Greenly's fiddling with the brass panels first turns off the lights in the social room and storage room (B2 and B4), then relights the fixtures in the social room (B2) while darkening the servants' quarters (B1)
Leaving behind the mural as the light in the storage room turns off, Chiara moves to the senator's room to inspect the slot. The golden key does not fit into the slot, and Chiara notes that it seems perfectly sized for a coin.
Photinè judges that the crystal ball in the cabinet is, indeed, some sort of magic viewing device. She fits the glass piece, found in the hollowed book by Amandine, into the niche on top of the device. After only a moment or two, the orb begins to glow faintly and a milky fog swirls within.
Photinè looks up from the crystal ball triumphantly. She parades through the chambers to the fresco that Chiara discovered, and expectantly places her hand on the painted image of Maramaxus' shield.
Greenly scarcely notices the older woman as she enters the room, consumed by her search through the storage.
Photinè can sense a current of magic run through the fresco after she places her hand on the shield. However, nothing else happens. Concentrating, she can feel a faint, arcane thrum just beneath the surface - comparable in magnitude to a fly's feet on your arm. Something else is needed here.
Chana watches Photine's attempt with the mural and heads back to take a look at the crystal ball herself. "Hmm, why would it need to show the shield anyway?" she muses out loud.
Looking up from the ball, she peers around the social room to try to see if there are any paintings here of Maramaxus, or maybe more importantly, if his shield is depicted anywhere nearby.
----
She also takes a look over the two hand mirrors, one from the servants quarters, the other from the senator's quarters. She starts clicking her tongue is a strange way as she turns them over in her hands.
Photinè recognizes the spoon and wand as magic items that were probably intended to keep this safe haven supplied, rather than having any role in accessing the exit. The wand is imbued with the spell create food and water, and it has enough energy for 14 castings. The other item is a sustaining spoon - when placed into an empty vessel, it will fill with a highly nourishing, albeit unpleasant tasting gruel.
As Chana looks into the crystal ball herself, she sees the magic radiance fade from the shield on the fresco as Photinè places her hand upon it. She sees a new glow appear around the head of the dwarven leader's hammer.
As for the hand mirrors, they show no magical radiance, but Chana notices that they are quite good at reflecting light from the magical fixtures into darkened areas of the safe haven.
While watching the crystal ball along with Chana, Amandine notices the glow on the fresco change as well.
"I know what to do!" she shouts. "It is a puzzle only two people can solve together. One person must watch for the glow areas on the fresco here. Another must touch the places on the fresco as they glow."
Amandine runs over to yell at Photine. "Touch the dwarf's hammer next! Then wait and we will tell you what comes after!"
"That seems..." 'real stupid?' "...rather, uh, esoteric. Maybe its right, but I don't see why Voritas would require such a thing."
"Here, while Photine is distracted, I can touch the next few. Yell them out." Chana heads over to the storage room and touches the dwarf's hammer. While she does, she thinks about the two mirrors and what they might be used for...
"No it doesn't make any sense. Why make it so convoluted ? Unless... Maybe he was suspicious, or paranoid, about his own people? If he was worried about a spy among the aids and assistants who had badges, the spy could not get out alone, without an accomplice? Yet another security measure?"
Amandine is correct about two things. Firstly, the crystal ball reveals areas of the fresco that must be touched in sequence in order to unlock the next portion of this convoluted safe house. Secondly, although it takes much browsing of the journals and writings left behind by the long-gone Senator Voritas to confirm this, she is correct in her assessment of the senator's paranoia. During the height of the Shining Crusade, Voritas greatly feared assassins from both political rivals and loyalists to the Whispering Tyrant.
The party passes cues down the halls of the safe house, observing a series of six glowing spots to touch on the fresco - the shield, the hammer's head, a boot, a Fourth Army banner, a mountain peak, and finally the shield again.
After pressing the sixth location, a stone grinding sound softly fills the storage room as the fresco splits open. The two panels slide slightly apart to reveal a hidden compartment.
Inside the compartment, Chana and Photinè discover a small velveteen bag filled with 20 gold coins. However, rather than the usual heraldry of Taldane minted coins, these ones bear the Voritas family crest - identified through both the party's knowledge of nobility and by simply comparing them to the senate aide badges you wear.
