with you while our group and whoever of you will join us waits by these bridges. It should only take a matter of minutes to go the long way, but after an hour I recommend movin' on without us.
Wan'di turns to Ashlyn and A Lys, That seem fair? You seem to be interested in that room and I'm pretty good at getting out of a tight spot and could use a brisk jog after getting some breakfast.
"Sure, so just to check, we're locking the other guys into the bridge room so we can take the swords right, otherwise there's little point splitting up?"
That's my thought. Better hurry before that curator thing ambles up.
As the group is deciding where to go next, you hear rapid clacking and sliding on the floor of the adjoining starlit stones room.
You look to the doorway and see a large set of marble hands, about 5' high and 8' across, turning on its side and pulling itself through the door on large fingers. It moves incredibly fast.
Vetchling and Dark Mullein start inching toward the back of the room, to the door leading to the rope bridges.
"Um, remember when we told you about the Curator? That's him." Vetchling whimpers.
The Curator raises an index finger and points at the two Oku, then shakes its finger at them and taps the floor.
Dark Mullein chimes in, "Crap. Do you think it knows that Yarrow gave me that painting before he and the others left?"
Wan'di runs into the alcove with the thrones to avoid attention.
Ashlyn seeing the creature is quick to act, yelling to the bird men, "Go! Run! Get on the bridge, it's after you not us!" She hurries over to the thrones, placing her hand on the sword ready to pull it free as soon as they are past the door.
Looking up at the mobile marble hand, he yells up at it, Hey, meathead! What the f%$% do you want? Why don't you say something, huh? Don't you got a mouth?
Recognizing that the thing has neither meat nor a head, he thinks, Man, I have got to get some better insults.
As he speaks, he moves over to a section of the room that has decent cover and maybe something to jump off of, while also trying to pull the hand's attention away from the birdmen.
Well, what have you got to say for yourself?
The Curator scampers over between the door to the rope bridges and the two Oku, moving at nearly blinding speed and ignoring the rest of the group.
It begins closing in on the two bird-masked individuals, tapping its gigantic fingers against the stone floor as it creeps closer.
The two Oku chirp and hoot in a panic as certain death nears.
The Curator flicks Vetchling hard against the far wall, knocking him unconscious.
"How about I just give you the %*#@^!& painting back? Will you leave us alone then?" Dark Mullein yells as he pulls out the painting and begins waving it around, unrolled.
Ashlyn and Lys are unaffected this time, as is Wan who has hidden in the throne room.
The rest of the group falls to their knees crying again as the magical painting overwhelms them again with intense sadness and despair.
Dark Mullien looks around at the chaos he's unintentionally caused.
"Oh $%&^."
As the hands clack towards the birdmen, Tenchi watches his companions again succomb to their emotions on viewing the painting. Seeing that the creatures his companions have seen fit to impinge upon his honor to make an agreement with about to be struck down, Tenchi charges across the room, blade flashing into view as he does. When the hand goes to attack one of the birdmen, his blade is there it intercept it, deflecting it away from the creature's body.
Without looking away, Tenchi will say "Run you fools!"
Thratch leaps over to the other side of the room, trying to draw the hand's attention. As hr looks back at the birdmen, he sees the painting flying free. The last thing he thinks before he drops to a crying fit is, Aw f!$@.
In a last attempt to draw attention, Wan waves the painting he found on the cannibal's corpse in the air and hollering trying to confuse the creature or draw it into the throne room to lock the door. He thinks, Didn't those cannibals come from the garden? Maybe this is also from the gallery...
The Curator briefly turns to Wan and sees the painting he's waving around. It makes a dismissive gesture with one of its hands and turns back to the Oku.
It creeps over and carefully grabs the painting between two fingertips. Dark Mullein nervously releases it and tries to back away.
"Uh, s-s-s-sorry?" he stammers out in sheer terror.
The Curator then grabs him in its left hand and begins to squeeze. You hear Dark Mullein cry out in agony as the giant sculpture closes its grip around him tighter. He quickly loses consciousness from the crushing grasp.
The Alice realizes she has something in her pack, her hair, or otherwise secreted about her person. The object can be anything non-magical and generic (a key, not the key) that exists in the setting and that is:
- small enough that the Alice could reasonably have it hidden it in her current condition
- or smaller than a breadbox ...whichever dimensions are smaller at the time. The Alice may choose what this is.
Vehemence succumbs to the paintings' despair a second time, against all his petty furor.
We're all going to be enslaved here forever... Remorse..... Curse you.
Wan runs forward and casts shatter on the painting the Curator is looking for.
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Aterro had drawn his sword and was running to skewer the animated hands when the painting was let slip and the merest corner caught the WarCelric's glance. As the black miasma infused his soul, Aterro dug deep to try to press on...
...but a breath of wind caught the painting and it unfurled fully before his face.
Against such abasement even the iron-hard soul of the WarCleric was not immune and the battle-charge halted as again he collapsed in abjection.
