Rose takes a few minutes to go to her room and retrieve her weapons and armor, then joins the rest. The suit of plate she wears is well fitted but relatively plain with a simple blank tabbard of gold and red belted across it. She carries a shield in one hand and a flanged hammer with an upsweapt axe curling out from the backside of the hammerhead.
"I wasn't able to finish the embroidery." she says with a half-smile as she looks down at the tabbard's lack of heraldry. "It's just as well though. I haven't decided on an emblem yet. I keep changing my mind."
Her green eyes light up as a thought occurs to her.
"Maybe I can try a few out!" She closes her eyes for a moment, picturing a different version of herself and willing the circlet's magic into effect.
A red rose with golden thorns was suddenly adorned across her armored chest and the face of her shield. She grinned. "That will do for now."
Then she tipped the faceguard of her helm down and looked around, chuckling at the inscription. Those are mum's words. Wonder if she helped daddy design this place?
Walking to the door she looked back to the others with an excited smile. "Shall we?"
Hounds nods, rather silent and tense as he enters unknown territory.
Travis nods and moves up behind Rose, not that she needs protection, but to be there in case there is a danger beyond the door regardless.
Rose attempts to open the door.
THough standing behind ROse, Travis takes a moment to look around the room for whatever here might be hidden - secret passages, doors, etc - not entirely trusting this obvious path, especially after the warning...
Travis mutters under his breath before the door is even opened. "We should have brought Grumblejack along... he might have come in handy. He is a resource we shouldn't be wasting."
Hound looks sharply at Rose. Perhaps Sholano should use his skills at perceiving threats before we start poking our hands into unknown areas.
"Hound has a point..." Travis backs away from the door and motions Sholano forward to perhaps check the door for traps.
Sholano raises an eyebrow. "While I'm terribly flattered, I think you may be exaggerating my particular talents in that area. If you want the door convinced we're on its side, I'm your man." Nonetheless, he eyes the door warily while keeping his distance. He finds himself wondering if Rose is going to manage to get the door open before a proper inspection can be done.
Rose shrugs and waits for the others to be convinced of the door's good intentions.
The door seems somewhat legitimate. I mean, you can't see any sort of mechanism that would trigger anything, but that sort of thing could have hidden. Nobody who's been looking for anything has found anything interesting, leaving this door the only currently known way out of this room.
Might as well open it then.
Hound stands to the side, waiting for Rose to take the lead.
Expecting some kind of deception, considering the warning, Travis stands to the side (in a corner will do) and watches the blank side walls for some kind of trap springing from them when Rose opens the door.
Rose sighs in exasperation and opens the door.
Of course the door is trapped. It opens to a bricked up wall, and the floor right below opens up to a pit of slightly blunted spikes about ten feet deep. Carved near the bottom of the pit is a simple inscription, in the same writing style as the first. "Thou wert decieved. Pain is thy reward."
Pit Trap: DC 20
If you succeed, then you manage to jump out of the way immediately. Only the people right in the square front of the door have to save against it.
On failure:
Take falling damage.
You are hit by spikes.
Spikes:
The attack for spike A is . If that hits, it deals more damage.
The attack for spike B is . If that hits, it deals more damage.
Seeing as how the spikes aren't completely sharp, it seems that whoever designed this dungeon wasn't completely interested in just killing you. That is reassuring at the very least.
Travis searches the two blank walls for secret doors...
Hounds will check after pulling Rose up if need be.
"Eeep!" Rose yelped as she vanished into the pit.
"Ow! F*$#ing ow!" then there was a pause and she started giggling. "Yeah... should have seen that coming... just like when I turned twelve."
After managing to get herself free of the spike she was stuck on, she reached up, grabbed Hound's hand and let herself be pulled out of the hole.
"Thanks." she said rolling her eyes at her own misfortune. She looked at the back of her thigh where the spike had found a gap in her armor. "That's going to hurt tomorrow."
So it seems that we should not be grabbing at the obvious and examine the surroundings more closely.
"Yeah... there's probably a hidden door around here or something."
Sholano nods, inspecting the walls thoroughly. A thought occurs to him, and he checks the lantern, reaching up to tap it with his blade.
The lantern is completely normal.
Around the room, however, two things have been found. First, a hidden door to the south. Second, a small crevice to the north. Inside is a strange ble jewel. Above it is the inscription, "you have pierced through deception to discover a useful tool."
((Sorry for shortness/grammar, I am posting this from phone))
Let us all take this painful lesson to heart. Hmm..I am not familiar with gems but the words say 'useful tool'. So there might be more to it than just an item worth gold.
