Ichio rushes into the room, brazenly taking up a spot that will set him up to flank his opponents later.
The card players are just getting to their feet, one of them still looking down at the hand she's holding in chagrin as the Pathfinders charge into the room. Her day only gets worse as she gets a face full of alchemical frost and very nearly goes down from the pain.
It is enough to leave her unsteady on her feet.
The man sitting next to her takes some of the blast, as well.
The wolf, in one of the cells, however, is on its feet and ready to pounce, though Castinus will beat it to the punch.
Castinus
Wolf
Izlin
Crowe
Kal'Ryon
Ichio
Aspis Rummy Circle Red -15HP, Blue -9HP
Diazepane
Castinus' blade slides easily between the woman's ribs, though her chest and out the other side. Her eyes widen for an instant then close forever and she slides bonelessly to the floor.
The wolf in the cell rushes the investigating swashbuckling occultist in return, snarling in defense of it's masters.
He misses terribly, though.
Castinus
Wolf
Izlin
Crowe
Kal'Ryon
Ichio
Aspis Victims Red - Dead(No Redemption), Blue -9HP
Diazepane
Crowe swings for the foe before him.
"Yes! Yes! Get them! Kill them! Make them bleed! Make them suffer!" Teenoch hops forward to watch the battle with undisguised glee. While her words may be disturbing what is more unsettling is that you've never seen a toad smile, let alone with obvious bloodthirst.
Kal'Ryon demonstrates to the wolf what true savagery is, shredding the creature with his claws. The canine goes down with a shocked whelp.
Icio applies beak and blades to the blue garbed agent to impressive effect, cutting him down before he can even draw his blade.
Izlin cocks his arm and readies to fling at the wolf but it falls before he can release. He shifts his attention to the blue garbed agent but Ichio has dealt with him. Finally, he spots green still standing...and alters that fact, dramatically.
"Hello? Is someone out there?" a voice calls from the last cell.
A slender, shabby man who is obviously malnourished and has just as obviously been mistreated is locked up in the last cell.
"Oh thank the gods! I'm a Pathfinder, too! My name's Besnik. I was sent here days ago to scout out the temple but I was captured. They've kept me locked in here questioning me, ever since," the man says, standing pressed against the bars with one hand on one of them and the other stuck through reaching imploringly to them.
Izlin's long ago learned cantrip only reveals to him the fact that Pathfinders have a habit of collecting magic items as many (all?) of the people he came here with have an aura of magic or two about their person and equipment.
Neither Besnik nor the downed Aspsis Agents show any signs of magic about them.
Diazepane can sense no deceit in what the man is saying.
Searching the Aspsis Agents reveals 3 keys in a pocket. It takes some quick trial and error to find the right one for Besnik's cell.
"Desna bless you all!" he says, thankfully.
"I assume you are here for the same reason I was sent. I hope you have more luck. My extraplanar eddy is not far away. If you don't need anything else from me, I'll go get back to Absalom," he continues once he's freed.
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"Hold a moment friend. Were you really sent here alone? There are no other missing members of a team we should seek out?" He refers to the defeated agents on the floor, "Did these Consortium speak to any gossip or rumors that may prove beneficial to us or serve as a warning to us?" Izlin's concern about this man's story still weighs heavily upon his brow. Why is he so eager to leave?
Crowe stares angrily at his earthbreaker and the cracked tile in the floor for a moment, then he looks up to the group, ”Fast. That was good.”
Then he looks to Besnik, ”Explore, report, co-operate. Right? So, what do you know?”
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Why is he so eager to leave?
Diazepane thinks the same thing. We've accumulated a suspicious number of "friends" since we entered this place.
Still, there's no hard evidence of any ill intent, and Diazepane works on evidence, not gut feelings. Diazepane offers a light crossbow if Besnik wants to join the party.
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Kal's stare at the man is harsh and firm, but relents into a smile of sorts.
"I can't remember that last time that the society sent me out alone and without others for support. Which Venture Captain do you report to?"
As the man begins to scramble, Kal retrieves his blade and casually leans against the door exiting the chamber- clearly blocking passage through it and out of the temple.
"Yes, I was sent here alone. I guess Zarta thought that it might be easier for one person to sneak in and out than for a group. Although, looking at these results, it seems like she should have just sent you in to clear the place out in the first place and save the trouble," he looks around significantly at the obliterated Consortium agents.
Then, he looks dismayed. "They didn't even tell you I was here, though? I get the need for a mission to go forward, but I've been on enough to know that they'll ask you to be on the lookout if someone has gone missing in the area you're going to."
