Ufi eats the scale with his breakfast, thanking Alandri for the meal.
He sits on the bank of the river for a while, watching the play of wind over the water and the scattering of the fish. "I seem to recall that the root of the libevari tree, when boiled attracts fish like a lure. I'm sure I spotted some libevari in the market, if you will give me a moment, I think I can prepare it quite easily."
Muruwa is hungry. She's always hungry. And she happily eats the the scale.
At the river bank, Muruwa draws on her foraging skills for survival in the wild. She wades into the river and explains, "It's all about letting the flow of the river work with you, rather than against you." Then, with lightning speed, she attempts to snatch a fish with her bare grippli hand.
Ekene happily eats the scale along with everybody else. She relies on her athletic skills as she swims through the water, catching fish with her bare hands!
Ufi and Muruwa each catch a fish, while Zane and Ekene nabs two each. Kalaggi does not manage to get any, but Alandri is still thrilled with your work, and gives you a lion badge for your hard work. She also hands each of you a bubbling scale to use tomorrow.
As noon approaches, you approach Teacher Ot's office in the Heron Archives for your next lesson.
The top floor of the Heron Archives is dimly lit with lanterns of blue glass, but a sliver of amber light escapes Teacher Ot’s room, reflecting off of the stone through the network of hallways. The door is slightly ajar, and beneath it, a puddle of water trickles into the hallway. The tapping of dripping water emanates from within the room in a dissonant rhythm. With each tap, the expanding pool of water reddens with a thickening cloud of blood.
Inside, Teacher Ot’s office is in total disarray. Chairs have been overturned; books, scrolls, and writing implements have been knocked off a cracked walnut desk; and tiny bits of paper float in the puddles along the floor. The glass skylight overhead has been shattered; its jagged fragments litter the damp floor, glittering in the afternoon sunlight. A large glass display case along the left wall has also been smashed open—its contents are nowhere to be seen.
Small, skittish insects swarm around a pool of violet ichor spilling out of a cracked bowl on the desk. Another, larger group of insects, each the size of a child’s palm, descend from the walls and ceiling. They land throughout the office and begin to aggressively hiss and snap!
The red creature unleashes a flash of light, then tries to sting Muruwa and Kalaggi.
Neither attempt lands.
Round 1 - bolded may go
Red
Kalaggi (Fort save)
Zane (Fort save)
Yellow
Green
Blue
Ekene (Fort save)
Muruwa (Fort save)
Ufi (Fort save)
Quick to action, Zane is alert and wide-eyed for once ... only to get dazzled by the light.
He waves his hand and casts a spell ◆◆. An arc of electricity shoots between the Red and Green creatures.
DC 17 basic Reflex save
After attacking, he'll consider what he's fighting ◆.
These are flash beetles, animals with no subtypes. The ichor on the desk is food for the beetles, and you could attempt to use it to pacify them. (This requires two Interact actions, and you need to be adjacent to the desk for the first and to a beetle for the second.) Each can use that light attack once per 24 hours, and they have no other special attacks, resistances or weaknesses.
The two beetles dodge part of Zane's attack. However, Kalaggi's arrow puts one down.
The remaining bugs move in and try to bite the heroes.
Ufi remembers that the mandibles of flash beetles can inject a blinding poison into a victim. He wonders when he will lose his sight.
Round 1 - bolded may go
Red (-4 HP)
Kalaggi
Zane (dazzled)
Yellow
Green
Blue
Ekene (Fort save)
Muruwa (Fort save)
Ufi (-3 HP, 1 action used)
Muruwa manages to look away just in time to avoid being dazzled. The grippli looks around at all the insects and grins, "Look, everyone. Lunch is served." She considers and adds, "Looks like we must kill it first." She draws her hand adze and moves behind the beetle attacking her.
From her new flanking position, Muruwa strikes.
Ufi warns the rest of the group "Some of these have poisonous bites.. take care!" as he hunkers down behind his shield. As a bug approaches he tries to squash it.
It makes a satisficing splatting sound.
"Teacher... are you here?" he calls out.
Ekene shakes off the flash of light with no ill effects. She enters into her Crane Stance, leaping forward into the fray! With graceful movement, she delivers a flurry of crane wing strikes.