"I agree.... but what is it and how is it used? Does anyone have magical or alchemical skill to try to figure it out?"
Sholano makes a 'hrm' noise. "Not...specifically. I have some talent at getting these sorts of things to work, but figuring out their purpose in the first place is a different question entirely. If we don't have any other recourse, I could tinker with it. Rose?"
"It's probably just a button or something. Fiddle with it, I guess?" she says with a shrug while she tries to staunch the bleeding on the back of her leg.
Well let us examine it, it might have an inscription or a specific shape. A key perhaps to slip into a hole.
Hound examines the jewel.
Sholano observes from a ways away, waiting to see if the thing explodes before taking a good look himself.
The jewel seems easily removable from its hole, and is cold to the touch. Examining it more closely, its precise shade of blue is sort of a whitish, frosty blue, and that the inside seems far bluer than the outside, which is more white. The blue seems to almost swish inside the jewel, rather than it actually being that color.
"Maybe you're right, HOund, it could be a key to another door or vault or something. We should definitely keep it with us for now."
Travis moves over to the secret door he found and tries to determine if it is locked, and examines the floor in front of it to discern if there another pit for the unwary hidden there.
The jewel is cold to the touch and the blue reminds be of snow and frost. Odd, the blue color on the inside seems to move around. I am no wizard but this is probably magical. Hound will keep the jewel.
Sholano joins Travis at the door, inspecting it and unconsciously fingering the tools hidden within his scarf.
The door seems completely fine, not trapped, and easily openable without the use of any tools. If opened, it leads into a small stone corridor, with another door at the end, this one wooden. Above this door reads, "Following the herd is for fools. Fear not their icy derision. Instead, fear only thy infernal lord."
Having learned from the last door, Rose waits for Sholano to check this door too before opening it.
Hound waits as well for Sholano to check the door.
Sholano, patiently waiting for another to check out the door, notices the other's stares. With a little sigh, he steps forward to investigate.
This door doesn't seem trapped. It just seems like a regular, ordinary, wooden door.
It does feel a little cold around it, though. Not something someone would notice if they weren't actively trying to sense such a thing, but just a tad colder than the hallway before it.
Hound will take the lead after Sholano checks the door, heading through carefully.
Rose was about to say something as Hound moved into the room ahead of her, but she stopped herself.
Why not let him be first in line for daddy's little funhouse. Better him than me.
The room is quite cold and filthy. There are doors in every direction, including the one you just came from. They are all wooden- well, you assume the one to the west is wooden, at least. It's covered in a strange, pulsating violet mold. This room is also lit by a lantern, almost identical to the one in the first room except for the fact that the glass panes are covered in frost. It also looks to be the exact same size as the first room as well- 15 feet on each side.
Travis examines the two non-moldy doors.
Hounds eyes the mold, searching his memory to see if he can recall anything about it.
Unfortunatly, he has been long out of practice.
Fear only thy infernal lord...
Sholano moves cautiously into the room behind the others, pondering the phrase they were given.
"Hm. Rose, you're a bit more immersed in Asmodean lore than the rest of us - any idea if something in here references something we should 'ware of, or do we just keep testing the defenses?"
"I don't remember anything about purple mold in the scriptures."
Rose says with a shrug. "I'd bet it's probably dangerous, and definitely a trick of some kind."
"Burning it or slashing it is the obvious choice, so let's not do that. What are our other options?"
Following the herd is for fools, fear not their icy derision. Hounds says. This room is indeed icy. He points to the frosted lantern.
Hound brings out the cold gem. Perhaps this has something to do with it? It has been given to us as a useful tool.
"It's cold... we could try cold... anyone have an ice attack they can do? We could really use a wizard, couldn't we?"
"Smart." Rose says with a smile. "Let me see that."
Trying to look like she knew what she was doing, she looked over the gem and tried to figure out how to use it, keeping it aimed toward the fungus in case something happened.
It looks like the gem is operated by throwing it at something. It is quite fragile, and will easily break upon impact. Best be careful with it.
The other two doors are quite trapped. There are small slits for something, most likely some sort of spear or spike to come out of, and the knobs are rigged, so that turning them will unleash whatever's behind there.
You can't really see anything more about the mold. It's a really weird, cold, violet mold.
So no doubt the doors are like the one that triggered the pit Rose fell into. The words above the entrance probably mean opening these doors and getting a spear in the chest.
"Oh! This thing is more like glass than a stone."Rose holds the gem out to Travis or Sholano. "Throw it at the mold. Try to hit the middle of the fungus hard enough to break the gem."