Briar holds onto the now-closed-up tree, holding it up as a light as though she needed it to see. It does let her pick out colors at least, which she's certainly happy to not be missing.
"Sorry, Ed, but seems to me like that rope up is the most enticing route at the moment. Gonna go take a gander up there meself."
”’e ‘as a light. C’n Ah ‘old yer pretty tree while you climb, see if’n Ah c’n puzzle out anythin’ ‘n th’ colors?”
Briar pauses before beginning her climb, holding up her dress with one hand as she jogs back to Ed, then proffers the pretty tree. "Righto. All yours, Ed. I'll make sure we don't go too far afield without ya."
"I'll stay down here for now. Don't want it to get too crowded up there, and I don't fight real well in confined spaces anyways." Rosella peers up at the passageway, slight frown on her face. "If it looks like it goes more than thirty, maybe forty feet though, I'd suggest coming back. Or hollering for us to come join. Don't want to get too split up if there's more trouble."
She eyes the 'tree' as Briar hands it to Edrukk. "Huh. Gotta say I would not have thought of that tree being a...wand? Still wonder what it was doing here, if it wasn't part of the original tomb." She shrugs as she resigns herself to the fact that they'll probably never know.
"Edrukk, while they're checking things out up there, mind showing me what you were talking about with the circles on the floor? I'm not great with stonework myself, but I can take a look. Maybe between the two of us we'll figure out what's going on with them." She moves towards the alcove with the indigo lantern first, if only because that was the one that was originally missing.
Broccan moves away from the edge of the tunnel, giving Briar enough room to get up into the passageway.
He keeps the sunrod in one hand, and keeps the other hand free in case Briar needs a hand up.
Briar ascends, joining Broccan at the top of the shaft.
"Hey, you notice that, Broc? Scratch marks. Like somethin's been dragged over edge." Briar will follow alongside or behind Broc, as necessary, as far in as he wants to go. With her darkvision, she is confident she can see a bit farther than him, so she tries to keep an eye out.
The passage ends in what looks like an enormous stone human face, its mouth open wide in a scream of rage.
Thirty feet in, Briar also notices something embedded in the floor: a shard of iron. It looks like someone managed to jam a blade of some kind, perhaps a dagger, into the rock...only for the blade to snap off.
"Thas' n'good," Broccan says. He thinks for a moment and then head back and leans over the lip of the landing and says to the others below, "Any'one else com'n up, or'r y'gonna wait fer us t'look'round a bit?"
"Watch out for that bit a' iron." She kneels down closer, taking care to make sure there aren't any other shards of iron where her knee is going, and looks over the shard. "Maybe some kind of dagger blade that snapped off." She begins piecing together the details in her mind. "My guess is that somebody was down this shaft and something dragged 'em back down the way we came. The person gettin' dragged was still fightin' and tried to claw their dagger into the ground. They got pulled so hard it snapped right off." She looks up at the mouth. "Yeah, if we're gonna go this way, we're gonna have to be careful. Don't like that at all."
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"How do people figure out how magic items work? Do you just point it at things and say words 'til you figure out the right one?" She holds it up and points it towards the sacophagus. "Zosiel! Thieves! Shambolic!"
Alaïs manages to keep her jaw from dropping, but it’s a closer thing than she would like, given that she was brought up to play nice. Then again, she was also brought up in a family of spellcasters who were mostly more classically trained in the forms of magic, no less, so.
“Well, that’s one way of doing it,” she says faintly , her brows arching in mild consternation, “but doesn’t everyone start with a cantrip to get a sense of the magic involved? It doesn’t always work, but – like this?”
Humming a short tune, she opens her vision up to magical auras, and concentrates on the tree-wand as Briar extends it towards the sarcophagus. “I think…”
"Thas' n'good," Broccan says. He thinks for a moment and then head back and leans over the lip of the landing and says to the others below, "Any'one else com'n up, or'r y'gonna wait fer us t'look'round a bit?"
Once Broccan and Briar climb up into the blue alcove, Alaïs calls up, “One moment, please!” and scrambles up after, just in case there’s anything up there that will lead to them needing more than one healer.
