Entering the room, neither Silvio nor Median see anything significant: no signs of foot traffic (though that would be hard to spot on such a hard floor, nor anything hidden. There is just a statue, and the two stair cases, and the two doors.
When Median opens her pack, the Nehushtan slithers out and makes a motion that seems almost certainly like a yawn. It's tongue slithers out gently and it looks at Median, then at the statue, and then back at Median.
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Median pets the snake and tells the others it is safe, and was sent by Sarenrae to help them.
Could be something up with the statue. The snake is checking it out.
Then she talks to the snake, wondering if it knows any language since it is so smart.
Want to ride up on my shoulders?
If it seems amenable she puts her pack back on, and then lifts the snake to ride behind her head where it can move around if it wants to rather than just being at the top of the pack.
Than she takes a good hard look at the statue
She is too far away to see details apparently, but the fact that the snake gave the statue the side-eye makes her wary, and even though it is a fine statue of Kassen, as far as she is concerned, nothing in this crypt is sacred anymore. She steps closer and shoots a burning hands spell across the gap at it, to see what happens.
(draconic bonus)
The Nehushtan slithers up onto Median's shoulders at her beckoning, its long slender body spreading out across her wingspan as it stretches. After a few moments, she steps to the floor's edge and releases a gout of flames towards the statue like the pyromaniac she is.
The flames singe both statue and shields, though neither catch fire and continue to burn. The well-worn shields darken a bit with the flames, their carved messages amplifying in the contrast. A few sparks dance off of the statue where the fire kissed it.
"A snake pet? Well, I guess I've seen it all now. What's its name?" Winter starts barking at the snake, unsure of how to approach it. "No, it's okay, boy. It's a friend." With Silvio's reassurance, Winter starts to sniff the snake cautiously as an introduction. The dog doesn't seem entirely convinced.
"Well, that fire didn't set off any traps. Let's pick a door then."
Silvio and Winter approach the south door.
As Silvio moves down the westernmost stairs, Garen posts his watch of the northern door. Sledge takes a few steps back and leans against the wall and Median watches the last embers die down from her burst of flame.
As Silvio reaches the bottom of the eastern stairs, the statue that resembles Ekat Kassen creaks and steps forward into the pit. As the statue steps into the lowest portion of the room, the steps all individually rotate 45 degrees, turning the stairways into two long slides.
The statue raises its shields and turns to face Silvio. Right before the statue activated, the halfling saw something interesting: a small keyhole on the back its neck.
Garen
Statue
Median
Sledge
Silvio & Winter
Map
. Poor Winter falls prone!
"There's a keyhole in the back of the statue's neck--we need to get our key in there!"
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Garen quickly looks over the edge with the idea of leaping upon the statue, 'Yeah, I'd more likely break my neck.' he thinks. Decision made he comes down the opposite side steps and attacks. "Silvio, give me a moment and perhaps we can flank it." the paladin calls out chafing at the fact he moves so slow in his armor.
Garen tries his best to balance on the stair-turned-slide, but cannot maintain his footing. He skids to a stop at the bottom, and then stands up, unable to bring his sword to bear against the statue.
For its part, the statue now finds itself surrounded, though its carved face does not register any change in its situation. It raises both of its shields and moves to pound the intruders into the ground.
The shield reading 'home' pummels Silvio while the 'family' shield rings Garen's bell .
Statue
Median
Sledge
Silvio & Winter
Garen
Map
Median looks down at the statue and realizes that it is actually a sort of construct known as a wood golem!
The sorceress' flames pour over the stone and catch the wooden golem completely unaware. As might be expected with wood, fire seems particularly effective. It still does not catch fire, but charring it well.
Severely wounded by the statue, the halfling appears undaunted this time.
"Slashing, right!" Silvio drops into the pit, draws his newly-found magical dagger, and slashes!
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Winter gets back onto his feet steps over, and bites!
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Although Winter can't seem to find a good place to grab his teeth onto, the combined one-two slashes from Garen and Silvio begin turning the golem into so much firewood. Meanwhile, from the upper floor, Sledge runs and leaps off the ledge over the head of the golem.
With surprising grace, the enchanter clears the gap and lands on the other side of the golem before bringing his flail up to smack it, even knowing that it won't be as effective as a bladed weapon.
True to Median's warning, the flail clatters off of the golem's bark, but the dent from the magus' hammering weapon is still sufficiently sizable.
"Keep trying your fire, Median," he instructs from the other side. "It's immune to most magic, but vulnerable to fire."
In response to the multi-sided assault, the golem begins swinging its shields around wildly and unpredictably, but to ultimately no great effect. Both massive wooden shields send gusts of air over the hands of Silvio and Winter, but neither come close to risking their wellbeing. Perhaps this was programmed more to deal with taller creatures?
Statue
Median
Sledge
Silvio & Winter
Garen
Map
The golem manages to maneuver its large body out of the way of much of the flames, but it still glows with dancing embers.
Statue
Median
Sledge
Silvio & Winter
Garen
Map
Dodging blows from the large statue guardian, Silvio and his loyal hound counterattack!
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Silvio, Winter, and Garen slice, bite, and swing, but all find their weapons rebuffed by the wooden armor of the golem. Swaying back, Sledge twirls his flail again and tries to strike the statue in another weak spot.
The swing looks devastatingly strong, but the golem easily blocks the blow with one its shields, nearly knocking Sledge off balance from the counter. Undeterred, the golem continues its spinning assault.
Garen = 1, Silvio = 2, Sledge = 3
The golem just catches Winter, bruising his snout with the shield, . But Sledge seems wholly unprepared for the devastation of the shield that comes his way. You all swear that you hear bones bending and breaking as Sledge is knocked off his feet and into the wall behind you all, . He slumps to the ground, unmoving.
