"Because this is a museum, Marius," Mirann grunts while prying open a section of the floor to snip a wire. "They'd be motivated to prevent someone like me from doing exactly what I'm about to."
With the wires cut, she takes her dagger and smashes the glass case. "Liberate artifacts. You're a good spotter, Marius. We should do this more often."
As the loot is gathered, Mirann checks in on Malphene, concerned about the woman.
"Hey, uh, how are you feeling?"
Seeing Mirann approach Malphene, Rose decides to talk to Lady Clement instead. "A traditional Kanzu dress for a man and a corresponding gomesi dress for the woman. Red and black for the shamanistic healers, blue and gold for the royalty. I'm afraid I don't know what the kanga print signifies. If I remember correctly, however, it often depicted marital status," she observes, watching the garments alongside the other noble. "Is there any chance these belonged to local forebears of yours, Lady Clement? I seem to recall your family has a long history of service to the nobility and the military."
Malphene Trant scoffs at Mirann's question. "I'm bored. We should be trying to get out of here, not play museum tour."
Lady Clement stiffens slightly at Rose's question.
"No, my very distant Mwangi ancestors were from a completely different part of that rather vast area." She turns around, striding purposefully away. "Well, shall we keep going? These historical pieces may be fascinating, but we still have not found an exit from this place."
"I meant 'service' in the positive light, of how they rose through the ranks and even into nobility and the senate. In fact, I suppose you rank higher than my family does nowadays. Still, if that question was somehow offense, I apologize. After all, I only know your family's public reputation," Rose says, as the woman turns away.
She moves up to Mirann afterwards. "Thank you. We might have gotten severely injured for no other reason than not being careful."
Perhaps a bit formal, but technically Mirann was supposed to be a servant, whether the other nobles believed it or not.
"Shall we investigate that door next?"
She points to the northern one.
"Why not?" Konstiantina moves toward the northern door, once again giving everyone a chance to prepare themselves before drawing close, and listens before cracking the door open.
The door opens to a long hallway, the ends of which are beyond Konstiantina's vision. Three other doors line the southern wall, presumably leading to the chambers already explored - and to one unexplored room.
The architecture of the hall seems to predate by far any of the sections seen so far. Time has worn it so thin that it almost appears to a be a natural - if perfectly straight - cavern.
"This is different," murmurs the paladin, moving slowly into the hallway. "Older, more... natural? Perhaps these chambers were installed in a pre-existing cavern complex, or some older construction...?"
She drifts forward, uneasy, blade held at the ready. "I hope this doesn't mean we're moving in the wrong direction."
And so saying, she heads to the one unexplored room's door.
Silence reigns, only disturbed by the fading echoes of the paladin's footsteps. Pushing open the door, the lantern carried by Malphene throws huge shadows on the walls, shadows that sway and flicker and seem to move - fearsome beasts and birds of prey, poised to strike.
The room is another storage, this time of taxidermy; a griffon poses ferociously in a corner, two wolves stand in similar poses on either side of the door, while an immense coiled serpent poises itself to strike in the south-western corner. A small elephant stands in the center of the room, its head drooping far too low, and the top of its neck torn open. Thick cords of rope hoist avian creatures of every size along the ceiling, with an impressive eagle taking up the most space above. Hunting trophies line the walls - racks of antlers, pairs of horns in every imaginable shape, claws and fangs arrayed in decorative patterns.
"I... have to echo lady Trant. This room in particular gives me the chills," Rose admits, shuddering both at the cold and thought of not having a light in a room filled with large stuffed animals. "Does anything here detect as odd to any of you magic folk? Or you, Dancer Mirann? It wouldn't be far-fetched to assume such trophies would be guarded as well."
Nothing magical or overtly evil is present in the room, and no traps are found either. It seems that the trophies are not valuable enough to be guarded, and even if at some point in the distant past they might have been worth something, it would be practically impossible to transport them without destroying their already very fragile physicality.
As if to confirm that, a few moments after people have began to check out the room, the wolves animate with jerky, halting movements, rising on clicking mechanisms, their straw-stuffed bodies straining to stand on two legs. Such effort is beyond what their frame can endure - one of the wolves' hind leg collapses, while the fur on the other wolf's back splits open, bringing their movement to a halt with a grinding of gears. The smell of straw dust and mothballs fills the air, making several people sneeze.
No sooner do the wolves stop their tortured animation that another of the displays comes to life. The griffon beings beating its wings, only for one of them to tear off entirely. Moments later, it rips off the front foot attaching it to its display and lurches forward, beak open in a silent scream and one talon poised to strike.
Rose attacks the gryphon to the best of her ability!
Mirann shrieks when the griffon lurches towards them, hiding behind Konstantiantina. "Y-you've got this!" she reassures rhe woman.
The taxidermic griffon beats its one remaining wing, stumbling forward towards Marius with a shrill scream.
Malphene Trant, her sword already drawn, circles behind the beast with an intensely focused look as she takes a swipe at its hind legs.
