Yasmeena pulls out her wand of gravity bow, and uses it on herself before returning it to her satchel. Then she begins her battle dance again and notches an arrow, ready to fire as soon as the wall is lowered.
Aithaloessa ponders her options a bit too long and misses the opportunity to act before the construct. But the others greet the brass man with a broadside as the wall drops.
The construct slams into Tariq and Haleen, or tries to.
Yasmeena continues firing at the remaining brass man.
They seem indeed summoned. But after the wall of force runs out, the brass man is still there.
“It feels summoned to me, but probably by either a more powerful or more specific spell than I can easily place…” Aith muses, staring through the wall of force while making sure her pistol is reloaded.
That is a very useful trick. I wonder, could one… And then she promptly fixates on Rayhan’s spell, thinking about how it probably works and how it could be tweaked, at what is possibly absolutely a terrible time for it.
“Oh, right!” she does just have the presence of mind to level her pistol and start blasting – belatedly – once the wall comes down and the construct behind it throws itself at Tariq and Haleen.
With Yasmeena turning it into a pincushion again, Aithaloessa takes it down with her two bullets.
Which leaves the group where they started - with a riddle at hand and fire protected exits.
The constructs have nothing on them that could be looted, save for the brass if someone wants to start a scrap metal trade.
"I wonder where those things did come from," Aith asks, mostly to herself. "Is there a summoning circle or symbol up ahead?"
Now that nothing's left to take another swing at her, she pops through the nearest doorway that offers any hint of what's going on.
"Well I don't know much about it, but things here need not behave the way they do back at home. There's many legends about the wonders of this place. And well... That the City of Brass can convoke brass men... It just makes sense, right?"
Sticking her head through the curtain of flames Aithaloessa finds a strange place. A low brass landing with a short plinth standing at its northern edge extends along one wall of this large chamber that is otherwise filled with a bubbling pool of bright red molten lava. A wide tunnel extends to the north, from which the lava issues in a languid flow. A single lancet archway extends from the landing to the east but is backed by a curtain of crackling flame. Most menacing of all the chamber’s features, however, is the wide swirling vortex of lava that occupies its western wing, pulling the liquid rock in an inexorable whirlpool of infernal heat and death.
Aith eyes up the room with unease. If she’s been dreaming of eventually getting to someplace cooler and greener than Katapesh, her current predicament is a reminder of just how much more hostile the worlds can get.
Keeping as far away from the pool of lava as she can, she edges towards the doorway to the east and continues to risk her nose into by sticking it into places where it’s probably unwelcome. I wonder where we are, exactly – not that I really know much about the geography of the elemental planes. If this is where Jhavhul calls home, are we lost in his basement or something?
She wonders too, if the numbered passages connect back up to one another eventually.
"You don't like what's there?" Haleen inquires as Aithaloessa wordlessly walks back to another passage.
Behind the fire curtain of the passage labeled with 2 is another square room. A brass lamp standing 3 feet high sits in the middle of this room. A large ruby has been cemented in place over its lid and traces of lead can be seen around its spout. The room also is numbered clockwise with the 2 being in the west and has a stylized dragon on the ceiling.
Yasmeena amiably follows Aithaloessa, humming a soft tune in time with her steps. Curious, she ponders the elf's question as they go.
"You don't like what's there?" Haleen inquires as Aithaloessa wordlessly walks back to another passage.
“No indeed,” Aith says as she crosses through the room they arrived in. “Not much more than a pool and stream of lava, that I could see. And I don’t think my spells are strong enough to let us get through that, if we wanted to go for a swim. At the very best, maybe if we could walk on the surface of liquids … but even then, there’s fire, and then there’s fire, if you follow?”
In Room #2, Aith pulls up short. Again, she may be crazy, but she’s not that crazy.
Or, to be more honest, she’s at least sane enough to take a closer look and ask the others first.
“Alright,” she says, her attention captured by the lamp. “Now I’m sure we’ve all heard the stories, but is anyone else curious why this particular lamp has been sealed?”
She gives it an experimental rap of the knuckles as she checks for an inscription or any other markings.
The fabled City of Brass is the capital of the Dominion of Flame, the nation of the genies known as the efreet, and is found on the Plane of Fire. The efreet themselves call the city Fommok Madinah. It is a city of majestic palaces, tall towers, and wide boulevards that provides some respite to visitors of this otherwise wholly inhospitable plane.
"You mean if I rub it, I get three wishes?" Haleen calls out excitedly. She jumps forward and rubs the lamp.
The lamp is not triggered in any way by that.
“More like, bottling something useful – or nasty – for storage. A genie able to grant wishes would be nice, but down here, I’m not sure anyone would leave one lying about.”
“We’d have to unstopper that to see.” She frowns. “And, oh, that ‘s both clever and very annoying. Either it’s not magical – in which case I shudder to think what might be inside – or the whole thing is lined with lead, which just dampens most divinations I know of.”
“Would you care to do the honours, Tariq?” she asks, thinking that of all of them the burly priest stands the best chance of wrenching the cemented lid off.
"Uh... Okay. I guess I just have to pull strongly enough..."
Tariq tries to remove the lid without losing too much face.
"Mmmmmph!!!"
Tariq's somewhat weak attempt to open the lamp is nevertheless good enough and it opens with a 'plop'. And out of it comes the stale air smelling of an efreet that didn't get aired out for far too long. But the efreet itself is not found inside the lamp.
“Hmmph!” Aith huffs into the anticlimax, sounding rather more like what a displeased human of her age might sound like as only a faint insalubrious whiff mixes with the air outside the urn.
“That’s strange. There must have been something in there, but where did it go? You would think if it was meant to hold something prisoner, one would make sure that it worked before abandoning it down here. Or was it some kind of treachery? A switch, or resealing it after an escape?”
