Leftenant feels the weightlessness of the fall for the briefest moment before crumpling into a heap. The impact forces a pained exhale from the old man. As he draws his knees underneath himself, he finds Lyra’s hand extended to assist. “Thank you my mistress, …🎶and we’ll all go down, together.🎶”
“In for a penny, in for a pound, eh?”
He looks down and sees the arrow he held onto shattered, he checks his bow and the rest of his equipment as the platform continues its descent.
“No, probably not a creation of the Seidrach. But what purpose for the Overwatch?”
He begins to move to the pedestal for exam nation.
“I think I’m having a hard time keeping it all straight. Maghda did tell it to go assume a form here. But she also said we needed to retrieve its heart.”
As an afterthought in a quiet whisper as he looked over the control, “What awaits us Amaya? Strengthen us if this is our new war…between realities.”
Lyra is quick enough to raise her harmonica to accompany LT as he briefly sings the chorus of an otherworldly song she recalls. Something about soldiers in an invading force saying goodbye to a distant foreign city, then called 'Sai-gon.' Much as the group now were interlopers here in this strange place.
She responds appraisingly to Ilya's thought on the strange, chained figure they saw through the rift. "It is true. I assumed that was Toto. I did not consider that something or someone may keep him imprisoned, and perhaps the one we saw through the rift was that jailer, not Toto himself. Hard to say."
Lyra then glances again at the tortle mage. "What do you say, Glyp. Care to put that arcane mind of yours to use deciphering how to work the pedestal like our priest buddy just did? Truth be told, I would not mind having a reliable way back up from whatever is down there."
As she speaks, she kicks his mace away from him, searching his body as she does.
OoC: Kalamin had already tied up the priest, but Lyra is welcome to add more restraints ;) He'll stay unconscious for a few hours or until you wake him. If anyone wants, you can take an Arcana or Investigation check to examine the pedestal.
With the strange priest tied up, Lyra goes over him, searching his belongings. His studded leather armor, shield, and even the mace are of poor quality. The armor itself is even torn and ripped in some places. On the front of it is an insignia, matching the symbol you'd found carved into the corpses at Silvermane's manor.
Less than half a minute of time passes before the platform slows to a halt, landing on the bottom floor. You land in a room 45 feet across, with cool stone walls and floor that's covered in an meshed flesh like material. There are fleshy vine line structures leading through the single door in front of you, branching out in each direction (left and right). They all seem to pulse faintly, those leading to the right more strongly however.
Kalamin drags the priests unconscious body along behind him as he walks up to the door, checking down the hall either way. "If I were some gross flesh monster with a detachable heart, I imagine I'd leave it somewhere deep within whatever lair I've made for myself..."
Lacking any better ideas, he follows the the pulsing flesh leading to the right, keeping an eye out for anything that might pose a danger to them.
The door leads out into a 15 foot wide hall that extends ~ 80 feet in either direction. Every 35 feet or so the hall is sectioned off with thick walls and a single door in the center (although at this point all of the doors have been blasted off their hinges). The floors and walls are made of the same smooth stone, though its been covered by the same flesh-like mesh as the room you came down into to. Beneath it all, you can see remnants of what the place used to look like: a few couches paced through the halls, some house plants, paintings and other artwork.
To your left, the hall forks into two directions(straight and "south") almost immediately, at the end of the straightaway you can see it turns "south."
But the pulsing vein-like structures lead you to the right...You pass two rooms before you reach the end of the hall, which again turns "south." The doors to both rooms have been busted open, and a general bloody mess covers them.
The first room is longer than it is wide (25x15ft), and the walls are stacked high with loose-lid boxes wooden boxes. From the few that are open, you can see them to be filled with scrolls and similarly bound leather journals. At the end of the room three tables have been pushed together. A large canvas map has been unrolled across them, very similar to the one LT took from Silvermane's Manor. However this one seems to be a "later date." The Nalkir's borders are greatly expanded, rivaling the modern day borders of the current Solari Empire. The lands of the Vae'ra, which once included pieces of the old Solari Kingdom have now been pushed into the southwestern jungles, and the land called Mekanor expanding even further into deserts to the southeast.
