Victor continues assailing the creature between himself and Lillian, slashing his blade across it’s chest.
Sif runs around behind Liloria, hoping to stab anything that approaches her using her superior reach.
Lil moves up to the next book to attack.
Septis finishes his spell as a devilish looking eagle appears on the other side of the book from Lil and lashes out at the book-monster.
The group wastes almost no time in finishing the book monsters. Even is Lillian misses with her attack, Victor does not and slashes the poor creatures almost in two. Liloria slashes the other one into ribbons.
Septis's eagle appears soon after, but there is no enemy for it to attack.
With the creatures dealt with, you return to the other survivors, following the direction of the screams from before and find them in the artifact storage. Lord Wilfen Botoles, Lady Gael Urbaen and the priest Jowuan Zubari are unconscious in the ground, while Sir Gryphus Plastion and the servant Imistos are around them, their hair straight up in a somewhat comical way, worried.
"The room was trapped!" the halfling says as he notices you coming back. "It was my fault... I... I was trying to take a better look, with my fingers... but then the whole floor shocked us!"
Sir Plastion knees besides Lady Gael, giving her face small slaps in order to wake her. "You little thief... I know what you as doing! Your kind doesn't trick me at all!"
Lady Malphene, also appearing to have been shocked, rests near a wall, breathing with some difficulty, but apparently fine.
Septis rubs his forehead and lets out a long sigh as they come upon the scene and the halfling explains what happened. He shakes his head a moment and then looks to the others "We should probably heal them up to make sure they are ok...." He turns to look at the halfling and sternly notes "Do not touch anything else while we are down here!"
Victor steps over and kneels down to check on the halfling. ”He’s right,” Victor begrudgingly agrees, but his tone is far softer and sympathetic. ”Don’t assume we’ve managed to find every trap. Play it safe and make sure we all see ourselves out of here in one, not so burned up piece,” he adds with a wry smile.
Sif rolls her eyes, watching the others tend to the survivors.
The halfling nods, probably already have reached the same conclusion by himself. "I'll behave, I'll behave..."
As Victor approaches the halfling and the others, he notices none of them appear to be harmed in the way one would expect after receiving a powerful electrical discharge. It appears the shock was only strong enough to knock some of them down, but they will probably recover on their own with no lasting injuries.
With that matter in hand, you return to finish explore the rest of the eastern wing, crossing the two libraries and opening the door to the south, revealing cold metal lockers lining the open spaces of this room. Desiccated papers protrude from the few open units, while the rest of the lockers remain tightly shut. Thick metal bolts connect additional lockers to the walls here. Some of the lockers reach up to the ceiling about twenty feet above, and there is another door on the western wall.
In the center of the room, a tiny winged mechanical sphere of bronze and copper, with one single eye in the center, and two small arms with clawed hands, floats gracefully as if inspecting the place. As soon as you enter, it turns to you and asks with a metallic voice. "Greetings. I'm Factor 12, the designated curator of these archives. Are you here to make a withdraw, or to investigate a requested item in the attached reading room?"
Finally!
"Hello, Factor 12. First, could you please explain what this place is?"
"And where exactly is here? These archives, where exactly in Taldor are we?"
In some sort of a robotic way, Factor 12 answers. "These are the Archives, which are located beneath the Senate Building in Oppara. The room were are speaking now is the 'Rare Artifacts' room, which I'm in charge, and the adjoining room is a reading room. The two previous rooms are the 'Historical Archives' and the 'Book Archives'."
He then repeats his first question. "Are you here to make a withdraw, or to investigate a requested item in the attached reading room?"
"We seemed to have gotten turned around. Do you know a way back to the senate building from here?"
After it answers Sif, Lillian asks "Thank you Factor 12, we are here to make a withdraw."
Without changing his metallic voice tone, the creature answers to Sif. "Apologies. I do not have this answer. I was not instructed to keep any kind of information not essential to the archives."
When Lillian states she wants to make a withdraw, the creature flies towards her. "For a withdraw, I'll need to know your complete name, including your family name, as well the purpose of the withdraw and the date you intend to return the item to the archives."
He then hovers to a nearby display case, which includes a beautiful battleaxe of apparently dwarven craftmanship. "We currently have four artifacts in the archives, all of them magical. The first is a battleaxe recovered from the battlefield of the Battle of Uth in 500 AR, its owner unknown." It then hovers to a beautiful breastplate with the Taldoran insignia in with an antique look. "The second is a breastplate bearing the style of the Third Army of Exploration, its user a captain of Taldor, either being Sir Algos or Sir Bartolo Aligno, twins."
