**Poof!**
The tripedal fungus is blinded by Jaya's spell! ...However, going by how it is looking in your general direction, it seems that the eyeless monster's senses do not entirely rely on sight. Regardless, it is now highly visible!
Not a second later, Dolland swiftly mixes together some chemicals and then hurls the concoction at the creature! With surprising precision, he easily hits the monster with his explosive, causing it to real back in pain. True to his word, none of you are harmed by the blast.
"...Why didn't we just have Dolland bomb this thing into oblivion?" Lullaby wonders aloud.
Cai’nan begins working a spell, preparing to summon in something on the far side of this thing.
Kallie's whip flashes out with a crack.
Croq steps forward and delivers a heavy blow to the monster!
The monster tries to bite Croq, but its reflexes are clearly dulled by hunger, so she easily dodges!
Another heavy blow from Croq swiftly drops the monster.
With the creature defeated, the entire area goes still and silent.
"Perhaps we should search the room?" says Galatea as she heals Aurealia. "Going by past experience, I feel like something might be in here..."
Aurealia nods and gives the room a decently thorough search.
As she searches the corner of the room, Aurealia appears to trip over something invisible!
Aurealia reaches down to feel for whatever she tripped over. "There is something invisible here..."
Gali approaches and also examines their discovery.
"It feels like an invisible treasure chest!" Galatea realizes. She casts Detect Magic and pouts cutely, "Looks like it's also warded from magical detection..."
Croq wipes invisible spores off of Drumstick and then scratches her head. "Hmmmmmm. If it's an invisible treasure chest, shouldn't we be able to see what's inside of it?"
She nudges it experimentally to see if it feels empty.
Cai’nan cancels the summoning he was preparing as he sees Croquelle handily deal with the thing. He then follows the others inside. When the invisible chest is discovered, he says ”Well...can we, ummmm. Can we make it not-invisible somehow?”
"I've got an idea," Kallie says as she trots up to the invisible chest.
She fishes around in her pack until she finds a bottle of ink. She then kneels down next to the chest and pours a small amount of the ink on it. If it seems to work, she'll smear the ink around to give a decent outline of the chest.
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"Looks like we'll need a key of some kind," observed Galatea as the ink revealed a keyhole. "Thankfully, I learned how to kick open coffers by reading The Gallant Garland: The Temple of Doom!"
...Against all logic, Galatea somehow kicks open the coffer!
Cai’nan whistles appreciatively as he kneels down by the contents within this invisible chest. ”That’s quite the haul. Not to mention whatever is on the scrolls or what the rod can do.”
When the group has gathered up the valuables, he leads the way back down into the lower levels.
Aurealia picks up the rod an examines it under detect magic.
"I can prepare read magic tomorrow to look over those scrolls."
"Oh!" Croq says, "I may not do as much reading as you do, sis, but I'm happy to give the scrolls a look."
Croq sings a very metal version of READ MAGICK! as she skims the first few lines of each scroll.
As Croq does her strange...thing...Cai’nan leads the way back to the vault. Once there, he sits down with the map, which they had been assured by the ghost held the key, and began trying to figure the riddle out...
On the way into the vault, Cai'nan accidentally sets off another dart trap... which just bounces off his heavy armor again. Because of that, you all decided to deal with Sharlise. As Dolland said, the strange ghost doesn't prove to be much of a threat by herself; even if she had joined one of the attacks against you, Sharlise would have struggled to do any meaningful damage. A few good swings of Drumstick neutralize her for the time being.
Upon getting to the vault itself, Jaya, Aurealia, and Kallie quickly recognize the seven symbols serving as the combination lock: each emblem represents one of the seven schools of Thassilonian magic. Dolland takes one look at it and sighs heavily; as he said earlier, it would seem that he has going through each combination one by one for the last several weeks! However, while he has minimal experience with Thassilon, by checking Sir Roderic's map, Cai'nan quickly spots a particular combination of these symbols carefully hidden among the other details...
Cai'nan, using the map, holds it up to the lock and thinks hard. With his tongue out to the side as he concentrates, he works the symbols as the map suggests...
As Cai'nan works the symbols, Croq provides a dramatic drumroll...
Having no context for why Cai'nan is staring at a fancy map, Dolland scoffs when he tries to open the vault.
"I've been at this for a month, young man!" says the alchemist. "You think you can just-"
The door promptly opens. A long moment of silence. Your captive remains frozen in place as if hit by a Hold Person spell.
"...I think you just broke Dolland," observes Lullaby as she pokes her old coworker. It appears the the ginger dwarf's brain has functionally shutdown. With a shrug, the woman wearing the fancy hat takes a look into the newly opened storage room...
The inside of the vault is constructed from white walls composed of smooth marble. Gently glowing runes are carved into the ceiling and the floor of the inner chamber. You all quickly see the fine, redwood case where Baraket was once stored and an iron chest. The entire area is covered in a layer of fine ash.
"Pretty," Kallie observes.
