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Limping along with Jayma, Itka tries not to thunk her cane too loudly as she manages the stairs one at a time. Hmp. Fine place for a trap. Not knowing what to look for as far as physical traps are concerned, Itka casts Detect Magic as she hobbles along, just in case there's anything magical that could be concerning. "Hmp. First door's good."
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Symeon follows every on down the stairs. "Right first door would be a logical place to start. Now if you want observant people to take a look before we move through the door, I guess I can try taking a look."
Symeon moves up to the door, and if he doesn't find anything, moves back behind Hornbori ready to let him take the lead and the brunt of any enemy hiding behind the door.
You go closer to the first door to the left. There Symeon stops and listens
But he hears nothing. Then Hornbori opens the door and you all look inside...
The walls of this room are decorated with a multitude of mostly broken glass cases displaying insects, spiders, and the like. Additionally, there are massive vermin on display, such as dog-sized ants, human-sized spiders, and even a horse-sized scorpion, though they are all heavily damaged.
The collection in this room was the lifework of a naturalist, Pathfinder Ornato Geryis.
You discover that someone walked around the room recently and took something from the displays leaving a clean spot in the dust.
You find an intact taxidermy beetle, it’s a rare, now extinct, species from Osirion. The beetle is historically significant to the Pathfinder Society.
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When Hornbori opens that door and nothing jumps out at them, Jayma pokes her head around the corner and crinkles her nose. "How wonderful. A room full of giant insects. Good thing they're all be dead." She enters and looks around.
"Oh, now I remember. This must be the collection of Ornato Geryis, dedicated naturalist and Pathfinder." She frowns at the condition of the displays and specimens. "It's unfortunate that it too seems to have suffered the depredations of time, though all this damage suggests that time was not the only adversary at work here."
Jayma finds nothing more of interest in the debris and shrugs. She wanders over to the other door and listens to see if she can hear anything beyond.
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Symeon takes a look at the room as well.
He stops for a moment and then takes a few steps back, before looking at everyone else in the room. "Hold still for just a moment. I think there's foot prints in the dust here that don't belong to us."
He then starts to trace a path through the mess before arriving at a podium far away from everyone else. "These were someone else's footsteps. They stopped here and... Looked for... Ah! Yes, they took something here... Something arachnid like with eight legs. Perhaps a spider? We might want to be careful about any spiders we see."
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Jayma listens to Symeon's discovery concerning the missing spider. "It seems we're not the only amateur entomologists that have come through here. Or... should that by etymologist? I always get those mixed up." She looks around for more signs of additional missing insects and/or word origins but comes up empty. "So we have a missing spider, presumably as dead as the rest of these poor creatures. If it is as valuable to the Society as our newly rediscovered beetle, then we'll definitely have to keep an eye out for it."
Poor forgotten Twyl pokes his head out of his hidey hole in her sleeve for some fresh air. Jayma almost absentmindedly starts stroking it. "Yes, I know. It's not very interesting in there little one, but this is a dangerous place and you'll be far safer tucked away." The ermine looks about the wrecked room with all its giant insects and can't help but agree. He dives back into Jayma's sleeve for another quiet snooze.
You head north going slowly down the corridor. You listen if there is any movement in the next room but there is none. The desk and bookshelves are destroyed and mostly empty beyond for old books. On the back wall, there is a secret door hanging open. When you enter it the small corridor takes you to the backside of the other two secret entrances that are slightly ajar. The corridor finally takes you to a hidden chamber that once could have items of value but since then it was already ransacked.
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Symeon scurries to keep up with the longer legged people, but as any good halfling or gnome could tell you it's less about the length of your legs and more about how quickly you move them. He moves up to the door that Emdi stopped at as well and takes a moment to listen from a lower position. "Emdi don't move. You can make unnecessary noise.
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Jayma had been engrossed by a giant insect specimen that was so singular in its awesome hideousness that she found herself momentarily transfixed by the sight. Perhaps partly due to the damage it had incurred, she could not even identify which order of insect it was, let alone its genus. Truly magnificent. She briefly considered the logistics of taking it with her, but the thing was almost as large as she was. Finally turning to bring the rest of the group's attention to her grotesque new find, Jayma discovers herself to be alone in the room. She frowns in mild concern. "Where did everyone go?" She then hears movement coming from the northern corridor and heads quickly in that direction. "Wait up my friends. I'm coming!"
You hear nothing, besides of heavily armored dwarf that is eager to head through the doors.
You push them and to your sight comes another destroyed chamber. It has a long bar with crashed bottles behind it. Old and dusty closets are mostly broken or rotten. The open room gives you a sight of the corridor in front of you...
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After all the anticipation, Jayma is slightly disappointed by the appearance of yet another ransacked room. "This place is like a maze. The count must be down here somewhere. Let's keep searching." This time she will not be left behind. She marches down the wide hallway and peeks around the corner towards the east. "I think it opens up to the left up there. Probably hooks up to that secret door we found earlier."
You head to the other secret doors and repeat the process...
You hear nothing, so Emdi, Hornbori, Symeon, Itka and Arfsnarf sneak through the secret doors while Jayme comes from the other side to stop anyone from escaping...
Gold, green, and magenta mosaic tiles form an intricate Glyph of the Open Road on an upraised stage to the north. Battered remains of a humanoid statue stand in the middle, the rest blasted throughout the lower half of the room. The shattered and torn fragments of a teddy bear and dragon toy lay among the rubble. On the opposite wall from the stage, candlelight flickers from the seam of two closed metal doors.
