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Having finished looking at the Library, Pooka and Jak lead the rest of the party back into the darkened corridor, to discover more about the other corridor. Shayla keeps hidden in the broken torchlight from Jak's magic.
Once more Rangi and everyone listens to the silence of the corridors, turning to the right you are presented with a large stone door once again, another door fit for a cyclops. Rangi and Webny try to move it again, but their strength fails them. After everyone helps the aged orc and small gnome in the task, you push for a minute or so, and eventually the door opens, into another dark black room, only illuminated by Jak's light.
Stone benches and cabinets line both sides of this long room, all clearly sized for large creatures. The benches are covered in beakers, alembics, and other glasswork used for experiments. The cabinets contain all manner of pots and flasks full of powders and liquids. While full, and clearly disused, the items look ordered. An acrid smell permeates the air, that has hung heavy over the centuries. There is nothing moving in the laboratory, it looks like nothing has been in here for a long, long time.
At the far end of the laboratory is another large stone door, that seals the rest of the complex from this laboratory.
To your left are 3 cabinets, to your right 4 benches with the beakers etc. arranged in a tidy and methodical manner.
Perception + scout Iustanus Search
Perception + scout Jak Detect Magic
Perception + scout Pooka Scout
Perception + scout Rangi Defend
Stealth + scout Shayla Avoid Notice
Perception + scout Webny Search
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When nothing immediately leaps out to eat them, Pooka relaxes a little bit and looks around.
"Huh. Looks like a workshop where they makes potions and things that go booms..."
For just a moment, Pooka gets a strange gleam in her eye as she references things that go boom but then she shakes her head.
"Uh, anyways...I's gonna go look at the cabinets. I's know some things about mixing drinks but not abouts mixing chemicals and stuffs."
She heads towards the nearest cabinet to have a look...
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As the group enter the chamber, Iustanus stays behind as he tries to identify any magical emanations in the darkness, but nothing seems to touch his magic as it searches.
Jak and Pooka look into the first of the cabinets, carefully opening the doors, inside there are many bottles of reagents and other alchemical substances, but after all these years the bottles have dried out. All that remains are just coloured lines, red, blue, green and violet, the remnants whatever was held in them. Other equipment, flasks, goblets, measuring cylinders are amongst the neatly assembled collection of apparatus stacked on the shelves.
Rangi continues by the other cabinet as he walks into the dark and examines the third. It is much like Jak and Pooka's cabinet, very well organised apparatus, glass and porcelain dishes, and other apparatus.
Meanwhile Webny and Shayla look at the first bench, trying to understand what it is that they were looking at, almost as though the bench was set up to conduct experiments on a rather dark sticky tar., But nothing seems to important
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"Meh...all the stuffs is dried out," Pooka remarks with some disappointment after having peeked into one of the cabinets. "Guess we's shouldn't be too surpriseds, though. All this stuffs has been here for centuries, rights? Almost anything will go bads if you leave it long enoughs."
With the first and third cabinets already inspected, Pooka moves to the second and carefully opens the doors to have a peek.
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Iustanus follows the others slowly into the chamber, every watchful and hoping to discover some ancient magical secret, but there seems nothing by alchemical objects to interest others in the party.
Pooka in her rather disgruntled state wander to the next cabinet, not noticing that the fluids from leaking beakers have eaten nearly through the supports holding up this cabinet. As Pooka pulls open the doors, the cabinet follows the doors, its contents, glass and porcelain apparatus, along with the cabinet itself start to fall on top of the inquisitive goblin.
Basic Reflex Save DC=20
Damage bludgeoning damage
If save is 30 or more, no damage
If save 20-29 take 6 HPs damage
If save is 11-19 12 HPs damage
If save 10 or less then 24 HPs damage
Meanwhile Rangi moves on and starts to look at another bench covered with beakers and tubes. Burners long since out of fuel under empty round glass boiling flasks, the interior of which seems coated with a dried out blackened crystals. Test tubes held in wooden racks, all were tidy and set out despite the age, as though they were ready for the return of the cyclopean alchemists at any time, but they never returned.
Jak fortunately provides light to his companions so they can look more carefully at the tables.
Webny followed by Shayla both approach the next table, again full of glass tubes and pipes, but both Pathfinders notice one of the potions has decayed, putting it under immense pressure. Its contents have become poisonous over the centuries. They quickly work out, if the bottle flask is handled improperly, it's contents would explode, to look at the table further requires that the two find a way to neutralise this danger.
Shayla Perception Shayla Avoid Notice
Webny Perception Webny Search
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As Pooka impatiently yanks at the cabinet doors the whole thing suddenly pitches forward! Her eyes widen...
...and she manages to awkwardly stumble backwards just in time to avoid getting completely flattened by the falling cabinet. She doesn't come out completely unscathed however; some of the cabinet contents do tumble out and thump her on the head as she backpedals. And of course the whole thing makes a mighty crash as it hits the floor.
"OW OW ow ow, OW! Stupid cabinets!" Pooka yells, rubbing at her head. "I's almost got squished! These things are booby-trappeds!"
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Shayla to carefully places a a bucket from under the table over the unstable bottle and as the bottle explodes its force and shrapnel is contained within, not damaging anything else or Shayla and Webny. A nasty smell comes from the chemical concoction that was contained in the bottle. From the fumes, Shayla gets the distinct impression that liquid is poisonous, a well executed escape from harm.