The second room is more of an office suite. Beneath the viscera and blood, you can see what was likely a very finely crafted carpet rug. On the wall behind a curved wooden desk is a closed and locked safe - two identical statues of a hooded figure with its palm outstretched in a warding gesture sit in the corners. A top a small pedestal resting on the desk, there is a smoky gray crystal orb.
Leftenant followed the old man a few paces behind him. If it was light enough, he’d keep an arrow ready. Otherwise he’d light a torch and carry his bow.
He would make a mental map (as best he could) while exploring the subterranean stronghold. He simultaneously prepared to react to anything suddenly wanting to harm the group.
As he looked at the map, he’d focus hard to see if he could recall any more information about the names, the places. Anything that might indicate a special landmark or place of significance to better understand this relationship between the world he knew…and the one the Nalkir envisioned.
When at last he’d finished, and upon noticing the strange orb, he’d simply nod at Glytemis, then the object, “What do you make of that, my tortle companion.”
Oddly enough, you would see wall-mounted lanterns adorning the walls. However, the flames inside them are pitifully small, not nearly enough to light the hallways. Instead they are made brightly lit by a pulsing bioluminescence given off by the flesh that coats the walls, floor, and ceiling.
The veteran soldier looks to the map, trying to recall any information that might be pertinent to the group’s current situation. But like so many times in the recent past few days, the horror of what has happened, how they all contributed to the situation seems to preoccupy the ranger’s thoughts. He is distracted by it all, especially as the thought of being in ‘the belly of the beast’ surrounds them.
That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.
Lyra's voice is uncharacteristically hushed in the midst of the emergent fleshy eldritch horror. Her dark harmonica seems to drink the low, pulsing light.
"Someone want to take a guess at what that smoky crystal orb is?"
As they pass through the first room, Ilya takes a moment to flip through some of the journals and unfurl the scrolls to get an idea of what they contain.
In the second room, her eyes goes to the safe and then the orb on the desk. "A guess?...Something used for communication maybe? Or scrying?" Her eyes flare gold as she moves closer into the room to investigate. First the orb, trying to discern its nature, then around the safe to see if there are any mechanisms to keep out unwanted guests. If it seems safe...She tries to open it with the lockpicking tools she acquired from the manor.
Leftenant You spend some time looking over the map, trying to draw a line from this ancient forgotten past to the world of today...But nothing glaringly obvious comes to your attention. The three ancient civilizations clearly clashed given the changing borders between this map and the one you found in the manor, but most of that would have occurred far south from here, on the literal opposite end of the continent.
But the Nalkir expansion into the Silvershard region(where you are now) in beyond looks like it might have been relatively unopposed. The map from the manor had no indication that these lands were previously governed by some king, queen, or otherwise.
Your eyes go to around your current whereabouts on the map...And to where Neressa would lie. Something odd does catch your eye, or at least something that makes you think. You know that to the west of Neressa, nestled on the coast on a narrow pass is Northwatch Keep, which guards the Andeian Pass from the hostile forces of Baria. You can't remember if there's actually an island there or not...But on this map you see an island, with the name Glyaros scribbled next to it.
Ilya A nagging feeling has been eating away at the back of your mind ever since you first saw this compound. An odd sense of familiarity with the architecture, the layout, and the stylistic choices employed.
Looking over the journals, you find them to be neatly organized and dated logs discussing experiments on code-named entities or subjects. The scrolls themselves(which there are fewer of), appear to be descriptions of the entities or subjects. Like a puzzle, the pieces begin to fall into place in your mind. You know what this place is. Your earliest memories are of a compound just like it, a containment center. Even disregarding what the Seidrach has left behind, you know there will be dangerous things kept within the cells here.
