Either through her irritation at how she had just been treated by her allies or through her fascination with information and knowledge, Fioralba insists that they take the time to inspect the volumes on the floor.
She begins to meticulous collect and organize the papers the best she can, shrugging off complaints about moving on or hurrying up.
Triel moves to assist, perhaps recognizing that the sooner the papers are organized, the sooner the team can move on.
Seeing that Fioralba is intent on becoming a librarian, Screaming Moon sighs and returns to the main hallway, where he sets out a camp stove and begins making some tea, using pieces of ancient furniture to fuel the fire.
Ruby Meadow takes the time to brew another dose of her mutagen.
Elanna isn't much of a reader, at least not of dry historical texts, but she can see that her sister isn't quite as unaffected by the Viralane situation as she makes out so she stays by Fi's side as she works. Passing books and jotting down notes when her sister muses out loud is a routine the twins established long ago and the rhythm is soothing.
It takes over an hour, but eventally, Fioralba is able to organize all of the books and papers. It will be an undertaking to get them all out of the dungeon, though!
When you're ready to move on, you head down the final hall. The first room features eight desks that face one another, the wooden chairs all crumbled to the floor with age. Abstract metal artwork is affixed to the walls: half-moons, serrated blades, and ragged triangles, their edges once sharp but now covered with rust. A disordered clutter of papers litters each desk, but none of them seem to be of interest.
The next room has an air of punctilious efficiency, with mahogany cabinets against the wall containing carefully filed and regimented scrolls and papers. Additional scrolls and papers lie atop a desk in the center of the room, along with a lit oil lamp and a small plaque bearing a short line of text in Thassilonian: "Augus Premm."
A pale, slight man with thinning hair seems to sit behind the desk. He remains oblivious to you, continuing an eternal attempt to gather and sort the scattered scrolls and papers on his desk. Each time he does so, he appears to pick the pages up and moves to file them on the shelves nearby, but you can see that his hands pass through the pages and that those he seems to file vanish as soon as he releases them into their shelves.
Stepping forward, Fioralba studies the man, looks at the plaque and makes a decision to address the pale man in Thassilonian "Excuse me, Mr. Premm. I'm terribly sorry to interrupt, as you do seem like a busy man, but my friends and I are on a time-sensitive task and we would appreciate a few moments of your time."
The unquiet spirit of the bureaucrat flies into a rage as Fioralba approaches! He vents his fury by attempting to tear up the piles of parchment cluttering the desk. This doesn't actually damage the papers, but the magus feels like she is being ripped apart as well!
The spirit then vanishes!
Fioralba screams as the paper shreds her body, slumping to the floor in a bloody mess after it vanishes.
Triel jumps backwards, startled, as Fi suddenly gets bloodied.
Was that a haunt?!
...yep.
"...that was a haunt." Triel says after letting out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. "Perhaps properly organizing its papers will allow it to rest."
Screaming Moon moves up to Fioralba and applies some salve to her wounds, then touches her with a wand.
"My, what could possibly have upset a bureaucrat so much that he clings on to life and lashes out at the living."
Slowly, Triel's comment about having the papers properly sorted sinks in. "Oh, gods! He's upset because the papers aren't sorted properly?!? Hopefully we don't need to add a proper Thassilonian cover sheet."
"If we do, I'm weighing the pros and cons of just purging the place of this lingering ghost." Triel replies with a sigh.
She starts muttering something under her breath and starts looking at the papers as she waits for Fi to come around.
"Do it Trel!" Elanna growls, eyes flicking between her fallen sister and where the ghost vanished. "Do it before I burn all these damn books and banish it that way!"
The filing process is long and tedious, as you arrange the numerous papers and scrolls in alphabetical order. After minute or so, Premm's angry shade reappears and offers imperious and condescending advice on which form goes where.
The scrolls contain notes on the fates of thousands who braved the Gauntlet of Fury, but the records are maddeningly vague and incomplete. Studying them as you organize, you can determine that an entrance to the Gauntlet of Fury lies beyond a secret door in the west wall of this room, but you learn little of what sort of perils await beyond, other than that those who endure are granted some sort of magical mark or rune of favor with the Runelords of Wrath, be they dead or living.
Eventually, you put the last paper on the shelf in its rightful place. Premm heaves a sigh of contentment before fading away.
Hope was terrified by the sudden assault of the spectral spook and was ready to try and obliterate the thing if it showed up again after the way it mauled Fi. The thing stayed absent but Hope was watchful regardless and moved over near Ela. If the thing reappeared she was going to make sure it didn't hurt Ela this time.
