Rameth swears, throws back a quickened shield extract and grabs the rope and slides down
Acro or climb at +4
Mesdoram is leaning against a wall and when he sees Rameth come down in full battle mode he gives Rameth a huge smile.
You are such a sucker.
Mesdoram kickes up the ioun stone torch and tosses it back to Rameth.
He pulls out a sunrod and strikes it against a stone wall and sheds light on your surroundings.
Pointing towards the gorge is a wall that has intricate stone work and metal plating/inlays on a portion of the wall and three tunnels leading back behind you.
Well good, I am so happy I wasted my extract, this spring on my belt here wont tighten enough to launch out an extract for a friggin day. I hope you get eaten. He frowns
engineering
history
arcana
dungeoneering
As you trace through the various lines on the wall you see three cleverly-hidden depressions in the wall - one surrounded by a swirl of iron, another by whorling silver and a third hidden in facets of gold.
You remember tales of places like these - a subterranean vault that requires three separate keys to exit or to access a hidden treasure.
religion
local
geo
percep add 2 for traps
The wall itself doesn't appear to be a wall - there are imperceptible gaps on either side, like this is a solid door. You do see several traps inlaid in the door however. A careful look into the three depressions you see a long needle ready to spring out and there's a slight shimmer to the wall as well, indicating a possible magical trap.
Hey Mess, come take the lead on these traps, you are a bit more nimble than I am
Looks like a few basic needle traps, though this one and this one seem to have a false catch to them...
Mesdoram looks at Rameth in disbelief.
You want me to disable three separate traps that you bothered to find?
Nothing seems to happen on the first lock so he tries again.
The second attempt springs the trap and jabs a needle into Mesdoram's hand. A the same time you hear a solid clank across the door.
Son of a b&+@+!
Mesdoram shakes his finger hard, then presses down and extrudes a bright purple drop of liquid that sizzles on the stone.
Ohhhh, that's not good...
[b] Wanna check that next one?[/dice]
You check the next one, you cheeky sod.
Well lend me an eye
subtract 2 if mesdoram doest assist
nice and fort
Mesdoram looks at Rameth's wound. The same tinge of purple is present in the finger but there doesn't seem to be a debilitating injury or poison.
He examines the drop on the floor (and expects Rameth to expel the poison too) and sighs.
Tears of Death. Which is a ridiculously melodramatic name for a poison when you think about it.
He spits on the floor and takes a swig from his wineskin.
No offense, but I'd rather see what's in the other hallways than find out what's in lock number two.
We have both been stabbed. I wanna know
What checks still have to be made?
we will come back. Maybe we can find a key or some jackass to do it for us.
Ramesh leads down the left most tunnel after downing his mutagen
The tunnel leads back and descends sharply.
The rough hewn blocks give way to the swirls of stream-deposited stone.
The color of the stone looks eerily like blood cast in layers and the stone itself occasionally swirls into shapes eerily reminiscent of a demon, mouth gaping - complete with eyes of rough, cinnamon colored gemstones.
The tunnel snakes downward in a spiral until you come to a domed room, at the end the swirls combine into a bas relief of a four-armed dwarf with eyes of brilliant green gems, who holds two bowls in his hands.
The walls have sconces of black iron and there is a depression in the center of the floor.
As you enter you hear a distant bell ringing.
religion
Rameth looks at the relief, then he listens to the bell for 30 seconds to see if there is a pattern or something like that, or if it is the wind or something like that, blowing a bell
You do not see a pattern of a bell, nor feel the wind blowing in the tunnel.
The relief may be the god Raman. This dwarf is in charge of three of the many Vudrani planes that he swindled from a powerful celestial. A deity of material wealth, he requires offerings from supplicants in return for a boon.
percep
Rameth takes a gander around the room, then leads the way towards the sound of the bell.
Cult, undead or magical monster waiting for us. You just wait and see
The room doesn't have an exit besides the one you came out of, so there's no way to go towards the sound of the bell.
As you look at the room you notice that one he bowls has a collection of rough iron ore in it and doesn't appear to be attached to the carving. The other one has a hole in it that would drain through the carving to something hidden behind the carving itself.
Looks like an offering it required.
Roll Intelligence for me.
BOOM!
The room appears to be set up for you to pour molten iron through the hole in the hollow bowl.
The depression in the center of the floor would be a good place to put the bowl with the iron ore over a fire, except you don't have enough wood to melt the iron on you.
If you had another source of flame you could melt the ore however.
Why are you yelling?
I just figured out that my rotgut will burn at exactly...
The idea of melting iron with alcohol is a terrible idea, you don't know what you were thinking. Alcohol burns at its highest temperature 700 degrees Albercroft, while iron melts at 2800 degrees Albercroft. You need a much higher temperature fire, like dragon's breath to melt the iron.
450 degrees, which is no where near hot enough to melt iron. I have no idea why you recommended it Mess. Rameth shakes his head at him disapprovingly.
Come on lets go try the next tunnel down. And with that he moves on.
Rameth stops in his tracks.
Dragon fire! I can breathe fire, maybe that will work!
Rameth puts a couple daggers in the bowl and gets it all set up like he thinks it is supposed to work, then he mixes up a fire breath extract downs it and breathes fire multiple times onto it until the extract is spent and hopefully he has molten iron, using some of his alchemy tools he moves it to the opening and pours it down the hole.
The iron pours into the hole and you heal a sizzle inside the wall, then the bell rings again in the distance.
After a bit you see the same iron pouring into a third hand of the carving. You could have sworn there wasn't a form for it to pour into but after only a few moments an iron key seems to be forming.
The bell rings again and the light in the chamber flickers wildly, causing you to become disoriented.
When the light comes back the carving has a cooled key sitting in an outstretched hand - and the bowl has more iron chunks in it.
Oh, I had in my mind they were remnants gotcha. Seeing a play tonight but more later
Rameth takes the key
Let's see if this opens those locks shall we?
Rameth heads back and see if the key fits in the locks.
Unsurprisingly the iron key fits in the iron lock, disengaging the trap and you hear an audible click while it is turned - you cannot fit the key into the silver or gold locks, and as you remove it from the iron lock you hear another click. Clearly the key is designed to be used in the iron lock only and left there.
The purpose of the other tunnels becomes clearer.
Rameth heads down the next tunnel and will rinse and repeat with the next one
Hey Ram? You have a fire breath available today? This is my last one.
The next tunnel isn't a slop but a straight line. You see the same swirling lines on the walls from the deposit of stone by water, but instead of demons leering and watching you see outlines of men, some with eyes of pale purple gems, sometimes they don't face you.
religion
After studying the wall patterns you discern there's a repeating motif - the figures seem to be studying something, then tapping their foreheads to ground three times, then clapping three times, and tapping their foreheads to the ground again.
At the end of the pattern you see light falling into their out-stretched hands.
When you come to the end of the tunnel you see a room built conventionally, as a square. One end has another deity, this time with six arms and six eyes. Before him is another bowl filled with sand, and a small box sits closed next to him.
Rameth examines the box for traps
perception
The box does not appear to be trapped.