It proceeds to hover over a pair of greenish boots with an obvious elvish style, as well as a wand made of greenwood. "The third and fourth are a pair of boots and a wand of healing properties pertaining to Fillonara Irmalinith, an elven guide who volunteered herself to guide Taldor's glorious Second Army of Exploration."
Turning to you again, Factor 12 continues. "Only one item may be withdrawn from the Archives. It used to be two, but I was forced to crack down after recent thefts."
Aside from the mentioned itens, Lillian also notices a key on the floor. Septis can confirm that all the four items indeed possess magical auras, all of faint power.
"Thank you Factor 12, one moment please."
Lillian turns back to her group and Septis explains what all of the items are. She whispers "We definitely are taking on, the question is which helps us the most? Thoughts?"
Sif thinks for a moment. "I think the wand and boots would be most helpful to us as a group. We can use a healing wand to keep us all alive, and whatever the boots do, one of us can wear them."
"I agree, I was leaning towards the wand as well." she responds to Sif before turning to the Septis and Victor. "Any problems with that, boys?"
Assuming not, she will ask Factor 12 for the 12 for the wand, providing the information he asks for.
”Not to sound...brash...but what good are any of these doing just sitting down here? This place has long been forgotten, clearly. Shouldn’t we retrieve them all and put them to use? Even if this thing protests?” he whispers to LIllian.
"Maybe since I am giving my name, each of you can check out a single item as well?"
"That thing doesn't look tooo dangerous...I kind of like Vickie's way of thinking."
Septis takes a moment to examine the items in depth before noting "The breastplate has added magical protection while the wand can remove disease. The axe and boots have a similar aura to the armor but I'm not sure of their specific use."
As the others propose robbing the thing Septis shrugs "We could try but I know nothing about that thing, so we would be wlaking into a fight blind."
After a moment he turns back to Factor 12 and asks "You mentioned there had been some thefts? How recently was that, who stole from you and what did they steal? Did you not try to stop the theft and if you did, why did it not work?"
Factor 12 turns to Septis to answer him. "I do not know how many days have passed since the thefts, since I was not instructed to keep the information of the passing days. The thief was an unusually big rat with unusual intelligence, even capable of speech. It took from the Archives two itens: The first was a wand made of the wood from an oak hit by a lightning, given to Taldor by the druids of the Verduran Forest, capable to discharging electrical energy. The second was a jeweled ring pertaining to Princess Cassiana Urios, with protective enchantments."
"As the curator of the Archives, I tried to stop the thief by fighting it, as I was instructed. The creature was capable to casting spells, but those were not enough to destroy me, so the creature resorted to his natural fang attacks. Despite being harmed by his spells, I was able to repair myself while fighting the thief and soon the creature reached the conclusion it would not be able to defeat me, so if fled. I pursued the thief until it escaped the Archives, which is as far as I'm able to wander, as I was instructed." He finishes his report. If he holds anger against the creature or shame about being stolen, his metallic voice does not show it.
Septis listens and nods as the thing explains what has happened. Self-repair doesn't sound like a great thing to fight. Though after the story he has an idea "Perhaps we could be of assistance then. You said you could only lend one item at a time, what if you lend one to each of us, this would still be within the rules you outlined and in return we could try and locate these objects that were stolen?"
Factor 12 appears to think for a while before coming with an answer. "Are the four of you members of the same organization? If that is the case, I must insist that only one item per group is allowed. On the other hand, if you only know each other, but belong to different groups or organizations, I could indeed allow each of you to withdraw one item each."
”I am a soldier in service to House Karthis,” Victor said truthfully.
Bastard son...but still just a soldier...
Lillian turns and snaps at the others as she declares, "I was first in line and the rest of you can wait your own damn turn!"
Turning back to Factor 12, she says "I am Lillian Darahan. I am not in any organization with these other greedy creatures who are trying to take the item I wish. Please, I'd like to withdraw the wand."
Sif just laughs as everyone starts scrambling over the treasure like children over candy. She steps to the side of the room and watches to see how things work out.
Septis smiles as everyone covers, even if they were working together for now, they all were indeed from very different circles, which hopefully helped to sell the lie. "Well as you can see, we are all indeed from very different groups. We just found ourselves down in this place after a fight in the senate above and are trying to find our way out, but we can help find this thief as we work toward that goal."
A little bit of truth always helps to sell a lie... he thinks to himself.
”Uh...ya?”
After a couple seconds of tension, a small plate slides from Factor 12's side and from within it retrieves a short sword apparently made of bronze. "I sense lies in your words. More thieves you are."
_________________________________________
Round 1: Lillian > Septis > Factor 12 > Sif > Victor > Liloria
"Awww, come on! You guys are terrible liars! she protests, "I had this!"
