Kahli hears Lash's question about the potion, "It does the spell Owl's Wisdom. Temporarily increases the wisdom of the person."
Then Marcos gets grappled by the hair on the dead body.... "Vampiric plants, and now hair that separates from a body and attacks!?! Then what?"
"I wonder if fire would have harmed it, without hurting you of course Marcos. Good thing it didn't succeed in controlling you."
"As a cleric, that might benefit you, or me if I can become more skilled. My master taught me that wisdom is derived from a healthy fear of what you see. An appreciation of sorts. At the monastery, we trained to read what we are seeing and use that innate fear within us to drive us to perfection. I've learned the basics and how to advance, but how to apply those lessons, well...that's up to me and my experience I've been told. Anyways, you keep that."
At Marcos's words, a little chuckle escapes her. She moves to collect her arrows once more. The humor seems to lift her spirits from the fear that struck her earlier with Sim falling down.
"You are welcome, Marcos. I'm glad I didn't hit you. It was a difficult target...and yes...stranger and stranger. I do hope we come out of this place sooner rather than later."
Seeing that there was a type of trap on the body and Marcos was hurt, she will search the body herself, making sure there is nothing else that could harm them; not to mention if there are goods there they can use.
"Ugh...I hate seeing dead bodies..."
Marcos and Lash get to looking at the body. Marcos finds the head has been bashed in, which is obviously the cause of death. Lash searches the body and finds 23 copper pieces, about a serving of hard stale bread, and a large knife.
After the party finishes investigating the body, they turn their attention to the hallway to the east. There are no doors nor sources of light coming from ahead of the party. The light from the torches in their current room fades as the hallway turns north. Without venturing into the hallway, they hold still for a moment and can hear the sound of quickly flowing water coming from somewhere ahead of them.
Kahli tucks the potion away for safety. "Problem with spells like that are the temporary nature of them. Calistria grants me addition power for my understanding of her divinity. The spell increases the potential for that but it doesn't last long enough for that bonus. It would make my magic slightly more difficult to resist.... But again, so slightly that it hardly matters. The spells to do physical enhancements are far more practical."
Once they start exploring again she quiets down. The sound of rapidly flowing water is concerning. "If we have to cross a river maybe we should tie together? If someone stumbled the others could pull them free of the water before they drown...."
"But maybe we need to advance and see it!"
"Interesting...I confess I know little about the gods or Calistria. I grew up far from cities and temples, so I'm not so well-versed as Marcos or you...farm girl"
She will point to herself and beam a faint smile and head down the hallway first, checking for traps and the like.
"I saw water in the hallway earlier. Leaking through the stone. There is something serious flooding this area ahead, I think, or a water-based trap."
Shiv follows at his usual distance. "Calistria is a frivolous little deity. The Eldest are the true powers of the world, but the Green Mother allows that her children can be wrong, so some choose to follow the lesser gods."
"Water... Could we be under the sea? Or maybe it's just another trap from our jailers?"
Lash leads the way, her darkvision slowly taking over as she leaves the warm light of the torches. As she gets to the far corner of the hallway, she looks into the next room and is met with a 15 foot wall on the north and east. Through the doorway, there is a 10'x10' area where the party can easily stand at the base of the wall. The air is getting heavy with humidity and the sound of the water is now echoing loudly down into this confined space.
Looking up into the room, the ceiling is 25 feet high and sconces with unlit torches speckle each wall all the way up. Listening for a second from inside the new room, the water sounds are coming from the south.
The comments from Shiv seem a bit harsh and she will rub Kahli's back to calm her if she is riled from it.
To Marcos, she replies, "I was teleported here. We could be on a different continent for all I know."
"Ugh...climbing..." She looks to Sim. "Do you want us to help you take off your armor?" She will also look to the others there to see if they too felt like they needed help with armor. As soon as they are sorted, she will do her best to climb, but doesn't get far.
