As if Ali Baba conjuring the Forty Thieves cave door it was, the wall section responds to Kikinnin's push with a movement to the side, letting it's contents be seen.
Ti'irok isn't happy about having to store a significant amount of his treasure here, particularly since he doesn't know Vhalantru very well.
Two enormous iron chests rest in the middle of the room. Both chests are locked, and it seems Ti'irok took the keys with him. Moreover, each chest weighs close to 800 pounds.
The chests do not resist long to Maxim's efforts. Soon both of them are forced open.
Chest 1 contains 22,150 gp, 30 large geodes worth 300 gp each, a suit of dragonhide plate, a mithral heavy shield, 15 cold iron javelins sized for a Large individual, masterwork chainmail barding (for a horse or nightmare), and a suit of masterwork full plate made for a Large giant.
Chest 2 contains 18,925 gp, an unlocked iron box containing 450 pp,10 flasks of oil, an iron strongbox containing 4 potions of invisibility, and an adamantine battleaxe.
There is no other way out of the room besides the secret door entrance you arrived from.
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"W-whoa...looks like M-Maxim's dreams of a fancy m-manor like the R-Rhiavaldi just g-got a little closer t-to reality!" Marigold whistles when the treasures within the chests are revealed. "We'll have to c-come back for all th-this when we're d-done..."
Kikinnin looks over the treasure with a measuring gaze. "Well, now we know why Aszithef was so quick to act. We might have avoided a fight, if we heard the rattlesnake and stayed clear. We stumbled into her nest of eggs, looks like."
Passing JJ, Kikinnin snatches the ioun stone, and tosses it over Marigold's head, instead. "Looks better on our lass." The black beard lifts the shield, and gestures towards the blond beard. "You know you could use this, make you harder to hit. And if Marigold speaks true, you don't even have to hold it while you shoot."
Kikinnin turns back to Eidi. "Well, we should get to one of your doors, then. Which ones can you open?"
The black beard takes a moment to heal himself and Kythel, before moving forward.
With an exaggerated sigh and a wide grin JJ watches at his constellation of floating stones diminish.
"So pretty..."
Then looking around at the gold he can't help but run his hands through it.
"You could buy a LOT with this. But you are right about leaving it for the moment."
He turns around to look at the other gates. "We need to get through some more of these."
"I th-think one of the f-first two," Marigold remarks as she watches the stone circle around her head. "Eidi s-said one opens with an Inflict sp-spell and the other with a Sleep sp-spell, right? K-Kythel, can y-you use Inflict m-magic to open the first one?"
"Oh wow! Some of this will come handy to pay for my mausoleum" Eidi plays with the coins in one hand marveled by the richness before Kikinnin brings him back to reality "Sure, this one here shall open with a simple wizardry sleep trick"
Producing a bunch of rose petals, the half-elf says a few arcane words in front of the south-western gate.
When Eidi completes his spell, the gate opens into a spherical chamber. Apparently the room is completely empty.
You find out hints that a woman has been secluded here for a considerable time until a few days ago. Most remarkably you find a golden hair and smell a familiar perfume.
Kythel takes the initiative and uses an inflict spell to open the gate to the northeast.
Another spherical room is revealed, this one richly furnished. A wooden floor has been built across the room's equator, creating a hemispherical space with a flat floor. There are various handpicked pieces of furniture that remember's you to the style at House Rhiavadi, and inside unlocked trunks you find a large outlandish wardrobe assortment of noble lady clothes.
JJ looks around the empty room, suspicious.
"oooh... someone has been kept here... captive maybe. Look at this hair. Golden." he sniffs the air. "A woman.. perfume.. it smells familiar, but I can't quite place it."
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"Oh wow! Some of this will come handy to pay for my mausoleum."
Kikinnin wrinkles his brow. "Pay for a mausoleum? I thought your kind turned into trees when you died. You just have to be smart about where you die, otherwise you'll end up getting watered by the strays in the streets." Kikinnin raises an eyebrow at the half-elf, curious. "That, or you'll settle for a squirrel problem in your knots."