As you inspect the orb a bit closer, another memory comes to mind, of an ethereal lady dressed in a toga with motes of light dancing about her hair, contained with a crystal orb. An instructor. A professor. You know what this orb is: a receptacle for an arcane sentience to manifest in. There will be another somewhere else within the compound, one that acts as the true source of its power and life.
The safe doesn't appear to be trapped, and the lock on the safe seems only moderately difficult to get through. You spend some time working it with the picks, and hear a slight click as the mechanism is defeated. You open the safe to find several rows of stoppered glass vials, filled with three different varieties of liquid. One is crystal clear, another is smoky, and the last jet black. The safe is deep enough and the vials small enough that you estimate there to be hundreds of them within it.
At first, Ilya is quiet as the realization begins to dawn on her. This was a life she had left behind as a child, one that she had been running from ever since. Before they leave the record room, she skims through the few lines of as many of the scrolls as she can, trying to see if anyone was being kept here, similar to what she experienced.
When they move on to the office, she feels the tingle in the back of her head upon seeing the orb. Even as she voices her "guess" to Lyra, she's already reliving the past again. With a small sigh, she picks up the inert orb. "It's used as like...Like a stage for an arcane sentience. Somewhere in the compound there's another one of these probably, the "main stage" so to speak."
"The people that built this place uses them as assistants of sorts." They control the locks...Remember things...Teach things..." She scratches her head, unsure of how to explain it. "Like a talking notebook and guard dog rolled into one I guess. Since this receptacle is inert, and the sentience hasn't made itself known trying to ward us off...I presume Karvas did something to it. Destroyed it maybe."
She goes quiet again, focusing as she moves to inspect the safe and unlock it. Her eyebrows raise at the sight of the vials, and she steps away to allow anyone else to inspect. An alchemist she was not, she hadn't a clue what these vials contained.
"I thought it was funny when you first described these mysterious others who tried to kill you on the road. They sounded somewhat familiar, and it would make sense that this group would come after you...You present a weird threat after all, but outright killing isn't their style, so I thought maybe it wasn't the same people."
The Ward they call themselves. They lock things away that are dangerous or different. Hide them. Study them. I grew up in a place like this, sort of. Thankfully their members aren't entirely without conscience. One of them decided that perhaps keeping a little girl in a cell wasn't something that could be justified."
"Anyway...That's what I know. We should be careful about what locked doors we open down here, there's bound to be ones best left closed."
Kalamin frowns, "you grew up in a place like this?"He imagined the place without the gore and flesh covering its surfaces...It still didn't seem like a hospitable environment to him. "These people, the Ward, they considered you dangerous as a child?" The idea was baffling to him. In some weird twisted way it sounded like they meant well, to protect Imane from things that could do it harm...But their methods were extreme. "So they were trying to stop the Nalkir. Without us, the rituals to bring Sotos can't be done. Or if we're to believe Maghda, they become much more difficult and costly."
"I suppose that makes sense. But it's not what I would have done."
"I'm sorry they imprisoned you in a place like this." He tightens his grip on the glaive in his hand."They won't get a chance to do it again, not while you're with us." He drags the priest over next to the desk, and if there's a chair, he sets their unconscious prisoner in it and used an extra bit of rope to secure him to it. "Perhaps we should wake him and ask him where the heart is. Instead of stumbling around blind, perhaps accidentally through a door best left closed as Ilya said."
Lyra appears genuinely taken aback at Ilya's revelation. Her casual quips gone for the moment, she tentatively places a hand on the aasimar's shoulder.
"They should not have imprisoned you. As a child, no less." Lyra's voice is quiet and flat. Briefly, shadowy darkness flickers in the bard's eyes once more. "Yet having witnessed you in battle, if whatever else is locked up here is as dangerous as you are, then we must indeed tread carefully."
As for the priest... Lyra responds to Kalamin: "I know I cannot charm him with magic. And he is manifestly insane Yet perhaps I can convince him with words to tell us of this 'heart'. He seemed quite talkative and unconcerned when Karvas was drawn back through the rift, though Karvas himself seemed aghast. Perhaps he will have no qualms about sharing information."