Shiv nods, "give me. . . a few minutes here."
Shiv first focuses on his connection to his familiar. Deciding the statue room was safe, he summoned Croc back to him, then started the long process of taking off his full plate armor.
That done, he takes a hold of a rope, and attempts a climb:
Once relieved of his heavy armor, Shiv grabs one end of a rope and starts his climb up. He places his hands on small outcroppings and sticks his foot into a small hole. Once he attempts to lift himself off the ground, however, his handholds break and he harmlessly lands back on the floor.
When Shiv leaves the floor for just the brief second, the lowest of the torches on the wall (about 5 feet off the ground) flickers to light, sparks and flame shooting up.
[ooc]Shiv, you can take 20 if you want. It would take 2 minutes on each check, so 6 minutes of climbing to get to the top. Or you can roll a bunch of checks. Risk there is roll a 15 or less and you fall.
Sim was about to remove his armor when Shiv does do in his place. He then keeps his watch.
Kahli smiles with Lash's words and actions. "All people worship something, and feel that their acceptance of such is right and best and others are wrong. Sadly wars have been fought between people worshiping Gods that should have been allies in the heavenly struggles. At least Shiv does acknowledge that Calistria is a Deity!" She smiles at Shiv after that.
Watching and worrying about the climb she points to the lowest sconce and the now lit torch, "Look! Something about the fall caused the torch to light. Is that fire magic? And perhaps this is another trap! This room could be filled with flames if we fall five times between us."
"What is this room? Sounds of running water, humidity, and torches that light themselves if we can't climb a wall? Maybe if we make a human pyramid and the climber get on our shoulders first? That would cover the first 5' of the climb, plus the height of the climber would put the person barely 5' from reaching the top of the wall!?!"
"Just a second..." Marcos jumps as high as he can, observing whether another torch lights up.
Once his experiment is done, he casts a spell to detect magic auras on the torches.
Steeling his resolve, Shiv slowly and carefully makes it to the top with the rope.
Once at the top, he shouts back, "Should be easier now that I'm here- but someone'll have to help croc and hoist my armor up here as well!"
Marcos manages to get almost 3 feet off the ground to try and extend his Detect Magic out as far as possible as Shiv begins his second ascent. Marcos sweeps across the numerous torches covering the wall from almost the floor to the ceiling and detects an aura on them.
However, when he tries to focus in on the auras and determine their properties, an old story slips into his mind and he loses his concentration.
As Shiv methodically works his way up the wall, the torches light as he reaches new heights, matching him as he climbs ever higher. If they weren't in what seems like endless corridors of monsters and traps, the party may think of it as beautiful as the lights spark into existence and cast flickering light across the wall and room.
Kahli begins to unfurl some ideals about her views, and Lash appreciates them in the face of Shiv's reaction.
"She didn't speak back against him. That was kind."
"I suppose you are right," she will answer with a soft smile.
As the lights alter with their companion climbing, she feels the same uneasiness that her companions feel.
"That is not good. I know that because it's this place..."
While Shiv is taking his time, she will perform an in-depth sweep of the place for hazards, for rapidly closing doors, and other signs that this is a trap.
Lash skirts the edges of the room looking for anything that seems out of place. As she is searching, Shiv continues to slowly make his way up to the ledge and the torches continue to flicker on one-by-one, the room getting brighter and brighter. Lash holds a hand near one of the torches she can reach and feels the heat from the flame. She makes her way to the southern wall leading back out into the hallway and she places her ear right up against the stone. She feels a cold dampness against her face and sees water trickling down the stone wall, gently splashing on the floor. Through the stone, she hears the muffled gurgling of flowing water.
By the time Lash is done with her investigation, Shiv is about 5' from the ledge.
"I've checked everything, Kahli. It's not a magical trap or a normal mechanized trap. There is nothing. There is no door that slams shut, no spout for water to fill the room and drown us. Nothing. I'd imagine this water is draining somewhere, but there isn't even a mechanism that will close the drain. No trap as far as my eyes can see."
