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Gurk quickly backs away the room, covering his eyes. "Words! Words be everywhere! It be trap to steal all the words in head!"
Temmer lets the goblin retreat; he's been brave enough for the day, though he does have to count it as a mark against him to be so obvious about his fear.
"It's not just words that we need to be cautious of," he warns the others. "There's something howling deeper in there, and I think I hear claws clicking."
He stands guard as the more educated of them try to figure out this hallway in front of them.
"Goodness, Gurk! If they steal the word 'Eat' from you, you'll starve to death!"
Giggling a bit at her clever teasing of the omnivorous-and-then-some goblin, Lexi's eyes widen when she sees all the weird stuff that promises to test her knowledge.
Scanning the great plates and their runes closely, Lexi becomes more and more excited. Just when it seems she's on the verge of having a lore-gasm, the brainy aasimar clears her throat and makes a report to the others.
"This whole chamber--metal plates, runes, powerful words of ancient yore--they all work together to focus planar energies! Awesome! I know! These plates draw and collect the energies and focus them, creating a weak spot in the planar barrier. Theoretically, you could weaken the boundary enough to pass through into another plane, or allow something from that other plane to enter our world. The scientific name for this piece of magical architectural construction is a 'rift siphon.'"
Moving to the huge metal plates, Lexi continues her lecture. "As for these, I can say with some degree of certainty that they somehow store and redirect the gathered planar energy. From the runes and writings, I have been able to discover that the rift syphon is currently directing its energies toward making a link to Hell."
At Adistan's warning, Lexi freezes before lowering her voice. "I hear it, too! Think, Lexi--What in Hell has sharp, deadly claws?"
Looking at the others in distress, she reports, "...most everything."
Verris looks surprised at the lack of any trap activation as Gurk raises the portcullis. She looks around suspiciously until her companions inform her of the faint howling and the sound of claws on stone that they can hear ahead. She then nods to herself as if her expectations were fulfilled, musing to herself that Bixby's paranoia might be rubbing off on her. She shrugs, rolls her shoulders and moves to help the others as they inspect the passageway ahead.
She tries to help Lexi decipher the purpose of the ominous-looking iron plates with her limited knowledge of spellcraft.
Whether due to the fact that her training focused on combating the forces of evil, hell included, or she had a moment of inspiration, Verris actually manages to be helpful to Lexi. "Those runes there, are they linking the plates?" she asks Lexi, pointing to specific runes repeated on the iron plates.
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Bixby scribbles furiously in his notepad as Lexi explains what she's found.
"This is the sum of all fears!" he exclaims. "A rift that could take us directly into the plumbing of Hell!"
He strokes his mustaches, then says "All of Magnimar could be endangered from something like this. We should try to disable it!"
"Well...yes, I suppose if we ripped off ten to a dozen of these plates at fairly even intervals we could disrupt the machine's function, but.... Do we really want to do that? Just because it's aligned to Hell at the moment doesn't mean that its focus couldn't theoretically be moved to the High Heavens if the city were faced with some grave calamity and needed aid, right?"
Sensing that the others might not agree with her reasoning, the young aasimar tries a different tract: "Besides, Lady Heidmarch might yell at us or even kick us out of the Pathfinder Society if we just destroy something so unique and valuable."
Lexi seems horrified that Davor is so quick to discount their Venture-Captain. The gears in her head whir as she tries to come up with another reason not to scrap the intriguing machine. "What if...," is all she can come up with at first, but then she finds her answer: "...the shard we're seeking has been carried or sent through the barrier to Hell or beyond? How will we ever recover it?"
Temmer also seems affronted by the idea they would try to deceive their captain.
"Couldn't we replace the panels if necessary?" he asks, seeking a compromise.
Lexi seems surprised that Davor relents, but pleased. When she hears Adistan also question the wisdom of leaving the rift syphon intact, it's her turn to sigh.
"Honestly, I'm not sure if we could safely dismantle it and then reassemble it later. I've found it's much easier to demolish things than it is to rebuild them."