The heroes easily destroy the remaining bugs and can search the room. There is no indication that anyone else is here.
You also see a set of damp footprints on the floor. They have not dried up yet, so you can easily follow them.
Ekene searches around the room, discovering a small wooden mask beneath the desk. This is a student’s mask shaped like a rabbit, and its cord has been torn, suggesting it was pulled off during the attack.
"This must have come from whoever left these footprints," the elf says, pointing to the damp marks on the floor. "Shall we follow and see where they lead?"
"I'll ... uh ... follow a bit behind," Zane says, nervously.
Muruwa cleans off beetle guts from her hand adze ... with her grippli tongue. She explains, "Flash beetles are considered a delicacy in many parts of the Mwangi jungles." She searches the room.
She spots something under the desk, but as usual, Ekene is quicker than she is. Muruwa joins her friend to take a closer look at the mask. When Ekene suggests following the trail, Muruwa nods. "I'm in." With her adze in one hand and dagger in the other, Muruwa follows closely behind, sticking to the shadows.
Ufi rubs at his eyes, peering around the room.
"A rabbit mask...?" he asks. "Who wore the rabbit?"
He then peers at Muruwa. "You Grippli are made of stern stuff. Do you have to prepare it especially to avoid the toxins and blindness?"
Looking around the room he ads "I'm not sure how long my sight will hold out, so we must be quick about this. Is anyone else injured?"
"Is anyone else injured?"
"Only my ego."
The group examines the mask, then follows the tracks.
Following the footsteps leads to an elaborate door hewn from ebony and stone. The door has no discernible handle, but instead is inset with 12 fist-sized icons in a circle. Clockwise from the top, these engraved symbols include a star burst, blue leopard, black heron, red hyena, grey elephant, golden snake, single leaf, black ibex, frog of shifting colors, emerald spider, walnut hawk, and white bull—the Ten Magic Warriors, along with some common arcane iconography and four violet gems depicting the essences of magic, all surround a noble portrait depicting Jatembe himself.
Across from this beautiful door sits a clock with a mirror background set two feet off the ground, spanning a seven-foot radius. Every hour on the clock is positioned over a reflected icon from the door. A subtle mosaic display of a map of Nantambu corresponds to where Jatembe’s portrait is positioned. On it, a canal near the Magaambya labeled “Gonbossa” has been obviously marked with a damp fingerprint. Three gold arms point at various icons on the clock. The thickest points down to the lower left, toward the ibex. The middle switches from the bull to the leopard as the thinnest laps it, ticking across each icon.
When Ufi asks about the toxins in the Flash Beetles, Muruwa gives him a confused look. "I've never heard of such beetles carrying toxins. I think you'll be fine." She has another taste, to put the cleric's mind at ease. But it probably has the opposite effect.
In the corridor, Muruwa studies the symbols. She looks from the ornate door to the mirrored clock. "It appears to read 7 o'clock." Turning back to the door, she tries touching the inlaid symbols that the clock point to: First, the ibex. Then, the the star burst at the top situated between the bull and leopard.
Assuming nothing happens, she considers the rabbit mask and thinks aloud, "I notice that none of the inlaid animals is a rabbit." She continues to puzzle over this door.
As Muruwa presses each of the symbols, one of the violet gems illuminates. Two of them are lit, and remain so, but nothing else happens.
"The first three button presses correspond with the time and I know which order to press them!"
Ufi looks in initial horror and then fascination at Muruwa eats a beetle.
"Truly your physiology is remarkable." says the big man, shaking his head.
As time passes and his vision remains, he opines "I am hopeful I managed to remove the toxin before it could reach my head. Perhaps it had already bitten someone else recently?"
Kalaggi realizes that the final button press is that of Jatembe’s icon.
The door still has two glowing gems.
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When Ufi comments on her physiology, Muruwa smiles and looks up to the tall human, "Ah, why thank you, my friend. But that's just one of many remarkable things about grippli's." She pauses and adds, "We have many untold talents, but if I shared them with you they would no longer be untold." She returns her attention to the door.