She shrugs and stops worrying about it. In the meantime, she will begin to strap Shiv's armor together so that they can just loop the rope through it and he could pull it all up to the top.
Kahli nervously watches Shiv as he is finishing the climb. "I understand. There is nothing. But with the place, I can't help but feel nervous. The torches mean, something."
"I think the faint Evocation magic is what makes the torches burn constantly, like a Continual Flame. The Transmutation effect, though..." Marcos suspects that's either where the trap is if there's one to begin with, or that's the effect that they need to understand to solve the puzzle. But how?
"Hold where you are Shiv, if you can. Just for a moment."
She feels horribly devastated asking him to wait after such a long climb.
With a running start, she will attempt to jump up the wall, however, she will slip on the wet rock and lose balance, causing her to leap too early. Only her right foot gets a good grip. Her left brings her back down to the ground.
Backing up, she tries again, aiming for the sconce to hold onto. Hopefully, all it would take to disarm the system would be to remove the torch.
Lash runs at the wall, aiming between Marcos and Kahli (with Sim watching the hallway behind them) and takes two steps up the wall, reaching up as far as she can, and plucks the torch from the sconce.
Landing back on the ground, she inspects it. It looks just like all the others and she wonders how one would figure out this was the one to pay attention to. She fiddles around with it and the flame goes out. Marcos notices the aura has dissipated.
Lash gives a signal to Shiv to continue climbing and he makes his last few pulls to get himself up over the ledge. When his feet touch the platform, the torches all extinguish, starting from the outer ones and moving inward toward where the torch Lash had just removed was hanging. The room quickly goes dark again as the light is snuffed out with a loud whoosh.
A moment passes with baited breath as the party stares at the torch Lash holds in her hands....and nothing happens.
At the top, Shiv can see the ledge goes south and turns left. He can hear flowing water up ahead.
Once at the top, he shouts back, "Should be easier now that I'm here- but someone'll have to help croc and hoist my armor up here as well!"
With no active threats, and Shiv able to lower the rope down, the party slowly and steadily makes their way up to join Shiv.
Reunited with croc and his gear, Shiv begins slowly putting the stone full plate back on, "I should practice climbing some so that I will be able to do so . . . more efficiently."
There is a chill going down her spine at her almost near-miss of the trap.
"Whew...I'm glad we took the time to search harder. Some rooms just have that feel to them, you know?"
She will definitely NOT be the one to have a crocodile on her back. She would rather have someone else safely secure it to the rope and to bring it up along with Shiv's armor than with a person. After all, she saw what it did with the goblin's leg.
She will go after Shiv has his croc to guard him up top so she can make sure there are no more traps.
To Shiv, she shakes her head, "In my mind, the fact you were able to get up here at all was an impressive feat. I might have barely been able to do it, but I wouldn't be able to use my hands ever again."
She will reach out to his hands to see if they are cut or ripped at all.
Kahli does what she can to help get Shiv's croc up to him, then works to get herself up the rope. "Yeah! They generally don't teach clerics to climb. Not exactly what they consider to be an important skill. Maybe I'll be able to fix that if I... I mean we, get back to our respective homes. But for now." She glances around, spotting the removed torch, "Removing that torch seems to have disarmed the trap. I wonder what it did? The sounds of water are still ahead!"
Back together after a brief separation, the party gets back into their marching order and Lash leads the way into the next hallway.
The unlit stone hallway turns left then right after 20 feet. Moving not on her lightest feet, she keeps her eyes open for any danger. As Lash turns the corner to the south, she's met with something perhaps somewhat unexpected: the sight of a room with water rushing across the floor. The water is pouring through a small gap at the bottom of the eastern wall, flowing across to the west, about 6 inches deep and 15 feet across.