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Seeing the Curator chocking the life of the man, she gets an idea. Reaching beside her, she draws the blade Thratch had. She pauses, letting the magic of the sword flow through her, then Ashlyn will call out to it, "Curator, you have your painting. Let him live, spare him, and we will not interfere."
When the Curator does not stop, Ashlyn closes her eyes, focusing on the weave around her. "I will likely come to regret this. I am toiling with magic well beyond my control." Then with a smirk, "Well when has that ever stopped me." She pulls the weave into an orb of chromatic energy, then ignites it in flames. Spell in hand, she launches it towards her target. Not the Curator, but his painting.
Instead of crying when he sees the painting, Tenchi stops and from his pack produces a clean white cloth, which he neatly lays out in front of him. He takes off his pack and sets it down behind him, then draws both his Katana and Wakizashi, laying his Wakizashi in front of him and his katana to his left hand side. He then begins unbuckling his armor; as he does so, he will say to the group "I need a second."
Tenchi tries to fight the magic of the painting as hard as he can, but even one as stoic as he cannot fight it. He succumbs and weeps uncontrollably, harder than the rest, the sorrow and despair too much for him. His cries and howls echo through the neighboring chambers.
Wan reads from his scroll and casts the Shatter spell at the painting, which is held by the Curator.
The painting takes significant damage, but is not destroyed. The Curator takes some damage and drops Dark Mullein, whose injuries are aggravated by the force of the spell, and he nears death.
Ashlyn throws magical fire at the painting, and the damaged canvas ignites, blackening and curling into ash.
The Curator slams its fingers into the stone floor multiple times, clearly angry at the loss of the precious artwork.
Combat Order: Ashlyn, The Curator, Wan, Lys
Thratch continues to weep, and tries to time his sobs with Tenchi.
As soon as the painting is destroyed, Ashlyn feel the weave grow wild. She tampered with magic beyond her own, and now the weave spins around her, shaping itself in ways she never imagined. Her body tingles at the prospect, the power. Her wanton heart, lusting for the power. Her senses, watching a spell, well beyond her own power. As she tries to take hold of the forming spell, its power lashes back at her, turning against her. She is barely able to overcome the wild spell. Her body trembles, a slight moan escaping her lips. So overwhelmed by the wild magic surging around her, she can hardly focus on the Curator. She moves away from it as fast as she can. Channeling the weave around her into a protective barrier. At least this much, she can still control.
As Ashlyn retreats, the Curator takes its left index finger and brings it down on Dark Mullein, crushing his head, and sending blood, skull and brain matter spattering across the floor in an abstract stain that perhaps only Lady Capilli would admire.
It then advances rapidly toward Wan and Ashlyn, moving in closer, its fingertips clicking against the stone and echoing loudly in the chamber.
Get to the mosaic trap, we'll cross and let the curator be the 4th body!
Wan casts expeditious retreat and books it through the shadow room towards the mosaic room moving 90ft in a round.
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Lys follow Wan'di out of the chamber and through the starlit stones, careful to avoid each other's' shadows.
The curator takes off after them, and gets close to Ashlyn, but gets partially caught in a pit created by her shadow. As Ashlyn moves away, the pit closes, cleaving off three of the Curator's fingers at the first knuckle.
You hear furious clicking and smashing behind you as it writhes in something resembling pain. It slows for several seconds as the two adventurers make a sharp left turn to the mosaic room, finding Wan in the doorway.
You see on the floor a giant mosaic, that begins to move around in the shadows, always turning to the right.
A voice booms out,
“The first to cross these coils must dance,
The second, sing to safety reach,
The third must bleed or risk mischance,
The fourth one dies between my teeth,
The next will be the first once more,
And do not cheat, I’m keeping score.”
Behind you, you hear clicking getting closer.
You feel several strange gusts flow through the room, again extinguishing the torches along the walls.
But, you begin to feel slightly better, at least well enough to move. Still crying, though, but not as hard.
Gaaaah, that hurts dammit. OK, sheep, dance your heart away. Lys you better belt a tune - I'll follow, Wan says at the entrance to the room after cutting his hand.
Through tears and running snot, he looks over to the mess of the birdmen. It's a shame we couldn't help them. Anyone see where out friends went? He finished the question by wiping his nose on his sleeve.
Round 1 running away
The torrent of magic around her is swirling like a tornado, the sound in her head, drowning her own thoughts. She is quick to follow after Wan, glancing back to ensure the curator is still after her, rather than her helpless companions.
Round 2 running away
As she continues to dash away, she feels a small surge in the weave, and absorbs it into herself. Recharging her spent magic.
Round 3 running away
Ashlyn continues chasing after Wan, as a number of creatures begin to pull themselves out of the weave and into this plane. She is frightened at first, but for some inexplicable reason they seem to fear her. She is quick to turn this to her advantage shouting at the creatures.
Round 4, in the room and dancing away
Entering the mosaic room, Ashlyn listens to Wan's instructions, breathing heavy. The sprint here was tiring, but more so, this long exposed to such wild magic is taking its toll on her body. Her hair falling from her head with every step. But she pays it little mind. Her body beginning to glide across the room, in a rhythmic, well practiced, enticing dance.
