La Siréene levitates dangerously close above the clock hand. So far, she seems unaffected by its sickening glow.
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Ianez! you said not to approach the clock!
Hey, how about this? Whoever made the hands wanted them to light up without magic, so the hands are made out of something like radium and the phosphor mixture is painted onto the surface. If the builder(s) were outsiders or undead, they might not have been susceptible to radiation damage, so they didn't realize how dangerous it was to organic life.
Sandru raps the floor and pries up tiles, trying to locate where circuitry runs under the floor to safely disable the trap. The connection is faulty and starts angrily zapping and sparking!
The front entrance to the police headquarters locks. The walls in the entryway slide together and push the members of your party that were standing there out into the main room. Other walls come together and seal off all of the other three wings. You are temporarily safe from the massing undead.
But at what cost?
The pedestal separates like a peeled piece of fruit. First, the clock hand falls and hangs horizontally, waist-high and parallel to the floor. Large falchion blades also drop and hang waist-high, parallel to the floor. The light glints off of them. They are razor keen and run the whole length of the room. This blossom of knives...a mockery of the clock face...prepares to rotate.
The night stalker...raised as an experimental subject... It's difficult to always predict what will effect his physiology or not. This time, he is safe from the invisible toxins.
Blackacre makes sure to recover his pistol, looks around for any other triggers he might have missed, and if it seems safe, he lowers himself below waist level.
As the trap revs up to start spinning, the blades stagger in height. One drops down to knee level, almost to the floor. The hydraulics lower, and the edge of a falchion nicks Blackacre's stubbled cheek, settling to rest on his jaw.
Quinn begins to cast one of the few cantrips he knows, Detect Magic, on the remains of Acrietia.
Your search for clues turns up nothing.
The battle overwhelms Elspeth's senses. Everything is a blur!
Acrietia clutches a trigger device. When she died, she purposefully sparked a fuse in her sleeve, which short-circuited and sabotaged it. The controls are melted-down in her hand.
The walls of the room stretch and fall away from Earl Caromarc, as if he was suddenly drunk. Meanwhile, Elspeth tries not to vomit.
Three of the archons swell up and swagger with sudden feelings of aggressiveness. The fourth one lays calm and tries to wait the ill-feeling out.
Would Mending cast upon the controls potentially bring them back to functioning?
Potentially MM could aid another on Sandru, and pull out the tools?
I believe Ianez aided Sandru, but he didn't include the bonus.
Archon blasts ignore DR. Does that mean they could be good for cutting through the blades? What does it look like the blades are made of?
Suddenly all business, the manservant turns to Sandru, his hands sprouting tools.
"Let me help, Sandru"
"Perhaps the others might like to cut these blades down?"
No point in worrying them about the long term repercussions if they don't survive this.
Caromarc orders the archons, then flings darts of force at the remaining wraith .
Meanwhile the lantern archons shuffle together and open up on the nearest blade, aiming for the furthest point in they can reach
okay - 8 blasts. Ranged weapons do half damage against objects, so I've gone from d6 to d3. Hope this is what you wanted.
Elspeth drifts around Caromarc, agitated by the action but unable to assist.
The wraith shrieks. The darkness is lit up by the four prismatic bolts.
Several of the archons' light rays blast one of the falchion blades.
Round 3:
The last wight senses the living nearby and remembers its mistress' command...attack the living! It flies into the air, around the pedestal, and races towards La Siréene. The wight seizes her wrist and slams her with its arm, but she leans into the blow and is safe and protected by her buckler. The two combatants hover near the ceiling, circling in their macabre battle.
Phoebe shakes her head and backs away slowly . "Cripes, Agnes, what do we do now?" she asks under her breath. She watches Sandru work, providing an extra set of eyes should that come in handy.
The Void Creature chews ponderously, as its next course first falls into its mismatched gap all on its own, and its little master then drops desert in right in front of it.
Not one to get caught up in metaphysical conundrums, it decides that 1: This is an alive thing. 2: This alive thing is in front of me. 3 I will eat this alive thing.
It moves forth to 18,19-O,P and attempts to rip off the torso of the remaining Wight.