Having no expertise in the area, she leaves the maps, vials and the sentient crystal orbs for the others to sort out.
Glyptemis listens to Ilya's explanation with a mix of horror and fascination. He desperately wants to learn more about these orbs and how they work, but it feels so very wrong to be interested in the magics that were enacted by those that had imprisoned his new friend.
"I'm also.. so sorry that they did this to you. It's just awful... and I suppose that's what they were trying to do with all of us? The sentience in the orbs.. was it originally from a person, or is it... created somehow? Is destroying an orb the same as ... killing someone?"
He would also take a look at the vials, and if there's time would cast Identify on them as a ritual to discern their use.
Glyptemis It doesn't take you very long at all to figure out the pedestal. There are three arcane runes etched into it, and by merely passing your hand over them you control the platform. "Up", "Down", and "Stop."
Ilya OoC: These are quick summaries, you can choose to take more time to get more details if you wish.
You quickly scan the descriptions on the scrolls, noting the room designations that go along with them:
13-01: Remnants of a meteorite, unusual multi-colored luminescence. Emitted light presents a psychic hazard.
13-02: Book bound in black leather. Purportedly tells the history of the Vae'ra. Cursed object. Readers experience cognitive unease.
13-03: Humanoid elven female. Innate psychic ability. Transferred from Site 07.
13-04: Elemental infused undead. Recovered from tombs in Dracorin. Possible draconic connection.
13-05: Humanoid adolescent undead. Found drained by shadow-entities involved in current incursion. Unstable and aggressive.
13-06: Huge horned undead. Shadow entity involved in current incursion. Soul eater. Extreme threat.
There is indeed a chair that the priest can be tied to. After you secure him, you slap his few cheek a few times to wake him. He stirs slowly, eyes blinking rapidly. There is a brief moment where he struggles against his restraints before he realizes how thorough you've been.
He sighs. Then laughs. Then smiles up at you before his eyes wander around the room. "Oh my my. We've been poking our noses in forbidden places haven't we."
"And what is it you hope to find here, in the dungeons of the lost?"
Comforted by the words of her companions, Ilya smiles. "It's good to know that I've found myself in such company. It's a refreshing change of fortune, really."
She considers Glyptemis' question briefly before offering little more than a shrug. "I'm not sure how they were made...The one I knew, Deia, was kind though. All things considered. I imagine their personalities can be just varied as anyone else's. Smashing the main orb would almost certainly kill them."
While the tortle moves on to investigate the vials, and the others prepare to interrogate the priest, she returns to the scrolls. She looks up briefly to see the mad priest has now awakened. She wasn't keen on speaking so openly in front of him. But the woman imprisoned here in 13-03, and the book in 13-02 were things she felt worth taking a closer look at. So she begins to read the scrolls more thoroughly while the others work.
Kalamin scoffs, "you've hardly the right to talk about treading forbidden ground." The paladin steps away, realizing he was already letting the mad priest rile him up. "We had questions for you. My lyrical friend here in particular is interested in some of the things you have to say." He stands aside for Lyra, but adds: "and given the situation you're in, you might want to answer. Lest we throw you to that Prince of Gallows next."
Leftenant puzzles over the map for a bit. “What was that bit back in the manor about lovers and child of the court?” He muses aloud. “Ilya, do you have those notes? I wonder if there is a connection with the Nalkir’s expansion and the empire’s?”
Leftenant feels the weightlessness of the fall for the briefest moment before crumpling into a heap. The impact forces a pained exhale from the old man. As he draws his knees underneath himself, he finds Lyra’s hand extended to assist. “Thank you my mistress, …🎶and we’ll all go down, together.🎶”
“In for a penny, in for a pound, eh?”
He looks down and sees the arrow he held onto shattered, he checks his bow and the rest of his equipment as the platform continues its descent.
“No, probably not a creation of the Seidrach. But what purpose for the Overwatch?”
