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As the team makes their way to the the Hall of Lies, you see Knur hurry past you, moving as well towards the Hall of Lies. Just ahead of the team, he reaches the green key-light, but seem to be chasing it in an odd slow motion. Once he gets there, he turns around, catching your eyes. Suddenly, his face contorts into a look of sheer horror as he drops the ball of light, frantically trying to stave off something that none of you can see. He screams in a blood-curdling cry, all color flushes from his face, and he collapses.
By the time you get there, you can tell he has died. The key-light winked out of existence as soon as his life passed.
The dwarf was affected by a heightened phantasmal killer!
The key-light should regenerate in an hour, if what you recall is true.
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Molly pulls out her Filter Mask and puts it on.
"Ahh! What just happened? Gas? Magic? Uhh, what do we do now?"
Sometimes I dislike that fact that I have no idea what anything is, even after all this time. But then I remember that's what a team is for. Someone will tell me what to do and I will be able to do it.
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As you enter into the Hall of Whispers, you enter a room filled with crates that are apparently filled with a fine loam. This would seem more odd if this wasn't the hall where necromancy is studied.
At this time, Drak notices two things. First, an erie violet glow is seeping out of the cracks of an earth-filled crate. Second, there is a faint sigil etched on the crate, apparently a magical trap. He does think that he can probably disable it, if he would like.
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Other than the hall of summoning, none of these buildings were immensely huge. As long as they didn't dally and debate too much, they should be able to take care of a few of them before one of his tricks expired. Chak pulls out a scroll and reads it.
"I can disable, remove, and deactivate the sigil, but can anyone get a read on that glow? It might not be a trap but it might be out to get me."
Once determined it is save to approach the glowing crate (or if safety cannot be determined), Chak will move in to disable the trap.
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1: Summoning
2: Seeing
3: Induction
4: Shaping
5: Charms
As you walk over to the Hall of Charms, you see Jandar Lilswin, who lets you know that Maganrad has already claimed the Hall of Charms's key-light, and that Illia has claimed the one in the Hall of Shaping.
This leaves the Halls of Summoning, Seeing, and Induction. If you wait an hour, all of the Halls except Whispers will have reset.
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When you finally wind your way through the building to this classroom, you notice a series of five reddish lights orbiting in the room. All of them look like the light that you are trying to recover.
As Chak gets close to the first one, he realizes that at least this one has some sort of magical trap on it.
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As Molly fiddles with the items on her bandolier she pulls out a injection needle filled with a glowing black liquid. She gets up and brings it to Emberwik and Huritt while Chak and Balik deal with the trap and key-lights.
“So since we’ve already come across spells that instantly kill you I’d like you to know what this is and what it does. This Cardioamp will bring someone back from the dead and it can do so when magic would normally fail. If I go down you can use it on me. If a bunch of us go down, I’ll leave it up to you who to pick up so the mission can continue.”
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Chak first finds a way to sever the magical connections on the next light... which does not wink out. He then makes his way around the room, leaving the key-light bobbing there. Unfortunately, he fails to disarm the fourth one, but he realizes it in time, and can try again. He realizes that he is good enough to not set it off, so disables all of the traps.
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"Never confuse competence with luck, lad. We're lucky bucks who hae good companions. Plus, my royality's given ye m'blessin'. Canna go wrong wit' blessin' AND good folk." He smiles benevolently, but then his face darkens. "Unless they're orphans. Canna trust orphans, laddie; THEY DONNA HAE PARENTS. WHAT HAPPEN'D TO THEIR PARENTS?!?" He shakes his head. "Disgraceful."
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As Molly walks she takes off Bubbles and lets him float by her side while she adjusts her hair.
“Well, while my parents aren’t dead, I’ve been orphaned from my tribe until I can prove myself. I know that they would take me back at this point but I want to do something truly incredible first. While this has been ‘easy’, this isn’t even the real trial yet. This is just getting in the door. I am hoping for a challenge from these mages once we enter the hall. Also, that dude died screaming back there. Let’s not discount that.”
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"To give you enough of an idea of how failure is not accepted, there is a test students at the University of Pangolais must take. The test requires the student to place what is effectively a flute into their teacher's throat with incision tools."
"If done correctly, the flute plays music when the teacher breaths. If done improperly, the teacher dies from drowning in their own blood. Students who fail are then given to the shadows and have their souls removed. A punishment to both the student and teacher who have failed, and witnessed by the entire university."
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Molly winces and rubs her hands together nervously.
“That sounds like a terrible music class. And to enact such a punishment on those that are still learning is, well, something I cannot agree with. Kurgess teaches that defeat is as important as victory, even more so since you now have a goal to overcome. And to have your soul consumed by shadows? I can’t imagine myself signing up to do that. I will beg your pardon if this question offends you, but do you like living in Nidal?”
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minutes
After five minutes of searching the Hall, you find the room.
The air in this room smells acrid, making the eyes water—the source is a large brazier of burning incense in the corner and a curious set of glass pipes connecting two vats of bubbling liquid (one green, one red). The key-light in this room is traveling back and forth inside of the glass tube—although the light itself is yellow in color, it appears variously green or red as it swims through the fluid, looking yellow in the middle. The glass and fluid apparatus is partially alchemical and partially an evocation-infused magical item, and in order to get the key-light, the glass tube must be shattered.
As you approach, Chak notices that the device is obviously trapped! It will explode in a shower of elemental damage unless he disarms the trap. He is quickly able to disarm the magical trap, and the breaks open the apparatus, freeing the key-light!