Senenmerek looks confused for a moment, before he says, "Nethys cares only for magic. Those who can take power are worthy by that merit alone."
Djehuti nods. "Thank you, Guardian." He kneels by the pool and leans down to scoop a handful of water into his mouth.
Ahmed follows suit, drinking from the pool, ignoring the look of concern on Suri's face.
When Ahmed and Djehuti kneel and plunge their heads into the illusory blue flames and then under the water, they can see a mosiac eye made from colored tiles on the bottom of the pool.
They feel a surge of magic as they receive the blessing of destruction.
You can cast 1 spell of the evocation school at +1 caster level and with a +1 bonus to the spell DC. The effects last for 24 hours or until used, and the benefit can be gained only once per day.
Kwin leaned over to Koshukhep and said in a quiet voice, "Watch this, they're gonna turn into pink bunnies or toads or something. Magicky types are just way too trusting."
Because linking Oglaf from a family-friendly board probably isn't the wisest move.
Koshukhep suspiciously made several signs of warding, just in case.
Djehuti draws in a sharp breath as he feels the magic surge up in him. He stands slowly, nodding at the flames. "This is a blessing." He turns and half-bows to Serenmerek. "Thank you, Guardian."
The band exits the room with the fountain and continues exploring with Senemerek following behind.
You find the edge of a hidden door, slightly ajar as if hastily closed.
Djehuti noticed nothing out of the ordinary.
+2 vs. humans, +8 scent
Koshukhep snapped his fingers and pointed out the edge of a hidden door. He glanced at Torin and Kwin meaningfully.
When the door is opened, the band finds the following:
A stone effigy of a humanoid figure stands at the north end of this room, its arms spread in a gesture of supplication, or as if commanding an object to rise in the air. The figure’s face is devoid of detail, with only vague contours where the eyes and nose should be. An extensive series of hieroglyphs covers the western wall, opposite a stone bench that stands against the eastern wall.
The Ancient Osiriani hieroglyphs on the western wall are written in a poetic style in an ancient dialect and are particularly difficult to follow, but when translated, they read as follows:
"Woe to you who would plunder the Reliquary of the Thrice-Divided Soul. Turn away, lest the harsh judgment of the Forgotten One fall upon you and your descendants for a thousand generations. Turn away, for his ka cannot be appeased and it shall call forth legions of the dead and the damned. Turn away, and may the All-Seeing Eye and the Lady of Graves take pity on you, for if not, the Forgotten Pharaoh shall consume you, body and soul."
Koshukhep read the hieroglyphs aloud, his voice deep and dire, then pulled out his charms and made all the warding gestures of appeasement he could think of.
Then he looked for whoever might have left the door ajar, sniffing the air carefully.
+2 if human
Djehuti frantically writes notes and sketches in his journal, looking hard at the room and trying to get down every detail.
When Koshukhep and Djehuti take a close look at the statue they are caught off-guard as large-sized skeletal snake with a human skull for a head slithers from behind it. It's bones curling out of an impossibly small space.
+4 w/o panache
Snake Thing: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (20) + 3 = 23
Torin: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (19) + 2 = 21
Kwin: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (14) + 6 = 20
Djehuti: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (8) + 9 = 17
Ahmed: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (10) + 2 = 12
Koshukhep: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (6) + 3 = 9
Suri: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (8) + 1 = 9
Izra: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (3) + 2 = 5
The snake thing rears back and begins to sway right-and-left in a terrifying dance.
Snake Thing: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (20) + 3 = 23
Torin: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (19) + 2 = 21
Kwin: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (14) + 6 = 20
Djehuti: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (8) + 9 = 17
Ahmed: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (10) + 2 = 12
Koshukhep: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (6) + 3 = 9
Suri: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (8) + 1 = 9
Izra: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (3) + 2 = 5
Djehuti noticed that the entire room has a dim magical aura, centered on the effigy to the north. The nature of the aura is difficult to identify.
You determine that until recently, the room held a source of necromantic power of overwhelming strength.
Not the snake.
Torin steps into the room and does his thing:
"We got ourselves a snake person problem in here!"
Caught off guard by the snake's dance, Djehuti can do nothing but stare as it attacks his friends.
Realizing that Djehuti was under the thing's spell when he failed to react, Koshukhep snarled, "This way, you wretched thing! Look at me!"
"It was supposed to be for plundering!" Kwin yelped in protest as he repeated jumped up, trying to see. "We're not plundering!"
"Daikitsu's tails, this is useless!" Kwin muttered as he tired of bobbing about in an attempt to see. With a shout of "MAKE A HOLE!" he pushed his way into the crowd. Picking up speed, he burst through the doorway at an angle and sprang onto the table against the wall. As he dashed along the tabletop he drew his sword, twirling it into a two-handed downward strike from above.
"Not plundering!"
Ahmed looks sideways at Senemerek. "Pray, Guardian, a moment of your time while our companions dispose of the beast." He holds up his wrists, showing the shackles. "Have you ever seen bindings as these?"
Torin's first arrow bounced off with a loud metal clang. But his second manages to slip inside the snake's defenses and cause some pain. Slightly distracted the snake can't dodge Koshukhep's powerful strike with his flail. And then Kwin manages to get into position with some derring-do. He makes a deft slice, but can't help but feel as if his blade didn't quite sink in as well as it should have.
