Lur smiles as he hefts his large sword into a ready position.
-what is about to happen?
Shattertooth lays his hand on the stone...
You try to make sense of the rumbling, but it stops after several more rising seconds. Silence falls over you once again, the only sound that can be heard is the crackling of the torchfire.
Wek opens his tiny bat eyes.
Something...happened. I was exploring the passage, and then nothing. I don't even remember what hit me. Oof, Princess, careful with the wing webbing.
The bat climbs up on to Princess' shoulder using little thumb claws and feet, doing his best to only cling to clothing...not an easy task with the vast expanses of flesh that the ogress displays.
We should stick together. I'll try to get an image of the area ahead.
Wek uses his ultrasonic squeaks to search the area.
You screech in your tiny bat voice down both passageways. You "see" with your echolocation that they both extend a short distance beyond torchlight's reach before culminating, but you notice something odd about the bust during your search.
To get a better snapshot of the hallways, you had flown off of the ogress' shoulder to alight on the minotaur bust's horn. There is a button on the back of the minotaur's skull, impossible to see from ground level. The button is marked with a skull and crossbones.
"Wek! Oh, I'm so glad you're okay!" Princess cuddles the little bat to her bosom. She giggles girlishly as he starts to clamber across her body. "Hey! Hee hee, careful! That tickles!"
There's a button here, probably for a trap. I don't recommend we push it.
Uek flaps off a little further to look/echolocate down the left hand of the Y-split.
"Right, I'll scout out the other way." Priness says. She casts a spell to turn herself invisible, then heads down the right hand passage.
Everyone keep an eye out for stone doors, possibly disguised ones. There was just an odd rumbling and I can't place what it could have been.
Shattertooth stays at the intersection and waits for a report from the scouts.
Uek, the left hallway continues for another thirty feet before veering to the right at a perfect 90 degree angle. Shortly after the hallway forks right, you see a ladder against the wall. The ladder appears to go to an upper level as well as a lower level.
You investigate the ladder, and look up. There's no light this far in, so you have to rely on echolocation and hearing. You hear the sounds of blades swooshing past each other regularly from above you when you're standing at the ladder, but when you echolocate, the way seems clear. There appears to be an illusion blocking the way up the ladder with blades that aren't really there.
Your echolocation pings off of a large pile of round metal objects in the room at the bottom of the ladder. The hallway also continues straight past where the ladder is.
Princess, after cloaking yourself from view, you creep off down the right hand passage. Lacking Uek's echolocation, your vision fails you some 40-50 feet beyond where Vorgo and Shattertooth are. Do you bring a torch with you?
Princess brings a torch along. The light might give her away, but any enemies still won't be able to see her at least.
If the ladder is illusioned but not trapped, we should go that way. It’s used often but discouraged for strangers. That’s where we really want to go.
Princess, the tunnel to the right extends for about 100 feet, which takes you no time at all to traverse. Looking back down the tunnel behind you, you can see the faint light of the torches of the others.
The corridor banks left at a 90 degree angle, and after 20 feet, it forks into three different choices - left, middle, and right. There are plates at the entrance to each fork that have inscriptions on them in Ancient Minotaur. Standing at the fork and peering down each one, they are identical in appearance, however...there's a temperature differential. Standing in front of the leftmost fork, you feel a cold breeze touching your skin. The central fork doesn't have any different feel than the earlier tunnels. The rightmost fork is warmer - you feel like you are standing in direct summer sunlight when you face it.
Lur once again sits down impatiently.
The "human" feels the bear within growling at the delay between moments of bloodshed. Impatiently, he looks around...and notices something that everyone else had overlooked in the search for Uek...
The troll is gone. You can't tell when he disappeared, but you don't see or smell him now.
Well, I like feeling warm...
Princess will sneak down the rightmost fork first.
Thiisss way, thought-bubbles 'Uek. Hold up, Princess. We have something of note this way. Bring torches. And someone wake up Stybar. Everything is a trap around here.
