Vilus keeps Joren at a visual peripheral at the bare minimum. As the two make their way around the house following the tracks, his daggers are still out and he is chomping at the bit to run ahead as Joren suspected, but cools his paranoia at his friend's words. "Did we lose time? Did they become charmed by something? I'll hold off in the magic department but don't pretend you don't have a bit of mystery about yourself too. I can't even begin to explain the thousands of iterations of you that I saw during that explosion in Andras office, I seems that we're all a bit special huh... Either way we move quick but cautious, watch out for any movement and be careful. Disarming and non lethal strikes, I fear that when we find them they might not be in their own minds."
"I am not thinking we lost time..." Joren glances up at the sun in the sky. Does it appear to have moved more than expected? Is it significantly darker?
"And aye, my aim in listing everyone's magic was not deflecting attention away from my own Dunamic skill. Being unusually talented, all of us, yes. But none of that is mattering now. Revolving around Malachi, all this, I am thinking, the half-elven boy living here with the half-elven couple decades ago when the disappearances started and perhaps something was awakening with him. Finding the source of the magic with which he is piercing minds."
"So Ash, Sam, maybe Mal too. Being charmed or possessed or... I am not knowing. Puppeted? As we were seeing the Watcher doing to living things in caves. Roots and bats, I am not remembering exactly. It is why I was thinking you may instinctively understand Mal's magic better than I. But I am likely rooting that idea of similarity in my own ignorance, I am admitting. Glad you are remaining with me. We will be cautious, as you are saying."
Further, Joren grunts a perfunctory assent at Vilus' non-lethal attack advice as if to say, of course... I was the one who struck the non-lethal knockout blow to Jon Shep of all people, back in the basement of Opportunity's Knock those months ago... you really think I am going to lethally attack our friends?
Approaching the cellar door, Joren's echo, still ahead, moves up to it. Joren touches the goliath's shoulder to pause over five feet away. Does the door look locked? Trying to determine whether it may require the key that Vilus has (at least Joren thinks he does?) or for Joren'secho to smash the lock.
Looking around, Joren does think perhaps there had been a tad more sunlight in the trees moments ago. The gloom of the early spring evening has started to creep between the trees at a distance, and the house casts a longer shadow than before.
Vilus and Joren see on the cellar door four heavy chains, one from each corner, meeting in the middle where they are connected by a strange lock. Looking like a bulky black X with one latch for each chain, it's metal work is inscribed with fine lines and ridges in a twisting pattern that almost seems to writhe under scrutiny. Having already looked over the area carefully, Joren is struck with the disturbing revelation that he absolutely would have noticed this door and lock had it been there from the beginning.
"If I'm honest, I barely understand my own magics" Vilus grumbles pausing when motioned to wait away from the door.
"Fair," Joren admits. "Being that mine is mostly instinctive too, resulting from frequent repetition rather than any true understanding of Dunamancy..."
The warrior trails off as he looks around at the diminishing sunlight and then at the cellar door, seeming taken aback.
"Thinking we did lose time as you were saying, Vilus." His growl sounds uncertain. "And not for nothing, these crossed chains with the four-way lock that keeps squirming when I peer too closely? I am not remembering any of it from when I was looking earlier. Not even the cellar door itself."
Joren grips his Dunamis Blade, as does his echo, both of their knuckles whitening on the hafts of their weapons. He thinks: Mal, what by the good soil of the Plains is happening here? And what was happening to you here all those years ago?
"This being maybe the right time for your targeting this locked door with your ability to dispel magic? I am suspecting that if I smash it with my Dunamis Blade, the best that might be happening is nothing, staying locked. And the worst..." He trails off tensely, clearly looking to Vilus for his thoughts.
Vilus perks up at the mention of fine lines that will not stop moving, "that sounds like what people see when they try to read my book... Let me take a look it might be writing. If it isn't I'll go ahead and dispel it... Are we sure that they're behind a locked door? Even if we did lose time, even if this door appeared and it wasn't here before, it would have to lock itself behind them right?" He shrugs and hesitantly approaches the lock, summoning a mage hand to lift the chains closer to him trying to seduce whether the squirming lines are in fact some kind of script.
"Are we sure that they're behind a locked door? Even if we did lose time, even if this door appeared and it wasn't here before, it would have to lock itself behind them right?"
Joren shakes his head slowly. "Not being sure of anything whatsoever. Only that the three sets of footsteps, including the ones starting from exactly where Ash was standing where I last saw her... all three tracks are leading right to this locked cellar door that wasn't here before."
Keeping his Echo right by the cellar entrance, Joren attempts to watch for threats, both from there, and approaching from elsewhere while Vilus works.
