When everyone is safely past... whatever that was, Akimi grabs both the other foxes by the shoulders and firmly plants their butts on the ground, getting to work patching them up.
Akimi grumbles in irritation as the braggart's wounds seem to be particularly stubborn. They notice she looks shaken, but decide not to press her on it. If she wants to talk about whatever she saw, she'll do so. As they finish dripping a stinky ointment into her ears and placing small bits of cotton in them to keep the ointment in, Akimi gently squeezes her hand once in reassurance before focusing exclusively on Jacques.
"Y'know," they say to him as they work, "you are kind of a dolt. The whole plan was for ONE person to take the brunt and then we all rush past before it resets. Bravery isn't commendable when it's paired with stupidity." They try not to speak too waspishly, but it's hard to keep all the frustration out of their voice. "Be brave, Jacques, not stupid. Can you do that for me?"
"All I need's a little bedside manner, doc," Ellen grumbles as Akimi checks her over and has her relay her favorite color (yellow), breakfast this morning (she isn't sure, but insists that she has a hard time remembering that kind of detail anyway--but does recall that it was good and that Akimi made it), and her sister's name (to which she blanches, then mutters it quietly enough for just Akimi to hear).
When they squeeze her hand, she squeezes right back.
"...Oh, shoot, I forgot the cup. Remind me to grab it on our way out."
The pathfinders find an artificial curtain of moss hanging over a stone doorway. There doesn't seem to be any way of opening it except... a panel composed of a five-by-five grid of raised squares set into the wall beside the door. A number of colored ridges delineate odd-shaped regions of the squares within the grid. Each square appears to be slightly raised, giving the impression it can be pushed.
Dev twirls the cup on his finger and hands it back to Captain Prince Ellen, "Seems like you still need me after all. Anyway, this is an obvious puzzle lock. Simply put, figure out the puzzle and it will open. If not, I can take a crack at it with my tools, but if the puzzle is as boring as most, maybe even Jacques the Running Away Fox can figure it out."
Jacques does his best to take in Chef Akimi's words of wisdom and afterwards he can be heard muttering to himself, "brave, not stupid... brave, not stupid..."
Jacques knows nothing about languages, but a bit about locks and he immediately recognizes that this is a puzzle lock, in a rare moment of agreement with Vad.
"Hmmm," mutters Ellen, "does anyone know what 'friend' is in Abyssal?"
Ellen doesn’t know muuuch abyssal, but she can count to five. And one of the words is definitely five. And the last one actually looks like a vicious animal. And considering the context, it probably means ‘beasts’. Five beasts… in a puzzle lock. They probably need to be arranged in some way. Or at least that’s the gist.
Not surprisingly there is no word for ‘friend’ in abyssal.
"Reeeeally glad we had that Abyssal exchange student that one semester at Noble Boarding School," mumbles Ellen as she squints at the puzzle inscription.
"Okay, so it says we need to... well, it says something about 'five' and 'beasts.' And there are five sections..."
She frowns.
"Okay but none of these look like beasts to me, just a bunch of identical squares. Do they... move? Or do I need to push the right ones..."
She carefully tries to see if the tiles are rearrangeable without actually pushing them.
It seems the tiles only depress, not re-arrange.
Perhaps something in your notes about this place? Not the part of the notes related to steamy library sex though.
Akimi gives Ellen a patient look and recites:
"Only one Beast shall be placed in each Pen.
No Beast wishes to see another Beast by looking directly North or directly East.
Two Beasts shall not be in pens that touch, lest they come to blows."
They inspect the holes. "Can they rotate?" Then they stop with a 'eureka' face.
"Hey Dev, can you cast detect magic? Or anything similar? The notes said something about the one blessed with 'Three Eyes' passing. I mean I dunno for sure they mean magic, but seems appropriate."
Dev shrugs, ”I’m not that kind of spellcaster. But why do you think it is magical and how would that matter?”
Jacques watches his comrades' brilliance with appreciation. "No one has better smarter companions than I have!"
"I think we can do this without resorting to magic," Ellen says. "We need to press one tile in each section, none of them can be directly above or to the right, and if I'm understanding that last bit right, they can't be directly beside each other, either. I'm guessing diagonal is fine? Not a whole lot of room to maneuver otherwise..."
"No, wait--I think I can do this without diagonals, either. If we start in the bottom-right, there's only one place it can go without being one space from another, and if that one can't be--well, hey, if one can't be north of the other, it can't be south, either, so there's really only one place we can put the one in that pen. And then we've ruled out two rows in the one on the bottom-left, so it has to be here or here, but this one is just right next to the other so it has to be here, which means the one in the pen above it must be here, and then..."
She grabs a piece of chalk and (very carefully) marks five squares.
"Akimi, you wanna double-check my work here?"
Akimi nods blankly, suddenly a lot dumber than their 18 Intelligence would lead one to believe.
"I... think so? Worth a shot, anyway."
Prince Ellen exactly pushes the stones in!
With a satisfying click, each stone slides in. Well, except the fourth one. She has to push harder on that one. Seems like it has a little bit of wear and tear on the mechanism. They better get maintenance to come take a look at it.