He begins to move to the pedestal for exam nation.
“I think I’m having a hard time keeping it all straight. Maghda did tell it to go assume a form here. But she also said we needed to retrieve its heart.”
As an afterthought in a quiet whisper as he looked over the control, “What awaits us Amaya? Strengthen us if this is our new war…between realities.”
Lyra is quick enough to raise her harmonica to accompany LT as he briefly sings the chorus of an otherworldly song she recalls. Something about soldiers in an invading force saying goodbye to a distant foreign city, then called 'Sai-gon.' Much as the group now were interlopers here in this strange place.
She responds appraisingly to Ilya's thought on the strange, chained figure they saw through the rift. "It is true. I assumed that was Toto. I did not consider that something or someone may keep him imprisoned, and perhaps the one we saw through the rift was that jailer, not Toto himself. Hard to say."
Lyra then glances again at the tortle mage. "What do you say, Glyp. Care to put that arcane mind of yours to use deciphering how to work the pedestal like our priest buddy just did? Truth be told, I would not mind having a reliable way back up from whatever is down there."
As she speaks, she kicks his mace away from him, searching his body as she does.
Sabetha(Monk2):DungeonMair's Rime/Inge(Barbarian2):Krayveneer's After the Fall/Seri(Cleric1/Sorcerer1):Uhtred's Windward Isles/Barn(Paladin1):Nyx's ToA
Dyson/Eleo(Cleric4):Vos' Beyond the Veil/Soren(Druid4):Bartjeebus' Ravenloft/Nivi(Rogue3):Raiketsu's CoS/Lyra(Warlock2/Bard3):BlameItOnWinter's Will of the Ancients
Joren(Fighter6):NotDrizzt's Simple Request/Quyen(Adept1):Constance's Nentir Vale/Toa(Barbarian6/Fighter4):MrWhisker's Dark Lord's Return
OoC: Kalamin had already tied up the priest, but Lyra is welcome to add more restraints ;) He'll stay unconscious for a few hours or until you wake him. If anyone wants, you can take an Arcana or Investigation check to examine the pedestal.
With the strange priest tied up, Lyra goes over him, searching his belongings. His studded leather armor, shield, and even the mace are of poor quality. The armor itself is even torn and ripped in some places. On the front of it is an insignia, matching the symbol you'd found carved into the corpses at Silvermane's manor.
Less than half a minute of time passes before the platform slows to a halt, landing on the bottom floor. You land in a room 45 feet across, with cool stone walls and floor that's covered in an meshed flesh like material. There are fleshy vine line structures leading through the single door in front of you, branching out in each direction (left and right). They all seem to pulse faintly, those leading to the right more strongly however.
Kalamin drags the priests unconscious body along behind him as he walks up to the door, checking down the hall either way. "If I were some gross flesh monster with a detachable heart, I imagine I'd leave it somewhere deep within whatever lair I've made for myself..."
Lacking any better ideas, he follows the the pulsing flesh leading to the right, keeping an eye out for anything that might pose a danger to them.
Kal Perception: 17
The door leads out into a 15 foot wide hall that extends ~ 80 feet in either direction. Every 35 feet or so the hall is sectioned off with thick walls and a single door in the center (although at this point all of the doors have been blasted off their hinges). The floors and walls are made of the same smooth stone, though its been covered by the same flesh-like mesh as the room you came down into to. Beneath it all, you can see remnants of what the place used to look like: a few couches paced through the halls, some house plants, paintings and other artwork.
To your left, the hall forks into two directions(straight and "south") almost immediately, at the end of the straightaway you can see it turns "south."
But the pulsing vein-like structures lead you to the right...You pass two rooms before you reach the end of the hall, which again turns "south." The doors to both rooms have been busted open, and a general bloody mess covers them.
Leftenant followed the old man a few paces behind him. If it was light enough, he’d keep an arrow ready. Otherwise he’d light a torch and carry his bow.