You notice something was taken from the floor recently, leaving behind a cleaner spot in the dust.
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Jayma enters the room as the others finally make it through the secret door. "It appears I was correct; it all hooks up. Now what do we have here?" She looks around the room. "Children's toys?! How odd. I wonder what the story is there."
"Hold on, what's this?" she bends down for a better look. "Looks like something was taken from the floor here recently." She points to an area that seems freer of dust. "See?"
Standing back up, she passes her hand across her face and says, "vide magica".
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Itka, too, notices the cleaner spot of floor, but seems to be more perturbed by the shredded children's toys. In as low a voice as possible she growls at the group: "Hmp. Yes, something was there. Now hush. Where there's fire there may be people with ears." She points at the light flickering in the cracks of the metal doors with a glower, then begins sneaking toward them, pricking her ears for sounds.
Symeon picks his leads, he gives some hints to Itka who realizes that the item gone missing from the ground was small and humanoid-shaped. Most likely it was of the size of one of those toys.
Emdi and Hornbori are discussing the nature of the damages done to the statue, and Jayma and Arfsnarf begin to check for magical presence, but they find none.
You open the double doors leading to the room...
The surfaces of this chamber are painted in blue by a cylinder fire rising from a large summoning circle of inlaid silver and cold iron. To the south, a devil’s head and runes decorate a door of red metal. A large desk carved from a single block of red stone is filled with candles and stands next to an opening that leads down below.
Count Varian Jeggare is there trapped inside a cylinder of blue fire.
"Hello, anyone there?"
Both Jayma and Arfsnarf detect magic. Jayma believes it to be abjuration magic
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Jayma gets as close to the cylinder of blue fire as she thinks is safe. "Count Jeggare, can you hear me? Can you see us? We are Pathfinders that have been sent to rescue you. You appear to be trapped in a magical force field of some sort. Have you any idea how we can get you out?"
Jayma looks closely at how the count reacts to her words and the way he replies. She is trying to determine if he's under any sort of mental duress; particularly whether he is under the effects of any enchantments.
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"Hmp. 'Sussy baka?' Kids talk so weird." That summoning circle is trouble. Can we damage it enough to make it fail? Would that hurt the Count? Itka bends to inspect the summoning circle, but before she starts, she pulls Akti out of her pocket and puts him on her shoulder. "Hmp. Squeak if you notice anyone or anything coming from there." She points toward the opening near the desk and gets back to work studying the circle.
Jeggare looks at you speaking oddly
"Yes now I can see and hear you. I don't know what this is, but I can't break out of it. You are pathfinders, good, good. Have you handled the guards at the entrance?"
Count Varian continues
"In the basement, Aydrian Thrune's bodyguard has a key to release me from this prison. You need to take those stairs to your left."
Itka sets Akti to watch the stairs while she is examining the summoning circle.
She concludes that this is a regular summoning circle and should have no effect on Count Varian.
With all your body you feel that something is off here. Count Varian should not be held here alone, he acts a bit off from what you know of him.
You observe Count Varian and you believe him. The situation seems a bit off, and there is no saying how long Count Varian was held alone. He does not seem to lie to you.
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Jayma frowns; something seems a little off to her about the situation. Why would the count be concerned about the guards at the entrance? How would he even know about them? And a key? Like to a lock? The count seemed to be trapped in a magical force field of some sort; surely it would take more than a physical key to get him free. And how would the count know about a bodyguard in the basement when he was trapped up here? How very odd.
She decides to play it close to the vest. She suspects that she may already have said too much. "Never mind the guards, we need to get you out of here. There's a key in the basement you say? What does this key look like and what do we do with it once we get it?"
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"Hmp. Summoning circle is normal. It shouldn't be affecting him." Why would Aydrian Thrune imprison him like this, here? A normal prison would hold him well enough. Unless it's a trap for any rescuers, somehow. Maybe it's set to harm us or him if we try to get him out of there. Itka is glowering at the blue flame prison, trying to piece together the bits of the puzzle.
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Symeon takes a long moment to add the words 'sussy baka' to his notebook in an attempt to later look them up, before he moves into the room proper. He stares at the circle for a moment.
"There's no way a normal summoning circle would be affecting the Venture-Captain unless there's something else going on here." Just to be safe he also takes a look at the Venture Captain.
"Do we want to see about possibly disrupting the circle. If it somehow is holding him we might need to let him free, but then my sister has told me about a demon that once tried to use a disguise to convince people to let them free so we might want to avoid that, I'm also afraid it might also be trapped to hurt him as well."
"I guess getting the key might tell us more. Let's go retrieve it? Maybe pump the bodyguard for more information?"
"The key is a magical item meant to hold me here, you look like someone who can cast spells, I can guide you how to dismiss this prison when you have it. But I am not sure how does it look like"
You listen in to the conversation, and it sounds mostly normal to you. Besides missing guards, Venture-Captain sounds genuine.
You approach the topic with surgical precision. You walk around the Venture-Captain and you believe, it to be an illusion. Very good illusion, but still. You believe that the flames are not real and neither is Count Varian. At the same time Arfsnard expressed concerns about touching the fire, is he right and you are wrong?
Itka looks at the summoning circle, she looks for the angle on how to approach this, but she can't see one.
Arfsnarf raises concerns about the fire.
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Itka slowly raises her eyes from the circle to stare straight at Emdi's face. 'Sussy baka?' 'Suss?' Has he gone mad? The look she gives him is one of intense incredulity, mixed with concern for his mental health. "Hmp. Were you hit on the head earlier?" The words grind over her throat like boulders crushed by a glacier.