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Not-Trixie flies over and looks at the wall with an appraising eye.
"Hmm, a wall of stone." The wizard pulls out her spellbook and starts flipping through the pages quickly. "You can't dispel it, you know - the magic's all done and the stone itself isn't magical anymore. But!" Snapping the book shut, the wizard begins tracing circles within circles on the barrier. Slowly they begin to glow and spin, faster and faster until the movement almost seems to create the illusion of a tunnel through the stone. Seconds later, the other side becomes visible.
"But almost anything can be bypassed with the proper tools." Not-Trixie nods in satisfaction and motions for the others to proceed.
Not-Trixie’s spell reveals the wall to only be a few inches thick. The portal also reveals the stairs choked with more bodies of the lodge staff and guards.
Bo can see from the dried color of the blood that the deaths occurred well before the party had even arrived.
Following the stairs down on his carpet, hovering above the corpses, Bo sees that the end of the stairs leading to the vaults has also been blocked by a stone wall. No signs of life register to his senses.
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Selter call Sithiss into his armor (so she doesn't stomp on the corpses) Then tries to work his way past the bodies as respectfully as possible. He doesn't really care, but he has learned that some mammals seem to be very attached to corpses of former associates. When he gets to the bottom he calls Sithiss back out of the armor and looks around.
Selter finds that the stairwell is indeed blocked off with another stone wall as Bo called out, leaving only the five foot wide stairs as room to move in.
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Not-Trixie scowls at the second wall. “Drat. I can make another tunnel, but then I won’t be able to make any more today. I could also just pop us to the other side, but we have no idea what we could be stepping into. Or I suppose someone could just try to break it down, but that’ll be noisy and could take a while.” She shrugs, face a polished mask as she calculates the risks and benefits of each method. “What do you think?”
Not-Trixie opens another passage through the stone, revealing the basement vaults below. Unlike the carnage above, the stone floors are unmarred by blood and death.
Moving into the basement, Selter sees the vault doors are secured, with no signs of having been breached.
Bo’s heightened senses pick up nothing but the scent of death in the stairwell.
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“A possible security measure?” Not-Trixie’s voice continues to be clinical as she inspects the vault door. “Though that wouldn’t explain all the bodies in the stairwell unless there were two separate triggers and someone understood them well enough to use them intentionally for that purpose. Regardless, the attacker who got away from us upstairs has most certainly informed any of his compatriots that are also present in the building of our presence at this time, and our current location will be easy to deduce given the lingering spell effects.” She looks back towards the stairs. “Our answers may be found upstairs, probably in the main room past the double doors.”
Narayan opens the south door to find the stairs leading up to the living quarters has also been sealed off with stone.
Selter will is unable to overcome the very real stone of the wall.
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“More likely a spell - well, several spells - paired with at least one casting of contingency that was triggered to activate if someone performed a specific action. My guess would be someone entering the stairwell, though it’s a working hypothesis and I don’t think it explains everything we’ve seen so far. There were no lingering auras of whatever triggered the spells that created the walls, so it must have happened more than a few minutes ago. To that end, I don’t see anything else to be gleaned from investigating here at this time and those passwalls won’t last forever.” Not-Trixie lets a small frown cross her face. “I propose returning to the ground floor at once and investigating the rest of the rooms there.”
Returning to the double doors leading into the main hall, the party finds two fireplaces struggling to illuminate the large room. They still manage to highlight a woven tapestry of gold and blue silk dominating the west wall. A couple of damaged tables and broken or overturned chairs fill most of the eastern half of the room. In the northeast corner stands a decorative clay urn, while another lies smashed to the south. Burnished copper-bound doors etched with hieroglyphs mark exits along every wall.
As Selter moves into the room, a sigil flares to life on the arch of the doorway.
Selter and Sithiss shrug off the magical trap with little difficulty.
As Selter and Sithiss examine the damage within the room, more attackers step out of the stone walls to attack! The first to appear casts a spell at Selter, before his companions begin to attack. The first blow at Sithiss fails to land, while the other enemies launch spells of their own.
Outside the room, the sudden appearance of the ambusher catches Not-Trixie off guard, as his scimitar tears into her with dark energy burning through the wound!
34 Bo
22 Not-Trixie (Damage: 17/12)
22 Vendalfek
18 Selter
18 Purple
13 Narayan
12 Blue
11 Sithiss
11 Pink
10 Yellow
9 Orange
8 Red
Seeing Selter unaffected by the spells, the last attacker directs his spell towards the druid.
Bo arrows the ambusher to death!
34 Bo
22 Not-Trixie (Damage: 17/12)
22 Vendalfek
18 Selter
18 Purple
13 Narayan
12 Blue
11 Sithiss
10 Yellow
9 Orange
8 Red
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Not-Trixie takes a trembling breath and nods gratefully to Bo before slipping further down the entryway past the inner door. She reaches into her pouch and draws a much-shortened root, breaking off a piece and using it to sketch a simple repetitive rune in the air that spins faster and faster the more iterations she adds.
How are they stepping through the walls like that? she wonders, finishing off the spell and sending its energies flying to herself, Bo, Narayan, and Sithiss.
Vendalfek darts for the outdoors - or at least behind Bo.
Selter shrugs off the paralysis spells with ease, while Sithiss seems unperturbed by the fear magic thrown her way. Not-Trixie manages to resist the negative energy as well, as the remaining foe steps to flank Sithiss. His blow glances off of her tough armor, all for naught.
34 Bo
22 Not-Trixie (Damage: 12)
22 Vendalfek
18 Selter
18 Purple
13 Narayan
12 Blue
11 Sithiss
10 Yellow
9 Orange
8 Red
Narayan flies into the room and attempts to take out one of the assassins with one punch!
Oh jolly good, splendid form if I do say so myself. Vendalfek offers some witty commentary from outside the doorway.
Narayan cuffs the man upside the head, causing the man to turn in surprise, before his eyes widen in fear. His companion makes another strike at Sithiss with a darkly charged blade, but cannot overcome her defenses.
34 Bo
22 Not-Trixie (Damage: 12)
22 Vendalfek
18 Selter
18 Purple (Damage: 29NL, Shaken)
13 Narayan
12 Blue
11 Sithiss
10 Yellow
9 Orange
8 Red
Sithiss brings her mighty tail around in a vicious strike.
, if hits, and