The items include three daggers, two longswords, and a halberd, all of common make, as well as a rapier, a dozen darts, and a suit of studded leather armor that are each more well-crafted.
Greenly welcomes Olivia's help searching through the storage room with a wave and a smile before returning to her self assigned task of opening every barrel and dismantling every crate. When Olivia proves ultimately more successful that Greenly, the arguably-a-half-elf having only found fermented hard tack and salted meats too old and tough to dare eat, she scowls and spits, glaring jealously.
Photinè takes a single coin out of the bag, holding it up between thumb and forefinger, and examines it closely. ”These are magical,” she says. ”And I believe if we place them in that slot in the other room, they could be our way out of here.”
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The weapons and armor look useful to some of the less well equipped members of the party, but Chana is far more interested in finally getting out of this place.
After calling out "Coins for the Coin Slot!" Chana picks a coin at random out from a the velvet bag and and brings it to the Senator's room. With a shooing motion for anyone who might be standing on the magical area, she puts the coin into the wall slot.
The coin slides into the slot, rattles briefly against the stone, but then is silenced.
The central floor of the senator's room then shimmers like heat waves, and it parts like a curtain of smoke. In its wake, a circular opening has opened in the floor to reveal a dusty, stone staircase curving downward, away from the safe house.
Greenly smiles brightly at Olivia's offer, feeling welcomed and included. She looks over the assortment of items with oohs and ahhs, liking dangerous things very much, but finding little to her curious tastes.
"If no one else wants it, tho, I'll, like, gladly take the armor. 'Dyou mind helping me into it?" This question is addressed to both Olivia and Photinè, still in the storage room. Regardless of a response from either, she immediately begins stripping out of the awkwardly fitted uniform the Trants made her wear, down to her breeches.
Newly dressed, she excitedly heads to the exit when Chana announces what she finds.
"Finally," she breathes, struggling with her hempen belt.
”A phase door,” Photinè explains, watching the floor shimmer and disappear. ”Strange, that it was so difficult to access; our Senator Voritas was certainly an odd one.”
She pockets the Veritas coin before retrieving a candle from the other room, and then poises at the top of the stairs. ”Lady Olivia, Miss Greenly,” she says, looking in turn at the two of them, and then down into the tunnel. ”Would you kindly accompany a lady into a dark, ominous hole?”
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Since Photine left to check out Chiara's discovery, Olivia is stuck with the task of helping Greenly into her armour. Though Greenly has been horrendously gross, breaking every social norm Olivia can even think of, her athletic figure does not go unnoticed. Olivia fumbles with the ties and belt as she helps dress the strapping young woman. Her smooth dark skin glistens in the dim lighting, and that dark braided hair... For just a moment Olivia thinks of pulling it.
When Photine calls out to them, Olivia snaps out of it and stiffens like she just got caught. "Uhm! Right. That would be my job, wouldn't it." She swiftly picks up the halberd and marches to the ominous hole.
"I don't have anything to carry the weapons in, so if you want to take something I think now's the time to do it."
Chana steps back a bit as the floor phases out, not willing to be caught unawares by more floor disappearing. "Well, that's something!" She whistles in appreciation, an affectation that doesn't seem at all in line with her poorly executed noble persona. "In addition to being paranoid, the Senator had a taste for the overly dramatic. I hope this really is the way out, and not just the way into more puzzles!"
She looks over at Photine. Comments "Follow me, if you'd like." and then strides down the newly accessible stairs.
Amandine replaces her rapier with the new, better one from among the cache found by Olivia.
"Much better! The blade on this one looks to be of very fine quality compared to mine."
The truth is Amandine knows next to nothing about evaluating blades. What she does know is the one she came with is a piece of trash with a fancy hilt. She had wheedled it from a friend of hers who worked as a costume and set designer for a theater a few years back.
But why say something that makes oneself look poor, when one can say exactly the same thing in a way that makes oneself seem knowledgable and clever?