Wek waits at the top of the ladder.
I'll rule that Princess is still close enough to hear the thought-speak, but only just. The effective range (as established by the Animorphs books) is more than 100 feet, but less than 150 feet.
Princess, do you heed the call and rejoin the others?
Hearing Wek's call, the invisible ogre returns to the others. She grunts to let them know she is here.
The light of the torches that Shattertooth, Vorgo and Princess are bearing reveal details that echolocation alone didn't. There is light reflecting back up at you from below at the bottom of the ladder, and peering down with a torch in hand, (one of you) sees why - there are piles upon piles of gold pieces down there, catching the light and reflecting back upward, from a room at the bottom of the ladder.
By contrast, looking up the ladder, the torch shows that wickedly curved and sharp-looking blades, of the same design as the hallway trap before, are whooshing past each other above, seemingly blocking the way. The blades appear to be sharp enough to take off a limb instantly if one got in their way, and there's stained blood on some of the lowest blades.
Beyond the ladder, the corridor continues into blackness.
The blades aren’t real...I’m guessing neither is the gold. I’m going up.
Vorgo climbs the ladder.
Wait, cousin. I can sense the shape and metal of coin. We should at least find out what they are.
Wek bat-crawls down the ladder.
Vorgo, your assumption about the blades being illusory turned out to be correct. Ascending the ladder, you climb and see the false blades pass harmlessly through you over and over and over again. Though you know they are merely images, the effect is still...disconcerting. It's slow going climbing through these false blades, as you are still holding your torch in one hand.
After about a dozen more rungs, the blades illusion ceases, only being visible below you. A dozen more rungs beyond that, and you reach the end of the ladder. There's a closed trapdoor at the top. There doesn't appear to be anything holding it shut, so opening it would be a matter of pushing it upward. You would have to hold your torch in your teeth temporarily in order to do it, as your hands wouldn't be free.
Uek reaches the bottom of the ladder far more quickly than Vorgo reaches the top, as there are only about a dozen rungs, he's in bat form, and not carrying any equipment.
Uek, you look around with the benefit of Shattertooth or Princess shining a torch down from above, and see a treasure room that would rival a king's hoard. You have no way to estimate just how many coins are here, but it's certainly more than you've ever seen in your lifetime. However, there are also other things down here that you didn't notice until you came down - a trio of skeletons, wearing old and worn clothing and lying motionless on the gold piles. Their weapons are lying nearby - curve-bladed scimitars, a bag of alchemical vials, and a long wooden quarterstaff.
The coins in the lower vault look like this, with a gold trim around the outside and a silver core.
We have loot, friends. This can buy us things. And Princess, can you identify these vials?
Wek pauses.
Um, and three skeletons. You know, the kind that could reanimate and attack us or curse us. Or the gold itself is cursed. Standard outcomes such as those.
Wek poises to flap back up the ladder, watching the skeletons.
The skeletons do not move.
Lur, quietly following behind the entire time moves to the coins and picks one up to inspect it.
Describe to me what you're wearing on your hands, if anything.
"I'll see if I can figure it out," Princess says quietly. The invisible ogre moves to alchemical vials and, assuming nothing untoward happens, tries to study them to discern their properties.
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Vorgo carefully pushes the trap door open.
Lur holds the golden coin up between his thumb and forefinger, inspecting it carefully. Nothing seems untoward, so he flips it and catches it in his palm. That's when things go wrong.
The warmth of the human's palm activates a tiny mouth in the coin, and the coin-mimic latches on to his palm like a biting lamprey. It's adhered to your palm now, and chewing through your flesh to try and devour you, with all the ferocity of a hungry piranha. Take 1d6+2 damage that ignores armor!
Princess, you're able to identify the potions, but things are about to get a little chaotic right now so it'll have to wait until afterward.
Vorgo, you push open the trap door and peer into the room above. You see a work bench of some sort with alchemical ingredients and tools on it, and that's when you hear a commotion coming from the room below. It's Lur, but you can't tell what's going on from where you are. What do you do?
