The agents decide to head south toward the more open area of this floor. The pass an open central room and the agents peer inside.
The central area of this room has pedestals with runes corresponding to acid, cold, fire, and electricity, with central runes placed for sonic and force. The walls of the larger portion of the room each have their own extravagant mural representing one of the four elements.
The northern wall is covered by the image of an enormous caldera of an unknown volcano, a vast lake of lava that almost seems to glow intensely. The southern wall displays a vast coral reef, and the light from the ocean’s surface almost seems to dance. The eastern wall displays a yawning cave, and the depths seem almost real. The western wall displays a fierce tornado tearing through an open field. The image somehow perfectly captures the fury of the intense winds. The western section of the floor portrays beams and circles along with complex equations, while the eastern section of the floor is covered in sine waves and elaborate musical notation. The ceiling above is painted with the four elements all blending, and the centerpiece is a brightly glowing evocation rune, crackling with energy.
As Yahnu steps through the threshold, a rune above activates sending a burst of cold air and a beam of white magical light into the central squared off portion of the room.
Several creatures spawn from the spot the beam hit, coiling snakes made of ice and what looks like living water spring forth and attack!
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ROUND 1
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Sunshine 27/28
Elduin 22/22
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Ice Snake Blue
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Thelsa 26/26
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Ice Snake Pink
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Alices 40/42
Yohanu 32/32
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Water Blue
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Therago 32/32
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Water Pink
The battle begins!
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"I would to have tea time with the arclord after our miss... What are those?!" she muses when she sees that the arclord has a nice place to relax with some tea until something elemental emerges that catches her by surprise. "Are these her pets?! Are we gonna get rid of them? They seem hostile to me." she tells the others before she lashes out a small ball of flame that appears in the palm of your hand to the one that looks like a watery ball.
fire damage
She then raises her wooden shield.
◆◆ Cast a Spell, Produce Flame
◆ Raise a Wooden Shield, +2 to AC
Sunshine sends an arc of flame at one of the water things, hitting it square in the pool. Steam and sizzle emanate from the thing as it wriggles.
Elduin unleashes the power of his mind, sending two whirlwinds of psychic fury on the creatures. The creatures take the full brunt of the attack and the water things are utterly scattered. The snakes remain.
Blue snake slithers toward Therago and snaps its jaws at the kitsune. The nimble swashbuckler is able to deftly avoid its attacks.
Pink slithers up to Yohanu and attempts a few bites. One of them sinks into Yoahnu's metal body. The construct sees ice spider webbing from the wound and feels his joints stiffen up.
The ice snakes fight on!
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ROUND 1
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Sunshine 27/28
Elduin 22/22
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Ice Snake Blue -11
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Thelsa 26/26
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Ice Snake Pink
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Alices 40/42
Yohanu 30/32
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Water Blue
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Therago 32/32
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Water Pink
The battle against the slithering icicles rages on!
The Alices move to flank one of the snakes. Alcie the girl clobbers the frozen critter, smashing it pieces.
Yohanu steps forward to engage the last foe standing. Shifting his stance, his arms move like the snake he faces. His hand like a blur, he strikes the snake once then again. The force of the automaton's attack rends the snake into ice cubes! [ooc]Another crit! You folks are a force, sheesh!
As the group recovers from their brief battle, Thelsa spies something of interest near one of the murals. In the wall, she sees the telltale creases of a hidden compartment. Exploring it further, she discovers fragments of paper containing notes in the compartment. Looking at the rest of the murals, the party discovers similar compartments near each mural with additional notes inside. Collectively, they notes are clearly part of Alyreha's research.
The agents find themselves in the center of the floor. They may head north to explore the rooms there or continue south.
The ice wound on Yohanu's arm contiues to froth and spread across the limb. Eventually, the wizened monk is able to shake off the frost.
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Sunshine shakes her head when Yohanu manages to shake off the frost. "Let me help you with your wounds. Though I am not sure how to mend wounds on an automaton. I will try my best." she tells him as she inspects the automaton's morphology. She then begins treatment while she lets the others explore more areas.
HP for Yohanu
"That's the best I can do. I hope that suffices." her facial expression shows like she is having a hard time to mend an automaton.