The chains clink and jangle slightly as Vilus uses a spectral ahnd to bring them to his face, he stares deeply at the odd lines moving on the surface and then past them, something is wrong as he starts to rub at his deep dark ringed eyes and grumbles some expletive as he starts rubbing his head. The lock falls through the palm of his summoned hand, the chains fall to the floor in a pile despite the fact vilus did nothing to them, "I hate it when that happens..." he says in a low complaint, "it's not even real, lock, chains, none of it" and with that he grabs the handle of the cellar door and pulls it open, if indeed the door itself is real.
Joren grunts, blinks and squints hard at the lock and chains that are not, trying to excise the image of the illusion from his mind.
"Well done. Wondering if the illusion is Malachi's or belonging to whatever it is that is drawing our three friends seemingly down inside and below..."
As Vilus attempts to open the cellar door, Joren moves his echo up close. The half-dwarven warrior reaches a meaty hand up to the goliath's shoulder.
"I am thinking my echo first to absorb greatest risk, then me, as I am having darkvision and blindsight from my training in the fog of the Veil. You being rear guard, Vilus, staying behind in the light as long as possible, having a free hand to ignite a torch if you are needing."
Vilus let's go of the handle and gives a nod for the echo to take the lead.
Though something is still not right. He kicks the chain by the foot of the slanted door, it still jangles and moves as real as anything else. "It no illusion, at least I don't think... It's not real but I... I'm not sure what it isn't, but everything that it is, is wrong. I should probably figure this out, whatever it is feels important" He kneels down placing his curious goggles on his face and taking a further look, but that just makes him scratch his head more.
Finally he sighs, "I didn't want to have to use this..." He grumbles to himself as he takes the goggles off and turns one of the rims aligning runes etched on the outer edge. When he puts them back on the lenses glow.
"This... It's like... Hmm. We're going to have to be careful with what we encounter down there Joren. If this is a signal of what is to come things are going to get odd, and that's by my standards... This lock exists and works when those who perceive it believe that it exists and works. It's entire function and existence are based on that. It could be incredibly useful, Samir should really take a look at these when we find him. Can you imagine chaining someone with these and telling them that this is made of the strongest metal in the realm. Really make them believe it, do you think it would make it true for them?"
Joren's broad brow furrows, frowning at what Vilus is trying to tell him. As if the word "is" no longer means what it should. He sighs and shakes his head.
"Aye, supposing it might. Having great power, both the workings of our minds and the very nature of possibility."
"Having no room to talk, I, given that my Echo both is and isn't. Being an alternate course of what might have been or still could be, yet I am controlling it and able to change my actions so they are coming from its positions, or switching places with it. Imposing my will. Believing. But always branching out, more than one truth and more than one fate, like echoes of eventuality, yet I was never thinking about it too hard during my training."
(Joren's echo itself appears to listen and look on impassively, arms crossed.)
With care, per Vilus' words,, Joren attempts to focus his mind as he does when in battle, fixing firmly in his head a certainty that the cellar door is unlocked and that he, his echo and Vilus will enter the passage safely and without harm to make sure their friends are safe in body, mind and soul.
With a nod his goliath friend to confirm all right, let's roll, Joren sends his echo just ahead into what he assumes is the way below, following after himself. Dunamis Blade in hand, taking step by careful step, but with a willful confidence that there will be no traps, mental or physical, impeding us.
Vilus packs away the odd lock and chain. Thinking about Jorens echo and the similarities between perceived existence and possible existence make his head buzz a little. He bids giving the go-ahead but before entering proper he strikes up a torch and watches the small groups six.
The cellar door opens outward with a creak. A gust of cold damp air wafts out, reeking with the smell of mould and rot and dust. Stone steps descend into the darkness, seemingly untouched by the light from the declining sun. The stone walls have a faint sheen of moisture to them, and the passage is so narrow that Joren has a hard time not brushing against either side.
At the bottom of the stairs is a wooden door of half rotted planking. The door has a rusted padlock on it, but looks like it could scarcely withstand one solid shove. As Joren and Vilus approach it though, a low groan of... wind perhaps... passes through, and the walls seem to shudder, as if the building were sighing.