"oooh... someone has been kept here... captive maybe. Look at this hair. Golden. A woman.. perfume.. it smells familiar, but I can't quite place it."
"Furniture like House Rhiavadi, noble woman's clothes, you should be able to put those two together, right, JJ?"
When it's decided to move on, Kikinnin takes his place next to the closest unopened door, and waits until it's opened.
"That is definitely Celeste's perfume" Eidi states after sniffing the first spherical room and looking at the hair in JJ's hand.
The elder smiles at Kikinnin "Transforming into a tree. Funny thoughts you have mister. Intriguing ones though. I guess my mausoleum should be a beautiful garden full of light and well crafted statues. Perhaps by a healthy lake if I have the funding for. I would be quite honored for the squirrels to find a place in my knots and branches then"
Facing the western door Eidi puts his hands on the gate "We will need to charm this one to open" the elder smiles retrieving a scroll and reading aloud.
As Eidi finishes the gate opens slowly with a squeaking noise, leaving you the way open to the next spherical room.
This one though seems the end of a shaft like the first one you descended. Up you cannot see ceiling, only darkness.
At the western wall there is yet another gate.
This one will require a slow spell to open.
"I can't believe you would want statues after being in this place.." sighs JJ, a somewhat horrified look on his face.
"Do you wonder if they can hear us? Can they think? You are a priest Eidi... what about their souls? What do they experience? Bordom? Pain? Fear? It'd be like jail... but hundreds of times worse." a shudder runs through the youths body.
"Th-these definitely s-seem like living quarters and p-prison cells," Marigold points out as they open and inspect the first two rooms. "L-Lady Rhiavadi must've had her own ch-chambers here, m-maybe as a pre-c-caution or m-maybe she just f-flitted back and f-forth between her h-home and here. And the other...m-must've been where they k-kept Celeste, until they st-stuck her in the p-painting?"
She glances towards the third and final door as Eidi opens it up. "We're c-close, then. We've g-got to find Celeste and g-get her out of here."
As talk turns to the poor people turned to stone, she shivers. "I h-hope they can't h-hear us. I h-hope it's just as though they're in a d-deep, dreamless s-sleep..."
Hurrying over to identify the gate on the western wall, she frowns.
"N-nope...not a c-clue..." she sighs.
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"Despite the evilness of the act, the statues are beautiful, aren't they? Besides what a sage mausoleum would be without a handful of statues, traps and monsters to keep it clean and empty of thieves?" the elder takes out his cinnamon cookies pot and offering to the others he picks one more while looking up into the darkness "This place is the product of an ill mind. How difficult to navigate. Perhaps I should take some ideas, this would have never occurred to me"
The elder seems to take mental note while he hears your disquisition about being a statue and finally joins in "Oh well, I guess the feeling is that one of suspended life, something like when you resurrect and in your second chance you just cannot remember anything from the time in the middle but you still have images and memories of your first chance"
"There are worse things believe me. A young boy like you have probably not gone through those terrible dark times, but becoming an undead, or even being polimorphed... is much worse" the elder negates with the head "Imagine the thousand possibilities, being a hawk or even a frog is not that bad, but imagine becoming a rat!"
Looking again up "Mmmm... perhaps we should have a glimpse of what is up there. Some of you was flying before, isn't it?"
"Y-yeah...we should p-probably have a look before we t-try opening more d-doors, since who kn-knows what might c-come down to say hello at the w-worst possible t-time," Marigold agrees.
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Marigold casts light and her ring starts to illuminate the room. Flying upwards through the shaft, she finds it ends 120 feet up. At about the same height of the gate in the previous shaft, there is another gate to the east. It would seem both this one and the other in the first shaft bring to the same level.
This one requires a fear effect to open.
"Do you wonder if they can hear us? Can they think? You are a priest Eidi... what about their souls? What do they experience? Boredom? Pain? Fear? It'd be like jail... but hundreds of times worse."
Kikinnin taps his nose, and points upwards. "Remember our new friend, Karlsgran? As soon as we freed him from stone, he acted like he was still in the fight that stoned him in the first place. He didn't suffer at all." The black beard raises his eyebrows, thinking to himself for a moment. "Suppose that's what it's like to be stone. Unchanging."