He would make a mental map (as best he could) while exploring the subterranean stronghold. He simultaneously prepared to react to anything suddenly wanting to harm the group.
As he looked at the map, he’d focus hard to see if he could recall any more information about the names, the places. Anything that might indicate a special landmark or place of significance to better understand this relationship between the world he knew…and the one the Nalkir envisioned.
When at last he’d finished, and upon noticing the strange orb, he’d simply nod at Glytemis, then the object, “What do you make of that, my tortle companion.”
Oddly enough, you would see wall-mounted lanterns adorning the walls. However, the flames inside them are pitifully small, not nearly enough to light the hallways. Instead they are made brightly lit by a pulsing bioluminescence given off by the flesh that coats the walls, floor, and ceiling.
Leftenant: History check.
History: 1+4=5
The veteran soldier looks to the map, trying to recall any information that might be pertinent to the group’s current situation. But like so many times in the recent past few days, the horror of what has happened, how they all contributed to the situation seems to preoccupy the ranger’s thoughts. He is distracted by it all, especially as the thought of being in ‘the belly of the beast’ surrounds them.
That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.
Lyra's voice is uncharacteristically hushed in the midst of the emergent fleshy eldritch horror. Her dark harmonica seems to drink the low, pulsing light.
"Someone want to take a guess at what that smoky crystal orb is?"
Sabetha(Monk2):DungeonMair's Rime/Inge(Barbarian2):Krayveneer's After the Fall/Seri(Cleric1/Sorcerer1):Uhtred's Windward Isles/Barn(Paladin1):Nyx's ToA
Dyson/Eleo(Cleric4):Vos' Beyond the Veil/Soren(Druid4):Bartjeebus' Ravenloft/Nivi(Rogue3):Raiketsu's CoS/Lyra(Warlock2/Bard3):BlameItOnWinter's Will of the Ancients
Joren(Fighter6):NotDrizzt's Simple Request/Quyen(Adept1):Constance's Nentir Vale/Toa(Barbarian6/Fighter4):MrWhisker's Dark Lord's Return
As they pass through the first room, Ilya takes a moment to flip through some of the journals and unfurl the scrolls to get an idea of what they contain.
In the second room, her eyes goes to the safe and then the orb on the desk. "A guess?...Something used for communication maybe? Or scrying?" Her eyes flare gold as she moves closer into the room to investigate. First the orb, trying to discern its nature, then around the safe to see if there are any mechanisms to keep out unwanted guests. If it seems safe...She tries to open it with the lockpicking tools she acquired from the manor.
Investigation or Arcana (Orb): 19+2(Guidance) = 21
Investigation (Safe): 15+3(Guidance) = 18
Thieve's Tools: 15+2(Guidance) = 17
Leftenant
You spend some time looking over the map, trying to draw a line from this ancient forgotten past to the world of today...But nothing glaringly obvious comes to your attention. The three ancient civilizations clearly clashed given the changing borders between this map and the one you found in the manor, but most of that would have occurred far south from here, on the literal opposite end of the continent.
But the Nalkir expansion into the Silvershard region(where you are now) in beyond looks like it might have been relatively unopposed. The map from the manor had no indication that these lands were previously governed by some king, queen, or otherwise.
Your eyes go to around your current whereabouts on the map...And to where Neressa would lie. Something odd does catch your eye, or at least something that makes you think. You know that to the west of Neressa, nestled on the coast on a narrow pass is Northwatch Keep, which guards the Andeian Pass from the hostile forces of Baria. You can't remember if there's actually an island there or not...But on this map you see an island, with the name Glyaros scribbled next to it.
Ilya
A nagging feeling has been eating away at the back of your mind ever since you first saw this compound. An odd sense of familiarity with the architecture, the layout, and the stylistic choices employed.