"Wait." Vilus asks in a concerned whisper as the pair follow the echo down the stairs, with whatever room they have before the rotting door, Vilus lowers the torch to the ground and looks around for signs of recent passage from the others, "there were footprints leading to the cellar door, I just want to make sure we aren't being led into a trap here, if they didn't come this way then neither should we." his ears perk up at the groaning, and the building reacts and settles. (survival for tracks and possible source of noise, if applicable, 21)
He is wildly aware of the illusion on the lock on the cellar door, and try as he might he wants to find tracks of the others, wants to be closer to finding them, despite his wants maybe altering the reality of the situation... if he finds tracks will it be because they exist or because he wants them to exist? It seems being separated from the majority of the group is bringing Vilus back to an overly cautious, perhaps paranoid state of being once more, and Joren would see that undeniably written on the Goliath's body language.
Joren halts, grunting quietly in assent, not intending to go rushing ahead when he had only just advised Vilus against the same rashness.
His echo remains in the lead, and the warrior is ready to smash the padlock on the wooden door ahead from the echo's position with the pommel of his Dunamis Blade, but only if and when the goliath gives him the go ahead.
In the meantime, Joren remains vigilant and doggedly tries to fix in his head the image and concept Malachi, Ashley and Samir safe and in a position where they can rejoin Joren and Vilus without any of their minds or bodies being harmed or compromised.
Looking at the ground, Vilus can't see any sign of tracks, nor do his own footsteps seem to have left any trace of his passage behind. Listening closely, however, he does make out a faint voice, only catching a few of the words.
"Mal........ you? ....in.... cellar!" It sounds like Ashley
Vilus looks up at Joren and his echo shaking his head at the lack of tracks. Then his ears pick up the speech, "hey that's Ash!, Joren take the door, ASH! STAY WHERE YOU ARE! KEEP TALKING, WE'RE COMING!" like a yo-yo Vilus seems to be springing between paranoid hesitation and impatient frustration. Wanting to charge ahead and be careful all at the same time.
Joren turns to look momentarily at Vilus, both sympathetic, yet also disquieted by his friend's barely-restrained rash urgency to charge ahead.
As if you are acting any more judicious and wise than he is, Joren, smashing some likely illusory padlock leading to some mind-trapped horror, no doubt...
As he moves his echo into position near the padlock and motions for Vilus to stand back along with himself before he smashes it with the pommel of his Dunamis Blade, Joren takes one last pause, straining his ears after the sound.
"Being... being sure that was Ashley? And not... something imitating her? Coming in here after Mal without us... not feeling sure she would do that."
Joren'sPerception to discern whether the faint voice was really Ashley's: 16
IF he thinks it is likely Ashley's voice, or if Vilus confirms that it is, Joren brings the pommel of his Dunamis Blade down on the padlock to smash it from his echo's position, with himself and Vilus standing 10' away. (OOC: let me know if an attack roll or Athletics check is needed.)
It sounds like Ashley. It must be. She disappeared, and her footsteps led to this cellar. With no other feasible interpretations at hand, Joren smashes the padlock with his pommel. The lock dents but holds. The door behind it, on the other hand, falls right off of its rusted hinges, collapsing into the room beyond. The ground trembles underfoot, and a shriek of air, now hot and damp, gusts around them. First it sounds like wind, then screaming. Then laughing, then wind again.
Joren and Vilus find themselves looking into a large stone cellar. Barrels and crates, once perhaps neatly arranged and stacked, are strewn across the floor in a horrible mound of wreckage that looks difficult to navigate without getting poked by splintered wood or nails that have turned orange with rust. The room reeks with the spilled contents of rotted meat and rancid potatoes. Far up ahead, there is a dim blue light coming through a trapdoor with a ladder leading up to it.
"I am not liking what I am sensing, Vilus," Joren growls uneasily. "Living. As if this very house is a mad living thing down whose gullet we are delving."
He looks at the mess of the cellar and the blue light faintly beckoning from the trap door on the other side of the jagged debris.
"Yet being in for a copper, then in for a gold, aye? Our friends... I believe am having a way myself to send my echo and swap to the other side without crossing through all of that. But I cannot be taking you along in doing so. Are you knowing a way, perhaps magic, to be crossing safely yourself?"
The warrior scans the room for any sign of movement or hazard beyond the obviously physical ones.
Vilus keeps Joren at a visual peripheral at the bare minimum. As the two make their way around the house following the tracks, his daggers are still out and he is chomping at the bit to run ahead as Joren suspected, but cools his paranoia at his friend's words. "Did we lose time? Did they become charmed by something? I'll hold off in the magic department but don't pretend you don't have a bit of mystery about yourself too. I can't even begin to explain the thousands of iterations of you that I saw during that explosion in Andras office, I seems that we're all a bit special huh... Either way we move quick but cautious, watch out for any movement and be careful. Disarming and non lethal strikes, I fear that when we find them they might not be in their own minds."