Kikinnin turns back to the casters. "How long will the doors stay open? They have to close sometime after passing through, right? I just want to make sure we don't get cut off, if we need to retreat."
He watches the halfling lass ascend to look over the other door, placing it on the other side as the other shaft. "So, Vhalantru's up there, eh? Him and his pet beholder. And we're getting closer to finding out what happened to Celeste, if you think you can remember her smell about in here."
"There are two Doors on this floor we haven't opened, and the two Doors on the floor between." Kikinnin debates how best to get ready, before they move forward, waiting quietly for the others to figure out how to trigger the next Door.
Eidi looks back to the still open gate trying to figure out how to keep it open but coming to no idea "Mmmm... good question. I guess we will find out for how long they remain open before we are to leave"
While the group waits for Marigold's return Eidi examines the gate in front "Mmm... this one seems to need some special magic too..."
The elder picks up a drop of molasses from a pouch and says a few arcane words.
While you are still waiting for the halfling flight, Eidi opens the close by gate.
The lower half of the next spherical room is filled with water seepage most probably from Cauldron's lake.
The room seems to have no other use than perhaps serving as a huge, deep pool or bath.
Immediately to the north, there is another Oblivion gate.
This one will require charm monster magic.
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JJ looks around the room.
"This reminds me of that chamber in the pillars where I got caught by myself while you were all trapped behind the wall of force.." he shudders.
Looking into the pool, the lad gazes into its depths.
"It might be hard to get out of there if you fell in. Smooth edges and all. Maybe Vhalantru likes swimming?" he muses, trying to work his way around the outside of the pool. Knowing he is faster than the others, JJ takes the long way around to the next gate.
"What spell opens this one?"
Marigold flies back down to report what she's seen at the top of the shaft. "It g-goes way up...I th-think probably l-level with the shaft we c-came down," she explains. "And there's another g-gate to the east but I c-couldn't make any s-sense of h-how to open it."
As she has a look around the water room that Eidi and the others have opened up, she tries again to make any sense of the unlocking mechanism for the gate within...
...but as before, isn't able to make heads or tails of it.
"St-stupid gates..." she sulks.
"I agree. So many blockades, to us. If you've got a pet beholder, it must feel special to them. Still, it's making us use energy we could be using against Vhalantru..."
Kikinnin waits to learn how they're going to access the middle floor.
"Huh...I b-bet that might actually b-be part of the point," Marigold remarks, looking thoughtful. "If s-so, it's actually p-pretty ing-g-genious, in its own w-way."
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"I also suppose it's been giving us clues, as to what we should expect from the eyes of the beholder. So far, we've had to use 'Death' to get to the hounds. Then 'Inflict', 'Sleep', and 'Charm'. The last door took a 'Slow', and the ones waiting for us up there will need identification, as will the other two doors we didn't pop open, both east and west. Wait, Eidi, didn't you say one of the doors needed that 'Flesh to Stone'? I can't keep track of which doors needed which magics."
Kikinnin does some finger counting. "So, we're missing 'Telekinesis', 'Disintegrate', and 'Fear'. If we only have three doors to mark, then we're good."
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"Th-that's a really g-good point! M-maybe they d-didn't think of that or m-maybe they're c-confident enough in their own p-power that they aren't w-worried about it."
Marigold pauses as another thought strikes her. "And I m-mean...beholders d-don't have h-hands so h-how would they use d-doorknobs?"
"The aforementioned telekinesis?" suggests JJ, feeling a bit more chipper.
"Though good point about using up our powers, if a beholder led a group on a chase through here it could get nasty. Did we work out how long they stay open for? Maybe until the spell is used on them again?"
"Ah! Yours is an acute mind Sir Kikinnin. You sure one day become a great dwarven scholar" Eidi advances around the pool with JJ to examine the new gate "Mmmm... seems this gate needs more powerful charming. It will take my mightiest magic but I think I can do this"
The elder starts doing gestures and chanting in front with his hand and staff "Good fine door, can you open for us? I promise a good oiling of your gears!"