Looking over the journals, you find them to be neatly organized and dated logs discussing experiments on code-named entities or subjects. The scrolls themselves(which there are fewer of), appear to be descriptions of the entities or subjects. Like a puzzle, the pieces begin to fall into place in your mind. You know what this place is. Your earliest memories are of a compound just like it, a containment center. Even disregarding what the Seidrach has left behind, you know there will be dangerous things kept within the cells here.
As you inspect the orb a bit closer, another memory comes to mind, of an ethereal lady dressed in a toga with motes of light dancing about her hair, contained with a crystal orb. An instructor. A professor. You know what this orb is: a receptacle for an arcane sentience to manifest in. There will be another somewhere else within the compound, one that acts as the true source of its power and life.
The safe doesn't appear to be trapped, and the lock on the safe seems only moderately difficult to get through. You spend some time working it with the picks, and hear a slight click as the mechanism is defeated. You open the safe to find several rows of stoppered glass vials, filled with three different varieties of liquid. One is crystal clear, another is smoky, and the last jet black. The safe is deep enough and the vials small enough that you estimate there to be hundreds of them within it.
At first, Ilya is quiet as the realization begins to dawn on her. This was a life she had left behind as a child, one that she had been running from ever since. Before they leave the record room, she skims through the few lines of as many of the scrolls as she can, trying to see if anyone was being kept here, similar to what she experienced.
When they move on to the office, she feels the tingle in the back of her head upon seeing the orb. Even as she voices her "guess" to Lyra, she's already reliving the past again. With a small sigh, she picks up the inert orb. "It's used as like...Like a stage for an arcane sentience. Somewhere in the compound there's another one of these probably, the "main stage" so to speak."
"The people that built this place uses them as assistants of sorts." They control the locks...Remember things...Teach things..." She scratches her head, unsure of how to explain it. "Like a talking notebook and guard dog rolled into one I guess. Since this receptacle is inert, and the sentience hasn't made itself known trying to ward us off...I presume Karvas did something to it. Destroyed it maybe."
She goes quiet again, focusing as she moves to inspect the safe and unlock it. Her eyebrows raise at the sight of the vials, and she steps away to allow anyone else to inspect. An alchemist she was not, she hadn't a clue what these vials contained.
"I thought it was funny when you first described these mysterious others who tried to kill you on the road. They sounded somewhat familiar, and it would make sense that this group would come after you...You present a weird threat after all, but outright killing isn't their style, so I thought maybe it wasn't the same people."
The Ward they call themselves. They lock things away that are dangerous or different. Hide them. Study them. I grew up in a place like this, sort of. Thankfully their members aren't entirely without conscience. One of them decided that perhaps keeping a little girl in a cell wasn't something that could be justified."
"Anyway...That's what I know. We should be careful about what locked doors we open down here, there's bound to be ones best left closed."
(Catching up, sorry for missing the last number of days! Arcana 16+7=23 for figuring out how the pedestal works)
Kalamin frowns, "you grew up in a place like this?" He imagined the place without the gore and flesh covering its surfaces...It still didn't seem like a hospitable environment to him. "These people, the Ward, they considered you dangerous as a child?" The idea was baffling to him. In some weird twisted way it sounded like they meant well, to protect Imane from things that could do it harm...But their methods were extreme. "So they were trying to stop the Nalkir. Without us, the rituals to bring Sotos can't be done. Or if we're to believe Maghda, they become much more difficult and costly."
"I suppose that makes sense. But it's not what I would have done."
"I'm sorry they imprisoned you in a place like this." He tightens his grip on the glaive in his hand. "They won't get a chance to do it again, not while you're with us." He drags the priest over next to the desk, and if there's a chair, he sets their unconscious prisoner in it and used an extra bit of rope to secure him to it. "Perhaps we should wake him and ask him where the heart is. Instead of stumbling around blind, perhaps accidentally through a door best left closed as Ilya said."
Lyra appears genuinely taken aback at Ilya's revelation. Her casual quips gone for the moment, she tentatively places a hand on the aasimar's shoulder.