After Ashlyn dances through the mosaic, chaotic magic surging all around her, Lys nervously steps forward.
She recalls a song from her childhood and sings it loudly.
The tune is acceptable, and the mosaic moves along the floor in acknowledgement.
Then, at the far end of the room, a small hatch pops open and Lys feels compelled to explore it, climbing through. The hatch closes behind her, curiously.
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Glancing around, Tenchi is unsure what happened to him. He cleans his face and resolves to no longer look at any painting while in this maze.
Wan dismisses his spider and runs across the room with his bleeding hand exposed like he's looking for a high five.
As you're all starting to recover from the crying fit, you hear a rumble beneath the stones upon which you stand.
A hole falls open right beneath ... ... Vehemence, and a large creature emerges, an abominable thing that looks like a leopard and a giant molerat were sewn together. It kicks dirt and stone bits everywhere in its claws.
A strange steam-like gas floats from its pores, and it jumps at the Furnace King!
Vehemence is bitten, and also discovers the steam coming from the creature's pores is acidic.
Combat Order: Tenchi, Thratch, RatLeopard, Aterro, Vehemence
As Wan runs bleeding across the room, the Curator bursts through the doorway. Suddenly a large serpentine woman rises out of the mosaic, a strange two-dimensional oddity in three dimensions. The mosaic clings to her like stretching rubber. She bites into the Curator, and her touch causes it to become two-dimensional and be absorbed into the mosaic on the floor.
The serpentine woman returns into the floor and the pattern continues to move always to the right, attacking the Curator as part of the floor design.
You peer through the doorway to the rope bridges ahead. The main one stretches across the room to another open doorway. Another bridge is connected at the middle and stretches out to the left, turning sharply to another doorway that must be the sword room. Looking down, you see the room continues downward for about 100 feet, and you see several corpses on the bottom that appear to be adventurers in various states of decay. You see some swords and other items littering the stone floor far below.
You hear a roar echoing from the direction of the sword room. And Lys is nowhere to be found.
He begins to move to the door to the sword room.
Ashlyn screams over the torrent of the weave in her head. Then as the roar pierces her ears, she realizes those left behind are in danger. She searches the weave around her, and channeling it's power, slips through nothingness. Once she lands in the new location, she begins to dash back toward the sword room.
Holy s~&@! Thratch yells out, backing away from the rat-leopard thing.
He grabs an arrow and let's loose.
As the thing explodes from the ground, Tenchi's years of training and experience kick in, and he begins moving, attempting to draw it's attention the best way he knows how, by cutting it to pieces.
As he draws his blade, it glows with an inner light, and he finishes the draw with a flourish into a slicing attack on the creature.
this is the essence of Iaido, strike with no thought.
As you look around the vast room, you see that off to the right the room continues around a corner, with an additional bridge branching off from the main one and following to the right.
Wan begins to head on the rope bridge toward the sword room. He then sees that the door is closed, because Ashlyn is still carrying one of the swords.
With a burst of wild magic, Ashlyn vanishes.
Tenchi slices into the RatLeopard. Corrosive gas seeps from its pores
Thratch fires an arrow and misses.
The RatLeopard turns its attention toward Tenchi and bites him.
The bite itself doesn't do much other than allow the creature to latch onto Tenchi, but a blast of corrosive gas shoots out from its pores.
As the creature attacks Tenchi, Ashlyn suddenly appears in the room by the locked door. She looks as though her wild magic has been keeping her busy.
Teleporting into the room, baldhead, and shouting as magic surges around her. Ashlyn quickly hurries over to the throne, replacing the sword into it's slot. She sees the creatures attacking her allies who are slowly recovering from the painting's magic. She shouts at them, as though screaming over the sounds of a horrid storm,
"INSUFFERABLE SCOURGE! PAY FOR YOUR INSOLENCE!"
The furnace king bellows through tears, symbolically marking in the air the beast with his pronounced claw.
As the flames manifest by means of his hatred, so too does his fell sword return to his hand.
Wracked with sorrow, Vehemence is resolved to not be taken advantage of.
By anyone.
You return to the center bridge and turn left, moving to the next room forward.
As you approach you see another stone room, filled with what appear to be somewhat oversized chess pieces.
Wan calls his spider to the top of his head and walks around the room looking around a bit without disturbing anything. He wants to map the room and figure out if there is a pattern to the pieces.
The spider crawls through the room and spies a small, snake-like creature about 4 feet long, writing around in a corner of the room. A blunted sword and a scroll sit on the floor near him.
The chess pieces just sit, but it looks like two are missing from the set.
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Face red with rage and shame that he should be brought so low, even by magic--especially by magic--Aterro leans heavily on his greatsword to keep his feet.
As the beast ambushes them while they do yet gain their composure, Aterro does not yet feel his battle-heart ready to wade into glorious combat...but the sword is not his only instrument.
"To admit defeat is to blaspheme against Torm," he grates out, as he lumbers up next to Vehemence, yellow light transferring from his hand to warlock's body...
...his wounds disappearing as though they never happened.