As Pooka untangles herself from the cabinet, a flask that rolled out from the cabinet, explodes sending flames into the dark chamber, the fire is instant and dies off immediately as nothing on the stone floor catches in the flames. From the back of the cabinet, an acrid smell and a steam like cloud as a broken bottle spills some still active acid that burns into the corroded cabinet legs and fittings.
As you look around the tables and the remaining cabinets, you keep finding a particular substance that seems to be important to the research being conducted here.
You are able to determine that the substance is dried bruorsivi pine resin. The setup suggests that multiple experiments with the resin were happening simultaneously; each researching a different property of the substance.
You locate some rare alchemical ingredients worth 10 gp.
On one of the tables you find an ampoule of alchemist fire.
In the final cabinet, in an easily visible beaker is a fingerlike object, made of flint, etched with runes in the Cyclops language and painted with a golden “fingernail.”
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"Huh...wonder what they wanted to use it fors?" Pooka remarks as Jak is able to piece together the intended purpose of the laboratory.
When the weird finger-thing is found in the last cabinet, Pooka's eyes widen with a mixture of admiration and disgust. "Whoa...it looks totallys gross! Like somethings a goblin might do. I likes it!"
She continues to peer at the finger-thing with interest.
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The group do their best to tidy the lab, catalog the objects as first Jak and then Pooka attempt to translate the cyclopean words on the finger. With a smile Jak translates the finger, "OUR EGO GONE, THIS GIFT BLESSED", even Pooka with her limited knowledge manages to make out the same words from the book presented to the group by Eando Kline.
Rangi spends time trying to translate but the words get jumbled and make no sense to him.
By the time the team has taken an hour and a half to complete their work, it is time to move forward into the complex.
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"Huh...strange thing to put on someone's fingers,"
"In my younger years I tried to keep count of slain foes during battle by cutting my finger."
Says Rangi in a serious voice
"After three cuts, my hand started to feel numb. I never did it again. Some people do odd things" shares another piece of Orcish wisdom
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Rangi takes the lead as he takes you forward along a corridor, holding up his scarred hands in front of him. until another short corridor opens into a large room. The walls are painted in a fire motif. Then the room disappears into darkness.
to the left, at the back of the room stands a large altar made of obsidian. Collapsed in front of the altar is a desiccated figure, its arm outstretched toward the large stone finger, also made of obsidian, prominently placed atop the altar. The desiccated figure’s hand is severed at the wrist and still grasps the black stone finger.
Perception + scout Iustanus Search
Perception + scout Jak Detect Magic
Perception + scout Pooka Scout
Perception + scout Rangi Defend
Perception + scout Shayla Avoid Notice
Perception + scout Webny Search
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"Oh! There's a skellington in theres," Pooka whispers, her dark sight allowing her see beyond the reach of the light. "Ors a dead bodys, at least. And a freaky altars and a big old stone fingers on top of it. The skellington isn't movings but around here anythings can happen, right? We's ought to be careful..."
She waits a moment for everyone to get their bearings and gather themselves before taking a few steps toward the chamber's entrance, though she takes care to stay within the bright light.
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In the dim light those with normal vision can barely make out the details of the skellington... whilst those with better vision see that what looks like large skeletal legs and feet.
At the base of the altar is a large body, clearly long dead and dried into a mummified state. The body is outstretched toward the obsidian finger, its arm ending in a stump, its severed hand still grasping the stone. Though the altar would be a comfortable height for a cyclops, even tall humans are barely able to see over the ledge, whilst those of a smaller stature would require a ladder to reach the stone finger on the top.
It is clear something killed this cyclops as it grabbed the stone.
Rangi sees no traps from his vantage point.
Rangi Perception
Jak studies the significance of the fire motifs...
The motifs of fire, could belong to any of the gods known to be associated with the fire domain, such as Asmodeus, Brigh, Droskar, Ra, Ragathiel, Sarenrae or Ymeri ... or another ...
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"Meh...after last times, I's all paranoids now..." Pooka mutters as she cautiously moves into the chamber. She waits for something to happen and once again moves to the limits of the bright light if all remains quiet.
"Heys...I's gonna toss a rock or somethings, see if it moves," she whispers back to the others. "Be readys in case it gets up and tries to eat me, okays?"
The brave (or perhaps incredibly foolhardy) goblin waits a moment for her allies to prepare themselves and then she picks up a small pebble or other piece of debris and lightly tosses it towards the skellington.
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Pooka's stones clatter into the desiccated body of the skeleton. The shoulder moves and the arm moves quickly down, leaving it's stump pointing at the group as the arm moves forward as it drops down from the altar. A crack comes from the cyclops body, a sounds that snaps through the silence of the holy or unholy place you now stand, as rangi and Pooka look towards the altar and the cyclops body.
Meanwhile, Jak moves forward engrossed in his studies of the flaming emblems and images on fire of the walls.
The other follow behind, keeping in Jak's light as it illuminates the way, dimly lighting up the figure under the shadow of the altar. The light catches a long piece of black glass being held by what looks like a shriveled hand that sits on the altar. The altar also seems to be made of the same black rock and the piece held by the hand. The black glass, not native to this region, surely a volcanic stone, obsidian created in the spewing magma that originates in a volcano.
But nothing else moves..... in the deathly silence... only the arm that now points at you...
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Rangi goes towards the altar and looks at the black glass. He wonders if there is anything inside it...
"I wonder what was that important for this creature to try to reach this place"
"Those fire motifs could belong to any of the gods associated with fire Asmodeus, Brigh, Droskar, Ra, Ragathiel, Sarenrae or Ymeri to name a few."