"I think you broke it...." Thorn sighs.
Blaze moves into the room behind the others. "Quick thinking... and hands." She said appreciatively before turning back to the scene. "But why is there blood here? Old bones do not bleed..."
The tapping sound draws her attention. "Something is alive up there." She states and points out the little creature under glass.
In this room there are many shelves. The jar you are aiming at is at the top 12 feet up.
Andrei cautiously enters the clockwork room. "Whăt îz dîș plâce?" The varisian said, looking around in wonderment.
Aramyros' eyes follow Blaze and wher she is pointing at. "Well somebody put it up there, so there needs to be a way to reach it. A ladder of sorts maybe." Aramyros searches the rooom for a ladder.
Thorn begins looking around for a ladder as well. Or something that could be placed as a step to reach for the jar. He didn't fancy climbing it...
Lilianne pulls her hand out from the mechanism with a strangely odd smile on her face. It is one similar that a child might have after a supreme victory in a board game. She, however, calms as the clockwork mechanism powers down.
"Thank you..." She shrugs about the blood. Who knows? "Maybe it's paint, or a stain from old blood."
She, of course spotted the creature up top but was more focused on the danger in front of them.
"They certainly loved to imprison beasts and creatures in here. I think those in the spider's room are all dead. This one is still alive."
"Here, you two hold the sides of the shelving and one of us can just climb up on the shelves. No ladder needed."
She will move to help hold the shelving in place and steady it.
Looking around you don't find a ladder but looking at the automaton's they look to have extendable arms.
There are probably a dozen or so jars on each shelf and 15 shelves in all. Most of the jars have a liquid in them, you assume to preserve what is within the jars. You see organs, claws, hands, and other body parts. The other jars that don't have liquid in them are a blue rose that seems to levitate in the jar, a green glowing crystal formation that seems to have filled the jar, and a single water drop that looks to be hanging in the air with a black skull below it. There are also many empty jars below the tables.
Blaze glances around the room at the others and decides she is the best suited for climbing the shelves. But she takes a moment and removes her armor first and then gets out her climbing kit from her pack first. She uses the crampons for extra stability and takes her time, making her way carefully so as not to break or disturb any of the jars. "Hello," she greeted the little horned creature before picking up it's jar to be held by her tail as she made her way back down.
The little horned creature looks like a quilled mouse, no more like an armored mouse. The thing is strange looking. The tail has a sharp quill on its end. It continues to tink on the glass with its horns.
----------
Entering into the last room the group likely quickly gets prepared for a fight but nothing happens.
Before you are a couple dozen automatons with weapons and armor. Four stand guard over a chest that dominates the room. The other 8 are haphazardly spread about the room, they all seem to ha e stopped moving in different forms of combat. There are automaton parts in piles along the walls. At the far wall you think ypunsee work tables. There are chains that hang from the ceiling that hold all sorts of items, tools, and parts.
"Nobody touch them. I don't wat to activate one by accident."
Aramyros has his weapon ready when he slowl approaches the first automation. He expects it to activate just from his presence.
"It sure is a violent little thing. I wonder how many years it's been bashing those walls to no avail? Does anyone know what it is? Are you intelligent little one?" she asks the little mouse-like creature. If it can't understand her, she will try to get it to smile, using her fingers to explain how she smiles by tightening her cheeks.
"I don't frankly understand any of these things, but then again, I'm not an expert in the arcane. I suppose I should have brushed up at some point. A bit more."
As they head into the last room with the automatons, she gets the same feeling Aramyros does. She will look to her lover and make sure he is still following.
"Do you have any spells that would harm an automaton if we get into trouble?"
In the meantime, she will scan the room carefully for traps and magical activation switches that may turn them all on.
Thorn studies the creature in the jar. He taps the jar to see if he can get any reaction from it. It reminded him of creatures back home in the feywild but only vaguely.
As the rest of the party studies the room sprinkled with automation parts, he stays a the entrance in case he's needed.
The automatons don't activate.... yet. It seems you can move around the new room safely so far.
The little mouse creature smiles revealing rows of small sharp teeth.
Andrei looks over Thorn's shoulder. "Whăt îz îţ?" The cleric said concerning the bottled creature.
Thorn shrugs as he can't make out what creature is this in the first place.
"No idea. Could be dangerous or a possible bait."
"I have no idea, but, no, I don't think so, Thorn. It seemed to show some response when I smiled at it. Of course, it could think that I was baring my teeth at it. Let me try something else."
