Up on the balls of his feet and a smooth pull back of the bowstring.
Nicola? Any prep and position when Phil opens the door.
The door is awkwardly placed on a side wall of a 5' wide "hall" and draws open toward you. It swings so that Philippe will be pinched between it end of the hall.
The two men crowd in to execute their plan. Nicola is left in the larger open area of the main room.
The door swings open easily.
Make a DC 18 Fort save. If you fail, the pain blossoms inside your skull and agony flows like your very blood throughout your chest and extremities. The pain is debilitating and goes on and on.
Phillipé looks into the room as he opens the door, shielding himself from the brunt of the rooms occupants.
His knuckles tighten on the doors hand and he immediately looks away from the room.
Varlis' eyes narrow at the obvious trap, but he concentrates on finding a target. "Ware your eyes from that god rotten symbol!"
"Nicola, do you have dispelling magicks? For in that room lies pain, though not much else. Did you spot ought else Varlis?" Phillipé asks, blinking slowly but keeping his death grip on the door.
Varlis notices a door in the far corner. The new room is otherwise empty. The symbol remains.
Suddenly the world lurches. No -- your room, well both rooms begin moving again.
This movement is clockwise. When it stops Nicola is looking at a hall that bends diagonally to the right. The walls of this hallway have murals depicting a jungle brimming with hungry life. Predators of every sort stalk and maim and feed on dozens of hapless men and women. In the canopy above, monkeys, snakes, and birds seem to chatter and mock the victims below.
The new room with the symbol on the floor moved with you so that is an option.
Trying to keep his feet under him, using the door as a crutch Phillipé gasps; "Well I don't think we turned that maybe the symbol has an alarm linked to it?" He can barely register the symbol in the adjacent room. "I'm not sure but it possibly should be inert.... I wouldn't want to try it however."
"Best be alert to any new foes? Preparation time?" Diverting his gaze back to the mural room.
Nicola totters as the room shifts again. "Woah! Hey, a new room! Are we gonna go? Looks like we don't have a lot of time for conversation before the room moves again. Go or stay? I vote go. I like murals." Though her words are light, she cannot hide the tension in her voice.
"We go, investigate. Move like the wind through this place and be similarly unharmed, for we have right and spirit on our side." He says softly, as if incanting a cantrip of fortunate upon the group.
As he lets go of the door to the Symbol Room he cast detect magic on the new Mural Room, just in case these creatures burst into life.
"Now is when an attack should happen. This may be a good time for any short protective magics." Varlis keeps his footing as he dances against the swing then stops just in time before tumbling.
He takes out a potion of cats grace and swigs it down in a single gulp.
"How many measures?" he asks as he prepares. "I think personal invisibility might be useful."
The murals depict Philippe's detect magic shows an aura of illusion on the murals. When he examines them more closely (and if Varlis or Nicola examines them) he finds himself depicted as one of the victims.
There is nothing else special about the hallway.
As he touches the murals and sees himself in the visage, he pats himself down and reminds the others (since they cannot see him). "It's alright I didn't get transported into the mural.... now there must be the same requisite route from here."
Phillipé looks down the hallway and when the others start to move, follows them down there.
Varlis remains silent and leads off down the hallway, his bow at the ready.
Magic!
As he moves on, he is carefully looking for that ambush that he promised Philippe. His movements are now enhanced by the magic coursing through his veins.
Nicola nimbly skips out of the roto-room and into the hallway behind her brother and the ranger, rapier at the ready. I'll save my protection for when it's needed, she thinks, though she does not argue with Varlis.
Peering at the mural, she shivers. "Stupid illusions." She positions herself behind the ranger, matching his pace and watching carefully.
The room now at the end of the hallway is about 15 feet square with a door to your left and another to your right. The ceiling and walls of the room are covered with a mosaic portraying a huge swarm of wasps.
Predictably there's a crack through floor, walls, and ceiling, that provides clearance for the hallway area to move between this new room and your hallway.
Varlis enters the room with the other two in tow, his bow stowed and a flask in hand. He takes the matter literally and waits for a swarm to attack.
The man checks his pockets for any other useful gear against them but finds little.
"Remember to treat this as your home and feel like you own your environment. Get to know it quickly. These are what my teacher taught me and you will survive."
"Home? I just want to get out of here. I know Cayden has -- or had -- a thing for Calistria, but that many wasps give me the creeps," Nicola shivers, watching the ceiling carefully for movement, "Let's move on quickly, shall we?"
Choices?
"Right. Right?" Nicola suggests, heading towards the right-hand door.
"That's always the right choice." A soft voice emanates from nearby, his tone light and wry.
Varlis pulls open the door and mentally prepares for the next assault on his senses.
As Varlis' hand moves to the door handle Phillipé keeps low, one hand flicks open the leather pouch upon his belt concealing the spell materials inside. There's only the soft creak of leather and rustle of cloth to betray the invisible mages presence as he crouches down - his vision focussed through the doorway.
Varlis lays his hand on the door latch, and begins to push, revealing a alcove studded
hallway with a blood-red floor. Just as he does so, a metallic sussuras fills the room,
and a hpnotically beautiful silver mist begins to run wavelike along ceiling, walls,
and floor from one end of the wasp room to the other where it rebounds and flows back
the opposite way.
needles poking through the ceiling, walls, and floor. Anyone making this check gets a
+2 on either the will save or the Reflex save. If you warn the others they get the same
bonus on saves.
Fail the Reflex save and suffer thusly this round:
... If you are hit, DC 15 Fort save or take 2 Dex damage.
... If you are hit, DC 15 Fort save or take 2 Dex damage.
... If you are hit, DC 15 Fort save or take 2 Dex damage.
"Oooh the pretty lights, it effervesces across the skin..." Phillipé says dreamily as the silvery waves slides across him. Then he suddenly realises the numbing pain, not being able to see himself he hopes that it hasn't burnt anything too badly.
"Do we cross here, get past the mural hall? It could be a guardian trap." The invisible mage asks.
" 'Ware needles!" Nicola yelps, skipping to avoid the prickly (though lovely) wave. She dances along the floor like a serving wench through a room full of drunken, groping patrons, dipping and hopping to avoid the wave of needles and join Varlis at the doorway. Her nose wrinkles at the sight of the blood-red floor. "Ugh. Looks like a whorehouse. Or the court in Egorian. Not that there's much difference, from what I hear tell," she chuckles wryly.
As the needles bite, Varlis feels a pinprick but is busy enjoying the patterns they make.
"Its a trap," he adds with a sloppy grin.
"Certainly is Varlis, but can you get through here? Without making it worse." Phillipé blanks on Nicola's turn of phrase, not wanting to know where she's got that information.
Varlis starts forwards slowly enjoying the clouds of magical needles in all their beauty.
"Its good......never seen this before.....doesn't hurt.....just a nip here and there........ooooooooh."
Varlis staggers forwards as the narcosis begins to wear off. He moves quickly between the naves hoping to gain ground away from this foul trap and trusting to luck in this evil place.
Invisibly Phillipé darts forward into the room behind Varlis, then summons his natural heritage and training to blink forward as far as the light reaches.