The tiger dodges the fire. It tries to pounce on Issi, but she avoids its attacks!
The tiger dodges Sadiki's water and Issi's blade. The tiger misses with its attacks!
"This obviously isn't working!" Sadiki exclaims. "Let me try something else!"
The sorceress unleashes a spray of swirling colors from her fingertips!
The tiger resists the spell! It bites Issi, grabbing a hold of her but failing to wrestle her to the ground.
This time, the tiger fully succumbs to Sadiki's color spray! It releases Issi as it reels, momentarily stunned!
Issi does better, but Sadiki does not! Her fire goes wide. The tiger recovers from the stun and attacks blindly, failing to hit!
Sadiki burns the tiger, but Issi misses. The tiger manages to bite the magus.
The tiger whimpers and goes down, but Sadiki is able to quickly stabilize it.
Having heard the fight, Oba rushes out of the shop and runs to the gate. “More of my animals are free! Why must misfortune plague me? Please recover them alive, I beg of you. These animals are fierce, but they’re also expensive. I’ll reward you for subduing them and putting them back in their cages.” She hurls a ring of keys through the gate and onto the path.
Oba tells you the squawking is coming from her elephant birds and that something must be agitating them. She explains that she also has a rare beast called a mpeshi with an electrified aura and a basilisk that’s best handled with the mirrored shield in the adjacent shed.
"Right," Sadiki says. She follows her sister.
This set of three cages has two elephant birds in each. They have shimmering golden plumage and are squawking noisily. A wooden sign reads, “Elephant Birds, Golden: 6.”
The birds are currently in a panic, likely because of the freed tigers. The birds are so agitated that they’re fluttering their wings against the bars and hurling their weight against them.
Sadiki puts her druid training to good use, cooing and making gentle gestures with her hands to get the birds to settle down. Once the first one relaxes, the others quickly follow suit, and soon all six have calmed down.
"There, they should be okay now. The mpeshi next or the basilisk?"
You cross the yard to the mpeshi's pen. This cage is larger than the others. The door is ajar, and debris is scattered all around the outside and inside. The metal bars of the cage emit a noticeable, but harmless, jolt of static electricity when touched. Like the tiger cage, the lock hangs freely from the open cage.
A rustling from the trees to the south gets your attention as the angry mpeshi emerges! This fantastic beast appears to be a monstrous goat with the foreclaws, hindquarters, and tail of a crocodile. Electricity arcs around its sharp horns!
Sadiki quickly blasts the creature with water!
The creature bleats, then rushes forward and leaps high into the air. It gores Sadiki as it falls, then it slams headfirst into the ground with a thundering crash!
Sadiki resists the thunderous fall. She blasts the mpeshi with a color spray, blinding it, then falls back! Issi lands a blow with her acid-infused blade.
The mpeshi lashes out blindly, whacking Issi with its tail.
Sadiki critically burns the beast, then Issi’s final strike causes it to fall! Sadiki stabilizes the mighty creature.
Sadiki patches her sister up and lays hands on herself. ”Better now, sis? Time to finish up here. Don’t get stoned!” she teases.
The provision shed by the basilisk pen holds grooming tools, food, magically preserved basilisk blood in case of accidental petrification (this is enough to coat two Medium creatures or one Large creature), and a special mirror shield.
A statue of a rearing tiger stands before the open door of this cage, a wooden sign trampled beneath its back paws. Several low walls stand on three sides of the cage. The sign beneath the stone tiger’s paw reads, “Basilisk: 1.” As with the tiger cage, the lock hangs open.
As soon as you get within 30 feet of the cage, the basilisk inside runs out, the many-legged lizard tromping away from you across the yard!
The creature runs away, seemingly not interested in attacking you!
"I guess we just have to corral it!" Sadiki says. "I'll get on the other side and try to scare it towards you!"
The sorceress rushes around the basilisk and conjures a display of crackling fire and lightning!
"I don't think it's working!" she calls as the basilisk continues its movements!
The basilisk snarls and hisses as the flames cut off its retreat. Turning away from the mirrored shield, it stares at Sadiki, then turns and lopes off in the other direction.
Sadiki is unaffected by the gaze! "Let's try this again!" she says, daring to move close to the basilisk and unleashing a color spray.
The lizard is completely stunned! "Yes! Now, Issi! Grab it!"
Issi wrestles the basilisk into the cage and locks it inside! Sadiki gives her sister a high-five!
Oba is genuinely impressed that you were able to wrangle all of the beasts without killing them, and exclaims, “Have you thought about a new profession? I could use people like you for my business!” She must now admit that the Magaambya produces something that’s definitely not useless.
With the other beasts secured, you can now investigate the griffon cages. A sign on a stake between these two cages reads, “Griffons: 2.” The doors to the cages are still wide open, and black feathers are still littered about in the trampled mud.
