The mechanical construct looks Ashlyn over with his glass glowing eyes. "I am Riven. Your existence will be sustained along with the group."
The construct turns to look at the silent warrior standing ready but unmoving near the exit. "I require a designation to identify you by blademaster."
You feel the presence of the knight piece in your head, trying to take control of one of your limbs, but you are able to easily fight it off. You now suspect that the chess pieces are trying to mentally control Gibba, probably to retrieve the swallowed rooks.
A breeze moves through the room and extinguishes another torch. And then another.
At a glance, you see the room on the left appears to be made of some kind of ink-black marble, whereas the room on the right appears to be all white with a thin black line about 6" wide running down from the middle of the doorway.
"Welcome aboard, golem. Let us recover our lost ones before another arcane machination befalls us."
"I require information on where your companions Wan and Lys were last found." He says as he looks toward the rope bridges doorway.
You wander back across the rope bridge toward the sword room without any incident. You hear the rest of the group's voices and it sounds like they're preparing to depart.
As you approach the room, you see a large mechanical-looking humanoid with the group. There's no sound of fighting.
You see Wan'di walking to the door on the rope bridge.
He's right there, Thratch says.
Heya, Wan! Where's Lys? How'dja take care of the stone hand?
The golem turns his mechanical head to focus on Wan'di as he returns, glowing eyes like lens which dilate and constrict to focus on the man. He has a shield strapped to his left arm and his right hand can be seen, only three equal sized digits adorning it, each emiting a beam of light that meet in the center of the space between to form a glowing ball of light that illuminates the torchless room slightly.
"Verification requested from one of the group with existing relation to Wan'di. Query him with knowledge only Wan'di would possess to reduce chance of infiltrator. This is standard protocol when operating in hostile territory and separated for a period of time."
"I am Kusinagi Tenchi, Student of the Kusinagi blade masters and Samurai in the service of Lord Oshi-Tomo; Introductions should wait, however. We should find our travelling companions."
Lys crawled off into one of those doors that pop up around her... I have not seen her since she went in. We will probably find her soon, Wan calls, We lost the Curator by forcing it to spring the mozaic trap in the room over yonder... I'm still not sure if it will hold it for long though. We should keep moving - there are two ways forward past the next room.
Wan'di looks Riven up and down and says, Can't y'all go ten minutes without finding a stray cat to bring along? You don't see me dragging around the crazy snake-boy in the next room with me! He laughs as he turns and walks back to the room with Gibba.
Riven looks to the others in the room as Wan'di walks in and then almost immediately leaves.
"Is this typical behavior? Danger seems greatly increased when one acts alone."
He waits for the others to be ready to leave the room, willing to follow those that rescued him but feeling no connection to the stranger who dismissed him.
Hey! Wait up, old man! Thratch calls out as he follows Wan.
Tenchi just quietly shakes his head and moves to follow Wan'di.
Riven waits at the entrance to the rope bridge area and looks down to the floor far below while he awaits the others still in the room to either split or join Wan'di.
Ashlyn lets out a relieved sigh at seeing Wan safe. "Good to see you again Wan, I need to thank you again for such a clever trap for the Curator." As he takes off again with barely time to catch their breath, she sighs heavily, frustrated with the band in general. She still hardly knew half of their names, but they couldn't stop for two seconds to talk. Maybe just maybe, when they break to camp tonight. Then again, who knows if this group will even stop to sleep. Still, she could keep going so she does follow after. She stops by Attero giving the cleric a gentle hug, whispering lightly in his ear, "Sorry to abandon you dear, but I returned as soon as I knew you were in danger."
Entering the room, Wan greets Gibba, Hey, Gibba. Some folks'll be coming through here, but they are all made of flesh even if they cover themselves in metal.
In the next room Wan'di waves his hand dismissively at the scene, Don't touch any of this s$@* with a ten-foot pole. That snake-boy is named Gibba and claims to be the medusa's stone-eatin' son, and he is eating those chess pieces that are dangerous to touch - they will try to take control of your body. I suspect the pieces in the boy's stomach are trying to take control of him as well.
Wan'di points to the doorways to the left and right, Over there is a door leading to darkness, and over there is a door to a room with a 6" wide path painted on the floor. If we are taking votes, the room on the right is at least more obvious.
You walk through the doorway to the rope bridges ahead. There's a main bridge in the middle leading from the mosaic room that stretches across the room to another open doorway, where Wan previously explored.
A bridge leads from your door to the middle of the room and turns sharply right, connecting to the center bridge. Yet another bridge branches from the middle and follows to the far end of the room before turning sharply right around a corner.
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 are unable to see around the far right corner without walking the corresponding bridge.
Riven looks back toward where Aterro had searched the body of a dead creature then back to the rope bridge room's floor far below.