Remembering the strange figure they met in dealing with the Jackal, Aith eyes the ruby on the lid of the lamp uneasily. Is it the real thing?
She spares the dragon on the ceiling another glance too, trying to figure out if it could mean anything. A particular kind of dragon, at least? Or is it just a generic big, flying lizard, for decorative purposes?
If that’s that, her feet itch to try whatever door .she or the others are inspired to try next.
Tariq points at one of the doors, totally random.
"This way"
"Volunteers first."
"Here" he says while going through door number 3.
"Not that one." Rayhan orders and steps in the way. "No matter what you start from and how many steps you calculate with the formula - you never get three."
"Okay, 4 then."
Tariq finds that four also was the wrong answer as he steps into the curain of flames.
"For the Lady!" he shouts, jumping back to the room.
Fortunately, the damage is not as heavy as it could have been.
"4 minus 1 makes 3, so we clearly have to take door 1. Kabbalah is never mistaken."
“Oh, well, that makes sense,” Aith says, her light tone unable to disguise that she’s gone a bit pale as she realizes how narrowly she avoided setting herself on fire in the first room. “A bit of tolerance, especially if one pops in from another plane, but after that…”
“Anyway! Going forward, after this one, if the same numbers keep getting used, we should look for door 4, then 2, then 1, and follow the cycle. ‘Half or triple plus one,’ indeed,” the mages chirps, shaking off her surprise and following Tariq over to and through Door #1.
The 'never mistaken' path leads through three more rooms.
The first has a stylized snake as a ceiling decoration. A quiver of 20 +1 frost arrows is found in the corner.
The second has a jackal symbol above but is otherwiwse empty.
The last has no anomal symbol and one passage has no fire curtain and leads into a corridor.
From what you have seen so far, you know that you missed at least two rooms that are further north, with your way through the 'maze' so far.
"So if the progression is correct, now it should be 4, right?"
"Mm-hm," Aith nods, "but it looks like we've found our way out. Or, at least, out of this first puzzle or game that whoever's playing with us. Unless, now that we know the way out, anyone wants to go back to check the other passages from the room where we landed?"
"Lizard-dragon-snake-jackal," she adds absent-mindedly to no-one in particular, trying to fix the sequence of ceiling decorations in her head in case they turn out to be part of this maze.
"I'd prefer a place with fresh air. But I guess that is too much to ask for."
"Well, that looks promising," Aith says, indicating the clear passage ahead. "That looks like our best chance for leading someplace less stuffy, and I'm not sure that those brass men weren't summoned by something that recharges over time. I didn't see a glyph or anything like that, but that doesn't mean all that much."
The corridor takes a turn to the left after 40'.
Aith hums tunelessly as she scurries along nervously, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, torn between worry about where exactly she is, and utter excitement to be on another new plane.
Before leaving the first room, Yasmeena casts a couple of exploration spells on herself.
She puts out her hand for everyone. "Stop, there is a trap door. Let me see if I can find and disable the trigger mechanism?"
Yasmeena wedges an item into the seam of the trapdoor blocking the mechanism. It still is a funny feeling to walk over the 20'x20' trapdoor that is built to have one fall into the unknown.
Behind the trap the corridor turns further and ends at a door. Which gets opened by someone curious .
The walls and domed ceiling of this room have been coated with plaster and inlaid with frescos, now badly damaged with time. The subject matter of the frescoes is still apparent as scenes from ordinary mortal life in some arid land. They depict shepherding, husbandry, agriculture along the banks of a muddy river, and other mundane tasks, all beneath a cloudless cerulean sky. Broken chunks of a vaguely man-shaped ceramic litter the floor; both the shards and the floor bear the brownish stains of dried blood. Two cord-wrapped bundles of coarse cloth lie near the north wall.
A passage leads futher into the next room that seems to be occupied.
It's a mercy that Yasmeena is able to pick out the vital details that can save the group from plummeting to their doom. Unlike in Kakishon, here Aith doubts they’d land in soft fluff.
It looks like a statue – or maybe another construct? – has had its own awkward fall in the next room. All things considered, the mage suspects some sort of golem to account for all the blood. Unless someone got tremendously high and blundered their way around the room to the point of improbable bodily harm.
The bundles also suggest that someone may have come through recently, and Aith pads over to take a look at what they might contain, keeping an eye open for signs of how long they’ve been here, and an ear open for anyone coming or going.
As Aithaloessa goes for investigation from the neighboring room someone shouts a command. It is a humanoid medium sized creature with an interesting skin color.
Just in case there's another fight, Yasmeena pulls out her wand of gravity bow and activates it on herself while they wait to see how the approaching creature will react to Tariq.
They reply still in Ignan "<Liar! There is no wandering into this place.>"
(Ignean): "Please! I swear, by the Lady! We were teleported here by accident!"
A serious leek?" Or more like this?
Aith watches the foreign conversation in bemusement, only able to guess, from intonation, that it’s not going very well.
She takes a chance on azers knowing Common as well as genies do, since she has no Ignan, offering her own reassurances, "We mean no harm! We suffered a teleportation mishap! We'd be happy to get out of your hair if you would be so good as to show us the door, or even better, a portal."
A diabolical trap to switch places, orchestrated by Jhavhul, is stretching mishap a bit far, maybe, but it's certainly unfortunate by Aith's reckoning. Anyway, that detail is best saved until or if this azer can be mollified to the point of curiosity. She prepares to repeat herself in Celestial and Draconic, if her words don't seem to get through and relations continue to break down.
"What's going on here? Are they friendly, or are they going to die?" Haleen asks Tariq as she is annoyed by this conversation going over her head.