The metal snake tries to bite down on Kwin, but the agile swashbuckler back flips at the last second, dodging the strike.
Snake Thing: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (20) + 3 = 23
Torin: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (19) + 2 = 21
Kwin: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (14) + 6 = 20
Djehuti: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (8) + 9 = 17 [dazed]
Ahmed: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (10) + 2 = 12
Koshukhep: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (6) + 3 = 9
Suri: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (8) + 1 = 9
Izra: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (3) + 2 = 5 [dazed]
Necrophidious AC 15, HP 12/36
Ahmed looks sideways at Senemerek. "Pray, Guardian, a moment of your time while our companions dispose of the beast." He holds up his wrists, showing the shackles. "Have you ever seen bindings as these?"
Senenmerek stares at Ahmed oddly for a moment, before briefly studying the shackled bracers.
"I do not notice any religious symbols on these. Some of these symbols look arcane in nature. But I cannot read them."
"Check that, we have ourselves a fake snake person. Still a problem though."
Torin takes careful aim and fires off another pair of arrows,
Kwin deftly rolled out of the back flip and thrust at the snake once more, again employing the same unusual style.
"My cousin has one of those," he says to Torin while watching for another opening. "Springs out of a can when you take the lid off."
"So far, this one's not much more effective as an opponent."
With a couple of expertly placed arrows, Torin manages to break open a small metal hinge at a crucial point along the snake monster's spine. Kwin then zeroes in on this opening, and makes a perfect strike.
The snake shudders and breaks apart.
Once he is out of the daze that has overwhelmed him, Djehuti goes over to the snake-thing to examine it, taking out his notebook as he squats down to give it a closer look. "Interesting."
Kwin nodded in satisfaction and sheathed his sword. "Got a can, Djehuti?"
Senenmerek stares at Ahmed oddly for a moment, before briefly studying the shackled bracers.
"I do not notice any religious symbols on these. Some of these symbols look arcane in nature. But I cannot read them."
Ahmed's expression is disappointed, but not surprised. He nods twice, and lowers his arms, rubbing sub-consciously at his wrists. "I guess it was a long shot." He mutters.
Moving towards Senenmerek, Suri puts a hand on the undead monster's arm, looking simultaneously embarrassed for Ahmed, grateful, and filled with deep sorrow. "We appreciate you taking a look, honoured guardian. The journey for my beloved's freedom has been long already." She smiles now at Ahmed. "But we will find it, however long it may take."
Djehuti looks up at Kwin. "I do not. What do you want a can for?"
"For the s... never mind."
Djehuti identifies this creature as a Necrophidius. It is a construct created from the skeleton of a large serpent and the head of a humanoid. Despite its appearance, it is not in fact undead.
Torin searches the room:
"Welp, nothing of interest here."
As Torin is about to dismiss the room, he finds droplets of blood on the floor near the door, marred by soled footprints. The blood is still tacky, hinting at its recent origin.
Djehuti frowns and moves very close to the door, peering very hard at something. He gestures and traces the inscription with his finger, careful not to touch it. "There is writing here."
Djehuti realizes that these are the remnants of a discharged glyph of warding spell.
You notice that while a fine layer of dust coats the body of the effigy, the head is free of dust, as if it once wore some sort of mask or headdress that was removed recently.
Djehuti nods. "This was once a warding glyph." He looks more closely at the effigy. "And the statue is missing its headdress."
"So wuzzat mean?"
"At a guess, it's headdress or mask was quite valuable and whoever was here stole it." He turns to look at Serenmerek. "Guardian, do you know what is missing from this figure?"
"I have never seen this room. But perhaps the first intruder was after this all along."
A large silver summoning circle is inlaid in the floor tiles near the center of this octagonal chamber. In the northeast corner of the room, a set of narrow steps leads up to a raised dais. A concave stone bench, almost a throne, perches atop the dais, flanked by two bronze braziers. Four columns carved in the form of fantastic creatures support the room’s vaulted ceiling.
"Wait a moment. That is a summoning circle. We should be wary of magic here." Djehuti murmurs a few arcane syllables as he casts a spell to identify any still-operating magical effects in the room.
The room itself doesn't appear to be magical.
However, the columns in the room are incredible examples of ancient sculpture. The column to the northeast depicts a beautiful, hawk-winged, succubus-like woman, while the southeast column is fashioned in the form of feminine figure of billowing smoke or clouds crackling with electricity. The northwest column portrays a half-skeletal spellcaster of some kind, and the column to the sothwest resembles a winged, angelic creature wearing a metallic mask.
Djehuti shakes his head. "There are no active magical effects I can see." He takes out his sketch book and starts to jot down the room for posterity.
Torin goes into the room to case it for valuables.
"Wait a moment. That is a summoning circle. We should be wary of magic here."
"I'm wary of magic everywhere," Kwin scoffed as he waggled his sword. "Tricky stuff, magic."
Izra looked over the pillars and frowned.
"The colmns represent some of Nethys' most favored servants," she said, nodding to each one in turn, "The hawk-winged woman is Yamasha, a master of conjuration and enchantment; the feminine cloud is Nethys' herald, the Arcanotheign; the skeletal spellcaster is the powerful lich Takaral; and the angelic creature is the trumpet archon Bard."
"I am not an expert on Nethys, but this room seems... meaningful. Be careful."