"Potential supplies that will aid survival located. Request approval to retrieve, I will be within observable and audible distance during retrieval."
He seems to be speaking to Aterro, Ashlynh, and Vehemence who are the ones still left in this room.
Vehemence is no stranger to the burden of handling squires.
"Go forth, and make haste. The fair Lys could be in danger elsewhere."
"Activating Grippers." He echoes in reply as his feet click and unfold into what appear to be extra surface area with hundreds of tiny shifting plates on the bottom. He steps up onto the wall of the inner room 90 degrees from the floor now and walks around the corner out into the rope bridge area. He proceeds to make his way down the wall 100 feet to the floor far below where he begins an efficient sweep of the corpses and area for supplies.
Riven descends to the floor far below and checks the corpses.
He finds the following items on the ground and on the bodies:
11 GP
a bag of flour
30 GP worth of gems
a monocle with a bulging ceramic eye
another morningstar head covered in meat
a wand
a rust-colored cloth bag containing a fuzzy object
a chainmail shirt
a decorated box
Riven collects the objects with care, securing them away. He then efficiently retraces his steps back up the wall and into the room near Vehemence, Ashlyn, and Aterro. He takes out what he found and lets them examine the objects and supplies.
"These items may be useful but I am unable to scan them for functions. When you are ready we should regroup with the others and determine what properties these items may hold."
Ashlyn's eyes sparkle at the wand quickly snatching it away to inspect later. Then her curious eye falls to the box, "Have you opened it yet?"
"Negative. If you wish I will open it away from you so you are not damaged in the case of some mechanism."
Riven notes her snatching the wand but makes no move to stop her and does not comment. He holds up the monocle examining it more closely with his own lens.
Thratch looks at the chest while unconsciously laying a finger on his lock picks.
Well, before we jump to conclusions, why to I take a look at it?
Riven withdraws the box and examines it holding the monocle in his other hand before handing it over to Thratch.
"Do we have a means of stowing these quickly? We shouldn't linger here."
Vehemence gestures towards both the decaying bodies below and the flitting Wan'di.
Mundane supplies didn't catch his attention. Potentially enchanted items were oft vexing and deserving of mistrust.
You examine the monocle. It has a bulging lizard eye on it. You can tell it's magical in nature, and Saurian in nature. It looks like it may allow the wearer to see something that normally only they can see.
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let's wait for the rest of the group to catch up. They're still in the rope bridge room. Maybe we should check on them?
Using your Detect Magic spell, you see the following items glow and learn some of their magical origin:
a monocle with a bulging ceramic eye - Saurian in origin
a wand - an uncommon item, intended for arcane casters
a rust-colored cloth bag containing a fuzzy object - a wondrous item
a chainmail shirt - a rare item, may improve protection for the wearer
a decorated box - otherworldly in origin, possibly legendary or unique, also possibly damaged. - this one glows more strongly than the other objects.
Hey, that box itself is magic Thratch. Let's get a little further and we can take a break to identify this stuff, Wan says, That thing has some extreme power to it and shouldn't be messed with without identifying it first.
So here's the big question: That weird dark room, or that weird white room with the black line?
I like light, so if the wierd dark room can't be lit, let's go the other way.
You don't detect any traps on the box.
You all look around the room, and see a large-ish set of chess pieces in one end, and a small, snakelike creature in the other end. The creature is groaning and laying in a pile of its own vomit.
You note that the missing rooks are back with the other pieces, covered in chunks of regurgitated goo.
At the other side of this long room are two doorways on either side of the far wall. The room on the left appears to be made of some kind of ink-black marble, whereas the room on the right appears to be all white with a thin black line about 6" wide running down from the middle of the doorway.
Your Detect Magic spell is throwing some high magic levels at you from both of the next rooms, but you can't discern their origin.
Chest is trap free. Let's open it. Wan? You want the honors?
You discover that the box doesn't open, or there doesn't seem to be any way to open it. But on each side there are buttons, some of which seem to be jammed hard. The box also has a crack on it, but you can't see anything inside it.
Ashlyn watches with anticipation, her breath catching in her chest as she peers over from a safe distance. A closed box is curious enough, but hearing it has powerful magic only intrigues her more.
So. Examining this dang thing - there's no opening. But there are several buttons, a few of which seem to be stuck or jammed.
There's also a crack, but I can't see through it. I bet if we get those buttons fixed, there would be some sort of sequence to open it. That might even be the magic you're talking about seeing.
Hey, Gibba. You stay away from those chess pieces. They're going to make you sick again.
We can bust open that box later, let's get past the next room first and then we can take a break.
Wan carefully steps on the black line and makes sure to use it like a balance beam.
Wan begins to walk the black line, towards an open doorway on the other side of the room. As he steps on the line, it begins to shift along the floor and change form, not breaking, but growing and reshaping .