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Nal had assumed that the rest of the pathfinders would follow her into the dressing room, but after a few moments of mulling over the hooks on the wall, she realizes she's all alone in there. Puzzled, she slips back out to find them milling about the vault and the arch. With a shrug, she joins them.
"What'd I miss? I was in the dressing room. It shows they had different sized people here. As in, gnome-height, human-height, and much-taller-height. I haven't checked out everything in there, though."
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Elsha suddenly sees a strange grey and blue sarcophagus-like creation of metal and glass phase into existence in the ovoid chamber, then disappear! He hears a jumble of words—“for,” “me,” “no,” “run,” and “wait” among them, and then the box fades completely from view! Elsha ponders this and comes to the conclusion that this is a temporal malfunction - that the box exists in another time and should never have been visible here!
Elsha stares in the spot where he saw the sarcophagus, questioning for several moments that he saw it. He snaps out of it when he hears Franzine exclaim from next to him, and he turns to see that she witnessed it too.
I th-think... it was from out of this time. It was never supposed to be here. But... wh-what brought it here?
Perplexed, he crosses the main area, he gaze at his feet as he thinks on what he saw. He goes to take a peek at the dressing room that Nal just popped out of.
He quickly rejoins the party.
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Franzine quickly describes the appearance, then disappearance, of the strange blue sarcophagus to Nal.
"It was sooo weird, Nal. Elsha said it may be from another time. I'm getting, like, really freaked out."
She nervously bites her lip.
"And what's up with those really high up coat hooks you saw? We've been exploring a lot of Cyclopean ruins recently. Is this place another one of those cyclopean ruins?"
Franzine notices the little leafy professor wander to the area with the branching hallways. She smiles when she sees him rolling acorns down the halls.
"Aww. How adorable."
She wonders if he's playing some sort of Leshy game.
Heading into the maze of passages, you pick one at random (It sounded the most promising to the Professor when they rolled their acorn?) and head in.
This chamber is bisected by a pair of bone-filled pits. A wide path crosses them, connecting the north and south ends of the chamber. An exit to the north leads back to the Maze of the Open Road, while a small door to the southeast leads deeper into the ruins.
When you enter this area, they hear a woman’s voice calling out in Common, “Heraxia? Heraxia, where are you?”
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Scratch sticks a finger in each ear and gives them a good cleaning. As he pulls them out a loud pop of suction echoes in the room Damn, guess I shouldda cleaned them back at the wash room. Best keep quiet, let these others flush out any targets!
Scratch keeps himself up against any sort of wall or barrier for cover, when he needs it anyhow, keeping his weapons in easy reach.
The doors are open and allow access to the room with the pits and statues.
No response to Franzine's call comes. Elsha, Azu and Scratch can't figure out where the voices come from. They seem to be seeping from the very air around you!
Elsha finds no auras in the room, save what he and his colleagues have brought in.
Scratch notes that the pits to the south contain strange bones! He'll have to get closer to find out more.
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"Toss a few of them acorns down there Prof before I climb on down, just in case its like one of them trash compactors I've heard about"
If all goes well Stitch hooks a pair of ropes up to the statues nearby and heads down in for a closer look at the bones.
"You want me to grab any that look fresh fer a good soup stock Franny?"
Unfortunately the moment Scratch begins to cross the bridge between the two pits, the two sets of full plate armor standing at the northern half of the pit room suddenly shift and attack!
ROUND 1:
Whitegourd, Nal, ELsha, Franzine, Azu, Scratch
Armor!
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"You want me to grab any that look fresh fer a good soup stock Franny?"
"Eww! No. Gross."
Franz curls her lip in disgust.Suddenly, the suits of armor move to attack. Franz steps forward and attacks.
Your foe hesitates under the weight of sin as visions of redemption play in their mind’s eye. The foe must choose one of the following options:
•The ally is unharmed by the triggering damage.
•The ally gains resistance to all damage against the triggering damage equal to 2 + your level. After the damaging effect is applied, the enemy becomes enfeebled 2 until the end of its next turn.
Whitegourd knows these are animated armors, constructs usually used as guards! He knows they have construct armor with hardness, which breaks when half their hit points are done to them in damage and makes them easier to hit! He also knows they are quite resistant to physical attacks, but slow and mindless! His electrical strike seems to make the purple armor slow and clumsy!
Nal's strike hits the armor and deals enough damage to bring it crashing to the ground in a heap!
Franzine strikes twice, her blade ringing true! The armor resists some damage, but some gets through on Yellow! It's enough to break the armor, causing the thing to become easier to strike and less resistant to damage!
Elsha, Azu and Scratch are up!
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"Some ancient animate armor subterfuge, how wickedly Dwarven!" Scratch lifts the long barreled firearm off his back and takes aim, just over Franny's right shoulder.
"Keep leanin' left Fran and don't mind the noise ok?" He pulls the trigger and the room echoes with a gunshot. Oh, and the glorious smell of burnt gunpowder blesses everyone's noses.
Scratch quickly reloads.
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There is a thunderous BOOM and the armor falls apart into a heap, sending bits of shrapnel flying and an echoing peal of thunder throughout the complex.
The complex eventually goes quiet as the echoes die and your ears stop ringing.
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Scratch listens and watches for anything that may have been summoned from the sounds of combat, retreating to the first room for a few moments just in case. "Well, hopefully we just scared away anything that may not be dead or dumb."
Assuming no reinforcements show up, Scratch does indeed check out the bone pits like he planned. Passing up on Franny's soup bones.
The pits are full of bones, but definitely not familiar bones. Or at least not with the familiar amount of limbs. There are Medium humans, Small tailed reptilian humanoids with a snout, Small ratfolk, and Large four-armed humanoids with a broad build and prominent lower tusks.
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Elsha is stunned in place as the clamor of the animated armor takes over. He looks back and forth at the concoctions on his bandoleer, trying to figure out if any of them would even affect a mindless thing. Then, as quickly as it started, Scratch's shot rings out and ends the confrontation.
The alchemist shakes off the disorienting feeling of chaos and peers into the pit to see what happened to the creatures within.
These cr-cr-creatures died of starvation.
He winces and steps back as his stutter echos throughout the chamber.
You head out into a maze of corridors. Finally, you stop after a few twists and turns. The archways leading into the next chamber have been barricaded with mounds of junk, rock, and other debris. Voices mutter on the other side.
"Where you think monster dog come from? WHy we no see it before?"
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Scratch listens and also shrugs "Nope, never been much for learning other tongues, mine works just fine as it is." He looks over the mounds of material to see if it was maybe a cave in or filled in from this side or the other perhaps.
"IF, it seems like a good idea to make our way through, I suggest some well placed explosives. Saves your back and its way more fun." He gives Elsha a wink.
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"These cr-cr-creatures died of starvation."
Franzine glares at Scratch with a scornful look.
"If only they had some bone broth for themselves."Franz offers a small Iomedaean blessing over the pits before the group leaves the room.
"Poor things."
She murmurs mournfully.
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After Elsha translates, Franz moves closer to the blocked archway.
"Are they kobolds? They could be of the Sewer Dragon tribe. I know they're friends with the Pathfinders."
She calls out to the voices on the other side.
"Hey!!! You okay in there!?! Do you need any help!?!"
Elsha, in Draconic you hear a reply!
Franzine hears muttering, and in Common: "We am not fooled by different language, monster dog! We am clever! You try to come in, see what you get!"