Amandine takes three of the coins. Such a weird place, who knows if we'll somehow need them again? She also makes sure some are left plainly on a table. If we became trapped here after so many centuries, it could happen to others far into the future. Might as well disable the puzzle for them.
She follows the rest of the crew through the magical doorway.
Greenly peeks over her shoulder at Olivia, oblivious to her flustering. "Thank you, Lady, uh, Livy," she grins. Even in the soft orange glow of the candlelight, her smile is blood red, teeth stained from her tobacco.
Despite her charm and inherent goofiness, feeling her muscles and seeing her bloody grin, you recognize in Greenly a warrior. It's easy to imagine in her a barely restrained monster, killing all who oppose her and feasting on the raw and bloody meat of her conquered enemies, as her ancestors once did.
Evaluating the bunch of weapons, Greenly takes the daggers and the dozen darts for safekeeping if nothing else. Someone will want them, and barring that, they will fetch a pretty penny.
She straps the daggers to her new suit, alongside three other daggers, a quiver of forty-one arrows and her prized possession, her elven curved blade. The darts, she drops into the bottom of her quiver.
With a twirl and a giggle, she asks "How do I look?"
One final time, she presses the buttons as she passes, in both B4 and B3.
"Finally," she breathes, struggling with her hempen belt.
"I will gladly, like, go into the hole with you, Miss Mitchell," Greenly says, picking her ear. "Don't worry. I'll protect ya."
Tanglefoot is the first to attempt to follow Chiara down the stairs, and perhaps this is fitting, for he is tossed back by the magic that guarded the exit. He is thrown into a rolling tumble, still his forte even if it was quite the surprise. He almost nails his landing, except his back bumps into the table beside the dusty, four-poster bed and topples it over.
The fool's misadventure makes it evident that each of the enchanted coins earns passage for only one person. Sighing at this final frustration from the long-dead Senator Voritas and his paranoia, you each take turns feeding a coin into the slot - ka-chink - and opening the now-translucent barrier blocking the phase door.
The staircase curves downward before it straightens out into an escape tunnel. Your candles are soon overpowered by a pale light that bathes the grimy walls of the old tunnel. At the bottom of the stairs, you find a silver, hooded lantern that still shines with a flicking blue flame. Photinè easily recognizes a lantern that has been enchanted with a continual flame.
The tunnel proceeds for a couple dozen paces before it ascends again in a new set of stairs, ending at a stone door set with a brass lever.
"Um, maybe I should look it over first, make sure it's not rigged."
Amandine works through to the front and gives the lever a careful inspection.
Photinè picks up the lantern, holding it aloft as the group approaches the end of the tunnel.
Chana grins behind her veil at the court-fool's tumble, and advances down the stairs while everyone else is still putting their coins in. The group finds her looking over the door and the lever for traps.
Assuming she doesn't find any, she waits for the whole group to assemble and then says "All ready to finally be out of this place? Maybe we're not far from the palace, and can still get back in time to make a difference." She reaches over and pulls the lever.
Chiara's thorough inspection reveals no signs of danger, but she finds that this door was likely designed to blend in with the surrounding wall.
While you wait for the door to be examined, another message from Martella comes to you. You can hear in her voice that she is out of breath, signalling that she is still escaping from peril.
"Gloriana Morilla's allies from the Pathfinder Society secured us a way out of the senate building! This is an organized force."
Once the lever is pulled down, with the grinding sound of ancient mechanisms untouched for centuries, the door swings open to offer passage into the hall beyond. Passing through, you idly note that, indeed, this secret door would be very much a challenge to spot from the other side.
Unfortunately, rather than returning to the senate above, or escape into the open air of Oppara, you find yourselves in another long-forgotten wing of the old senate.
Chiseled stone statues of Taldan Phalanx soldiers stand atop plinths in the outer corners, visible from any point in this broad, ominous hall. Sturdy wooden doors line the outer edge of the hall: two to the east, two to the south, two to the west, and a single larger door to the north.
In front of the lever, Greenly rocks back and forth from heel to toe repeatedly, waiting for someone to take the initiative. Only after Chana pulls said lever does she turn to Olivia and ask "Wait, did you mean me?"
