"Fascinating Sienna! But whom do we kill it easily? We might find more deeper down"
Elise grins "Good plan!"
Nethan looks to Sienna for a couple of questions, "Sienna, have you seen any of these behemoths walk out of the well? Second question, does this coin's heraldic image mean anything to you?" Nethan points to the coin.
"I could try to shoot out the traps but it might not end well," Flynt said, "I'm with you kid."
"I agree, avoid the lasers until we know what to do about them."
Sienna turns to Elise and Nethan trying to reply to the questions as best she can. "Er well, electricity might help short out some of those mechanical parts they are very very old so their design is somewhat flawed albeit sturdy."
She places her hands behind her head and rubs the back of her left leg with her right foot replying to Nethan "Behemoth number 1 there came out after t'he Knights tried to go in. Maybe there is more down there... I don't know. Sienna looks the coin for a few moments then scrunches her face and shakes her head. "Sorry Nethan, narry a clue."
Amelia starts setting up a rope to go down and the others begin to follow her down in their own time, arriving in the 5x5 corridor you see that it is thing, just enough to fit a one person line unless you squeeze particularly well. The corridor is metallic on all walls and there is a rail above your head, it hasn't been used in centuries looking at the rust on the thing. Directly ahead there is a dead body though this one has been dead a long time, it is a skeleton. Though its garb is very odd, there is a golden spear next to the body that gleans in the light coming from outside this corridor. The spear is very similar to a harpoon and has a strap going from the bottom of the head to the bottom of the shaft. The skeleton is also wearing a golden armour that from here appears to be chitin of a sort, with plates of it folding in to make scale, there is a fleece like cloak as well. Where the skeleton lays there is a split in this corridor left and right. On the left there is a another corridor then a shaft with a 10 foot drop. On the right it opens up to a room with a set of 7 blocks of marble and a trap door at the end.
Jeremiah pauses to examine the skeleton and its gear, "Never seen nothin' like this before. Where do you reckon he was from?" He toes the harpoon gently.
"Any of this gear magic?"
When Elise drops down one thing immediately becomes apparent - whoever made a corridor 5 feet tall didn't like long people. She muttered a soft curse under her breath as she assumed a hunched stance to avoid contact with the corridors roof. Still, she nearly banged her head in the overhead rail.
"Gah - what was the whispering Tyrant? A gnome ?!" The annoyance in her tone is plain for all whom listen. "At least we wont have to deal with another behemoth in this corridor..." She adds in a more redesigned tone.
She stumbles to a halt when she sees the skeleton with the gold. She smiles and and utters a blessing. Sadly, in her desire to see the curious objects, she subconsiously tries to see over her comrades shoulders - once more bumping her head into the roof.
"Aww - dammit!" she exclaims. But she soon regains her bearings and continue "What is that? Armour and weaponary made out of gold! The silliest thing I've ever seen! Gold is faaar to soft to be useful on the battlefield - steel goes through it like butter! Surely it must be enhanced - or perhaps it is some other mysterious alloy ?"
"I don't like this cramped corridor. We had best space ourselves out quite a bit."
Nethan nods to Sienna, looks over his shoulder seeing party members start to descend into the well, he quickly and carefully sees if the coin is energized, materializes his mind blade, and pries the coin off if possible.
Alþórel hesitates before climbing down the rope, hearing the comments of Elise and Dreyyn.
"Amelia" he calls out, not particularly loudly "Are you ready for us all to follow you?"
Till he hears an assent he stays at the top of the well, looking down, ready to introduce to Elemental Fire any creature that starts climbing up the well.
Calathar stays near the lead, his no-dachi held like a spear in the narrow confines of the corridor.
Amelia looks around the skeleton for any traps and can see that there are none, she can see in the room next to the skeleton on the right though the trap's sensor is on the other side of the room about 15 feet away, Amelia thinks she might need some creative thinking to disable it from this far.
Interestingly Amelia notices that this skeleton just slumped down from a kneeling position and there is no wounds to show how it died. Perhaps it just died from waiting?
Jeremiah toes the harpoon and it doesn't feel like wood, nor metal, when he touches it with bare skin he finds it is very light weight.
Alþórel looks over the body and can see that nothing on the skeleton is magical, the gear seems to be standard fare though strange in make.