He waves away the crossbow. "I'm in no shape to fight and I don't see why I would in the name of people who were going to leave me here to rot."
"But, I suppose it's not your fault. I don't know much, this is as far as I got in my exploration but I'll tell you about what I saw before."
Besnik has little to add to their knowledge, telling them about the patrol outside (which was inside when they found them,) the trapped hall, the dangerous statues and how to get past the false gate. The only new information he has is that the doors they passed but didn't go to lead to living quarters.
"A a powerful Chelish conjurer named Aglorn Desimire is not only in command of this location but all Aspis Consortium operations within the Hao Jin Tapestry. I haven't seen him but I've heard him talked about plenty by all the Apsis agents here," he finishes.
Suspicious as they all are of his motives, Besnik seems to be telling the truth.
”Maybe we should check the living quarters first?”
The 5 living quarters have all the simple construction and lack of ornamentation that suggests that they were once monk's cells. The crowded rooms each hold two beds, two footlockers, and a chamber pot.
They are currently unoccupied.
In the room at the end of the hall, a foul-smelling pit yawns in the center. The pit descends 10 feet before opening up into a large chamber. Then there is another 110-foot drop to a chasm in that cavern’s floor. That chasm is too dark and deep from here to see the floor. The hole is narrow, and any of the gathered Pathfinders would have to squeeze to climb down in it.
Crowe looks at the frog-demon, "What's down the hole?"
Teenoch hops up on the edge. Anyone with a fear of heights or vertigo will feel a bit of empathetic anxiety but she seems completely comfortable being next to that perilous drop.
"That's the undershrine. It is where the Diamond Gate is. Can you fly? We can go directly there, if you can fly," she says, seeming quite excited by the prospect.
"There's long hole down there that these meat people (no offence) have been using to dump their garbage. Oh! We should dump them down there! That would serve them right for defiling the temple. You may have to break some bones or lop off limbs, though. I'd like to watch," she explains.
Crowe shakes his head, ”No, I cannot fly. We will go the other way.”
He turns and heads back toward the other route.
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"No way. There are too many variables there. One at a time, squeezing through narrow spaces, in the dark, with a long fall if things go wrong." Castinus looks around the group, "No offence intended Teenoch, but you are a magical flying denizen of Hell. That route," he points down at the hole "is not one I trust with my life, despite your advice." He looks to the others for agreement, "Let's take the last double doors, and hope they reveal some stairs"
He sets off for the doors opposite the cell areas, and if the others follow, opens them.
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Teenoch's amphibian face shows clear signs of disappointment and disgust which is, again, impressive given how lacking in expression most toad's faces are.
She heaves a sigh from so deep in her gut, it seems to be an extradimensional space. "How have you flesh piles lasted so long?" she mutters.
"Very well, this way."
When Castinus opens the double doors across from the holding cells, he does, indeed, find a stairway down. Those stairs are quite dark and Castinus can see that the torches in the sconces lining the walls have been extinguished, though there are no glowing embers or rising smoke, so it was not done recently.
”We should light the torches as we go. Leave a trail in case we have to leave quickly.”
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Lantern held high, rapier en guarde, Castinus advances gingerly down the stairs, carefully remaining several steps behind whoever is on 'detect traps' duty.
Calling softly over his shoulder at the others, he offers some wise words he heard once from an elderly human "Be on your guard. There are older and fouler things than Orcs, in the deep places of the world."
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The Pathfinders manage to get enough light together to keep anyone from tumbling down the stairs in the dark. Down, down, down they go until the stairs open up again.
Four crimson-hued plateaus pierce an unseen depth, providing contrast to the otherwise bleak cavern. The cavern floor, if it even exists, waits somewhere beyond the glow radiating from the strange red rock speckled throughout this cave. A quartet of swaying rope bridges connects the plateaus together, creating a path that snakes toward a set of descending stairs that disappear into scarlet shadows.
A man in rather ostentatious robes and another in much simpler clothing stand at the top of stairs on the plateau furtherest from where you come in. They do not look friendly. The stairs lead down to a large structure which must be the Diamond Gate.
Ichio
Castinus
Aglorn Desimire
Crowe
Diazepane
Izlin
Kal'Ryon
Archer
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"Here we go lads - up and at them!" Castinus growls as he retrieves an extract from his belt with the hand holding his lantern, cracks the lid, and downs it in one. He puffs his cheeks and blows - a misty breath rushes out and forms a silver opalescent oval of shimmering force hovering before him . With that, he launches forward to the nearest rope bridge, leaping mid run from the nearest edge forward onto the rocking planks.
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