The gate finally concedes and rattles while giving access to JJ's light orbiting stone.
This twenty-foot-square room has a ten-foot-diameter, bowl-shaped indentation carved out of the floor, the ceiling, and every wall. Floating in the exact middle of the room, just out of arm's reach from the floor, is a single book with a red leather cover.
Most of this room radiates magic. The bowl-shaped indentations in the walls generate crisscrossing levitation fields that have the effect of suspending objects in the middle of the room.
"Magical floating bookk.." calls out JJ.
"Maxim... this one might be a little more up your alley."
"W-wow, really?"
Marigold carefully pads around to take a look, making sure to keep behind JJ and out of the way.
"Whoa! Th-there's a b-bunch of c-crisscrossing levitation f-fields coming o-out of the w-walls," she explains, blinking due to the sheer brightness and energy of the magic within the room ahead. "They're m-meant to suspend objects in the m-middle of the r-room...like that b-book."
Kikinnin does what he can to retrieve the Red Leather Book. If he's got to knock it out of the air, he pulls a throwing axe, and starts lobbing it. If he can jump up to snag the Book, he'll do so. If he needs to lift JJ or Marigold up to pluck it, he'll lend his back.
"Don't like the looks of the book, nor the idea of leaving it behind."
When the Book's took, Kikinnin returns to the shafts leading up, and inquires. "We should all be flying. Eidi, you got the means of gifting us that? All of us, I mean. I don't like the idea that a beholder could slip away from us just by taking one of these shafts and exiting."
As Kikinnin starts playing juggling games with what he has at hand, Maxim comes by and throws his stogie to the floor, putting it off with his feet. Taking the space by his brother in arms, the blond one uses his mastery on legerdomain to easily approach the tome to his hands. The dwarf smiles.
The book in question has the words "Zar'ilkoth Tarteros" scrawled on the inside front cover.
The book contains a lot of details about everything Tarterian, that is about things related to Carceri, as that area of the Abyss is known as the Tarterian Depths.
The last mark of reading is located on a chapter about a ritual to turn into a Tarterian creature. This transformation is the strange transmutation that sure the gauths and the doppelganger at House Vhalantru had suffered.
Excerpt:
A creature on any plane other than Carceri can, through ancient magic and arcane rituals, barter with a fiendish spirit trapped in the Tarterian Depths of Carceri. This bargain allows the fiendish spirit a momentary yet priceless flicker of freedom as it bestows the bargain with fragments of its power. The fiendish spirit is annihilated as a result, but many fiends would rather be destroyed than trapped on Carceri for all eternity. In exchange for its new found fiendish powers the beneficiary, now a Tarterian creature, gives up its soul upon death. Put another way, when the Tarterian creature dies, its soul goes to Carceri and is trapped there. For as long as the spirit remains trapped on Carceri, raise dead, resurrection, and true resurrection spells automatically fail to restore the creature to life.
You could perform the Zar'ilkoth Tarteros ritual using this book, although doing so would be an evil act in itself.
Other information, about everything Tarterian is written in a complex language here. A long study might earn information on Carceri, the creatures there, and how to travel there and survive. Perhaps something even on how to escape the prison plane.
The Zar'ilkoth Tarteros is a fantastically rare book, and is worth 10,000 gp to an interested scholar.
Eidi flocks to the book like a bear to honey. When pointed by Kikinnin about the shaft the half-elf negates "Making a whole group to fly is only available to some of the most powerful arcanists out there"
But then he smiles "I can make one person fly though. Perhaps we can use your rope to reach up there. I am confident we will find a way to stop the beholder's retreat. All these spherical rooms... there must be one"
"H-hopefully so," Marigold agrees. "S-so I think we st-still have, uh...what, t-two different ways to g-go? B-both of which are b-back up. I can f-fly a rope up t-to that l-last d-door I f-found, if that's wh-what we want to d-do..."
"I can climb up and let the rope down if you like." offers JJ.
"That book... the information in it could be very valuable to us. I'd hate to see it get into the wrong hands though. And the wrong hands might very well be anyone apart from us..."
