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"Yeah. A little shaken up. But I'm doing okay. Now that we've seen what Melon brought up let's move on."
But the look on Vyk's face easily clues everyone in to the fact that the tiefling was more than a little disturbed.
-Posted with Wayfinder
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Vyk stepped past the obelisk, giving it as wide a berth as he could given the tiny bridge. He walked up to the door on the other side and examined it.
-Posted with Wayfinder
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Vyk moves past the obelisk and inspects the short hallway to the south. The arch around the north entrance to this hallway is covered with detailed carvings depicting the life and accomplishments of a female pharaoh. A charred corpse covered in flecks of glass is visible just inside the hallway.
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Despite avoiding half the damage, Melon still goes down. Dylara is also able to avoid half the damage, though barely, but still stands. Both Dylara and her companion narrowly escape death.
"Melon, no!" Dylara immediately drags her friend out of the dangerous area, scared another wave of sand may end their lives.
Dylara takes her wand of cure light wounds and heals the wounds the burning white sand caused.
"Okay... bad plan... I hope that trap's inactive now, but how can we make sure it is?"
She ponders a moment before answering her own question. "We could throw an object in, or I could summon a creature and test it... Or do you have other ideas?"
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Khismia moved forward, as she saw her friends might need her help, but as Dylara used her wand and revived Melon, she became a bit relaxed.
"I cannot summon anything," she replied, "but I can check with a smokestick. If there is some wind or something, we should see it."
She spent some time, looking through her backpack and then found a smokestick, which she threw it in the passage, where the sandstorm was a moment ago.
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Tuich cries out, hand flying to her mouth, as she sees Dylara and Melon caught up and tossed about by the sudden, powerful twister. Her robes and scarfs flutter as she runs to aid them... and continue to do so even after she's reached them.
"It's alright Tooley, I'm not going in there."
"If it's some sort of magical trap an object might not trip it," she says after giving Delara a relieved hug, "so if it doesn't go off again I don't think we should trust that. I wouldn't rely on lack of wind now meaning anything either," she says to Khismia.
She looks toward the hallway entrance warily, not moving from where she's standing. "I'm pretty good at disarming mechanical traps, but if it's magical, I don't know how much I can do."
She waves a hand at the area. "మేజిక్ కనుగొను!"
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Dylara! Eek! Miko is pinned to the floor, watching Dylara getting burned by the desert heat. She knows she can move up and heal her, but her muscles simply don't seem to react.
She's not going to be the next Torch. Get it together, Miko
Only when Dylara opens her eyes, the impulses arrive again. Fumbling for her wand as she moves up to her, she tries to heal the burns.
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"Thanks for the concern, everyone." Dylara hugs Tuich back, and quickly wipes away a tear when she lets go of her comrade. "I thought... Melon would die..."
Dylara straightens herself and points a finger at the passage. She channels the stored energy from the Burning Disarm spell she'd prepared into summoning an ally of nature. Usually, Dylara would prefer to summon a bird. This time she summons a pony, because the trap may be triggered by stepping onto a pressure plate.
The pony appears in front of the passage, and walks up to the corpse Dylara tried to inspect earlier. If nothing happens the pony will move around inside the passage, perhaps triggering the trap by stepping into another square.
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Vyk looked on in horror at the blast. "Dylara!"
He sighed when he saw that damage wasn't permanent. "Thank the Drunken Hero you're all right."
He then moved over to study the hallway again.
"Hey, there's a broken jewel in here. A ruby I think."
-Posted with Wayfinder
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Dylara's pony prances around the area where the trap was sprung, but nothing seems to happen. Tuich is able to see a magical aura around the area of the trap, but on closer inspection she see's that the actual trap is mechanical in nature.
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"I can see an aura," Tuich says, pointing, "but I don't have the training to understand how it works." She edges cautiously closer and squats down, studying the area. "But look here, the actual trap mechanism is mechanical. Maybe I can jam it." She roots around in her backpack until she finds a leather tool roll.
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Dylara inspects the area with detect magic, but isn't able to figure out what the magic aura belongs to.