"They should not have imprisoned you. As a child, no less." Lyra's voice is quiet and flat. Briefly, shadowy darkness flickers in the bard's eyes once more. "Yet having witnessed you in battle, if whatever else is locked up here is as dangerous as you are, then we must indeed tread carefully."
As for the priest... Lyra responds to Kalamin: "I know I cannot charm him with magic. And he is manifestly insane Yet perhaps I can convince him with words to tell us of this 'heart'. He seemed quite talkative and unconcerned when Karvas was drawn back through the rift, though Karvas himself seemed aghast. Perhaps he will have no qualms about sharing information."
Having no expertise in the area, she leaves the maps, vials and the sentient crystal orbs for the others to sort out.
Sabetha(Monk2):DungeonMair's Rime/Inge(Barbarian2):Krayveneer's After the Fall/Seri(Cleric1/Sorcerer1):Uhtred's Windward Isles/Barn(Paladin1):Nyx's ToA
Dyson/Eleo(Cleric4):Vos' Beyond the Veil/Soren(Druid4):Bartjeebus' Ravenloft/Nivi(Rogue3):Raiketsu's CoS/Lyra(Warlock2/Bard3):BlameItOnWinter's Will of the Ancients
Joren(Fighter6):NotDrizzt's Simple Request/Quyen(Adept1):Constance's Nentir Vale/Toa(Barbarian6/Fighter4):MrWhisker's Dark Lord's Return
Glyptemis listens to Ilya's explanation with a mix of horror and fascination. He desperately wants to learn more about these orbs and how they work, but it feels so very wrong to be interested in the magics that were enacted by those that had imprisoned his new friend.
"I'm also.. so sorry that they did this to you. It's just awful... and I suppose that's what they were trying to do with all of us? The sentience in the orbs.. was it originally from a person, or is it... created somehow? Is destroying an orb the same as ... killing someone?"
He would also take a look at the vials, and if there's time would cast Identify on them as a ritual to discern their use.
Glyptemis
It doesn't take you very long at all to figure out the pedestal. There are three arcane runes etched into it, and by merely passing your hand over them you control the platform. "Up", "Down", and "Stop."
Ilya
OoC: These are quick summaries, you can choose to take more time to get more details if you wish.
You quickly scan the descriptions on the scrolls, noting the room designations that go along with them:
There is indeed a chair that the priest can be tied to. After you secure him, you slap his few cheek a few times to wake him. He stirs slowly, eyes blinking rapidly. There is a brief moment where he struggles against his restraints before he realizes how thorough you've been.
He sighs. Then laughs. Then smiles up at you before his eyes wander around the room. "Oh my my. We've been poking our noses in forbidden places haven't we."
"And what is it you hope to find here, in the dungeons of the lost?"
Comforted by the words of her companions, Ilya smiles. "It's good to know that I've found myself in such company. It's a refreshing change of fortune, really."
She considers Glyptemis' question briefly before offering little more than a shrug. "I'm not sure how they were made...The one I knew, Deia, was kind though. All things considered. I imagine their personalities can be just varied as anyone else's. Smashing the main orb would almost certainly kill them."
While the tortle moves on to investigate the vials, and the others prepare to interrogate the priest, she returns to the scrolls. She looks up briefly to see the mad priest has now awakened. She wasn't keen on speaking so openly in front of him. But the woman imprisoned here in 13-03, and the book in 13-02 were things she felt worth taking a closer look at. So she begins to read the scrolls more thoroughly while the others work.
Kalamin scoffs, "you've hardly the right to talk about treading forbidden ground." The paladin steps away, realizing he was already letting the mad priest rile him up. "We had questions for you. My lyrical friend here in particular is interested in some of the things you have to say." He stands aside for Lyra, but adds: "and given the situation you're in, you might want to answer. Lest we throw you to that Prince of Gallows next."
Leftenant puzzles over the map for a bit.
“What was that bit back in the manor about lovers and child of the court?” He muses aloud. “Ilya, do you have those notes? I wonder if there is a connection with the Nalkir’s expansion and the empire’s?”