Verris looks conflicted as both sides argue."You both got good points. Lexi, you sure destroying it could prevent us getting the shard? Remember, these things get free and they could kill a lot of innocent people back in the city and fighting hell creatures powered up by hell energy is gonna be more dangerous for us too."
Lexi hesitates before answering Verris. "Well, no," she admits to her fellow aasimar. "The shard being in Hell's kind of a long shot...or at least I hope it's a long shot. But it's an outside possibility. At the same time--assuming I have a decent understanding of how a rift syphon might work--I don't think it's powerful enough to bring a horde of Hell into the city. That would be a permanent gate. I'm not sure a rift syphon could be made into a gate very easily. More likely the lemures were brought through or somehow seeped through over the centuries."
A moment after seeming to end her lecture, Lexi adds the qualifier, "Maybe."
"Gurk know what to do," Gurk speaks up. "All words be set on fire. Lets words go free and back in heads. Saves many stupid longshanks from having no words and keeps us words in head. Fire be good."
"Shame on you Gurk!" Lexi replies with a surprising amount of squeaky vehemence. "What a horrible thing to say! Written words are important, and they're what the Pathfinder Society is all about! You don't think that I've ever built myself a rift syphon or visited Hell on my weekends, do you? No! I read about other peoples' experiences in those matters and used that foundation of knowledge as a basis for my own decisions!"
Lexi glares at the goblin for a while, trying to think of how to better explain things to him.
"Ok--look at it this way. Say there's a mountain pass that's prone to rockslides. A group of travelers has a close call or maybe even loses some members due to an avalanche. So to warn other travelers, they put up signs at both ends of the path: 'Danger: Falling Rocks.' Now anyone traveling through the area is forewarned and unlikely to be surprised by a rockslide, see? Whereas if a bunch of silly goblins just burned the signs, they'd likely get bashed in the skull with falling rocks and no longer have heads for words to escape from in the first place! Got it?"
"If there be falling rocks, then goblins just wait to watch stupid longshanks who lost words and get crushed. Goblins not go where rock be crush goblins. Then goblins grab up all food from longshanks, and goblins win," Gurk points out, not following.
"Oh yeah? What if the longshanks left food in the pass...like bait for a trap? Then BAM! POW!, that's what! The falling rocks might knock some sense into you. Hopeless!"
Lexi suddenly blinks and falls silent. "Oh yeah--we were trying to be quiet and listening for the clawy thing that's growling, weren't we?"
"Yes," Temmer says censoriously. "Let's belay the conversation until later. We have serious work afoot. We don't seem to have a captain here, so we'll need to make a decision as a crew. I say we take down enough panels to render this portal to Hell inoperable. What say you all?"
As the group stops to argue about how to proceed they are surprised as two beasts round a corner and charge toward Gurk to attack. They resemble a thin, lanky wolf with reddish-brown fur, white claws, but have burning, fiery red eyes.
"I vote Nay," Lexi huffs quietly. "And it's not a portal--it's a rift syphon."
Verris, looking bemusedly between Lexi and Gurk as they argue, spots the beasts as they round the corner. She nocks an arrow and fires at the clearly hostile creatures, the ones with burning, fiery-red eyes.
"Fire dogsies!" Gurk screams, immediately beginning to swing wildly at the creatures.
Lexi is pleasantly surprised that she and Adistan remain deadlocked in the vote regarding the metal panels...until she hears Gurk mention 'fire dogsies' and belatedly notices the closing....
"...Huh-huh-hell hounds!!"
Retreating to the back of the party while she regains her composure, the weakling aasimar yelps, "They breathe fire and are immune to it themselves!"
HP 28/28
AC 17, touch 12, flat-footed 15, CMD 18
Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +1 (+2 vs. emotion spells, effects)
Tactician (5 rounds): 1/2
Studied Target (+1 bonus on Bluff, Knowledge, Perception, Sense Motive, and Survival checks; weapon attack rolls and weapon damage rolls): green hound
Effects: Escape Route 1/5
"Move quickly, everyone," Temmer calls.