"Thank you." Fioralba says, putting her hand gently on Screaming Moon's forearm after he helps restore her life. "That was brutal."
She then sets about the long and tedious process of arranging all of the papers that slashed her. Once it's complete and Premm disappears, Fioralba sighs and shakes her head "Well that did not go as I had planned. Here I was thinking I was so smart in speaking his native tongue that we could get some useful information from him without trouble."
Holding up the scroll with notes on the Gauntlet, she looks to the west wall and asks "Are we ready to undertake this Gauntlet now? Does anyone need to rest first? I can only imagine this will be a taxing activity and we should be at our best."
"Wrath? Likely we'll have to battle a series of monsters. A Gauntlet of Wrath doesn't sound like something that would require much thought."
Holding up her newly brewed mutagen, she adds. "I've got all the Wrath I need right here"
Screaming Moon smiles at Ruby Meadow's confidence, adding. "I still have most of my spells and have some useful buffs if that is what we will face. I do not need a rest yet."
When you are ready, you descend the hidden stairs. A spiral staircase ends in a circular chamber. An archway carved to resemble crossing ranseurs allows access to a hallway to the west and a stairwell leading further down. A message has been inscribed in the stone above the archway in Thassilonian: "Those who pass beyond, aspirant or doomed, may endure the Gauntlet to earn Wrath's blessing."
Complex mosaics in strange patterns adorn the floor of a long, vaulted hall at the bottom of the next staircase. A set of six statues of robed warriors stand within raised niches along the north and south walls. Each statue is made of white marble and brandishes exotic weapons as it looks down with contempt. A bronze gate bars an exit to the west, its face adorned with the rune of wrath.
Screaming Moon uses a wand to heal himself and as they enter the hall, uses the Suzerain Scepter to cast Good Hope
Eyeing the statues, he groans. "Constructs,do you think? Well, let's go forward and find out."
Drinking her mutagen, Ruby carefully starts edging forward, keeping her eye on the statues for signs of motion.
Fi studies the mosaics before commenting on them.
The statues don’t appear to be constructs. As Ruby edges forward past the second set of statues, though, a rune appears that escaped Elanna’s notice when she searched for traps. A blast of crimson flames engulfs her!
"Not constructs!" Fioralba yells out a little too late.
Ready for something, Ruby is able to jump out of the way of the worst of the fire.
"Fire. Seems rather obvious. Let's hope that stays consistent."
Stepping up to Ruby Meadow, Screaming Moon heals the remainder of her injury with a tap from the wand, then casts Resist Energy, Fire on her.
Screaming Moon scans the remainder of the hall before the gate with Detect Magic to see if there are any other magical traps.
Once sure the way is clear, Ruby Meadow continues on to the gate, examining it to see if there are any mechanisms.
The bronze gate opens silently at a touch, granting access to the room beyond. A large pool of water fills most of this room, leaving a five-foot-wide walkway around the perimeter. The walls are decorated in mosaics of undersea vistas inhabited by hideous monsters. A ten-foot-wide platform in the middle of the pool supports a hunched-over statue of a twisted creature, its tentacle-infested mouth clutching a large red gemstone. The tops of two narrow walls, each only a foot wide and just submerged under the water’s surface, connect to this platform from the north and south.
Another bronze gate stands to the southeast. Although the southeast gate appears to have been forced open, a large iron slab stands in the wall to the northeast, decorated by an image of some sort of monstrous figure. It resembles an octopus studded with eyes, with a central maw surrounding an empty indentation.
Screaming Moon looks between the iron slab and the statue.
"Well, this puzzle seems obvious. Take the gem from the statue and put it into the indentation on the far wall. Likely the walls collapse when you try to walk on them and pitch you into the monster infested waters.
I can send Ruby Meadow over to the platform directly. Perhaps that will bypass the trap?
Does anyone know what that creature is? It might represent the monster we might face."
He stops to consider the forced gate. "I wonder if that is where the agents of wrath attempted to get in. If so, it doesn't appear that they got much further."
Screaming Moon sends Tsu-la over to investigate the forced gate. "Let me know if you smell anything recent"
Tsu-la can smell that the water around the statue is foul and tainted. Other than that, there are no recent scents in the area.
Moving to the forced open gate, Screaming Moon peers through to see what lies in that direction.
Pointing to the statue, Fi comments "The idol is a depiction of a human infected by Gholz, a long-dead qlippoth lord associated with unlawful intrusions and magical lures. No depiction of Gholz itself survives to this day, but hints of its shape could be seen in the bodies of those he infected and corrupted."
She takes a moment to consider the options for them. "I cannot fathom that it is so simple. Either the statue will come alive or taking the gem will trigger some other type of trap."