At Martella's voice, she draws her sword once more, holding it out at arm's length. "I'll f$#%ing cut you, b@~@+, get out of my head!"
She waits for a reply, muscles tense, ready to swing, but calms after thirty seconds or so. However, she does not sheathe her weapon.
Distracted as she is, she takes no notice of her surroundings.
Amandine creeps into the hallway while looking everywhere except the floor.
"Eghh." Chana voices her disgust at still being trapped who-knows-where. After eyeing the statues for a moment to ensure they're not going to spring to life or anything, she squats down and runs a gloved finger through the dust on the floor.
"Well, at least we're now somewhere where people have been recently. People rushed about this place in a panic no all that long ago." She points to some of the doorways along the hall . "And they went in and out of those doors."
"Maybe they live here," puts forth Greenly, ignoring the more obvious implication. Hand still on her weapon, she goes up to one of the doors and starts knocking, loud. "Hellooooo? Anyone home?"
Photinè does not notice the footprints until Chiara points them out.
"Perhaps they found themselves transported here, as we were," she offers, joining Greenly near the doors.
Greenly walks to the right and knocks upon the door . After a moment, the door opens by a crack, and a tall man wearing a golden holy symbol on a brass chain peers out. Satisfied that there is no immediate danger, he opens the door the rest of the way with a relieved sigh.
The silence of the dusty old halls is broken by a surprised gasp bordering on a squeal, as Dame Malphene Trant - standing behind the noble cleric - catches sight of Greenly.
"You're alive?" Trant exclaims in a voice that Greenly interprets as relief, while everyone else reads the underlying stunned exasperation.
"Course I am," nods Greenly with a tilt of the head and a red, toothy grin. "I'm, like, the strongest there is. Took down one of them bastards in two swings, didn't I?" She sheathes her weapon and spits, "Besides, miss, I'm pretty sure I, like, ordered you to go through those doors while I distracted the bad guys, so as I see it, if you're down here, I gotta be too. After all, your father assigned me to you for a reason, and I'm, like, gonna do good on his last request."
After a second or so of silence, Greenly awkwardly offers Malphene a hug, arms outstretched. "I'm so sorry, miss. Like, I always thought Mr. Senator was a mean, messed up dude, but he loved you, Malphene. I can't even, like, I can't. I'mma getchu out safe, okay? Don't you worry."
"Dame Trant," Photinè says, and takes a few steps into the room behind Greenly, testing the waters. "I'm very glad to see you alive."
She sounds sincere, with no trace of the saccharine airs she put on earlier.
Chana, dismayed at finding Miss Trant here, wars internally for a moment on whether there would be any negative repercussions from closing the door on the trio and dragging a corner statue over.
Considering that there might be other assassins still on the way to finish them off, she instead speaks slightly more cordially. "How did you get down here, Tr-- ah, Miss Trant?" She pulls out her parasol and taps it on the ground. "Are we close to the Senate floor, or did you use some more magical way to get here? Any assassins still on your tail?" 'She 'prolly deserves 'em, anyway.'
She turns to look more carefully at the cleric.
She extends a gloved (bony) hand. "Looks like you escaped as well, Mister...?" And after she gets his name, she adds "Chiara Durante."
"What happened to the two of you?"
Amandine waits tensely to see what happens next. Amandine had not really understood the circumstances surrounding the whole "rumble with Trant's people" thing, so she not sure what to expect now. Circumstances have changed for sure, but does that mean it's off or still on? She says a silent prayer for the latter and watches carefully for any sign of trouble.
Secondly, he wears a senate aide badge with the Trant family crest on it, just like Malphene's. This leads you to believe that he was at the gala as a guest of Senator Trant.
Even if she was still in a belligerent mood, she would have nothing to fight with. The scabbard at her side is empty, though the peace-cord has been snapped. She likely lost her sword while fending off attackers in the senate after Greenly vanished.
...
Malphene places her hands on Greenly's arms and - with surprising gentleness - pushes them aside, declining the proffered hug.
"A..a...after you vanished," she begins to explain, stammering to Greenly at first, "I tried to fend off another of those assassins. Just as he was about to land a blow, there was a flash of light, and I ended up in this safe room."
