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The chaotic wave washes over the adventurers, and while none of the speaking members are affected, Ilvan seems a bit dumber-as-a-bricker after the wave passes.
Swayaah's claws make a screaching sound, like chalk on a blackboard when she hits. The leader is about to comment once again on the benefits of collaboration, as Kellan puts a quick super-critical vampiric stop to the spewing of nonsence, leaving the large, formless creature dead on the floor.
Ilya, on her own right, proceeds to beat the confusingly playful creature next to her into a playful pulp, while Vayu fires away at the last moving protean, leaving only a gruesome and hideous statue in the middle of the room.
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"What? No way." Swayaah bounds up to the far side of the room, and sticks her earthbreaker past the veil. Then she sticks her hands through. Then she walks past and arrives closer to the entrance. "That's crazy. I'm not smart enough to figure that one out."
"Ilvan? Buddy, you okay?" The owlbear walks up to his master but he seems slower to comprehend her commands. "Ah, poor guy. We'll have you fixed up tomorrow, alright? I know some spells that will help."
Looking back to the party, Swayaah notes. "Well, I guess we chose to help those automations remove these things, huh? I guess we should report on our success?"
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Kellan zips across the room, while Ketill point out the usefulness of having floors and ceilings. As Swayaah opens the next set of doors, that usefulness becomes apparent by the distinct lack of floors and ceiling in the next room.
The high walls of the meandering cavern look natural, yet the floor and ceiling disappear entirely. Above and below, this room gives way to a vast sky of swirling pink and orange clouds stretching to infinity. Scattered islands of flat stone float unsupported among the clouds, level with the room’s two doorways.
Beautiful below! a voice from among the clouds becomes, and adds with an echoing voice: Must become sleeper awake! Open below door! Helping you us! Helping us you!
Fighting you law-close! Helping you chaos-open!
Upon some closer inspection, two more of the weird creatures, just like the leader in the previous room, are hidden among the islands.
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The protean hiding among the island keeps making his point.
Beautiful it below! Old below it! Sleeping! Must become awake sleeper! Creator it! Builder it! Changer it!
Want closed law-close! Want open chaos-open! Presence reason us!
Leave want you not-open? Leave want empty-hand you? Open must fight law-close you. Open can help chaos-open you.
Want open door? Fight law-close. Fight want? Fight chaos-open. Not fight want? Not fight chaos-open.
Want open to-friend chaos-open. Not fight chaos-open. Receive not pain chaos-open. Receive pain law-close. Receive pain one-pain only.
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There is a great beast sleeping below, a creator, builder and changer of things. The inevitables want to keep the door closed, but we want to make it open. That's why we're here!
You came this far without wanting to open the door? You want to leave empty-handed? If you want to open the door, you will have to fight the inevitables. We can help you. It's simple, if you want to open the door, it makes more sense to fight the inevitables than us, if anything to save you from any pain we may cause you.
Kellan is smart enough to decipher the meaning of what the proteans are trying to say. They're quite coherent for being of pure chaos, and she suspects there is nothing more convoluted behind the rather simple reasoning of the lead protean.
The proteans seems oddly uninterested in moving towards hostilities, so the party is free to move around.
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"I'd have to leave Ilvan behind, though." She looks around. "Sounds like you guys really want to see what's behind the door, though."
"I prepared Air Step
for just this occasion. Ketill can fly. Vayu can spider climb, I think. But what about Kellan and Zen'yr?"
"Sounds like we should get out of here, let Ketill prepare some flight elixirs, and then we return. I'll ask Ilya to babysit Ilvan back at home while his stupidity wears off."
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Spider climb allows you to traverse the walls. There are no ceilings or floor to speak of, only floating islands.
The proteans above remain indifferent to the presence of the adventurers.
The deep end of the cavern has lost most of its floor and ceiling to endless pink sky, and a multicolored whirlpool floats in the air at the chamber’s center, pulsing with light. To the west, a bleached, serpentine skull several feet in diameter sits in an alcove above a narrow ledge; two red tulips are growing up through its vacant eyeholes. Tiny glass bottles full of liquid and stacks of small stones ring the skull.
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Ketill inspects the shrine-like place next to the whirlpool and realizes it is a powerful chaotic focus of some sort, mean to disrupt planar connections. Setups like this would shut down any nearby conduits to lawful planes. Chaotic ones would be unaffected, such as the massive whirlpool right behind. Strangely enough, the whirlpool, though undisputably a portal to the chaotic planes, seems to be inactive. Which is a good thing, the place is crawling enough with proteans as it is.
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While Ketill backtracks to a room the party visited before - with a somewhat non-plussed Inevitable standing guard, Swayaah find a little alcove in the area with the floating islands. The small alcove is shaped as if it were formed from natural stone, yet every surface appears to be formed from maroon velvet. The walls are warm to the touch and gently pulse, like a heartbeat.
Inside the alcove, a collection of rather random items lie strewn about: A folding boat, marvelous pigments, a hand of glory and belt of giant's strength (those kind of slightly-larger-than-usual-but-not-quite-ettin-giants (+2)). There's some household items, including several neglected potted plants. Also in the heap is a large key, which seems to match the metal of the double door in the middle of the level.
The walls of this stone room are covered with shelves holding a wide variety of wires, crystals, cogs, and what look like severed wings or limbs made of clockwork. Tall stacks of similar items— arranged neatly by color, size, and less obvious criteria—clutter the floor, though a clear path runs between the two doors.
The gold wires set in the floor of this large room extend from the southern door to two humming apparatuses. The one in the northeastern corner is a cluster of silver and black cylinders of varying heights and sizes, the smallest standing six feet high. All are composed of stacks of thin, horizontal metal plates that arc electrical sparks. The other machine, embedded in the northern wall, is a squared-off archway made of metal and exposed wires. Inside the arch, the wall is replaced by a flat plane of golden light
This, like the vortex in the protean room, seems to be a portal as well, and is a disfunctional as the Protean one. The humming apparatuses, on their own, look to be jamming devices, which may be very well why that protean portal isn't working. It doesn't seem to be magnetic.
This room is bare, save for a wide section of the northern wall that seems misty and transparent. It shows hazy image of a much larger room dominated by the glowing pillar of the Emerald Spire, which extends from the ceiling through huge metal doors in the floor.
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"This, like the vortex in the protean room, is a portal, and is as disfunctional as the Protean one. Those humming apparatuses, on their own, look to be jamming devices, which may be very well why that protean portal isn't working. It doesn't seem to be magnetic"
"Now let's go and see what this haze is about"
Ketill takes one of the many cogs and throws it through the hazy mist towards the spire
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Vayu runs around to where the spire is... and waves.
"Hey, can you hear me?", Vayu hollers.
Running back into the room, Vayu looks into the mist, expecting to see himself there.
Looking at Ketill. "You do something with your hair? You look different."
Getting back on task, "Well... maybe we should jam the jammers..."
Looking at the jammers,