Looking around he asks "Anyone have enchantments that are running out? Or can we taken ten to see if there is any immediately helpful information in said tome?"
"I have to admit I am also curious about the book content. The title makes reference to the Tarterian Depths, which is how a subgroup of the Abyss layers are known. But by the volume of pages, we will probably need some days to have a full read" Eidi observes the volume with curiosity "With respect to magic running out I am fine about expending a few minutes though to have a peek at it"
"The rope will work for me" the elder smiles back at Marigold as she offers to fly it up "With its length those of you who can go up might need to carry us up tied on the rope, because I do not think the rope will be long enough to let it hang down"
"Oh g-geeze, then JJ or K-Kikinnin is a b-better choice for th-that," Marigold is quick to respond with a shake of her head. "There's n-no way I'll be able to c-carry anyone up t-tied to a rope - I've g-got noodle arms!"
"B-but...hmm. I m-might be able to sc-sculpt us st-stairs or handholds or s-something with my m-magic," she suddenly adds after thinking on it for a moment. "M-maybe enough to get us up p-partway?"
______________
Kythel informs he cannot make the party fly either, but he can do it tomorrow. On his side, Maxim offers to make one fly.
After some reflection, Eidi offers "What if you lend me that cloak, I use it to climb up there escorted with JJ and Marigold. We try to open the gate, and if we succeed, Marigold can bring back the JJ's and Kythel's cloak down for Maxim and Kikinnin to go up. We repeat and have also Kythel up there, provided we manage to open the gate, of course..."
"Sounds reasonable. I only ask that I'm given the magics that will allow me to launch at a flying beholder. This feels like another Iverson confrontation, or maybe even the dracolich battle. If the thing tries to get off the floor, I want to follow it."
Kikinnin waits for his turn in ascending, should the old elfblood proves able to access the door above.
"Okay, that'll w-work," Marigold agrees. "Especially s-since I'm n-not powerful enough to m-make a whole set of st-stairs."
The halfling sighs. "M-maybe someday..."
Eidi nods and drawing a rod touches Kikinnin with extended fly.
Temporarily talking Kythel's cloak, the half-elf climbs up through the shaft's walls, until reaching the closed gate.
Smiling he just produces a small bone from his pouch "This one only requires a simple fear spell"
As the elder completes his arcane magical weaving, the gate squeaks and finally opens as the others did before.
The walls of this thirty-foot-high hall are carved with myriad bas-reliefs depicting various Darklands creatures and terrains. This hall also holds an impressive collection of monstrous statues, arranged in a semicircle and all very lifelike. To the north, a huge archway looms. Two paintings hang on the wall to either side of the arch. The western painting depicts what looks like Cauldron under a burning sky. The eastern painting depicts a beautiful but horrified blonde woman imprisoned in a metal cage that looks almost as if it were made of iron ribs and adamantine skulls.
From west to east, the statues are as follows: juvenile black dragon, juvenile minotaur, harpy, otyugh, rust monster, kuo-toa, and phantom fungus.
"Well..." says JJ 'admiring' the room.
"Looks like the beholder did some good, removing some of these things from terrorizing the world."
He advances on the painting.
Celeste? he wonders.
The woman in the picture is, or at least greatly resembles, Celeste.
"Here she is. Just like our Scrying told us. Now we just have to understand how we free her." Kikinnin looks at the magic wielders, unsure as to how to do that.
Kikinnin backs up, and gives the huge archway a steady gaze.
"Can you do the break enchantment thing on her?" asks JJ?
Touching the painting you notice that the canvas feels shockingly warm and smooth, almost like living skin.
This is a variant of a binding spell. A dispel magic or break enchantment will not work here as the magic that holds the picture is too strong.
Only an antimagic field or mage's disjunction could finish it.
Perhaps destroying the frame might, which is the object used to hold the prisoner in place, might be enough to free it, but that has the risk to also damage the living creature inside.
The last gate requires a disintegrate spell to force it open.
"Well, we can't just leave her here.." notes JJ.
He quickly takes the picture off the wall.