Alright. Kane said a little uneasily. "Go ahead, Adrian."
Am I really going to do this? Trigger an unknown magical mechanism in an underground pyramid?, Adrien asked himself.
Would you rather be back on the farm? Peacock replied.
The boy smiled to himself, and stepped up to the pedestal, beginning to probe about.
Jazzai in the mean time will continue her search not being able to help with the activation of whatever it is.
As Peacock seeks a way to trigger the long-dormant magics in the platform, Jazzai works her way in and around the deep alcoves in the ancient structure. She occasionally sneezes as she stirs the caked dust, the sudden noises echoing back and forth in the massive chamber.
Minutes tick by, counted in the number of times the young fey has to refresh his dancing lights. Jazzai continues her search heedless of the occasional bouts of total darkness that occur.
The tension is thick, as the others wait and watch Adrien gesture and grimace as he tries to activate the magic. Then, after twenty minutes (and Jazzai nearly completing her search of half of the chamber), the entire chamber rumbles. Adrien steps back and nearly stumbles.
In the magical light of the floating globes, the platform begins to rise up. The chamber fills with the sound of grinding stone as a pillar stretches up to the ceiling. As it rises, the snake motif of the chamber is mirrored in the rising column, showing scale-like patterns.
It is slow in rising, but it stretches slowly towards the roof. The braziers suddenly erupt into an unnatural deep red flame, painting the chamber in shades of dark crimson and black. As the black opening in the ceiling is completely closed by the rising platform, the base of the new center pillar reveals a snake head. Its stone eyes gaze balefully forward, its fanged mouth gaping wide revealing a passage down its throat.
Adrien hovers for a moment, in faint silence.
"... Um... There's the path we were looking for. I guess."
Kane didn't even consider jumping onto the platform. He simply waited with careful stillness and watched the pillar rise. When the rumbling stopped he moved to the edge of the new exit to the chamber and asked Adrien "You can reverse this, right?"
"I... think so." Adrien says, hesitantly.
"Should we try it before exploring downwards." Jazzai had stopped her searching and covered her ears at the sound of the grinding stone. Just some sounds could get to her.
"But I am following you guys either way."
"Yes." Kane said moving to the edge of the revealed opening and looking down.
An eerie, reddish glow with no apparent source illuminates the tunnel. The stone passage is worked to appear organic, like one is traveling through a throat into the bowels of an immense serpent. The incline is steep and twisting, coiling upon itself as one moves deeper and deeper into the shaft.
When it finally ends, it opens into a massive chamber. You step out of another serpent's mouth, wide and gaping, onto an immense podium with a low railing. Beyond the railing the floor falls away to a flat, mirror-like surface that reflects the towering ceiling. A sharp, mineral tang is in the air. The only light is the low, reddish glow from the mouth of the massive serpent sculpture that rises up to the ceiling, and two glittering points of light from the snake's eyes.
Hedden walks over to the edge of the platform and looks over. Is that... water? he says softly in a voice that still echoes throughout the chamber.
Jazzai would listen to the echoing and shakes her head. "I do not know." She found herself whispering. The climb had been slow for her as it was steep and twisting. Her ears and nose keeping a sharp "eye" out for anything new.
Jazzai, once she found the railing would follow it around looking for stairs. The mineral tang catching her nose and she breathed it in trying to identify it.
Jazzai finds that the railing goes all the way around, with only one break, directly in front of the gaping serpent mouth.
Kane fished out a container of oil and poured it down the hole.
Finding the one open spot she would kneel and feels to see if there is stairs there. No one had really told her what the place looked at and they seemed to be captivated by what was below so she was fine with checking it out.
She was still trying to identify the mineral smell.
Jazzai identifies the mineral scent as that of a deep, wet cavern. She kneels down at the open section of railing and touches cold water. The still, glass-like surface is immediately disturbed as ripples flow from her fingers out and away from the center podium, slowly fading in the distance.
When Kane pours the oil, the liquid beads on the surface and sets ripples flowing outward and away, intermingling with the small ripples created by Jazzai.
"Just what is this place?" Adrien ponders out loud. As Jazzai's exploration catches his attention, he addresses her:
"We're in the middle of a really large cave; there's water going out every way, as far as I can see."
"The lights might go out for a moment. I need to see if there's any magic around here."
He focuses on the magic in the air, looking to find any auras in the vicinity.
The points of light in the snake's eyes radiate magic.
"Up here," Adrien says, flittering up to the stone snake's eyes. "I think these are magical too."
Try as he might, though, Adrien fails to get an innate understanding of the eyes' magical aura.
"Miss Jazzai, do you feel it too?" He asks, lighting his dancing lights anew.
Jazzai would stop her exploration of the water and backs up before standing. "I'll see what my eyes can see."
Casting the spell she would look up towards the eyes studying them.
"Interesting." She murmured staring up at the eyes carefully as the aura's came into focus.
Kane was about to drop a tinder twig down onto the oil to light the water and give more light to the area around it, but he ended up simply staring at the snake statue. The tinder twig in his hand burned down to his stoney fingers. He didn't feel the flames.