She will try to gain its attention again by smiling big again, as if for it to mock her. Then she will place a hand up and look at it briefly as if trying to get it to do the same. She will then do so with her left.
"I have no idea, too. As always with theses things."
It would smile back at Lilianne. With one of its paws it would point up to the cork at the top of the bottle. Points to you and then with its hands does a motion of pulling. Then it puts its hands together in a pleading form turning the smile into a frown. If you start to move your hand toward the cork his frown turns into a smile again.
A spider lands on Aramyos' should but this time does not speak. It just slowly crawls down. Luckily for him it is in his blind spot but others might see it...
"Now that is one intellligent creature. Was it kept in that bottle to prevent untoward injuries or is it a sentient creature captured for experiments?" Thorn remarks in surprise as he notices the creature's actions.
"Who wants to tell Aramyos about his new friend?" he adds as he noties the spider.
Blaze smiles too, watching Lili interact with the little creature. "It likes you, Lili. Will you let it out?" Having been imprisoned herself, she hated to see anything treated so.
She followed Thorn's glance and her eyes widened on seeing a spider crawl down Aramyros back. The intelligent mother had taken her brood onward, so she quickly swatted this one off the Aasimar as it did not speak.
She tried speaking Abyssal, just in case she was mistaken about the creature.
Hearing Blaze speak, in an almost childish way through Abyssal, rekindles the memory of when she was younger speaking to her goddess. She snaps out of her thoughts and answers her friend.
"I plan to..." she says hesitantly. "The reason I'm considering this is that the mages who once were here imprisoned many beings...and killed more. Our Ignan friends seem nice, the spider seems nice, and this little guy is intelligent. It's the right thing to do."
With her position justified, she looks to Andrei, steals a kiss (as if she were going to die), and then reaches out to pop the cork from the bottle. There, she will offer her hand for the little guy to climb on.
No response from the spider, it just sitters away.
As you pop off the cork to the bottle a smoke or mist come out of it. It blocks the view of the group and in moments is gone. Left in its wake is the dog sized vermilion critter. It looks up at you and smiles. With one of its clawed hands it motions to its mouth with one claw, then chomps its mouth several times.
It happily munches down anything you offer it. Then it follows you into the next room. It goes over to one of the corners and digs through the parts until it gets to the floor. You hear movement in the walls, like gears and chains moving. You notice some of the hanging chains grow taunt. The last one in the series pulls a pin out from the chest. At that point the four automatons standing guard kneel down and lay their weapons on the floor. Then you can see the red creatures head appear from the pile it buried itself within. It is smiling.
Aramyros barely took notice of Blaze's action at his shoulder. He assumed there was nothing of importance.
Watching the freed monster, he wonders: "Did it just do that?"
Thorn shrugs.
"It just did and I'm thankful for whatever it did. Now we just need to be able to communicate with it. I don't suppose anyone has an idea or spell to do so?"
"I might understand him. My ancestors passed on to me the ability to understand each and everyone."
Aramyros speaks arcane words and then listens to the red creature.
Seeing the creature ask for food, she rummages in her pack for the only sustenance she carried with her, wandermeal. "No wonder you're hungry, been stuck in that jar for who knows how long. This isn't very good, but it's filling." She said as she offered it to the critter.
She looks on, clearly impressed with the creature's actions as it cleverly disables the automatons. "Clearly it's intelligent. And very helpful." With that she goes to investigate the contents of the chest now that the guards have been neutralized.
"Hopefully it is speaking a language and is not just a smart animal or I don't think that gift will work, but good to know you have it, Aramyros."
"I agree," she nods to Blaze. "Andrei, do you have more food for it? You usually carried those rations with honey and nuts, right? It might like that a bit better than our wandermeal...and that's all we have it seems."
She grins to Blaze. Clearly, if Lilianne were imprisoned for many years and let loose, the last thing she'd want is wandermeal. If he does still have delicious rations, she looks to Andrei, "You can feed it to him this time...," which is clearly said in a provoking manner to have him face whatever fears or opposition he would have toward feeding it. One could call it a flirt.
Andrei takes a moment and pulls out a pistachio-ladden trail ration and hands it to Lilianne. "No. You feed îţ", Andrei answered, not interested at all in feeding the creature.
Snagging it from his hand with a squinted look, she will bite her lip slightly before bending down toward the vermillion critter.
"Here, that should fill you up some more."