Fioralba casts detect magic, sweeping the area.
In anticipation of a further fight, Triel begins calling Vindir up from her consciousness.
Fioralba does not detect any magic auras in the area.
Past the broken gate, Screaming Moon sees a walkway artfully painted with dizzying geometric designs that runs down the center of a long, grand hall. The vaulted ceiling rises twenty-five feet overhead, and a quartet of headless iron statues stand vigil in southern alcoves raised fifteen feet off the ground. The statues’ four heads lie in fragments along the ground, along with long, spidery legs that may have once given the strange things locomotion. Another bronze gate once barred passage to the east, but it too has been smashed open.
Returning to the others, Screaming Moon reports what he saw.
"It definitely appears that someone forced their way into this room, but got no further. The intrusion does not appear to be recent though."
Screaming Moon friwns at Fioralba's statement but cannot refute her wisdom.
"Well, whomever we send over, I will make immune to poison, in case that is the way this 'infection' works. I think we should send Ruby Meadow first, then maybe Elanna if removing the jewel requires a tool based approach"
Fi nods to Moon's plan. "Works for me. Prepare for the worst." she says, readying her blade in one hand.
Sword in hand, Ruby Meadow looks around, waiting for something to jump out.
If nothing happens, she will attempt to grip the jewel and remove it from the statue.
Elanna is not overly happy about this plan but at least she isn't going first so she holds he peace, at least until something horrible happens to Ruby.
Elanna doesn't find any traps, and nothing happens until Ruby takes the gemstone. At that point, the statue suddenly transforms from stone to flesh--roiling flesh that twists in on itself and begins shifting into a myriad of forms in rapid succession. Barbed tentacles and gaping maws sprout from the amorphous mass!
Jagged claws tear at Ruby, carrying with them a potent curse!
A victim can temporarily regain its own shape by taking a standard action to attempt a DC 15 Will save (this check DC does not vary for a chaos beast with different Hit Dice or ability scores). A success reestablishes the creature’s normal form for 1 minute. Spells that change the victim’s shape (such as alter self, beast shape, elemental body, and polymorph) do not remove the curse, but hold the creature in a stable form (which might not be its own form, depending on the spell) and prevent additional Wisdom drain for the duration of the spell; shapechange and stoneskin have a similar effect. The victim takes 1 point of Wisdom drain from mental shock every round that it ends its turn in an amorphous shape—upon being drained to 1 Wisdom, further Wisdom drain ceases and the amorphous body effect is permanent until removed via magic (no further number of saving throws can cure the condition at this time).
Triel's summoning of Vindir is interrupted by the statue's sudden transformation!
"OH!"
She then hastily erects an occult barrier against evil influences!
Ruby grins at the maw before her as the energy from the curse dissipates around her.
Glancing over her shoulder, she says "Keep Away?"
Screaming Moon nods and turns to Elanna. "Get ready to catch and put the gem in the the image"
Summoning another wormhole, Screaming Moon sends Elanna directly in front of the iron slab.
Waiting for Elanna to get her bearings, Ruby Meadow tosses the gem over to the rogue, hoping that completing the puzzle will dismiss the creature.
She doesn't rely upon it though, gripping her sword and preparing to attack.
Hope watched what Ruby and Elanna did as they approached the gemstone. She felt a bit of worry for Elanna but she kept a watchful eye open as Ruby took the gemstone. The sudden change of the statue to something seemingly alive was a shock but Hope wasn't going to hesitate when something threatened her friends! She pulled in gravity to a ball and let it fly at the hideous monstrosity.
Fi doesn't worry that Ruby's toss was mediocre and that it may very well end up in the water. Instead, she dashes and leaps over the water to land opposite of Ruby. Once she hits, she swings her blade into the creature.
Elanna catches the gemstone that Ruby tosses to her. She moves to place it in the mouth of the carving on the northern door. The eye in the center of the mouth momentarily becomes real as the figure closes its mouth, "blinking." The gemstone shatters into fragments, but nothing else happens! It was a false lure!
The monstrous beast remains. Hope blasts it with gravity and Fio slices it with her sword, but it simply roars as it continues to attack!
Hope knew this thing needed to go down and she knew she would need to push it if this ambush was going to end well. She pulled in power this time, making the gravity heavier and "sticky" and then, as she released the blast, added extra kick to it. The blast shot from her hands at the enemy and Hope screamed this time from the pain of the backlash as her body was nearly crushed again.
Ruby Meadow grimaces as the gem shatters, then returns her full attention to the monstrosity.
Screaming Moon grins sheepishly at Fioralba and shrugs, then takes out a wand and heals himself.