"I've seen these eyes before..."
Jazzai would study the work on it fascinated until her detect magic faded and her eyes went white again.
"Well, they are definitely unique. They both Radiate strong magic, conjuration and transmutation. At least that is what Adrien called them. They are linked, divination magic running between them. I have a feeling that those that use the orbs can cast spells through these eyes. Even if there is great distance between them. While they are magically strong they seem more to serve as foci for other magic. To enhance and extend spells cast through them. Say I wanted to cast healing on one of you and I had one and you had the other. Then I could use it to heal you over a great distance or as you fly. At least that is the sense I get from them."
"That... sounds really, really useful, actually. I wonder if we'd be able to take them out of this place."
Pieces of the puzzle clicked together in Kane's head. His eyes lit up with the power of death herself. Suddenly gone was the pious warrior-priest. In its place was a monster made of stone and fury.
"What!?" Kane snarled, incensed. "That means someone was on the other end of this!"
His lips peeled back over his sharp teeth, his savage, gargoyle grimace stretching from ear to ear, exposed for the first time ever.
"No generational curse, nothing unexplainable!"
His growl was like a distant rockslide.
"Someone did this."
It is a grinning Peacock, rather than the meek Adrien, who chooses to answer:
"If you ask me, that means you could probably get revenge on that someone and force them to undo it if you want to."
Jazzai shuddered slightly at the tone of voice and looked away out over the water as their voices echoed. She noticed a slight change in Adrien's voice.
"Revenge is not the way to approach it. But it may be possible to track who used them. I just don't know how yet." She would move carefully to the edge again and would kneel touching the water. "Can anyone see into the water?"
The water, for those with sight, is frighteningly black. The surface reflects everything above it, with the exception of the rapidly spreading oil slick.
Hedden simply waits and watches silently, not understanding the revelations happening around him.
"I... can't. It's like a mirror," Adrien says, kneeling at the edge of the water. Wary of touching it, he draws an arrow from his quiver and dips the fletched end into the water, looking for any reaction.
Ripples spread where Adrien's arrow touches the water. When he pulls it up, drops fall from the fletching and hit the surface, causing more rippling patterns.
You folks act like you've never seen a cave pool before, Hedden says. They get so still since there's not a trace of wind. If it's rippling, then that means there's something in it. If it's still, then it means that something is only most likely in it. He gives Adrien a toothy grin.
Jazzai chuckles. "If I could see, I would probably agree. That's why I was touching it to see if I could feel anything rippling in the water. Anyone have a fishing pole? Or maybe can send lights out over and in the water to see what there is. If all there is is this pool and those eyes we can head back up and out." She would listen as she stared blindly out over the water.
"Put your lights in the water. Only the surface is reflective." Kane said, starting to get his composure back.
"Alright... let's see what happens..."
Adrien focuses on the fey lights and submerges them, curious to see what they will reveal.
The globes of light sink below the surface and illuminate the depths. Everyone with sight peers down into the pool, and for a moment, aren't sure what they see. But as the light goes deep enough, Kane, Naki and Hedden are able to make out sinewy bodies of some sort of serpent, coiled about which makes it nearly impossible to tell how many there are. But following the twisting bodies along their length, they are able to count at least four heads.
Kane readies his weapon.
"Everyone back away from the water."
Jazzai would slowly and carefully back up away from the water wondering what people were seeing.
She would bring her spear up defensibly.
At Kane's outburst, Adrien reflexively flies up and above the middle of the platform, looking about for any signs of danger.
"I don't see it! What's going on?"
"Snakes. Or something like that. Big ones."
Hedden backs up while nocking an arrow in his bow. Whatever they are, they're not moving. And would have to breathe if they were true snakes. Eels, perhaps?
He glances about the chamber. Whatever you're going to do, let's do it.
Kane looked around, not really sure what they were going to do. Surely there were more answers to be found in this place, or perhaps at least, more questions that would give him direction.
"I'm open to suggestions."
"I... uh..." Adrien stammers for a moment.
"Well... they're just hanging out in the water, aren't they? They haven't made any moves to attack us or anything, maybe they just live here." He observes, unsure of what to make of the situation.
Jazzai sighed. "Alright. Everyone its time to go. If you want the stones grab them but expect what is in the water to notice. Then lets get out of here and back to the surface. We have seen what is down here and its time to go. Hedden, Would you do me a favor and help a blind girl find the way up?"
Kane sighed. She was right. There might be more mysteries in this place, but they had learned much. It was enough for now. Pushing forth would be needless risk. That was how so many of his family had died delving into nameless crypts. Unless there was a real reason to delve them, deep places were usually best left buried.
"So..." Peacock wonders out loud, "Sir Kane, are you planning to take the stones with you?"
Staying facing the water, Hedden guides Jazzai back to the gaping serpent's head. He helps her hand touch the side of the entranceway to the twisting stairs, then brings his bow up to cover Kane, awaiting his decision.