As La Siréene lowers her shield, having fended of the Wight with movement both uncontrolled and balletic, she observes her surroundings, this dethtrap, feel the strange vibrations from the surfaces. Smiling, she walks through the air, closing in on the pedestal, lowering herself some 5 feet and taking a better look at this deathtrap, looking for a weak point or similar.
The wight disappears down the beast's gullet.
I know I can't truly succeed without the others... No life in The Desert. I consider their advice, taking it and placing it together like some big puzzle. Big.. Deadly... Puzzle.
Sandru works silently, intensely, quickly...a savant...tapping the floor, ripping up tiles. The temperature in the room shoots up, becomes uncomfortably hot. Or is it panic? Sandru's forehead breaks out with beads of sweat. They drip, hitting his forearms, plinking to the dirty floor next to garbage, splintered wood, dead flies lying on their backs...
The dim light, the close, stuffy air...it feels like you're all trapped together in one of the jail cells. In this moment, Sandru's nature is a mystery. Maybe he doesn't even know himself. Nym's experimental son is a super-enhanced technician, his blood buzzing and mirroring the fried circuitry of the trap. On the other hand, his fingers tangle together all too humanly.
There is a click, then a sound like a hydraulic powering-down. Everyone tenses...breathless. Sandru has done it! One intricately-etched blade comes loose, detaches, and clangs to the floor. But it is a complicated device. Whatever he disconnected was just the first part of the machine. The powering-down tone dips, revs, and climbs back up. You all listen with a feeling of dread.
The intact falchion blade is still a danger.
The hydraulic sound powers down again. The other falchion falls off. The rotor settles crookedly on its base. Two coils jump from the casing. SPROING! SPROING!!
You've deactivated the trap!
The minute-hand to the tower breaks off and falls to the floor. The falchions appear to be masterwork quality. On Acrietia, you find a bag of gold.
"Well done Sandru!" congratulates Caromarc
Thank you, Caromarc. But I could have done better. What's next?
Quinn stays back by the enterance with Pheobe. He is on guard, bow and arrows at the ready, ready to unleash his barrage.
"Great work 'Sand-man'. Someone grab that minute hand."
Blackacre stares wide-eyed at the falchion nicking his cheek, frozen in place as the device hums around the party.
As the machine begins to wind down and the falchion at this face falls to the floor, the inspector regains his composure.
Excellent work, Sandru, he says wiping a drop of blood from his jawline. He eyes the falchion for a brief moment as though it were a dog that had just bit him, then retrieves both it and Acretia's bag of gold, for our continuing efforts.
He advances slowly toward the minute hand.
Seeing Blackacre's caution, I give pause even as I reach for the thing. I see it plainly, in excruciating detail.
The goggles calling my vision to every inch of the minute-hand's edge, tracing around the thing, as if it were closer. As it it were magnified.
"I hate to be negative, but might I point out that there is a small army of the breathing impaired trying to break through to us"
"I'd prefer to either wait to recover - or push on while our interdimensional allies still remain."
Quinn begins to show some signs of fatique after fighting Acrietia. The monk steals some time to relax and recover his breath especially when he notices that no one is watching him.
He leans his back against the northern wall by the enterance. He begins to rub some of the wound sites inflicted by Acrietia while saying to Pheobe "Normally I can take a hit...even the best of them I can take. Her last bunch of attacks left me slightly weaken."
Quinn takes the opportunity to use Wholeness of Body, healing 7 hp.
The walls are weakening. You see a shaking fist, a pair of glowing red eyes here and there... The wights are busting through - SLAM! SLAM! rattle SLAM! rattle SLAM!
A large chunk of the wall crumbles away in a cloud of dust, revealing one of the dread wight seargeants. He breaks some stonework and throws it aside. More are sure to follow soon. GNNNTHRRAAAWRG!
The trap is destroyed, but the room is permeated by the sickening glow. The effects of it feel stronger now.
The entrance to the police station is no longer blocked.
Ianez looks like he's hanging onto his last meal by a thread, and the thread is fraying. "The hand is lethal if you stay too close to it! It's highly ra--the light it's shining with is poisonous! Get a rope onto it and drag it behind us!"
Blackacre moves to help tie a rope to the minute hand.