She will hold her hands to her chest and say, "Lilianne."
While Blaze opens the chest, part of her tenses, hoping that there isn't still a trap on it.
The critter does not talk. It does open its mouth for you to drop the wandermeal in like a dog treat.
It tastes the pistachio sweet treat and wags its tail.
Opening the chest you find a treasure trove of scrolls, potions, and a few wands.
Each of you may pick a 1st and 3rd level potion, then 3 scrolls (roll 1d4 to determine there spell level), finally roll 1d4-3 to determine if the wand is beneficial to you and you may choose what is on the wand.
Andrei carefully combs over the large potion library before him. The cleric chose a oil of magic weapon and a potion of cure disease.
gaseous form
heroism
hide from undead
"like in an alchemist's store. I've seen one in Oparra once. I'll take that Enlarge Person, I've got another one already. Oh, and the Fly one might be useful. "
Scroll of Delay Poison
Scroll of Prayer
Scroll of Endure Elements cold
Blaze could see the value in the potions, but wasn't sure what she would want with scrolls. She selects out a large healing potion for emergencies and one that said Protection from Evil.
But one scroll did seem as if it might be useful in this place, Hide from Undead and she liked Aramyros idea of fighting while Enlarged, so selected a wand with a similar effect.
But then she had no idea what else would be helpful or useful. "Lili, what else?" She asked her friend who had a better grasp of spells and their use.
Each of you may pick a 1st and 3rd level potion, then 3 scrolls (roll 1d4 to determine there spell level), finally roll 1d4-3 to determine if the wand is beneficial to you and you may choose what is on the wand.
1st level Potion: Shield of faith +2
3rd Level Potion: Neutralize poison
Scroll 1 Level : Remove Disease
Scroll 2 Level : Invisibility
Scroll 3 Level : Restoration, Lesser
Wand : Disrupt Undead
Thorn browses through the stash and his hand swiftly darts out to pick out objects at random or so it seems.
His selection seems to an inspiration by itself or maybe he was taking them because he 'remembered' them from a previous timeline.
In his hands, he chose a potion that would grant a magical divine shield, another potion that could remove poison, a scroll of invisibility, remove disease and Restoration. The wand he picked out had divine writing that seemed anthemia to undead creatures.
Nodding to his companions, The half elf nods to them.
"I guess I'll be taking these."
"Probably something that says it heals you," she answers her friend.
The wands only have 10+1d10 charges.
As you select your potions and scrolls, you realize that others had been disappearing. As if going into the chest magically. As the last of you select their last scroll , all of them are now gone.
Looking around the room you see tools and body parts but not much else.
Nothing else seems useful in the room. The group leaves. Remembering there is a quiet forge to the South, a summoning room to the West, and the specimen jars to the South West. Also there is the small room where you found the armored rat. Beyond those rooms which you have searched throughly you could try the next level down using the elevators.
Lilianne will take charge and move to the vermillion creature and will put out her hand.
"You are welcome to come with us. We eventually will see the sun above. There you can be free all you want."
Its particular skills at seeing the trap and disarming it where she didn't impress her, but she will not keep it unless it wants to stay with her.
Whatever the creature wants, she will finish there and move toward the elevators on the east side to investigate them. Were they safe-looking like the others? Did they work the same? If so, she would move into one and when the others were ready, she would cast a cantrip into it or let Aramyros do it.
"How about the summoning room? Maybe those could give us more clues on how to unbind the currently trapped creatures." Thorn points out.
"Where the beetle was? I don't know runes, so if there is something in there, I don't know. I say we finish mapping this place out below and then once clear, we can come back and study to see if we can find our answer. That answer may be down here?" she pulls her hair to one side and tilts her head to the half-elf to see his thoughts.
"Îf dă şummonîng roomş need țo be cleâred ouț ănd mâpped, leț uș geț țhoșe ouț of dă wăy", Andrei crossed his arms and reasoned aloud. "Âye hăve no mînd for dă ârcâne, buț îf îț needș țo be done, țhen let uș do îț.
The whole level has been explored. The summoning room might have more surprises for you if you go back.
The elevators seem to be in the same shape as the ones before. Casting the cantrip activates it to travel down. Getting to the bottom of the shaft you hear crinkling of leaves and plants. The doors don't open without some help. Once they open you see a bunch of dead vegetation. Nothing else can be seen beyond the plants. Touching the outside of the door you feel sap.
Andrei dabs a little of the sap on his finger and smells it.