With the sunrod activated, the creature's ability to confound darkvision is nullified.
Unfortunately, he is unable to land a successful hit on the creature.
The creature attacks!
Haela steps into a flank with Grum and strikes with her axe.
Benedict presses the attack.
Aerel steps closer trying to get into PBS range eventually.
With the creature lit up William takes one step forward and unleashes a slew of arrows at the creature.
Amkarang goes to town with a flurry of hammer-swings.
The final barrage of attacks finally bring down the strange underground aberration.
A quick detect magic locates a magical battleaxe amongst the remains of the trox slaves, as well as a magical scarab-shaped brooch.
A beach of glassy stone edges a vast lake of lava that stretches out for several hundred feet. An ancient lava tube exits to the west, while to the north an ascending path of rock curves up the sides of the immense chamber. A stone structure floats gently atop the bubbling pool of lava some twenty feet from the shore. The ceiling is shrouded in darkness and rises at least several hundred feet. A few clusters of metal pipe and ceramic tubes descend from above.
Benedict moves in, the Resist Energy potion hopefully being enough to protect him.
"Where to now? I could use the dragon figurine to fly above the lava to that structure, or we've got a few potions of Fly, or we can just ignore it and walk around the edge."
Before moving out William takes a minute to try and identify the two magic items.
Aerel does move forward to scout while William studies the items. It will be hard to hide in a room that glows, but he will do his best.
The axe is a +1 adamantine construct bane battleaxe. The brooch is a golembane scarab.
Aerel moves up the path that skirts the lava pool and rises to an opening. The stone path curves up the northern side of the immense chamber housing the lava lake. It rises several hundred feet before abruptly stopping at a stone-arched entrance leading into a long tunnel.
Halfway up, he is able to see the angled block of stone jutting out from the lava pool has a crack on the top, exposing a hollow interior.
Aerel also spots three huge shapes moving around in the lava pool.
From his elevated position, Aerel tries to study the discoveries, perhaps identifying the huge shapes, he hopes. Hoping the others are watching him, he points to his eyes, holds up three fingers, and points into the lava.
Aerel holds up a single finger to the group and gives a "come here" gesture.
"I don't see a path," says Benedict.
"Can anybody identify the beings in the lava? Maybe we can speak to them."
These are greater magma elementals.
Benedict follows the pathway up, going to where Aerel is.
Haela follows behind Benedict.
As the first person approaches, Aerel holds his hand, palm-down, and gestures downward, like he's packing something into a container. If a second starts before the first one is out of what appears to be the most dangerous area, he will try to wave them off, to have them wait.
Rarer than the classic earth/air/fire/water elementals, magma elementals share many of the same characteristics -- no discernable anatomy and a basic resistance to damage, along with other elemental resistances. Magma elementals can swim through lava like moving through water, and can vomit up a puddle of lava onto the ground.
William shrugs looking at the creatures.
Aerel’s concern is that too many people would attract attention. For the same reason, he doesn’t want to shout his suspicions. Once anyone is in earshot, he will share the results of his knowledge check.
"Okay, Aerel, what is it?
Do you think you should use the Spectral Shroud to examine that floating structure incorporeally?
Or should we just keep moving on?"
”It’s up to you. This seems like a bad place to spend time unnecessarily. I will investigate if you wish.”
"Let's keep going, then."
The stone path curves up the northern side of the immense chamber housing the lava lake. It rises several hundred feet before abruptly stopping at a stone-arched entrance leading into a long tunnel. Passing through the stone arch leaves the deadly heat of the lava pool behind. The tunnel ahead continues to rise, turning sharply at places with low footsteps in places to facilitate the incline.
There are tracks in the dust of this rarely-traveled passage. From what you can tell, several large creatures also traveled up this tunnel.
You see the signs of even older tracks, showing four distinct sets that likely traveled this way years ago.
After following this tunnel for more than an hour, it ends at a massive stone door. Two oversized locks seal the door securely.
You detect an alarm spell on the door as well.
William moves along with the others looking for any signs of danger as they move on.
When they reach the doors he whistles and says "Now those are big doors!"
Aerel studies the doors and their massive locks. Without touching them, he steps back and tips his head to one side. ”William, you’ll know this better than I do, but there’s something extra here. I tripped a magical alarm once and realized later that there was… something… Something I should have paid attention to. These doors feel that way - can you see any magic on the door?”
William cast's detect magic on the door and studies it. He then nods and says "Your instincts are good. There is magic on the door. It looks like an alarm spell."
Benedict stands back while Aerel and William work.
”I can try to disable it. Or are we going to knock and ask nicely?” As he asks, he is obviously preparing to attempt to disable the alarm and unlock the doors…
William looks at the doors and says "Well does anyone know if this is our destination? If it is knocking would be polite and the best way to start things off."
He then looks around for any writing or runes to see if this place is identified.
As William looks around, he spots a fine set of lockpicks off to the side, covered in dust. The leather pouch has an Ironfang Legion symbol embossed on its outside.
William coughs as he looks around and motions Aerel quietly toward the lockpicks. He then studies the pouch and area around it with detect magic.
The lockpicks radiate magic. After some studying, William realizes that they are restless lockpicks.
Outside of the alarm spell that Aerel had already detected, he finds no other magical auras.
Aerel raises an eyebrow at the gesture and moves over to the tiny bundle. Suspicious, he examines the vicinity for a trap before crouching down to retrieve it.
Aerel detects no traps. Given their state, it looks like the lockpicks were set aside and forgotten.
They fit nicely in his belt pouch. Murmuring, ”So, are we knocking or letting ourselves in?”
"By 'knock' you mean trigger the Alarm? I suppose that makes the most sense. Any other thoughts?"
Due to their age, the only thing Amkarang can tell is that three were humanoid and one was serpentine.
Amkarang points out tracks in the dust of the tunnel. ”The tunnel appears rarely used. The last tracks, here, look like three creatures with feet and one without.”
"From years ago? Maybe they were the source of those Ironfang Legion lockpicks."