Cai’nan steps cautiously inside after giving the room a look over. He kneels down beside the iron chest, studying it carefully.
The chest survived the apparent explosion surprisingly unscathed. It is unlocked and free of traps. For anyone who checks, the chest does not detect as magical. After opening it, Cai'nan discovered a pair of fancy metal gauntlets inside!
”Well...I guess these are the gauntlets we were after. Anybody see anything else of value here before we go?” he asks as he stands, handing the gauntlets to Kallie to look at.
Kallie casts detect magic and views the gauntlets with her enhanced sight.
Before Kallie makes her effort to identify the gauntlets, Galatea offers her niece some Guidance.
Together, Eugeni's disciples and Gali are just able to determine that these are a set of Runewarded Gauntlets!
”Huh...neat. Guess it’ll come in handy if we actually find this sword,” Cai’nan says. ”But first...let’s finish dealing with the goblins. Krodha! Heel!”
Then, Cai’nan and Krodha lead the way on further into the underground warren...
When they reach the first teleportation circle, he turns to Dolland and Lullaby and asks ”So...either of you know where these end up?”
"I recall Mother Nightthrush mentioning that it goes to some small square room," answers Lullaby, who has gone back to poking her seemingly time frozen associate. "There's this glowing wall in the middle, though. Also, in the square room, I remember her saying that you can touch the runes on the wall to get back."
"Neat!" Kallie says excitedly. "Who wants to go first?"
Cai’nan and Krodha go first. However, any efforts to follow them suddenly fail! The teleportation circle seems to go inert after the druidic duo use it...
Cai’nan and Krodha shake their heads as they reappear, bracing themselves as if dizzy. Cai’nan has a wand in his hand that he didn’t have before.
”There’s, like, a magic wall on the other side. I think Croquelle could likely break it down easy though.”
He hands the wand to Jaya for her to examine.
The teleportation circle starts glowing again after the two return.
Jaya scowls at the gauntlets once their use is uncovered. "They'll prove useful to be certain if we find the blade, but the interfering auras of their abjurations, not to mention their sheer bulk, is certainly unfortunate. It almost makes me wish we had a less magically gifted coterie."
"What sort of magical wall?"
Croquelle tosses the rod to Jaya and Kallie. "You have any idea what this does? It looks cool."
When Cai'nan comes back, Croq replies, "I'm always happy to smash things. What else did you see? Was it as simple as touching the runes on the wall to come back?
"Also...what's it like to TELEPORT!?!? I've always wondered. Do you feel all tingley?"
Aurealia turns to her sister. "Let's go Croq that magic wall."
Before going through the teleportation circle. Aurealia focuses intensely and casts a spell. Her lithe form twists and grows into a much larger fur covered humanoid. After her transmutation is complete, she flexes her new giant muscles and hefts her spear, heading through the portal.
Lullaby inspects the wand, "You know, I recall Mother Nightthrush mentioning that the goblin snake was carrying around some wand. She - the goblin snake is female - supposedly had a strange habit of appearing out of thin air."
The Andosana Sisters are able to destroy the wall in a few solid blows. Aurealia gets the impression that it was much stronger at one point. However, thousands of years have caused the magic to greatly weaken. Thankfully, the teleportation system seems to still be intact.
Aurealia returns to tell the others that the wall is down, and that they should follow in pairs. Then she passes back through the circle and into the other side of the teleportation system.
Cai’nan sends the bandits through next, then leads Krodha through and takes a defensive position on the far side.
Not much long after the entire group gets to the other side, they find themselves facing down a small army of goblins!
"It's the longshanks!"
"Crumble," Dolland growls at the most formidable of the bunch. "Your chief and Nighteye weren't much help against these Black Arrows!"
"SSSSilence, traitor!" hisses the goblin snake Lullaby has frequently mentioned.
Clearly, the goblins seem to think that they were betrayed by the Roadkeepers!
Rolling her eyes at Dolland's obvious lies, Lullaby starts singing an inspiring tune!
"For the Roadkeepers!" shout both of the bard's men.
One manages to nearly strike down a goblin, but the other's attack is easily dodge.
Perhaps seeing her as the most dangerous of the bunch, goblin snake (literally) fires a spell at Croq!
Aurealia feels inspired by Lullaby's pleasant song. Wow, so much less angry than Croq. She slips past her sister and attempts to finish off the goblin in the doorway.
Cai’nan weaves a spell, almost reflexively, and bolsters Krodha’s natural toughness!
__________
Krodha then rushes forward with a snarl, snapping at the nearest goblin as he rounds the corner!
Kallie moves up to the fight, putting herself in her whip's reach of the goblin snake.
She casts touch of idiocy and delivers the spell through her heirloom.
"Nice jam!" Croq nods to Lullaby, approvingly, "But it could use some drums!!"
She begins to beat along, adding her own Raging Song to the mix. As she does, spirit-fragments of the Roderick Clan again start to buzz around anyone who lets the song roll through them.