She slides slashes at Factor-12 twice.
Victor narrows his eyes at Septis' inability to speak even half-truths. Some "Senator."
He quickly moves to flank with Lillian and slashes at the thing.
Septis moves back out of the room to give the others some space as he begins casting one of his summoning spells which the others should be pretty familiar with by now.
Lillian is quick to react and soon is on top of the arbiter, delivering two precise strikes with her daggers. As Septis starts to conjure some creature, Factor 12 turns to Lillian and tries to slash her in retribution, but her armor protects her from the small blade.
It is possible to notice small sparks coming from inside the creature and it appears it is already repairing himself! Victor, however, moves around and delivers a potent slash which downs Factor 12... but the sounds and sparks from within it are still working to bring it back to functionality...
Sif walks over and repeatedly smashes the machine with her spear to keep it from reforming.
"Quick, you bunch of land pirates, grab your loot and lets get out of here!"
Captain Daggerbeard snatches up what she can and quickly leaves the room. "We should bar or barricade this door in some way to prevent it from coming after us. Hey strong men, can you move one of these shelves to block it"
Sif scoffs, "I'll show em how it's done!"
As Sif continues to smash the thing Septis goes to look in the 'reading' room to see if there is anything of value there.
Septis opens the door into the reading room and finds that only a circular wooden table and several chairs are arranged in the center of the room. The rest of the room is bare of distractions and utterly silent.
The rest of the group are able to grab all the magical itens as well as the forgotten key before they leave the room and Sif pushes a heavy shelve to block the passage and probably trapping Factor 12 inside for all eternity, with no one to talk and no item to guard, gathering dust as if it was itself a lost relic from the past.
On their way to return to the other survivors, Septis takes the opportunity to grab the still intact scroll case which he detected to still bear magic auras.
Back to the long corridor, you once more ask the others to stay behind while you move along to the next rooms, but as you approach the next set of doors, all but Sif (who was on the rear of the group) start to feel somewhat confused... looking at the walls, you notice a couple circles drawn in a way that the corridor appears to be endless!
Starting to feel confused, Lillian shrugs it off and looks around at all of the circles. "What's the deal with circles."
Septis feels the effects of something but rubs his head a moment and whatever it is seems to abate. He quickly starts to look for any source of magic which may be causing the effect.
Whatever is happening Lil stares at the circles in the corridor in starts babbling incoherently, then suddenly smacks herself in the face with her clawed hand before going back to babbling once again.
Victor looks down the corridor and shakes his head. ”This...this is odd...” before his eyes glaze over and he takes a slash at Septis with his blade! He then looks to the others and babbles ”Pasta penguin flies south on sliced wombat potatoes soap.”
Sif stops and backs up. "You guys must have triggered a magical trap. You gonna snap out of it, Vickie?"
While unaffected for now, Lillian and Septis imagine that the circles are indeed disturbing and it might be a matter of seconds before they also loose it! Septis finds no magic on the walls, but Lillian notices the circles were made with chalk and imagines it might be simple to erase some of them.
Septis looks away as he notes "I think it is something to do with the circles, but there isn't any magic. Just don't look at them."
Lillian goes to work trying to scrub out the circles, but not only does she fail she falls under their spell. She turns to Lil and sees the foe for the trouble that she is and buries her black into her back.
[dice=Sneak attack[/dice]
After identifying the work is not magic, Septis move away while Lillian tries to erase the markings and unfortunately can't do it, also failing to resist the weird effect. Thinking that if only erasing the circles will do the trick, Sif reaches a conclusion she can do it and quickly erase them.
Lillian, Liloria and Victor soon will be free from the effect.
As the others recover, Sif opens the last door to the south. Intricate banners hang motionless against a wooden pillar in the center of this room. Wooden racks line the south and west walls, each bearing up a unique banner of its own. Two additional banner racks lie on the floor in the northeastern corner of the room, their flags pulled away and inked with dozens of circles.
With the others recovered, Sif leads the group along the western part of the corridor, which also turns south into another door. The wooden walls along the northern section of this room give way to natural stone. From the narrow entry alcove, the room expands into a vast area filled with rampant green vegetation. Thick briars and vines cover the eastern and western walls. To the west, the vegetation overruns several neatly arranged sets of patio furniture. Further south, past the morass of vegetation, a stone building looms, the top of it emblazoned with a brass-winged eye.
Most of the plants are of hard species, like blackberries (full of fruits), kudzu, and mosses. From the ceiling, several braziers lit with flames (probably magical) hang. On a nearby worktable, you notice some vials .
After stabbing Lil in the back, Lillian is unable to do anything but babble nonsensical words before turning back to Lil and trying to stab her again, missing this time.