Sunshine quickly attempts to aid Yahanu and is able to heal some of the frost born wounds.
The agents delve further into the manse...
They decide to further explore the rooms to the north.
The group begins its investigation in the northern most room.
Two small desks lay on the eastern and western sides of this small study room. The western desk hums with a soft, soothing sound while the eastern one buzzes with an unsettling low noise. On either desk, numerous crafting and repair supplies lie scattered about, and prototype golem frames are piled up against the northern wall. The shelf on the southern wall contains several books in an array of unusual languages. On all four walls, arcane runes shake and spark with instability.
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Yohanu scrapes remaining bits of ice off his chassis, and accepts Sunshine's ministrations, "It will do, for now. I don't plan to hold anyone back while this place turns into more of a mess around us... Thanks."
As they arrive at the northern room, Yohanu looks over to the runes, "Those seem more than a little dangerous, though. Can anyone tell what's wrong with them?"
The agents peer into the room to find clues as to what is causing thelow hum in the room.
Most of the group are able to determine that magical energy has built up in this room to an unsustainable level. They also realize that any movement could trigger the pent up energy. In order to search the room, they must either try to dissipate the energy or risk triggering the hazard.
Elduin and Alice study the malfunctioning wards and are able to correct them. The low hum and feeling of raw energy subsides allowing he group to search the room.
A thorough search reveals some of the books on the shelves have marks along their spines. The three books in question are written in Celestial, Requian and Necril. Each has further markings in its table of contents
and in certain marked passages. Alice is able to Decipher the Writings of the books, and discovers among their pages a fragment of Alyhreha's research in the cypher of the text.
The agents continue their search of the rooms.
The next room has several letters and other correspondence splayed on the desk alongside certificates and other obtuse bureaucratic paperwork. Numerous supplies forwriting letters and correspondence scattered around and inside the drawers of the desk.
Most the letters are decades old and none have any relevance to the current situation, but the group finds one letter with the seal of the Blakros family on the bottom of it. The letter is a brief thank you note from Nigel Aldain thanking Alyreha for a tour of her manor and of her collection of magical items and artifacts.
Moving on to the next room...
The agents find what appears to be a reading room. It appears many of the tomes have been moved from this location, but find several complicated books on magical theory, many of them focused on interactions with the plane of positive energy and study of living constructs.
Among the items in the room, Thelsa discovers what appears to be a magical deck of cards! Elduin recognizes it as a deck of spell cards and Sunshine sees that the deck contains 5 cards all with the spell Stabilize etched into them.
The agents continue to the last room in the hall...
On the far eastern wall of this small room, a board covered in complex magical runes in geometric arrangements is barely visible, nearly faded with the time this room has been untouched. The desk on the eastern side is covered in books, dried up inkwells and other writing implements. The room pulses with spiritual energy and wisps of airy magic all coalesce around a semi-transparent humanoid form sitting patiently at one of the chairs facing the desk.
As the party enters the room, the spirit turns to look at the group. her wispy eyes light up and she says "Hail travelers! Do you bear any news? Have you news of my teacher? She has been gone for so long, please tell me what you know!"
The spirit seems to brighten, if any spirit truly can, at the mention of Alyreha. She flitters over to Alice excitedly.
"That name, that name! Oh, is it true, do you know of my teacher? He sent you to this place? Yes, she must..." She smiles at Alice. "But my manners, my name is Neibiet. Alyreha was my teacher. Oh, you speak true, you ARE trying to help her. Be careful though, earlier I heard a group of some sort, and they were making a terrible ruckus. Sounded like they were looking for something, I think they headed upstairs to the tower, but could only catch a glimpse of them through the hallway since as I, well, I am not allowed to leave this bound to this area."
"These beings, were led by a spiky woman, and she was with a
weird, clawed person,” She lowers her head, "I tried to stop them, but they just ran through me. I do not know what they were looking for." She glances back up to Alice "But, here, let me help you." The spirt rummages around the room, sifting through papers. Ultimately, she lifts a scroll and hands it to Alice. "Here, this may help you. And this." Neibiet extands her hand and she releases a swell of arcane energy that swirls around Alice and is then absorbed. Alice feels a strange vitality surge through her.