Carefully moving up to the end of the hallway, she sees a 25 foot square room with a hallway that continues south on the far side. The water crashes against the west wall before flowing north, farther into the room where Lash can't currently see.
Presented with this new challenge, Sim secures his shield on his back. "I'll go first, but just to be sure, give me the rope." Sim then wraps the rope around his waist before coming close to the water and then crossing it with care.
Lash watches the hydrodynamic halfling just wade through the water like it was nothing. She wonders if she would be able to do something similar. Being more nimble and acrobatic, she decides to just try to jump the distance.
Kahli watches as Sim secures the rope to himself, then strolls across the rushing water without difficulty.
When Lash moves up to try and leap across she speaks out. "Use the rope! If you fall we can pull you back so you aren't swept away!"
When Lash falls short Kahli starts to move toward her, but then stops when she sees her get under control. She motions for some slack to be fed to the rope currently held by Sim across the steam and everyone else on this end. "Lash. Grab the rope. We'll pull it tight and you can hold it as a guild an pull yourself the rest of the way across. Then you and Sim can anchor that end while the rest of us follow."
"Croc- take this rope to the other end for us!" Shiv says, holding one end, and tieing the other to the familiar.
Sim "wades" into the rushing water and, with his lower center of gravity, easily withstands the torrent and trudges his way across. Meanwhile, the croc swims downstream of Sim, paddling its tail left and right to help it fight the current, and makes it to the other side. Sim slips the rope off and takes a tight grip.
Lash finds a small runway and takes a running leap across the water, but her foot catches a stray puddle and her leap looks more like falling with style. She manages to grab onto the rope stretched across before she gets swept away and pulls herself back up to her feet.
Marcos nods at the idea of making the croc cross with the rope. He holds the rope when it's his turn and tries to cross to a point where the rest could drag him if something happened.
Once everyone is at the other side, he invokes small magics to dry a bit the party's wet clothes ().
Almost to prove a point that she just happened to hit a fluke in her plan, she easily moves through the water this time. Where someone else would have trouble balancing, there is such sturdiness in her attempt, that she doesn't seem bothered at all.
To Kahli, she smiles and bows like a performer who completed a play.
"We will anchor it for you."
She will set to work on finding something to wrap the rope around so that others can have a failsafe if they fall and don't have to worry about being swept away.
Now that she is on the other side, she looks for traps and the like.
Sighing, Shiv once again removes his armor, packages it up and has it dragged across to the other side before attempting to cross.
Kahli watches as the others work their way across. She knows that her divine powers are vastly better than her physical might. When it comes her turn she grasps the rope tightly....
.... and carefully pulls herself across. Once there she kneels down to send a prayer of thanks to her Goddess before taking her place on holding this end of the rope.
Sim focuses on holding the rope for the rest of the members to make it across. Lash finishes with a bow. Marcos sticks close to the east wall, buying himself distance if he were to fall, but makes it across with only a minor slip. While Shiv doffs his armor, Kahli follows in Marcos' footsteps and carefully shimmies across the rushing water. Shiv ties his armor together and follows closely behind. Once the party makes it to the other side, Marcos dries everyone off with a flick of magic.
Once on the other side, Sim grabs Lash's attention and points her to the northwest corner. There, she sees what Sim is pointing at: the water flowing into the northern wall of the room and through a large pile of moss, algae and various growth. Lash and Sim barely make out that that pile is pulsating and alive (it takes up the spaces G23/G24/H23/H24). It doesn't appear to be actively moving anywhere, however.
"Are we done with all this climbing and jumping and swimming now?"
Shiv shudders, I feel naked without my armor! Shiv starts to redon his armor.
"Unfortunately, I highly doubt it..." she answers Shiv.
With them all across, she eyes the pulsating pile in the distance.
"I am certain that the one who made this place cultivated all of this evil here just for this purpose. None of this seems random."