He studies the nearest hellhound as he tries to figure out his approach.
As the hounds rush forward the group leaves their argument behind to deal with the immediate threat. Verris looses an arrow hitting the one in the lead as it moves up. Bixby blasts the other with a spell while he sends his illusion to its potential doom, as the one hound Verris shot tries to bite it.
Biting into the thing the hound is really confused why it isn't injured but doesn't relent. That is until Gurk jabs a blade in its side doing a good amount of damage but also drawing the beasts attention. Lexi explains what she recalls about these hell hounds, relating the most important details to her companions while Adistan advances trying to distract the hounds so the others can get back to a safer distance.
Before they have a chance to do so though the two hounds do just as Lexi warned opening their mouths to spew forth fire over the group. Luckily it only catches Gurk and Lexi and not the others.
Verris grits her teeth as the hounds breath fire over her companions, hoping they are not too badly hurt by the flames.
She fires again at the one she wounded earlier, hoping to drop it and make the fight a little easier for the group.
Gurk flattens to the ground as the flames lick along his back, thankfully dodging most of the flames. However, Gurk is unable to hit after the sudden movement. "Gurk want fire dogsie now," Gurk shouts, suddenly enraptured.
HP 28/28
AC 17, touch 12, flat-footed 15, CMD 18
Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +1 (+2 vs. emotion spells, effects)
Tactician (5 rounds): 1/2
Studied Target (+1 bonus on Bluff, Knowledge, Perception, Sense Motive, and Survival checks; weapon attack rolls and weapon damage rolls): green hound
Effects: Escape Route 2/5, naturalized (+1s)
Temmer moves past the others, trying to maneuver to get the dogs between them and brings his quarterstaff down in a hard blow on the nearest hell creature.
As Lexi tries to retreat, she finds Adistan inadvertently in her path. She steps to her left to avoid him, but at the same time he steps to his right. Lexi tries to go to her right, but Adistan steps to his left. The unplanned dance costs Lexi, as she's blasted by both hell hounds' fiery breath weapons! The girl tries to dodge and swoosh her cloak around a bit to ward off the flames...and for the most part it works (or she really is resistant to fire). Still, her hair and the edges of her cloak are fairly well singed, and her arms bear some scorch marks as well.
Stepping into the corner, she drops her crossbow, draws the healing wand, and gives herself a tap.
To Bixby she days, "Sometimes I hate always being right about stuff...."
Verris and Bixby put down the more injured of the two while Davor does significant damage to the other one, the cold seeming to do even more damage than usual. Adistan strikes out with a mighty blow and and finishes off the second of the hell hounds, just as Lexi heals some of her wounds.
Temmer seems almost surprised.
"That was easier than I expected, to be honest," he says, checking to make sure Lady Dusk and Master Gurk are OK. "We seem to be operating more efficiently."
Verris nods at Davor's words. "Erastil feels the same way. It'd be good if we could remove Hell's influence from this place with our gods' help."
Lexi's glare at Davor might've been more forceful if she'd still had eyebrows after the hell hound attack. "Fine!" she huffs. "I can admit it when I'm not 100% right."
If she's feeling any real anger at the situation, though, she gets over it fast: She's quick to help dismantle the siphon rift, partly, no doubt, so she'll have some idea how to reassemble it if that's ever a necessity.
While the longshank argue whether to destroy the evil word plates, Gurk busies himself with creating a few trophies from the ears of the dogsies. Bad dogsies. But they be breathing fire, so they be good? Now Gurk confused.
Temmer seems uncertain, but since others seem to want to go on, bows to the group's will.
The group spends some time traversing the maze but eventually finds and exit leading to the west. Following it you end up back where you started, the only options left going back to the south to the water room or back north and then east. Heading to the north east, the hall turns due north and Gurk finds a small room off the hallway.
This chamber is bare save for a statue depicting a regal looking woman wielding a ranseur,she stands in a battle ready pose, with the tip of the ranseur aimed at the northern entrance to the room.