The swarthy cleric accepts Miss Durante's hand and offers a polite half bow. His lips move just perceptibly beneath his bushy, graying mustache, perhaps noticing the feel of Chiara's hand.
"I am Taxmaster Jowuan Zubari, and it is a pleasure to meet you, young lady," he says with a voice like leather. In the light of Photinè's magic lantern, you can see that his skin has been toughened as though by much time spent beneath the burning sun. "I am visiting Oppara from Sargava, and Senator Trant was hosting me as a guest tonight. It seems as though...oh, um, nevermind."
Malphene eyes the party warily, but with a sigh she turns away, as though she lacks the energy to maintain her hostility.
"Lord Zubari arrived shortly after me, in much the same manner," she explains. "We heard people shouting out here in the hall, but he insisted we stay inside where it was safe."
Dame Trant aims her words at the priest with venom, subtly calling him a coward.
'Aw good, a more laid back sorta' guy. Might make up 'fa Miss angry ovea' there.'
Chana nods to the cleric and inclines her head askingly at Malphene. "What kind of shouting did you hear? Assassins at work, or other people who might've escaped? We're aiming to try to leave this place before any of the Prince's agents make their way here to finish us off."
"They might be satisfied with offing the more major nobles. Or they might want to just get rid of all of them but the Prince. Who can tell. The guy's mad, isn' 'e?" A derisive half-snort escapes her before she composes herself.
Greenly nods, proud of her charge. "Ya did all you could, miss. Still got your sword? Bet we'll need your skill on our way out of here, providing you're like, cool with that or whatever." She throws a shifty violet eyed glance back at the rest of the party before leaning into whisper conspiratorially, "Sides, we, like, gotta make it out safe if we're gonna trounce these losers later, amiright?" Half joking, half serious, Greenly grins and tries to bolster Malphene's confidence while also lightening the mood.
It seems to Amandine the rumble is at least on hold, and an unspoken truce is holding. She figures it's best to give everyone something to do before all the standing around leads to someone saying something to make things worse.
"We should keep moving. Let's check the other doors."
She walks over to the next door on the left and knocks.
"Hello? Is anyone in there?"
"The shouting I heard was akin to that of Freehold men, back in Sargava, caught by big cats stalking out the M'neri Plains. These were the screams of people taken by surprise by something not human. Something perhaps worse than those assassins," Zubari speculates with a shudder.
As Greenly speaks with Malphene, a fleeting smile cross the dame's face. However, it quickly reverts to a scowl, put upon her by the grim, gloomy environment of these lost halls.
Turning the corner to explore the lefthand path of the hall, Amandine discovers the very fresh corpse of a man lying broken at the foot of the inner wall. Blood still runs, warm and wet, from his throat, soaking into his noble attire.
Despite how recently this man was killed - perhaps only minutes before you arrived - it seems strange that there are no bloody tracks left by his killer.
Lastly, and you feel a pang of guilt for taking notice of this, but there is a very elegant gold ring upon the dead man's finger.
|
|
Olivia goes to one knee to inspect the corpse. She shakes her head grimly. "Lord Develin Manshum. I knew him when he would rent a room at the inn I stay at. A good man, if a little eccentric."
Her tone changes to wary. "Whatever killed him is no human. An animal or undead that is strong and clawed. Be on your guard. This was very recent."
If Greenly ever met the man, she didn't find him very interesting. She opens her mouth to say as much but bites her tongue- literally, missing her diminishing wad of chew and biting her tongue, before erupting in a litany of swears.
Amandine recalls seeing the man at the Gala, but doesn't remember much more about him than he wasn't a major player.
"This only just happened. Whoever did it can't have gone..." Before Amandine can finish her thought Greenly's barrage of swearing gives her a startle. She flinches, then looks back at the maladroit near-giant with a very nasty stare. Shut the f~#@ up! she hisses. "We're not alone here!"
Turning back she tells Olivia to "take the ring on his finger. His family will likely want it returned."
She draws her rapier slowly for quiet and creeps forward. "No footprints leading away."
Amandine looks up and around, then moves on past the body searching cautiously for threats.