But it does push in along with the other five. And a few seconds later the door pops open and swings out of the way.
The southern corridor descends slightly until it reaches a four-way intersection. Each branching hallway has a single lit torch in a sconce that casts flickering light. Wooden doors stand at the end of the northern and eastern corridors, while a rusted metal gate blocks the end of the western passage.
Akimi hunkers down near the wall, scraping a claw against the soot there, sniffing it gingerly before brushing it off on their tunic.
"Weird place for soot," they mutter. "Keep your eyes peeled."
They pull out and load their crossbow, letting the captain take the lead but keeping directly behind her as they look for any more things of note. Normally they'd be keen on recollecting any information about the location, but that soot has their hackles up for some reason and they keep their eyes peeled.
Ellen looks a little smug about having figured out the button-puzzle (with Akimi's help, of course, which only makes her feel smugger).
"Ah--traps," she says, pointing up at the nozzles. "Soot makes sense now. Aaaaand if there's soot, there's got to be--ah, there it is."
She points at the pressure plate.
"Nobody step on that and we should be able to, y'know, not be frame-broiled."
Jacques also glances up at the nozzles. "They're clearly rusted and useless - they can't harm us at all - you can be sure of it!"
Akimi side-eyes Jacques. "Uh-huh. All the same, let me try and get rid of it."
"Mind if I borrow your picks, Dev?"
Dev shrugs at the confidence shown by Akimi, ”Sure kid, here ya go. Don’t forget about… ah never mind. I’m sure you know the basics.”
Dev steps out of the hall and you see him peeking around the doorway.
Jacques stays back. After his experience with the haunted terrain he is just a bit gun-shy. Why, he even has a great story about how he defeated a dual wielding gun shooter person once! He was dodging bullets and parrying them and...
Akimi meanwhile, is trying to ignore the babble from back at the entrance and focus. They are not doing well. Just barely stopping themselves from pressing the pressure plate they manage to get access under it by barely wedging up the front lip.
As Jacques begins talking louder because he is being ignored, the young fox stands up and turns with fire in their eyes, "WILL YOU SHUT THE..."
Turning their head with wide eyes in fear, Akimi looks down at the backside of their foot as it is clearly pushing the edge of the pressure plate down.
The doors to the hallway slam shut. ALL OF THE DOORS. It is just Akimi and Ellen inside. The nozzle begins spitting sparks and...
Akimi
Dev
Ellen
Jacques
Trap
Bold May Act. Remember that the door between the outside group and the inside group is now closed. And... probably locked.
Akimi takes a long, slow, deep breath, and tries very hard not to imagine choking Jacques to death.
Then they move up to the door and take a gander at it. At least their lockpicks are already in hand, if it comes to that.
♦ Stride 20 feet.
♦
Seeing his comrades cut off from the group, Jacques springs into action, darting forward and attempting to unlock the door.
Akimi plops down in front of the door, grumbling several obscenities to themself about their own feeble intelligence and that of a certain kit-brained braggart, and begins fiddling with the lock.
"Well, frick."
Ellen, decidedly low on ideas, considers the ramifications of introducing a much bigger spark to whatever might be containing a flammable reagent before the nozzles are fully primed to spray them into the room.
...Assuming, of course, that the traps are chemical and not magical in nature, but she hardly has time to investigate the matter.
Dev pulls out his hatchet, steps over and strikes at the door, ”Since someone took my lock picks, I shall use my backup set. It’s a bit sharper.”
for
Akimi looks ready to cry.
Ellen blasts tail electric stuff at the nozzles and hits once. It is not very effective at all, soaking right into the grounded metal and disappearing.
Jacques fiddles with the latch a bit, but at least doesn’t break his brand new lockpicks.
Dev actually has some success, chipping a small bit out of the door.
Flames blast out of the turrets and roll towards the brave Captain. Then fizzle out juuuust before her nose. Lucky! Two of the other hallways also get blasted by fire. It seems the trap isn’t thaaat discriminating about what it burns.
Hero Points: Akimi 0, Jacques 0, Ellen 1, Dev 1
Akimi
Dev
Ellen
Jacques
Trap (4 nozzles, south door -2 HP)
Bold May Act. Remember that the door between the outside group and the inside group is closed and locked.
"...Oh, okay. Kinda warm, I guess. Hey, I'm gonna work on pounding the door while you work on the lock and hopefully I won't get an axe to the face when I get through, okay?"
Jacques nods approvingly as his comrades pound away at the door. "That should be just the thing to jigger these tumblers into place!"
Akimi grumbles multiple obscenities in Minkaian before setting to work on the lock.
Akimi momentarily considers joining Ellen in punching the door.
Ellen pulls her best fire fighter pose and obliterates the door. Pieces of thick wood splinter under her onslaught, blasting outwards. Dev comments something about his axe not being what anyone should be worried about.
The foxes can easily step outside and wait out the trap. It fires a few more times, literally. Then is quiet. Probably out of juice. Hopefully…
Ellen shakes the splinters out of her knuckles and clears her throat.
"I'm starting to think we're unwelcome or something."
Jacques stares at the wreckage in disbelief. "Ahem, I was just about to unlock it, dontcha know..."