Nik looks around, scratching his cheek.
"Anyone want a tap of my sparkle stick? Infernal Healing seems to work well enough at the bottom of the universe." he shrugs.
Feeling better after healing from Auntie, Conor nods his thanks in the dark.
I wonder if she'll take my wand as a 'gift' after this. Could clear the debt and avoid annoying arguments.
When no one replies 'yes', Nik shrugs and heads up to the next room.
Running out of her bag of tricks, Auntie draws her attuned long spear and follows.
A ray of dark energy strikes Nik in the neck as he goes to leave, he feels drained despite his protections.
"Where did that come from?" Helios startles, looking for the source of the beam.
Jek looks around frantically.
"What's happening?" Conor growls unless someone has some lights going.
Auntie holds up her hand and casts a simple light spell.
The beam was fired from the center of the room. Jek and Helios are unable to determine the source. They're unsure if its just a skill that they don't possess or if it is gone once the ray was shot.
Helios also sparks a Light and looks around the place he thinks the ray originated from. "It came from around here..."
Nik rubs his head, fighting off a sudden headache.
"Okay, I'm not going first anymore. Also, that really hurts. I need to figure out how to do that..."
next time the friendly fiend gives out protective magic unexpectedly, I should look into what it does...
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Rinika will try detecting some magic towards the center of the room.
Rinika detects a lingering aura towards the center and overwhelming auras on and in the walls of the sphere. The center are likely the remains of a magical trap, the overwhelming auras are probably the protections from the plane.
She is unable to determine what kind of magic specifically.
"Uhm...as far as I can tell, it was a trap, and I think it did what it was gonna do. I don't think there's anything else in here with us, let's just get going."
Ahead of you, rather above you, rises a spiral staircase made of stone. You feel the pull of gravity here, if you want to ascent the steps, you must do so in a conventional fashion.
On the first level a number of stark benches face windows that stare out into the vast hungry nothingness that is the Negative Energy Plane. Endless and eternal darkness stretches outwards.
When you ascend to the second level there is in addition to the benches and windows is a table covered with strange unfathomable papers that are completely black or filled with indecipherable series of wavy lines and odd symbols.
Everyone feels an alien presence from the third floor.
Nik walks over to the table with papers on top and stares down at them with an outstretched hand, hesitating about whether or not to touch them directly.
"Skall had something like this on his desk..." he mutters, not reminding anyone that Skall is the leader of the dustmen.
Turning to the team infiltrator and backing away slowly, Nik says "Hey Rinika, think these are trapped? We should probably take these if we can."
"I feel something... or someone... right there" Helios says, pointing at the third door.
Rinika searches the papers for any traps.
"They do look kinda familiar..."
If she doesn't find anything, she'll try spellcraft.
If that doesn't turn up anything either, she'll try Comprehend Languages.
After Rinika uses magic to translate the symbols she still can't really understand the papers. She's confident she could come close to pronouncing some of the writing, but they are very likely proper nouns since it still doesn't mean much to her. That's when she realizes that they're maps of the plane and would take some specialized knowledge to make use of them. However if someone had that knowledge the maps would very likely be very valuable.
"What the...THESE ARE SOOO VALUABLE."
Rinika slips the papers into her coat. "Uhm, these are worth keeping, but we should study them later. Not here."
Looking over towards the door she says, "Yeah, uhm, something there. Let's go say hi."
"Uh, yeah-" Nik replies while checking that his crossbow is still loaded.
"I'll say hi from the back..."
This room seems empty except for something that looks like a small black explosion, a concentration of energy about 5ft in diameter. Then the nimbus of black turns towards you, showing two grey, lifeless orbs that give the impression of eyes. Bolts of cold, hungry energy writhe outward like pseudopods or whips. You feel something within you drawn to this strange thing, like iron filings to a powerful lodestone.
"Uh hi?" Nik tries, even more sure than before that he'd prefer to be as far from that thing as possible, though not understanding why.
It just stares at Nik and the party. He's unsure if it can't hear, didn't understand him, or is unable to respond.
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Rinika touches one of its noodley appendages.
The creature seems to hesitate but relents and lets Rinika touch it.
Rinika gets jolted by negative energy, not unlike an inflict wounds spell cast on her.
Conor squints in the brief light at the thing.
"What's that? Oh, no don't touch... aw, ya touched it..."
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"Ooh! That's...That's tingly." Rinika withdraws her hand, but seeing that no harm was done, she shakes it off and then reaches out to the creature again to pet it.
Turning back to the group, she asks "Uhm...can I keep it?"
"No." Nik replies flatly and rather loudly.
"Anything up here besides not-Rinika's-pet?" he adds, looking around.
"Unless it wants to ride in Rinika's bag, I think we just leave it here and go."
Helios keeps looking at the "pet", expecting it to grab a member of the group and eat him alive at any moment. He cautiously follows Nik with an arrow nocked.
"Good boy, good boy..."
"Well I don't know... if you can have undead, she can have a... hmm.... her new friend. It's only fair. So what is it again?"
Rinika glares at Nik but brightens at Jek's remark. "I knew you were my favorite Jek!" Completely ignoring his further inquiry, she tries to coax the creature into following her.
"Ugh. Fine. Make friends with the orb-of-tingly-tentacles. Just don't let it give anyone hugs. We have no idea where it's been." Nik shakes his head and turns to go back downstairs.
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She giggles and twirls one of its tentacles and then fires back at Nik with more venom than he deserves, "Maybe someone's been keeping her trapped here and all she wants to do is get out and see the world!"
"I denna think this. . . craiture is trapped, but what is it? Strange. . . but if it isna attacking. . ."
"Yeah well, she is friendly enough, I s'pose..." Nik comments, not being aware of Rinika's (possible) parallels with the tentacled orb.
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You can't be certain but the be-tentacled orb of negative energy seems to be soothed by Rinika's antics and hesitantly follows her.
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Helios start marching with an eye kept on the darkball. "I'm telling you, guys, I ain't feedding it or cleaning its poop..."
Conor watches the thing for a bit.
"Huh."
Then shrugs it off, hardly the strangest thing this group had done.
After looking around the room for anything of value, Nik finally states "I don't think cuddles is the prisoner, so let's keep looking. Lead the way, Jek?"
Rinika spends her time coaxing the creature along with them.
"So I'm your new friend Rinika, and these are friends too. You should try not to touch them because you might accidentally hurt them."
"Lead? You've come to the right place. This is a maze, and I've never lost to a placemat... So all I need to do is pick a wall to follow and... hmmmmm... Let's just pick a door."
"Just as long as someone keeps the lights on." Conor growls, thoroughly uncomfortable between the floating and darkness and energy drain and relative uselessness in this dark place.