Gently she will run a wet hand across the sides of her neck and upper chest to cool down from all the activity, and then she would help the warrior put back on his armor.
"Is this stone? Ooof...how do you move in this?"
With him all set, she will spy down the hallway and around the corner.
When Sim points out the mass in the corner Kahli looks over to it. "Ouch! If any of us had been swept off by the water.... That thing doesn't need to move. This trap feeds it! I wouldn't mind feeding it a burning flask of oil, if I had on to spare. But, I don't think we can spare any even if we had one."
Waiting until everyone is dry and ready. "OK, What's next?"
Lash peers into the next unlit hallway, her eyes cutting through the darkness. Not seeing any danger, she gives a wave to the party and leads them through the long, winding passage. They make their way forward, the sound of the water slowly fainting behind them. Down the hallway, Lash runs into a T-junction running north and south. To the north, the hallway dead ends with an iron door on the west wall. To the south, the hallway runs down to another T-junction running west and east.
Meanwhile, when Marcos, bringing up the rear, rounds the corner at the start of the hallway, scanning for auras, he detects one on the floor that Lash had passed and alerts her to it. He determines it to be the same aura as the magical traps that reanimated the statue before, but it detects as if it's already been triggered. Before Lash can move in closer to examine it, the aura condenses into the similar mote of light, raises off the floor then zips down the hallway back towards the previous room, casting a faint pale yellow light that illuminates the walls, ceiling, and floor as it moves.
They have been climbing, jumping, fighting currents, fighting enemies, resisting poisons and for at least a couple of times, they have been fighting this stupid statue. She groans at the mote of light.
"I say we just take a few minutes and rest at the water's edge back there. It only took him about half a minute to activate. If we wait...oh five minutes, that should be more than enough to see if he is coming at us. Then we can be at the edge of this water and watch him fall down into that mass of ... well, whatever that is."
After Lash's suggestion of waiting at the water's edge, Kahli's bag begins to glow again. If Kahli flips open her bag, she sees that the chair where the old man is normally sitting is empty. Shortly after the orb lights up, his voice emanates sounding distant. "What have you done?! What! Have! You! Done?!" His voice gets louder and clearer as he hobbles back into view. He sits into the chair and pulls on his coat to flatten it out, trying to catch his breath. "I step away for a few minutes and I come back to my Stone Golem in pieces?!" He pulls a large red leather-bound book into frame and opens it with a loud thud. He flips a couple pages and frantically runs his finger across the text and smiles. "It's no worry, though. I forgot it was constructed with this situation in mind." He sighs and falls back into his chair. "Remind me not to underestimate you going forward."
Kahli watches the 'show' in the orb, considering snickering at the old man's words. But doesn't.
Once he is done talking though she puts the orb back in the bag, saying, "Good to know."
Kahli brushes off the old man and puts the orb back in her bag and the light fades.
Lash leads the group back to the rushing water, setting up at its edge. After a few minutes, faintly over the sound of the water, they hear the rumbling of, what they assume to be the Statue, getting closer and closer. There's a slight pause in the sound, then a loud thud that reverberates through the hallway...followed by another loud thud shortly after.
About 30 seconds later, the rumbling continues, the party can now feel it in the floor, and the Statue comes barreling around the corner, all in one piece, eyes glowing red.
Lash will pull from her disposable arrows, not her nice ones, and will shoot the golem once before moving.
"It sounds crumbly and mad. And how!? You know what? Bet we had to make the guy in the orb come himself to set this golem's body right. If we fight on the water's edge, maybe he'll fall and go into the hole that mass and get destroyed for good!"
"It seems the golem is inevitably compelled to fulfill its master's wish... which, unlike in the stories, it's not his last." Marcos pauses dramatically for two seconds. "Let's make it worthwhile, guys" he says, arming his crossbow.
Sim readies his shield to protect the others.
Kahli pulls her little mace and stands ready. "Stop it in the water! The water may be strong enough to move that rock!"