An infiltrator’s pick is stuck in the mud, plainly left here several days ago. The specially made pick is longer than most, with strange grips and pads that make it awkward to use. Oba does not recognize the distinctive lockpick, and she insists she doesn’t know anyone who would want to sabotage her by releasing all of her beasts.
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Issi collects the lockpick for later investigation and politely declines any offer of new employment. "We're quite happy in our studies, thank you." She says simply. "Although you did promise us some recompense for our blood and time I think..."
Once accounts are settled the twins take their leave.
"Do you believe her, about not knowing who would sabotage her animals?" Issi asks. "It seems like a lot of effort for someone to go to without any reason."
One offers you a belt of good health as payment for your efforts.
”She knows something,” Sadiki says, ”but I doubt she’d admit to anything. Let’s go back to campus and learn more about those anadis.”
Asking around campus, you learn that the anadi students haven’t made many friends, as they tend to unsettle other classmates with their preference for their natural humanoid spider forms. The anadi classmates often spend evenings in front of the Hababe Building, a little-used structure that contains storerooms, lecture halls, and spare offices. There, the students discuss arcane theories well past dark.
The lecture hall is dark for the evening, but the front steps are illuminated by a lantern on a log between several soft clumps of brush. The stairs up to the lecture hall are flanked by two clay statues of stout masked figures holding swords. Although the lecture hall entrance atop the stairs is a grand double door, it’s not the building’s only visible entrance: a smaller door behind the stairs is just illuminated by the lantern’s light.
The three anadis sit in front of the stairs. They are currently deeply involved in an esoteric debate about the intricate webs of fate and causality.
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Issi listens for a little while and then joins in the conversation. She isn't terribly subtle about redirecting the anadi's conversation, but her discussions of the mystical weavings of fate interest the spiders enough that they go along with the redirection anyway once Issi starts asking what exactly drew them to the Magaambya.
The anadis bob their heads in agreement with Issi's musings as she redirects the conversation. Rainbows-Reflected-Upon-Gossamer-Strands, or "Goss" as he asks to be called, speaks for the three studnets.
"We... are not sure what drew us here. We felt the call of magic, and knew this was the place that had the most to teach us about it. We live deep in the jungle. We wanted to see more of the world, and so came to Nantambu. We had only just arrived, and only just learned of the Magaambya, when we felt the call pulling us here. We hadn’t seen more than a handful of other humanoids until we came, and here there are so, so many!"
"It's... hard to explain," Goss admits. "It's like a beckoning, a yearning feeling. It feels like we are supposed to be here."
He gestures to the building behind him. "This building, in particular, calls to us, too. Sometimes. We spend a lot of time discussing what might be there, but we haven’t gone in. We sometimes hear noises inside, and that gives us caution."
"Yes, we would like that," Goss says. The anadis bob their heads in agreement.
Asking around campus about the storeroom, you learn that it used to hold talismans and alchemical reagents, but a newer storeroom was built in a more central location a few years ago, making this one obsolete. It’s part of the building’s foundation, though, and the classrooms and offices in the building are still used occasionally, so it’s just left empty and unused.
Armed with that knowledge, you return to the storeroom and approach the door. As you draw near, however, the western statue of a masked figure grinds to life, shaking off years of dust and raising its sword and shield!
The statue moves up to Issi and attacks, just missing!
Sadiki tries to blast the statue but misses with her geyser. Issi scores a critical hit, though, destroying the construct's shield and carving out chunks of clay from its body!
The anadis cry out in surprise and scurry for cover as the statue attacks Issi, slashing her twice.
Sadiki does manage to hit this time, blasting the statue back a few feet. It steps back up to attack, but Issi parries its blows!
Issi's burning blade strikes true, and the clay construct shatters into pieces! Sadiki lays hands on her sister to heal her injuries before sitting down to refocus.
"We did not know that statue was a construct," Goss says. "Perhaps we never approached close enough to trigger it."
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"Well now we do..." Issi says, stretching and letting out a groan when something pops in her shoulder. "Be really explicit about where you've been from now on, right? Just in case."
She waits patiently for Sadiki to finish her meditation and occupies her time by poking through the wreckage of the construct.
Investigating the statue, Issi sees that the statue was imbued with arcane energy within the past day. She further realizes that the statue was once animated long ago, and the recent energy merely reactivated its former defense protocols.
The teak door to the storeroom is scratched and old. Its brass lock is corroded and obviously inoperable, but the door doesn’t open easily. It seems to have been boarded over from the inside!
Dust and cobwebs coat empty shelves and cabinets in the room beyond the door. The hard dirt floor is stained with paint and the powder of long-inert reagents. Another door is set in the west wall.
A search of the room also reveals a secret door in the north wall! One of the cabinets pivots outward along with a section of the wall when a shelf within it is tilted up.