Muruwa studies the symbols, recalling on her Lore of the Jungle. She's specifically interested if she can recall any information about the canal labeled Gamboosa with the fresh fingerprint.
She then studies the symbols once again.
She agrees with everyone about the buttons representing time. So pressing the 3 buttons, denoting the time, lights 2 of the gems.
Muruwa tries pressing the 2 lit gems, before trying to press Jatembes's icon.
Ekene looks over her friends' shoulders, letting those with more skill in this area of expertise deal with the door.
Nothing happens when you touch the two lit gems. Touching Jatembe lights a third, and you hear a voice in your head, simply saying <Tell the time.>
Gonbossa is the name of a canal a few minutes' walk west of the school grounds. You do not recall anything unusual about it.
The fourth gem illuminates as you touch the last symbol, then they all go dark.
Ufi scratches his head as the others tackle the puzzle door.
"What do we do now? Go through the door?" he asks.
Carefully he extends his arm out to touch the doors surface.
The door does not open. Perhaps you didn't get the combination exactly right.
Kalaggi carefully pushes the buttons for the hour, minute and (carefully timed) seconds. One gen lights violet for each, and after the third, they each turn blue. He then touches the icon of Jatembe and the fourth gem lights blue, and there is a click.
At that moment, an eccentric elven instructor named Nhyria approaches. She says she was heading for this reshelving room as well and thanks you for unlocking the door. She mentions that inside are supplies and assumes that you are looking for something within. Nhyria becomes immediately distracted, however, as water begins to spill out from within as the door opens.
A large current of stinking water flows out into the hall, carrying several arcane articles with it. The heroes find a partially flooded storage room inside. With a brief search of the room, the heroes notice a suspicious cart surrounded by all sorts of supplies in the far corner. Water bubbles from beneath the overturned cart and the heroes can locate a magical parchment underneath it, which bears a strange magical rune.
"This smells like the Gonbossa canal just a few minutes west of the school grounds!"
"I think we could disable the rune by way of a short... ritual." notes the priest.
"Great Tlehar, shine your light on this room and dry out the source of the water!" he intones.
Muruwa nods to Kalaggi as he unlocks the door. "Well done. You have excellent ... timing." She follows the others inside.
Seeing the water gushing from the room, Muruwa heads to the over-turned cart. With Zane and Ufi a step ahead of her, they seem to have a good idea of what's going on. If needed, she offers the cleric help with disabling the rune.
Ufi disables the rune, and the water level slowly drops in the reshelving room. Nhyria notes that whoever scribed the rune did not even do it properly and that it's good that you managed to stop the water before it got too high. She gives you a scroll of magic weapon as thanks, then gathers some tools from the room and goes on her way.
"So... that runes you noticed before ... that pointed to the canal? The same one the water came from? Do you think you can make the door take us to the canal?"
Nhyria would have left before you investigated, but you can track her down and learn that the only magic on the door is the lock (once it is open, it is a mundane portal) and the run, even if scribed correctly, would not allow a person to teleport, so you will have to get to the canal the old-fashioned way.
When Nhyria hands them the Scroll of Magic Weapon, Muruwa looks to Zane, "It's all arcane to me, my friend. You wanna hang on to this?"
Muruwa feels the need to tidy up the room a bit. She turns the cart right-side-up, and briefly looks around as she does so.
Finding nothing further, she goes back to study the mosaic clock display. Pointing to the fingerprint on the map, she suggests, "So...to the Gonbossa canal and find out who's behind this mess? The canal is just west of the campus." She follows the others, and, as always, tries her best to keep up with Ekene.
"Right... but how did the water get here, if not via that door?" wonders Ufi.
"Of course in this place...the answer is magic."
”Yes, there is no time to waste!” Ekene declares.
"Ugh ... more running."
Zane trails along, trying to expend as little effort as possible without losing sight of the others.
You make your way to the canal. You are able to enter without difficulty and begin your exploration.
The dark canal tunnel grows wider here. Clouds of spores hang in the air, glowing bright blue and amber. The walls are covered in glowing mushrooms that continue further down the tunnel, which continues ahead and branches off to the side.
A small creature that looks like a mushroom with eyes lurches out of the side passage. "You can go no further!" he calls out.
"Oh? Why not?"