"Let's see if the area ahead is also safe," Dylara mutters when Tuich's done disabling the trap, and commands the pony to run in a straight line south.
"I'm not able to see it where it is now, but we'll know there's a trap or enemy if we hear it scream in terror."
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It looks like there is an old messenger bag on the corpse that sustained some damage when Dylara set off the trap. Ashes, a few scrapes of paper and the seal of the Decemvirate are all that remain of the documents, but a scroll of remove curse and a broken wayfinder engraved with a scarab seem to have survived.
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Dylara takes a moment to look up from searching the body and can see this large columned chamber shows signs of past comforts, but an ancient battle scorched the walls and ceiling, and cracked and smashed the floor and columns. The remnants of furniture are scattered against the walls, and piles of bodies are stacked in the sleeping alcoves along the south and west walls. A dais crowned with a great, round table rises from the floor in the south part of the room. Three corpses sit around the table as if in conference, each dressed in fine silk robes. A slight breeze whistles through with a sound like a distant, murmuring voice, but there is no sense or meaning in it. An open hallway to the north leads to a natural cavern. Stairs lead downward in the northeast corner of the room, but were buried in stone when the wall collapsed. On the table in front of one of the corpses are the broken jewel pieces Vyk mentioned earlier
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They're dead. This is either a cruel joke, or something really strange happened here. Why would they just sit down and die?
Khismia, I...
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I felt like a complete fraud, waving my protection wand around like the next mask-wearer from Lake Encarthan. Still, I knew the wand would give sixty heartbeats of protection. Or double that, at the rate my heart was going.
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... this should give you some protection.
Miko expends a charge from the wand, casting protection from evil on Khismia ()
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Strange. Didn't Torch mention there was a group ahead of us? We've found only dead pathfinders, so far.
Or was that what he meant?
Let's contact Amenopheus.
Miko moves to Melon, to retrieve the little amethyst geode, and speaks into it. Amenopheus, sir, we found a sage jewel, though not in the state we would have liked to find it.
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Khismia gratefully whispered "Thank you" and entered the room. She didn't liked, what she saw there. The jewel was crushed and other Pathfinders were dead. She looked around and quietly asked in her head:
- Ayu, can you do me a favour again? I want you to bring some conciousness to one of those, just to ask him, what happened here?
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Dylara quickly moves onto the table so she can aim over the heads of her comrades. She has her shield in one hand, and casts bull's strength on Melon.
A flame appears in Dylara's free hand when she casts produce flame, and she readies herself to throw the flame when a hostile person or creature approaches.
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Vyk steadied his feet, and dropped his hand by his scimitar, ready to draw it or one of his other weapons at a moment's notice.
"You know, I don't mind a good fight. But just once it would be nice to be greeted with a delicious cake or maybe a nice pudding rather than eldritch horror beyond the ken of mortals. Just saying."
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Three men step into the chamber their weapons drawn. They are flanked by a large bald man with a braided red beared. Over his shoulder is a greatsword and at his side is a well dressed woman. Despite the desert heat some of their clothing is better suited for a cold climate. The bald man takes one look at the Pathfinders and bellows "Who in the seven hells are you?"
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Miko remains where she is, and tries to salvage the situation We are archaeologists, investigating the history of ancient Osirion. I myself am Miko Teppen, a chronicler from Taldor.
She tries to make that last bit sound believable despite her appearance, a Tien woman dressed in Osirian clothing.
We mean you no harm, though I should warn you that this place is not without its dangers. I might be mistaken, but you look like you hail from colder places. What brings you to this forgotten outpost?
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"My name is Khismia al-Khair, I have a title of Trade Princess of Qadira. My purpose here is to assist my friends in their exploration, as well as ensure setting proper trade contacts all over the world" she gently nods, despite her closes is not one that Trade Princess should ever wear.
"If they done something to Sabah, I will rip their souls and they never will meet their rest" sounded inside her head and Khismia became a bit less cheerful.
"You probably saw my squire with horses out the cave entry. Are they OK?"