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Helios walks out of the room calmly.
"The cheese they make at my home town smells way worse than this."
Nik gives Helios a sidelong glance.
"Well, anyway, shall we see what's in the next room? And maybe not break it this time?"
Lunk nods and points in the general direction implicated by Nik, as if to say, ‘yeah, let’s go that way.’ He starts walking in that implicated direction.
"Maybe with the next horrible thing we see, let's not stick body parts in it or destroy it willy nilly, ya?" Conor grumbles as the group continues on.
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Rinika glowers and mumbles, "It was an accident."
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Even before you notice this room's contents, you sense something immediately disturbing, there's an evil aura about this place. Long stone tables occupy the center of the chamber, stained with dark dribbles of something foul. Shelves along the walls hold all manner of jars, bottles, and flasks, some filled with liquids and syrups of nauseating colors and consistencies. Here and there, the line of containers is interrupted by a large dusty tome. Lastly, a long, low table near the back displays a number of silvery metallic tools and instruments with purposes that seem better left unknown.
But know them Nik does. He recognizes a lot of the instruments for use in preparing bodies for reanimation. The books detail anatomy of various races and creatures but skew from a necromatic point of view; detailed procedures for preparing corpses, mummification, and animation.
Two doors lead into separate storerooms. One contains more chemicals and strange ingredients in small casks, pouches, and glass flask. The other has a few large glass containers filled with a clear liquid in which float various human and humanoid body parts, arms, hands, legs, and even heads.
Nik's eyes light up when he sees some of the tools. "Oh hey, I'm definitely keeping these. Oh, and those. Oooh- and that." he says as he pillages the room as quickly as he can.
Rinika floats around the room, sullenly flipping through the times. She looks for any information that might exist about her condition, although she's assuming the library doesn't have any since Glyphimwhore seemed stumped.
Savi makes her aura glow red, glowing faintly if the aura is faint and strongly if the aura is strong. (Red dancing lights and a ghost sound alarm kick in if overwhelming.)
Conor's eyes light up a bit, "Oh? This stuff worth some jink?"
Rinika has a hard time understanding the arcane formula in some of the tomes. If there's something here she'll need someone better versed in necromancy.
Surgeon's tools, you can take the lab it will just take an hour or so to pack up. The golem materials weigh a mere 500lbs.
"The flesh golem parts are definitely worth more than a few merts." Nik replies offhandedly.
After gathering up the surgical tools, Nik takes a closer look at the tomes, and notices Rinika leafing through one.
"Want a hand?" he asks as he looks over her shoulder.
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Staying in this place for DAYS sounds like staying in the Box to Rinika, and she hates that idea. But she also know that she's survived it before, and she can do it again, and this might be one of the only places she'll be able to get to the bottom of things.
So let's do it.
Rinika growls and fixes the group with a grim look, then says with more determination than most of you have ever heard out of her, "I'm going to need to stay here for a while and do some research. This place may help me figure out what..hrrrng" She strains for a few moments and a jittering and almost struggling spot moves to her hand, and she slips off her glove to show it. "What this is and how I got it."
"Research? Here?" Nik asks, confused.
"That is a hand. Now help pack so we can ditch this place?"
Savi says to Rinika in a very serious tone, “I think I speak for both Lunk and myself when I say, we just met. But we have nothing better to do and if I hang out with you, I get to break stuff.
“We’ll stick with you.”
And there’s one of my kind here. Not like she’s gonna up and runnoft.
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Jek follows Nik around casually packing away valuables as Nik points them out.
At the prospect of a payoff from all this junk, Conor happily lends a hand getting everything packed up.
Sometime in the midst of the looting, he looks around and asks. "Uh, did we ever figure out why we even came here?"
"Prisoner- oh shoot. Think he might be hiding behind some of this loot? We should definitely grab everything, just in case..."
Helios helps packing, if only to make it faster.
As Nik tries to shove things into his bag he finds its a completely normal bag. It appears to not have access to the plane where the items are stored. You'll have to carry everything.
Helios bumps one of the tables and with a grinding noise a corridor opens in the floor.
Red velvet carpeting covers the floor in this circular room ahead of you. A large throne built of skulls of all different kinds of creatures dominates the chamber. Floating nest to it is a chessboard. The pieces arranged in mid-game. A small pool of still water lies before the throne while behind it sits a large potted plant. Two iron doors suggest exits on the other side of the room.