Shattertooth Something has clearly gone wrong, so Shattertooth drops down the latter as fast as he can to help. Now that he can see that these coins aren't coins his mind rushes to remember anything useful about a monster that looks like an object.
Shattertooth, you have heard legends of "Mimics", creatures born of magical rituals that can be trained to imitate mundane objects to kill the unwary. They are ravenously hungry when awakened from their dormant states by being touched by flesh. However, despite resembling an inanimate object, they are living creatures. They bleed, and are vulnerable to electricity and poison. However, they can withstand very high temperatures.
Vorgo sighs and climbs back down quickly. What's going on! Do you need help?
I need something electrical down here! calls Shattertooth.
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Oh, is that all? I'll just go grab an eel or maybe a lightening bolt!
"Lur! Hold on, honey-bear!" Princess appears as she casts a spell.
Now, lizard! Or our bear is gong to lose a paw At Best!
Good news, Princess? Your magic bolt blasted it off of Lur with the immense and precise force of a finely targeted spell. The coin goes flipping end over end somewhere off in the gold piles.
Bad news? Lur's bleeding heavily from his now-exposed palm wound, and it's dripping onto the coin pile he's standing on, which is waking up the rest of the mimic coins...
They begin to reveal mouths in their central golden cores, screeching, chirping, and flipping themselves end over end in your direction, trying to find flesh to latch onto and devour. It's like having pebbles thrown at you by children, only they're predatory coins that are throwing themselves at you.
"Oops! I think I woke the babies! Vile, voracious little babies!"
Princess makes for the ladder out, bodily shoving mimic coins aside with her jiggling blubber.
Vorgo slides down the ladder Oh, "now" he shouts, like that will make me SUDDENLY be able to summon the fire of the heavens.
He arrives at the landing, but (wisely) doesn't go down into the pit. I told you the coins were a trap. I told you.
Wait, cousin. I can sense the shape and metal of coin. We should at least find out what they are.
We did find out what they are. They're coin monsters. Get the manbear out of the pit and I'll heal him.
Wek answers sullenly. We could have poked them with a stick. And besides, there's some other things down here. Princess, if you summon some water, I -can- become an electric eel.
Wek flaps around the ladder ineffectually, letting Princess and Lur climb out.
We should have gotten one of those ten foot poles, he thought-bubbles mainly to himself.
Wait...
Wek lands near Lur and turns into a very slimy and poisonous toad.
Gah! gasps the toad, in some distress.
Shattertooth runs back to the ladder. Everybody who doesn't want to be eaten by money get back up!
He sighs again. Down the ladder Vorgo. Up the ladder Vorgo. Make up your minds!
He climbs up the ladder.
Uek, you shapeshift successfully into a toad, but the false coins were already in the process of leaping up onto you to devour your flesh. In the process of shapeshifting, while your body is undergoing such drastic and magically-induced changes, the coin stuck to your flesh actually becomes subsumed into your body! You can feel it in the region of your stomach, clamoring around and making you feel like you got food poisoning!
Princess makes for the ladder, but slips on the pile of money and lands on one of the skeletons. The old bones crack and shatter, piercing her flesh like jagged knives! Take 1d6 damage, Princess, and you'll need to look out - coins are awakening beneath your very body and they're hungry!
Vorgo, from the middle level, you can see Shattertooth making his way back up safely, but Princess and Uek are in danger of being overwhelmed. What do you do?
Lur is surprised, to say the least. He begins trying to rip off the coin gnawing attachment to his hand. Relieved once Princess blasts the coin off his hand he relaxes though he is bleeding profusely. As the new coins begin animating Lur rushes up the ladder.
You reach the ladder and begin to climb, Lur, but your hair feels heavier than normal. Looking down at your hair as it hangs behind you on the ladder, you see coins chewing their way up the fibers, trying to reach the flesh pot of gold at the end of the hair rainbow. What do you do?
Lur begins ripping out the utilized hair.