Neibiet smiles as she sees the spell settle over Alice. "It worked! I mean, of course it would." She offers Alice a sheepish smile.
The party continues to search this area of the house. The peek their collective heads into a long chamber to the south of their location...
The semi transparent image of a small, elderly Garundi woman dressed in typical Nexian garb stands at a podium on the eastern side of this room before an empty lecture hall. Her form doesn’t move, but three obvious runes on the podium glow with a pulsating light, alternating between pale blue and rose. Before the figure, magic shimmers over a sheaf of papers, as if the figure were waiting to speak from prepared notes.
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While Elduin tries to make a conversation with the semi-transparent image, Sunshine heads over to the sheaf of papers that has magic shimmering on them. Not sure what to do with them, she takes them and reads whatever might be written on them, not minding the magic that it contains. She can deal with that if it takes effect or something.
Elduin addresses the woman at the podium while Sunshine attempts to review the notes arrayed while the rest of the party looks into the room.
When Sunshine touches one of the notes, the lecturer looks up.
"Alright, take your seats!"
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Sunshine drops the papers she is holding and turns her head to the spirit that calls their attention. ”You sound like my teacher.” she tells her before sitting on her own chair, Upuan. One might wonder how a legchair would respond to the spirit’s command to take a seat, Sunshine is oblivious at the moment.
The party responds to the unusually fascinating lecturer!
Elduin is completely fascinated by the speaker. He never takes his eyes off her and he slowly walks over to find a seat in the lecture hall.
Therago, though not has raptured as Elduin, also scrambles to find his seat.
Alic and Alice, while not paying too much attention, nevertheless move to find a chair.
Sunshine, as the Alices, moves to find a chair but is not nearly as enthralled as Elduin or Therago. The chair, on the other hand, is utterly captivated.
Yoahnu follows Sunshine to find a chair of his own, he is interested in what the woman has to say.
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ROUND 1
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Elduin 22/22 Stupefied 2, Fascinated
Therago 32/32 Stupefied 1
Sunshine 27/28
Upuan Stupefied 2, Fascinated
Yohanu 28/32 Stupefied 1
Thelsa 26/26
Alices 40/42
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Fascinating Lecturer
The lecture begins!
Elduin shakes his head, momentarily enthralled by the lecturer he gains a little clarity. He still tries to find a seat but his head remains clear.
The party plots their next move!
Elduin moves out of the lecture hall, but is still able to hear the words of the lecturer.
Thelsa remains outside the hall.
Alice the girl walks up to the podium while the poppet tries to figure out what the party has triggered but does not recall this sort of phenomenon in her studies.
Alice the girl sees the lecturer who appears semi transparent. Looking at the podium, the girl sees it etched with several glyphs and runes.
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ROUND 1
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Elduin 22/22 Stupefied 2, Fascinated
Therago 32/32 Stupefied 1
Sunshine 27/28
Upuan Stupefied 2, Fascinated
Yohanu 28/32 Stupefied 1
Thelsa 26/26
Alices 40/42
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Fascinating Lecturer
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Sunshine gets down from her legchair and looks for another chair to sit on. She then sits on it, complaining as ever. "Why would the arclord want such kind of teacher? I thought we have the same taste, or so I thought."
◆ Unmount from Legchair
◆ Search for a chair
◆ Interact to sit on the chair
Meanwhile, Upuan is temporarily freed from his master and begins to join the other chairs, as if he is one of them, acting like a mundane object as he can be.
Therago sits and asks a question of the lecturer which the lecturer ignores.
Sunshine changes seats and speaks to ehr fellow agents, IN CLASS!
Yohanu finds a seat and is unable to parse what he sees.
The lecturer drones on! She begins to describe magical theories so complex and intricate that not only do the agents not comprehend what is being taught, but it overwhelms their minds!
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ROUND 2
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Elduin 22/22
Therago 32/32 Stupefied 1
Sunshine 27/28
Upuan Stupefied 2, Fascinated
Yohanu 28/32 Stupefied 1
Thelsa 26/26
Alices 40/42
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Fascinating Lecturer