Checking to see if the others are ready, Ovirid will attempt to open the doors.
Pausing a moment to load his crossbow and cast mage armor on himself with his wand, a much Korian prepares to enter through the doors after at the end of the procession.
If Light is needed, he casts it on whatever seems most appropriate.
The door opens revealing a lush oasis, thickly forested with palm trees. The cries of a few songbirds and the splashing of lizards sliding off of rocks and into the small pool echo off of the walls. Deeper into the oasis, you see four large stone thrones in a circle. Someone is sitting in the one with his or her back to you.
"'at th' blazes...?"
At the sight of the woman, Korian gasps quietly and takes an involuntary step back. Growling at himself in anger at his own cowardice, he steps forward again. Immediately suspicious of the scene before them, Korian magically enhances his gaze to detect the traces of magic, and spends sometime scanning the room, particularly the woman. He also looks closely to see if it's anyone (deadly) that he recognizes.
He also quietly asks Jinx what he scents coming out of the room.
Immediately distrustful but wanting desperately for the oasis in front of her to be true Sykala sniffs at the air and carefully scans the room for magic auras.
Just before they enter the chamber Refina casts a shield other on Korian and then magic vestment on her armour.
Once in the chamber she looks around admiring the view for a moment.
The space seems limitless with the oasis fading into sandy hills beyond and, since you are far underground, you recognize this is not possible, or, at least, not mundane.
Sykala smells the floral scents of the vegetation.
Someone is sitting in the one with his or her back to you. You detect no particularly magic aura around him or her.
Not willing to go closer until he knows more about the woman, Korian calls out, cursing himself silently for the hesitationm in his voice "Hel...hello! Can you hear me? Who are you and what is this place??"
Yes, as the auras begin to manifest more clearly, you can tell that they are illusionary magic.
The entire space transforms quite suddenly. You are no longer in an Oasis, but are on a low cliff overlooking a windswept vista, barren of trees, with a river meandering through it. The only thing that has not changed is the four chairs and the man or woman sitting in one of them.
She or he does not answer Korian.
The druidess begins to shake her head but then suddenly stops and pulls her masterwork cold-iron spear from her back, "This work?"
"Sorry friend, no walking stick, but perhaps this can accomplish the same purpose" and pulling a crowbar ouit of his haversack, Korian proceeds to probe the ground ahead of them, making sure the illusion isn't coveing up some trap or other danger.
The dwarf nods, still unusually quiet, and accepts the spear from Sykala. He starts probing the ground ahead alongside the path tested by Korian's magically mobile crowbar.
The magically animated tapping rod clangs against the stone as it probes the ground. The scene changes again to a dry stone canyon quarried by thousands of slaves. A lack of realism disturbs the illusion here as when whips fall upon slaves' backs, there is no sound. There is no sound of orders barked or hammer on stone. The smell of sand, sweat, and blood is thicker though. The man or woman in the chair speaks, "You've made it far. Did you find my gift helpful?"
All but Sykala recognizes it as the smooth talker who gave Refina the scroll.
Ovirid grunts. "Aye, did come 'n 'andy, 't 'at."
Shuddering at the mention of the scroll and the memory of the reason it had been used, Korian takes a moment to steady his voice and then ask again "Who are you? And why are you helping us, if that is in fact what you're doing?"
The man stands up. His clothes, an odd mish-mash of clothes from different points in Osirion history, are identical to those he wore yesterday.
"Let's just say that we share some goals in common. This blasted place is quite dangerous. Are there more of you? You should send someone for reinforcements."
Ignoring the man's question for now, Korian asks another "Well in that case, we might be considered allies, at least for the moment. As such, the more you can tell us about yourself, this place and your involvement with it, the better able we will be able to trust and work with our 'new ally'. So, what more can, or will, you tell us?"
Having never met the man before Sykala enters the room and begins to circle warily to the right. She tries to determine what the real ground beneath her feet is made out of and to find a wall where there should be one.
Sykala begins to make out the shape and size of the room. There are places where she can see the illusion seeming to take off at an angle to itself, but then, when she lets her eyes drift away, loses it again. She makes out the size of the room to be about 60 ft. by 60 ft. with the stone chairs near the far wall from the door. (The man was sitting in one of four stone chairs.)
The man stares at Korian for a long time. "I am," he explains slowly, "what you might call a caretaker of this place. And, I can be of assistance to you. Not directly, of course, as that would violate my oaths. I can tell you that there is a room back where you came from that offers unlimited wealth--a fortune in coins! That the greatest material treasure here cannot be obtained by the living, but that for the living the greatest treasure here is not material."
She stops and focuses on the man in the chair trying to make out details about him through the illusion.
Refina watches the exchange trying to assertain the man's motives
Sense motive
Ovirid listens and watches.
"Are these riddles all the assistance you can give us or is there more? Can you give our friend here back his strength?"
The man pauses at Ixius' request, "Feeling drained then? I believe the pyramid provides for that as well. There is a chamber beneath with four staves inserted into the walls. Removing them and assembling them into a larger staff, should provide you with the resources you need."
He thinks further, "You would need to go through the song tubes to get there though. You would need to travel thusly ..."
He begins to sing, in perfect pitch, a series of notes similar to the hollow noise made when you passed through the tiny pipes in gaseous form. The tune is not the same, but the notes are similar.
He then cautions, "If you go in this way, you have gone too far ..."
He sings another series of notes slightly different than the first.
He repeats both again.
"If that helps you, please return, and we will discuss how you can help me."
Refina leans In to the others "He seems sincere enough and he did give us that scroll we used earlier" She whispers to them
Sykala simply turns around and walks out of the chamber. As she passes Korian she says in Elvish, "Let's go get get you fixed up then."
"Thank ye, 'gain."
He follows the druid out the door.
Still not entirely trusting of the...being, Korian nevertheless thanks them sincerely before departing with the others.
Refina follows the others out.
Used to mimicking birdcalls the little druidess whistles the tune over and over again as she waves the others to follow. Changing into her stony elemental form she disappears up the song tube while listening for the others following.
Refina follows using a gaseous form potion
As does Korian. Before he does so though though he asks aloud [b]"I wonder, are we supposed to travel though these tubes in gaseous form, or somehow use the song to travel through them?
As an experiment he tries whistling the first tune near the tubes. If that doesn't work, he tries blowing on them until he can find the tubes that make the notes of the song.
Ovirid retrieves a potion and prepares to take it. He waits until Korian commits to gaseous form before he takes his, however.
Ixius also wats for the result of Korian's experiment before he drinks the gaseous form potion.
Korian gets no result from blowing into the tubes. When Korian travelled through the tubes in gaseous form before, a somewhat disconcordant series of notes emerged from the pipe.
As Refina travels in gaseous form through the pipes, you can hear a series of notes.