The wand is designed to channel the energies of the Positive Energy Plane, one of the two core Inner Planes responsible for the wheel of mortal existence. It's a clever technique, but the magic was a little too intense, causing the wand to 'leak' positive energy in the form of a constant glow—and also imbuing the wand with a rather excessive fondness for taking root and pretending to be a living thing. Those might be intended features, of course.
You think this might be an elven design, but it's hard to be sure. It's not one you've seen firsthand.
"Me eyes, Ah c'n see 'n th' dark jus' fine, but Ah don' see color wit' n' light, see. Thought mebbe her lil tree would show somethin' 'n th' wall 'r th' floor wit' color. Looks like mebbe not."
He takes his waraxe from his belt and taps on the floor in various places with the base of the haft. "D'ye 'ear th' difference? Ah feel 'at when Ah walk over 't. 'tis 'n me blood t' know 'ere th' stone 's more solid. 'ave ye found anything around 'ere 'at moved? Might be 'r lever..."
It takes a moment – as these things do – for Alaïs to sort the ripples and currents of the wand’s aura into something legible, for lack of a better word, while Briar joins Broccan above and she herself waits her turn to ascend. “Oh, how adorable! A ravid maple!”
Once she reaches the pair of climbers where the tunnel extends who knows where, Alaïs takes a look around as she catches up, and keeps an ear open for any more irate or warning whispers. She’s chatting away almost as soon as she lets go of the rope, her experience with boring parties and those where various feuding persons are cordially disguising the extent of their antipathy towards one another making it easier for her to compartmentalize even as she worries about what she might hear next.
“Like I said,” she tells Briar, her smile a mixture of pride and relief, but no smugness (altogether the sort of thing one might expect from someone with three older siblings who could achieve her result without a second glance), “and it will even do for a bit of healing! There are a few charges left, though I think it would be a shame to spend the very last and wither the poor thing unless it’s a dire emergency. I think it could be recharged, but not in a way even my parents could manage easily.”
“Is that a bit strange?” she asks. It’s an uncomfortable process, but she imagines herself in the situation Briar described. “Would they have had another weapon? I mean, if I were fighting something strong enough that it could just start dragging me kicking and screaming down the tunnel, I’m not sure I would have counted on a dagger blade to hold me, as opposed to fighting or holding on to that dragging something until it backed off a bit. So that I would take it with me, otherwise, unless it was a flying something.”
She peers at the traces trying to get a better sense of what happened. “Your thoughts, Broccan?”
”Maybe th’pass’ge tips back’wrds som’ow, er..like’eh coal’shue’tn drops fol’kout’n back down’ere?” he replies in a tone that says he’s doubtful of his own theory. ”’ow’s’eh stone pass’ge gonn’eh go tipp’n like that, though?” He shakes head. ”’s what’t looks like, but’t make’sneh sense...”
"You're right. It's...sideways? From where it looks like it should be. The head and feet are hanging over the edge, while they wouldn't be if it was facing the other way." She eyes the heavy stone base for a moment. "The trap on it already went off, so hopefully this'll be safe?" With that she tries to push the sarcophagus until the head is facing the yellow lantern.
After a few more minutes of thought, Broccan retrieves the hammer and second piton from his pack. He kneels down and drives the piton into the crack in the stone where the dagger blade was wedged. Once confident that it is secure he goes back to the rope dangling down to the gallery below and pulls it up. Holding the lose end, he returns to the place of the second piton and threads it through the piton's eye, knotting it to hold it in place.
"'Ere, grab'old'eh this," he says, gesturing to the secured rope. "'m gonn'eh see wha'tap'ns if I walk on'eh bit. If the'all tips, hang on t'the rope so y' don' fall out."
If neither of his companions stops him, Broccan will make his way down the passage, sunrod in one hand, the other empty, in case he needs to make a grab for the rope.
The sarcophagus rotates slowly and loudly until it clicks into place pointing at the yellow lantern.
A great rumbling from below the chamber can be heard as the circular stone Edrukk pointed out rises eight feet into the air, pushed up by a 5-foot diameter metal cylinder that seems to arise from the ground itself.
Seconds after it comes to a rest, two thin doors slide into the sides of the cylinder, revealing a small empty chamber.
Broccan advances onward.
A shimmering of magic fills the hallway. The face begins to move, its eyes taking on a brilliant glow, its mouth opening wider.