Elise also has a quick peruse of the garb but can't come to many conclusions. Like Alþórel she knows it isn't magical however she tries to confirm her suspcions about it being made of gold picking up the spear and touching some pieces of the amour. The spear is made of bone, but what bone is gold? The armour is also indeed chitin, there aren't many creatures that are large enough to make chitin armour form except maybe umber hulks. Though their exoskeleton is black and this armour hasn't changed in colour from its original form.
Nethan takes the coin with him for possible later use.
The party is on edge from such a small opening, hoping that nothing will come out and fight them in such restricted quarters. Alþórel doesn't see any creatures coming up but he is wary all the same. Calathar is being a bit protective of the group taking up the front. The silence in this well is deafening, he can hear is on breath midst the silence.
Calathar grunts. "Come on. Let's not keep them waiting."
He leads out, heading right.
Nethan pockets the coin in a hurry to study it further later. At the very least, it may be worth something because of the gold content or historical significance but Nethan is hoping for something more beneficial. He notices he is the last one still standing above ground, he waves to Sienna, "Thank you Sienna, time for me to catch up, see you when we return.", and Nethan jogs to the well entrance and asks the group where to step to catch up to them. Then he carefully proceeds to the party's current location and dismisses his mind blade before taking a position close to Alþórel in party order.
Flynt points to the object on the far wall of the room.
"That some kind of trap?" He asks leveling his revolver on it.
Nethan looks to Flynt and nods, "Yes Flynt my friend, and probably many more like it or worse? Tar-Baphon was near deity status when he was "supposedly" defeated. And who's to say, that someone has not moved in since then or Tar-Baphon still lives and is secretly preparing for his next attempt at ascension overthrowing my father which would be very bad or someone else in the pantheon."
"Anyone ever tell you, you talk a lot?" Flynt asks, still studying the room. Calmly he walks back and wrenches the skeleton's hand free. The myriad of small bones comes apart in his hand but he now had the ammunition he needed. Testing this room much like the first entrance he tosses a few bones into it.
Nethan shrugs at Flynt, "Most likely and yes I do." Nethan smiles.
The trap is at the end of the room to the right of the skeleton, the room is 15 foot wide and 30 foot deep. Amelia can't tell from here what the sensor is trying to detect but the range is to the threshold. Those with detect magic can see a cone shaped aura continuously being emitted from the sensor in pulses every 12 seconds. The aura lasts 6 seconds, so there is a 6 second window where it isn't on. The sensor seems to going through the blocks of marble just fine. Amelia thinks that Flynt can destroy the sensor with a well placed shot but she is unsure if that will trigger any form of fail safe as she can't see what is hooked up to the sensor from this far away.
"A trap, you say?" Alþórel chants and sketches a ward on himself as he casts the spells modern wizards call 'Mage Armor'
"Just warn before you trigger it so we can stay away!"
Nethan studies the situation ... "Hmm, I wonder?"
Nethan studies the situation and sees if the laser system can be used against itself by either having lasers shoot out each other or shooting out the sensors ...
"Wonder what?" Alþórel asks
"Toss a rock down the hall?" asks Calathar, looking around for a likely stone missile.
There is bits of rock and bits of wall scatter about the place, throwing the rock down the room to the right has no effect, neither does throwing it down the left corridor. The sensor likely does not detect movement.
"Hmm, I'd volunteer to rush in there, but I cannot see these pulses you speak of."
Flynt, tired of the conversation, tries something else. He lights a torch and tosses it into the room.
The torch Jeremiah flings in lies on the ground not triggering anything in the room.
The more magically inclined of the group brainstorm about the enemies in the region as well as similar spells and they come to the conclusion is that the pulses are performing a detect living spell. This is likely due to the fact that all the defenders of this place that the group have seen so far are not alive, so intruders would be detected if they were alive.
Perhaps then with the corridor that did detect movement there are less defenders due to the defenses attacking anything that moves, of course it means there will be more traps in those areas. This should be a decent clue to how the layout of this well works.
"Amelia. You are a rock."
Elise grins when she realizes what they mean "A non-flammable rock I hope!"