Statue
Median
Sledge
Silvio & Winter
Garen
Map
Silvio is stunned as now Sledge is at the brink of death. "This is horrible!"
The halfling moves closer to Sledge while Winter plugs the gap. Both of them continue striking, hoping to finish the giant statue before any more of them went down.
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Silvio and Winter are quick to dive to the attack after seeing Sledge knocked brutally against the wall, and nearly bring it down. Median then steps forward and unleashes one final gout of flames, which consume the golem and render it to ash and splinters, leaving behind only the somewhat charred tower shields behind. For his part, Winter likely has a fun new chew toy.
The shields, inscribed with "home" and "family" are much larger than the shields carried by anyone in the party.
The stairs rotate back to their previous position. The party now faces two doors: one to the south, here on the lower level, and one to the north back on the upper level.
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Garen hurries over to Sledge, concern creasing his brow. He touches his companion with an outstretched hand as he prays for healing. The result is minimal but Sledge does stop his slide toward death. ”I’m afraid that is the best I can do. Do you think a crushed goodberry in some water would heal him? I’m afraid he is not in a position to eat.”
A rather wounded Silvio turns his attention to the fallen Sledge as Garen manages to stop the bleeding. "Well, you almost got your wish--dying to try and save Damira." He prays to Erastil and touches Sledge's wounds.
"That's all of Erastil's miracles that I can give right now. We could definitely feed him berries to try and get him awake again, but he'll need a lot."
Silvio attempts to patch up Sledge's wounds and his own.
Nothing comes to bother the group while they lick their wounds from the fight with the golem. Another day in the dank dark comes and goes.
Silvio eats a goodberry to both heal up and fill his stomach. As another day passes, he prays for Erastil to heal once more.
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If Sledge eats 3 Goodberries, the party will be at full health.
"Well, another day of struggle through this place. Maybe more townsfolk will arrive soon?" the halfling asks, uncertainly.
"Let's keep those fancy shields with us. Might still need them for some other part of the test we're facing."
Silvio gazes at the door southward that just a day ago he was so eager to open. He takes his time with this one.
Silvio looks at the door and finds it locked. The key that they had retrieved from the fire two days prior does not fit in the keyhole.
Silvio sees if the donkey can manage to haul both tower shields. If so, great. If not, he gives the donkey "Home."
"Maybe we should try the north door first. These doors look pretty sturdy."
After. Silvio starts looking carefully at that one.
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Seems like weight should not be an issue with the donkey, tying them on might take some ingenuity.
Garen knocks on the southern door to see what happens. When no one answers he says, "I agree, let's try one of the northern doors."
If someone or something answers Garen says, "Would you be so kind as to unlock the door?" (Couldn't hurt)
No one answers Garen's polite knock, though the smoldering splinters of Kassen's golem lie in a pile nearby. That was the welcome party, perhaps.
Garen remembers that when they split off from Khuvaan a couple of days prior that the half-orc gave him a pack with a rope and a grappling hook. With those items in hand, along with the pack saddles that you had found discarded earlier, it shouldn't take too much effort to strap the shields to the poor donkey's back.
Moving forward, Silvio looks at the next door carefully and closely before Sledge moves forward and pushes the halfling aside. "There's cautious, and then there's cowardly. We're wasting time." The magus heedlessly opens the door and, thankfully, nothing happens.
The long corridor beyond is flanked by a row of human statues, set into alcoves on each side. The statues each look like Ekat Kassen, and each one holds a longsword out in front of it. The blades of roughly half the statues are wrapped in leather padding. There is another door at the end of the hallway.
Sledge begins walking through to the other side, seeming determined to no longer be slowed down.
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Median enters the hall, but warns Sledge
... there has to be some reason that half the blades are wrapped in padding.... it seems like a trap.
She looks more closely at the statues she passes.
but doesn't really see anything dangerous, probably because she isn't slowing down and taking the time to look.
Just in case it is a trap, she passes each set of statues quickly, not pausing in between, in case they come to life like the golem and attack... and she moves as fast as possible through the hall, only slowing down slightly as she passes Sledge, in order to move around him.
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Garen finishes cinching up the donkey and calls to the other two. "Slow down, we should stay together." With that he moves toward the door.
Garen steps up to the doorway and stops. "You two are likely to get pummeled by those things. Silvio, can you look for some sort of pressure trigger?" Garen asks as he himself squats down to look for some sort of trigger to activate the statues.
The party steps cautiously through the hallway with sword-wielding statues, fully expecting to find a trap. As Sledge heedlessly leads the way, Garen shouts a word of warning to him not to take another step. Sure enough, directly in front of Sledge is a pressure plate on the floor between the third pair of statues. Garen just barely noticed it while the others were looking up for other sorts of triggers.
It definitely looks like pains were taken to diminish the deadliness of this trap previously, but the work is incomplete.
Looking more carefully beyond the pressure plate, none of them spot any apparent troubles aside from the single pressure plate. The trap could be disabled, but none of the party is confident that they could do so without triggering it. Of course, they could also all try to jump over the plate.
"Good eye catching that trap, Garen!"
Silvio feels pretty confident that he could get over the trap easily if he just rides on Winter. The real question was whether they could get the donkey across. "Maybe we can take a big piece of the statue we just fought and use it as a bridge?"
Realizing that the statue of Kassen had been very much obliterated, Silvio gives up on that strategy. "Okay, we're going to see if we can do some creative animal herding here!"
Silvio sets out some wood fragments to outline the area the donkey should jump over. "Alright buddy, that's the spot you don't wanna step in. You're gonna jump over it, okay?"
Silvio and Winter then encourage the donkey over!
Hopefully all goes well, and then the tandem of Winter and Silvio jump over.