And a terrible roar of wind begins to erupt from its wailing mouth.
At the same time, the eyes' glow begins to spiral with brilliant hues, all the colors of the rainbow, drawing the adventurers' gaze in, binding them to the spot...
"Th'lights...s'beaut'fl..." Broccan mumbles as he stares in fascination at the shifting patterns.
ROUND TWO:
Broccan continues to stare, mesmerized by the lights.
”Everything okay up there? What’s going on?”
Broccan yells over the wind, in response to the question floating up from below.
Everyone hears Broccan shouting something over the wind, but it's impossible to make him out—he's not speaking coherently. Actually, Edrukk and Rosella somewhat suspect he's actually being prevented from speaking clearly, almost like he's gagged or something.
There is no other response.
"Oi! I think there's trouble up top!"
Sprinting towards the chain, Kata begins climbing...
&?*%$! Lady she may be, but that doesn't mean that Alaïs' thoughts aren't full of some rather choice Elven words. Is that what happened then?
"Do you think we can ride it out?" she calls, clutching onto the rope, but she notes Broccan's glazed expression, and advances to try to shake him out of whatever the spell is.
He positions himself to return the sarcophagus to its original position.
As Kata starts climbing up the chain, Rosella grabs the silk rope Briar had given her earlier and attaches it to her grappling arrow. She fires the arrow at the ledge, then starts scaling the new rope.
”Well that’s just brutal. Time to crack on before we—“ She looks up and sees Broc frozen in place. ”S&~*e.” She grabs him and tries to pull him along, shoutinf back down the hole.
You hear Briar shouting down at the top of her lungs, "THERE’S A BIG WIND COMING. GONNA THROW US ALL DOWN IF WE DON’T GET OUT QUICK. SOMETHIN’S FROZEN BR—"
The wind picks up, drowning out her last words.
The wind picks up, building to a terrible gale. It's starting to get hard to push against it, but Briar manages to rush up, grab Broccan by the arm, and start dragging him back toward the edge. In a matter of seconds, the force of the storm is going to threaten to send anyone still standing up here hurtling over the edge.
With a clang and a scraping of metal on stone, everyone hears Rosella's grappling arrow lands on the ledge and catch on the lip of the shaft. Briar and Alais see a silk rope trailing after it immediately go taut. People are climbing up.
You hear Briar shouting down at the top of her lungs, "THERE’S A BIG WIND COMING. GONNA THROW US ALL DOWN IF WE DON’T GET OUT QUICK. SOMETHIN’S FROZEN BR—"
The wind picks up, drowning out her last words.
Hopefully there'd be enough time for that.
He moves to the blue alcove and starts dropping gear. ”Gonna ‘ave t’ catch ‘n release. ‘ope ‘ey don’ all come ‘t once.”
And that’s when Alaïs spots Rosella’s head at the edge leading into the tunnel.
“Goddesses, no!” she erupts, shouting over the wind, “Magic storm coming! Unless you can catch one of us, we need everyone to stay down!” She thanks Findeladlara and every power loved by the elves that it’s Rosella, one of the two people who stand the best chance of at least slowing someone’s fall if she can catch them on the way over.
You also see a rope hammered into the stone with a piton about thirty feet in. Alais and Briar are clutching it, while Broccan seems to be completely motionless, relying on being dragged by Briar and Alais as though paralyzed.
ike a reverse Luke and Leia on the Death Star? At least there aren't any stormtroopers chasing us.
Briar’s throat is raw from shouting in the roaring winds. She furiously scans about for something, anything, to help keep Broc from flying away. Even if she did drag him over the edge, he could hardly hold onto anything as frozen as he is. She sees his shadow and immediately gets an idea.
She shouts in his ear, just to make sure he does not miss the informationz
His shadow is suddenly pinned to the ground, tethering him hard to the ground.
Briar then lets go and rushes for the edge, starting to try to climb down.
Briar clambers over Rosella, climbing the archer's body with some difficulty. Rosella stays very still to avoid throwing the woman down a very, very long drop. Luckily, Rosella's quite a good climber, so this is doable for her. Briar reaches the rope and begins climbing down.
The wind continues to rise, and anyone still in the passage must fight to survive.