Amelia takes a step into the room and nothing seems to trigger. She continues to walk through the pulses up to the sensor and inspects it. After a little while she deduces quite easily at this point it is a magic trap and it is synced to the 7 marble blocks in this room. Not being magically inclined herself she doesn't know the spells involved though she is more than capable to disarm the trap herself to let the others through.
Undoing the trap seems to trigger something, Amelia in a split second thinks it is another trap, but quickly realises that is really paranoid thinking. What actually happens is all the 7 marble blocks fall over and part of the ground starts to give way. A staircase opens up to the next level down of the Well. The group hears something in elvish being whispered from near the bottom of the staircase.
"What in the world is that sound? ...An opening? Quick someone is coming get out of sight."
As the party goes down the staircase they are greeted by a room that has recently had a fight in it. There is blood splattered over the walls, parts of creatures left on the ground. There is more of the zombies husks lying limp on the floor and near the edge of the room a broken body of robbed skeleton.
In the East corner there is hole coming up from a separate part of the well, the hole has a ladder made out of very long branches with red leaves intertwined on each run. The leaves themselves are durable and you'd need a knife to cut them off the rungs unless you were particularly strong you wouldn't be able to snap them off. As the party is investigating the room they occasionally hear shuffling noises from behind them as if they are being followed or at least watched.
"Well done Amelia! No petty puzzle this."
"The enemy of my enemy can be a good ally. Show yourself - we need not fight."
Alþórel holds a hand up to his friends as he talks, beckoning them to stand down.
The sound of voices whispering flips Elise back into a battle stance. They might not be hostile - but in this place? Better to not take the chance. She readies her poleaxe and follows behind Alþórel. His raised hand halts her but is not enough to make her lower her weapon. Instead she remains vigilant - ready for the worst.
Dreyyn stays near the back, waiting to see if there is an ambush from the rear. Something is amiss, judging by everyone's reactions.
Flynt, slightly unnerved by the whispers and movement, keeps his back to a wall and watches the others as they move through the rooms.
Nethan nods his head in agreement and backs up Alþórel congratulatory comment, "Well done indeed Amelia!" ... Nethan nods and follows up with the following Elven statement,
Elise and Dreyyn give each other knowing looks at start to pace a little at the rear of the group looking out for anything suspicious or dangerous to the group. Amelia quickly tries to hide in this room though curses at the clumsiness of it, much as it is better than most people could hide she knows she could do better.
Nethan and Alþórel call out in Elvish towards the other beings in the room. Jeremiah spies something out of the edge of his vision when they start to speak, he points it out to Elise and Dreyyn who have their weapons ready. They see three figures, they are whispering to each other as Jeremiah can hear although the speech is in Elvish. The three figures present themselves with weapons drawn infront of them. However Elise and Dreyyn can see their stances are cautious, uncertain, they don't look ready to attack, more ready to counter attack.
The figures look to be elves, or at least close in appearance to elves. They are sickly pale, even more so than most elves would be. Their hair dyed with red highlights but you can tell that their hair is a only a shade darker than their pale white skin complexion. They are clad in a red leafy ring mail armour, the set they are wearing looks like it is open to giving them ample movement for at least some protection. Though against any good sword swing it would probably crumple. The leaves on the armour are haphazardly spread all over the place on their torso and gloves, their boots are just plain red leather. Each of them has a rapier that is made out of wood. To your eyes that seems rather counter productive as that would be no stronger than a stick however the strange things you have seen thus far likely mean that there is more to those rapiers than meets the eye at first.
The one that is braver than the other two stepping up first says in Elvish.
"I hope you can better understand me now, as I didn't understand some of what you were saying either. I will ask again, what certainty do we have that you are not wardens to this fortress of death?"
Satisfied that they are appears to be fellow investigators of this strange place - and clearly not guardians - Elise switches to lean on her weapon instead. While this might be an elaborate ruse or clever trick, she knew that she didn't really have to rely on the weapon anyways. Besides, if the necromancer was trying to trick people his tricksters would surely have less outlandish outfits - toy weapons and all.
"First - if your experiences are the same as ours - we are talking instead of charging you. That ought to set us apart. Secondly - we humans don't live long enough to bother to stick around and guard a fortress when its master have been long dead." She gives the 'elf' a thin smile "There is usually all manner of undead for that work anyway, much to our chagrin. But I'm sure you met them already..."