Lotti: 12/12 HP, flat-footed
Marius: 15/19 HP, flat-footed
Mirann: 17/19 HP, total defense
Rose: 15/15 HP, flat-footed
Griffon: -4 HP
"It's not undead," Marius observes through gritted teeth as the griffon's claw shreds his jacket and scores his ribs. "It appears to be some sort of clockwork creation--likely mindless, but no less dangerous for that." His eyes narrow as he considers the taxidermy-clad construct. One hand tore loose, the joints have likely weakened in the centuries they've spent down here. Very well, let's take apart that shoulder.
Konstiantina extends her arm, shielding Mirann with it, her face a stoic mask of focus and concentration.
She sizes up their raging, patchwork foe, and then slashes her blade experimentally at its face, trying to draw its attention away from Marius.
Lotti isn’t certain about Marius’s assessment, but she can’t find anything worth offering as a counterargument. Grimly she tries to find a clear line of fire. What is the world coming to... With a trembling finger, she pulls the trigger of her child-sized crossbow.
Marius lands a solid hit, neatly dissecting the creature's shoulder. It turns its head to regard Konstiantina, and completely ignores the bolt that whizzes past it to shatter against the wall behind it.
Rose shoots, but was still getting used to the handling...
The griffon roars again, laying into Konstiantina with its beak and lone talon.
Malphene Trant moves into a flanking position with Marius, slashing at the griffon's hind legs.
Lotti: 12/12 HP
Marius: 15/19 HP
Mirann: 17/19 HP, total defense
Rose: 15/15 HP
Griffon: -15 HP
"Hey now, I'm the one who tore up your shoulder! I'm wounded by the lack of attention!"
Konstiantina grunts as the wicked beak plunges into her shoulder, but otherwise her focus doesn't flicker; holding her ground, she takes hold of her longsword with both hands and tries for a decapitating blow.
"Maybe I need to practise some more..." Rose mumbles to herself, then drops the crossbow on the table in front of her. Taking out her rapier, she then rushes to the back of the creature , where she sees what looks like the outline of an odd whirling component beneath the aged skin. "Mind if I give this a try?" she asks Malphene, then thrusts her rapier into the machine almost up to the hilt!
Marius swipes the edge of his falcata across the griffon's chest, leaving a gash through which the stuffing begins to slowly come out. Konstiantina's sword strikes it across the neck, but the cables and cords hold, even though the damage is great. Locating a critical component of the machinery animating the griffon, Rose disables it with a well-aimed strike, causing the creature's right hind leg to seize up.
Mirann nervously approaches, squealing with discomfort and unease as she stabs the thing with her magic dagger.
Lotti carefully slides another bolt into place. Steady now... She raises the weapon back into its firing position and looks down its length with one eye closed. Veils hide me, this was not what I thought would be happening today...
Two more well-placed hits bring the griffon close to being destroyed, as more stuffing comes out through the punctures and slashes inflicted so far, and its mechanisms are groaning under the strain of keeping it upright.
Not knowing when to quit, it attacks Marius again.
Behind it, Dame Trant lunges in an attempt to slash its belly open.
With a final metallic shriek of broken gears and the snapping of cables, the taxidermic creature collapses, raising a small cloud of dust and bits of straw.
Konstiantina blows a lock of blonde hair out of her face, runs the flat of her blade over her sleeve to cleanse it of stuffing, and then slides it firmly back into her scabbard.
"For such a secret retreat, this place is filled with defenses and traps. Everybody all right?"
Then, giving Malphene a curt nod of approval for that finishing hit, she looks about the chamber one more time to make sure there's nothing worth investigating further, and leads the way back outside to the next chamber door.
"Y-you're quite the warrior, Dame Trant," Mirann curtsies, acknowledging the woman's feat.
"Yes. Well-fought, everyone. Let's hold on to this focus until we find the exit," Rose says, and picks up Dignity's Barb from the table. She takes another look around the room for anything noteworthy, and also attempts to look inside the cut gryphon machine to see if any of its components were either usuable or valuable.
After looking, she moves to Mirann. "Are you all right? I noticed you kept hanging back, but you were able to hit quite hard when you finally moved in there. Are you deliberately holding back?"
Dame Malphene Trant cleans her sword on the griffon's moth-eaten hide, then sheathes it as well, acknowledging Mirann's compliment with a nod. She shoves the inert body aside with a foot before giving Rose another nod. "Your strike was very precise, where did you learn to fight like that?"
The rest of the assorted nobles, servants and senators cluster in the doorway anxiously. "We heard sound of fighting, is everything alright?"
Konstiantina's search does not uncover anything noteworthy, and the group leaves the sad taxidermic exhibits behind.
Dame Malphene Trant shoves the inert body aside with a foot before giving Rose another nod. "Your strike was very precise, where did you learn to fight like that?"
Rose shrugs and her mouth curls upward in a slight grin. "I had a good fencing instructor. A girl's got to know how to defend herself, after all. Though... I don't think I'm quite on the level of professional soldiers like Lord Erallan or Lady Mokei. What about you? You also seem quite proficient at handling yourself."
"You also seem quite proficient in defending yourself."