One side of the chess pieces is composed of tanar'ric and undead figures, the king is noticeably missing. The other is made up of mortals, humans, elves, dwarves, etc.
The pool is clearly a scrying device, you see the prison cell which used to hold your suicidal vampire.
Both of the iron doors have a human skull set into the center. Opening the jaw reveals a keyhole .
Atop the throne is a single black diamond is set into a cyclopean humanoid skull.
Conor looks around the secret room.
"Huh, looks like map." Conor says as he lifts a parchment and holds it towards a smarter member of the group to make heads or tails out of.
"Map?" Nik says, taking a closer look.
Nik frowns in concentration as he stares at the parchment.
Nik scratches his head when contemplating Bal-Tiref, nothing comes to mind. Nephythys is easier, she's the Egyptian god of wealth and the dead. She was Set's wife, but after he murdered Osiris she left him and set up kip within her realm of Amun-thys, on the third layer of Arborea, Pelion.
"You know, I've heard of Nephthys. Egyptian godess of wealth and the dead. I wonder if we can get there from Set's realm? Though I bet those guys don't talk anymore, so maybe we should try to find a different way there..." Nik rambles on, still not yet trying to get through the two unexplored doors in search of more loot.
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Rinika puts the chess pieces in various pockets and then tries to find a spot to stash the board.
Nudging Rinika Conor points to the black diamond on the throne, "Think we can pry that thing off?"
Snapped out of his pedantic rambling by the promise of more treasure, Nik looks at the gem.
"Probably. That reminds me, I should probably look around for magic. Hey, where'd the chess pieces go? They might be magic too..." Nik says before (almost immediately) giving up on finding the toys and focusing on the black gem, scrying bowl, chair, and probably-a-BBEG-pretending-to-be-a-house-plant.
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Nik even in his drained state is able to discern that the gem is a gem of seeing. The pool works as a crystal ball but if its moved the enchantment will stop functioning, Nik also can't seem to get it to change the view.
Savi wants to joke that the horsey chess piece would make a worthy steed, but as she contemplates how to airlift it in a way that looks like riding, Rinika pockets all four of them.
So, she flies around looking for more evil things. She’s still holding Bobby Pin, but reminds herself, Just because something is evil, doesn’t mean you immediately smash it.
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Other than a residual evil, from a previously evil thing, Savi sees no evil.
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Helios is stunned by the velocity at which things disappear in the room. "You guys do this a loot? I mean a lot?"
Conor grunts at the question, "Gotta get paid for this nonsense, might as well get some extra.". Then, moving in closer and with a conspiratorial wink, "This lot keeps lucking into all kinds of loot, why do you think I keep following them around? Though, they do find a good bit of trouble as well, stories I've heard."
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Rinika cocks her head and looks at Helios curiously as she coaxes Nansi out again. "If anyone actually wanted to keep this stuff, they wouldn't just leave it laying around, would they?"
Then she'll cast guidance on herself and get to work on the left hand door.
Getting to work Rinika and Nansi easily bypass the first locked door. Rinika's impulse to find money is deadened for some reason but her instincts are still good. You found a treasure vault.
Within are four 5ft tall stone urns, a medium sized chest, and a large sword mounted on the far wall. The sword looks rusted from neglect but could still be serviceable.
If no one objects, Lunk will take the sword and place it before himself. In seiza position, he will play his ocarina.
He will play for ten minutes straight. Enjoy!
Savi explains, “He really likes to play music over broken things. Especially clay pots.”
Nik just watches for a few moments before remembering that he should be checking everything for magical auras.
After checking everything out he remembers the Gem of Seeing. "What if..." Nik tries to use it to look for the missing king piece, starting with the chessboard.
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Savi can figure out why Nik’s looking at the chessboard. “I don’t know where the king is, but I know where he isn’t.”
Savi flies over to the throne and sits in the middle of the cushion. “I rule.”
The sword does not mend. When Lunk touches the weapon, it feels wrong and he feels weaker holding it.
Nik detects magic on the sword and in the chest. He doesn't find the king when looking through the gem.
"Well, the sword looks bad, but it's magic so we should take it. Maybe I should try Mending it after we get out of here. Anything interesting in the urns?"
"Hey Nik, anything else we should check?" Helios could check for magic himself, but Nik seems to be a better expert .