After the discussion with Trant and/or Mirann concludes, Rose leads the group to the door opposite the flagroom. 'Let's just keep searching the closest doors first. Less risk of forgetting something or getting lost that way."
Marius wipes this blade off on his sleeve--since all it caught was a bit of cloth scraps and stuffing there was little risk in further ruining his poor shredded jacket.
""We heard sound of fighting, is everything alright?"
"Quite alright, a few of the taxidermy exhibits were mechanical guardians. Please watch your step and don't touch anything--we'll clear each room ahead of you but there's no guarantee we won't miss anything."
Dame Trant's dispositions seems a little less surly after the exchange of compliments on each other's fighting prowess. "I've been training with the sword since I was twelve." After a little while, she adds in a quieter voice. "My father always wanted a son, but he only got me."
The group rounds the closest corner, and after checking the way for traps and other dangers, opens the door at the end of the short corridor. The room beyond is filled with thick wooden bookshelves arrayed in two rows to the left and right. Bundles of paper, scroll tubes, and thick tomes cram these shelves, and while layers of dust coat some areas of the chamber, others remain suspiciously clean. Books and papers crowd one of the worktables in the corners, smeared with ink.
Konstiantina overhears the conversation as she moves to the fore, and glancing back over at her shoulder at Dame Trant, she says quietly but with matter-of-fact conviction, "Then I hope he realizes how lucky he was."
Moving into the storage chamber, she slows, moving forward warily.
"Looks like someone was here recently. The person who has been drawing those strange circles, perhaps?"
Lotti and Mirann spot a scroll case that stands out among the clutter; upon closer inspection, it turns out to contain several arcane scrolls. Most of the books scattered on the work table are mathematics and geometry texts, but Lotti also spots the autobiography of Eros Glendower, a nobleman and wizard who lived centuries ago, and who was, by all appearances, obsessed with immortality.
The room contains no dangers and no other items of note, unless one feel particularly inclined to peruse the meeting minutes and obscure legal treatises from a thousand years ago.
Dame Trant's dispositions seems a little less surly after the exchange of compliments on each other's fighting prowess. "I've been training with the sword since I was twelve." After a little while, she adds in a quieter voice. "My father always wanted a son, but he only got me."
"I'm... sorry to hear that. Perhaps if the primogeniture law wasn't an issue, he'd have thought differently. It seems to be a common issue among noble families," Rose responds, following the frontline around the corner.
"Much too common," she adds in a softer tone.
Dame Trant frowns at Rose's words, but does not reply as she seems to mull them over for a while.
"Shall we press on?" Konstiantina asks the group, her tone brisk and indicating a slight degree of rhetoricalness.
Moving past the bookcases and down the length of the room, she strides with growing impatience toward the door on her left.
Once there, she pauses - despite a sense of futility in doing so - to listen, and then tries the handle.
"Soon the better," Marius answers the paladin, following behind her as she checks the door.
The room beyond the door is another book and scroll repository, with towering rows of bookshelves filling the center, separated only by a low shelf and countertop running the length of the room. Thousands of tomes fill the shelves, which are bowing in places under the weight of the parchment and leather.
"Such a waste... all this knowledge and no one able to study it," Rose remarks. "We should definitely try to come back here once this is all over. For now... does anyone notice anything off? There've been so many traps thusfar that I've learned to wait until the all-clear sign."
"Doesn't seem to be any..." Konstiantina begins walking forward slowly once more, blade held down and to the side, glancing warily about the stacks.
"But then again, those could be my famous last words..."
If nothing untoward happens, she moves about the large chamber, inspecting it and the walls carefully, searching absently for more signs of the strange carver of circles and runes that has preceded them thus far.
As Konstiantina approaches one of the shelves, two of the thick tomes... move. Insectile legs unfold from between the metal-bound covers, and a colourful bookmark ribbon protrudes from the open pages, questing. They both move towards the paladin, bumping against her legs and opening their covers wide as two more emerge from the bookshelf opposite.
Rose's grip tightens on the crossbow, and is only seconds away from pulling the trigger when...
...They didn't do anything? Were these just living books who wanted you to read them, like puppies vying for attention?
"Am I the only one who thinks they're cute?" she muses. "I, ah, mean: Does anyone know what these are?"
Just in case, she decides to try speaking to the books afterwards. "Pleased to meet you four. I am Raesilia Talbot, and my friends and I have gotten a bit lost, unfortunately. Could you perhaps tell us how to get out, or direct us to a tome that has that information?"
"Huh. Gishvits." Lotti's voice is tired, but still appreciative of the novelty of finding strange planar beings in a forgotten library. "They're from Axis, so they're very likely to be predictable. If I remember correctly, they should be able to understand us. Perhaps they were called here to serve as transcribers and then stayed because they liked it."
As Rose speaks, the old gnome's brow furrows. "Hmm. They might understand you, but they can't speak back," she observes. "Perhaps they need something to transcribe their response onto?" Carefully she pulls a sheet of parchment and a bottle of ink out of her pack, setting them on the ground. "Can you understand us?" she asks the creatures directly. "Yes or no?"