"I am not thinking we lost time..." Joren glances up at the sun in the sky. Does it appear to have moved more than expected? Is it significantly darker?
"And aye, my aim in listing everyone's magic was not deflecting attention away from my own Dunamic skill. Being unusually talented, all of us, yes. But none of that is mattering now. Revolving around Malachi, all this, I am thinking, the half-elven boy living here with the half-elven couple decades ago when the disappearances started and perhaps something was awakening with him. Finding the source of the magic with which he is piercing minds."
"So Ash, Sam, maybe Mal too. Being charmed or possessed or... I am not knowing. Puppeted? As we were seeing the Watcher doing to living things in caves. Roots and bats, I am not remembering exactly. It is why I was thinking you may instinctively understand Mal's magic better than I. But I am likely rooting that idea of similarity in my own ignorance, I am admitting. Glad you are remaining with me. We will be cautious, as you are saying."
Further, Joren grunts a perfunctory assent at Vilus' non-lethal attack advice as if to say, of course... I was the one who struck the non-lethal knockout blow to Jon Shep of all people, back in the basement of Opportunity's Knock those months ago... you really think I am going to lethally attack our friends?
Approaching the cellar door, Joren's echo, still ahead, moves up to it. Joren touches the goliath's shoulder to pause over five feet away. Does the door look locked? Trying to determine whether it may require the key that Vilus has (at least Joren thinks he does?) or for Joren's echo to smash the lock.
Tanis(Ranger1):Shiverquill's Tempest City | Barn(Paladin1):Damian_May's Ereworn Under the Shadow | Lyra(Warlock2/Bard4):VitusW's Silverwood Forest
Joren(Fighter6):NotDrizzt's Simple Request | Sabetha(Monk3):Bedlymn's Murder Court | Quyen(Adept1, ba5ic system):ConstancePhokas' Nentir Vale (Discord)
Xarian (Fighter3):Luna_Dust's Marks on the Map | Ophelia (Sorcerer2):BillM's Icewind Dale | Shin(Wizard1):Culuril's Strixhaven
"If I'm honest, I barely understand my own magics" Vilus grumbles pausing when motioned to wait away from the door.
Looking around, Joren does think perhaps there had been a tad more sunlight in the trees moments ago. The gloom of the early spring evening has started to creep between the trees at a distance, and the house casts a longer shadow than before.
Vilus and Joren see on the cellar door four heavy chains, one from each corner, meeting in the middle where they are connected by a strange lock. Looking like a bulky black X with one latch for each chain, it's metal work is inscribed with fine lines and ridges in a twisting pattern that almost seems to writhe under scrutiny. Having already looked over the area carefully, Joren is struck with the disturbing revelation that he absolutely would have noticed this door and lock had it been there from the beginning.
"Fair," Joren admits. "Being that mine is mostly instinctive too, resulting from frequent repetition rather than any true understanding of Dunamancy..."
The warrior trails off as he looks around at the diminishing sunlight and then at the cellar door, seeming taken aback.
"Thinking we did lose time as you were saying, Vilus." His growl sounds uncertain. "And not for nothing, these crossed chains with the four-way lock that keeps squirming when I peer too closely? I am not remembering any of it from when I was looking earlier. Not even the cellar door itself."
Joren grips his Dunamis Blade, as does his echo, both of their knuckles whitening on the hafts of their weapons. He thinks: Mal, what by the good soil of the Plains is happening here? And what was happening to you here all those years ago?
"This being maybe the right time for your targeting this locked door with your ability to dispel magic? I am suspecting that if I smash it with my Dunamis Blade, the best that might be happening is nothing, staying locked. And the worst..." He trails off tensely, clearly looking to Vilus for his thoughts.
Tanis(Ranger1):Shiverquill's Tempest City | Barn(Paladin1):Damian_May's Ereworn Under the Shadow | Lyra(Warlock2/Bard4):VitusW's Silverwood Forest
Joren(Fighter6):NotDrizzt's Simple Request | Sabetha(Monk3):Bedlymn's Murder Court | Quyen(Adept1, ba5ic system):ConstancePhokas' Nentir Vale (Discord)
Xarian (Fighter3):Luna_Dust's Marks on the Map | Ophelia (Sorcerer2):BillM's Icewind Dale | Shin(Wizard1):Culuril's Strixhaven
Vilus perks up at the mention of fine lines that will not stop moving, "that sounds like what people see when they try to read my book... Let me take a look it might be writing. If it isn't I'll go ahead and dispel it... Are we sure that they're behind a locked door? Even if we did lose time, even if this door appeared and it wasn't here before, it would have to lock itself behind them right?" He shrugs and hesitantly approaches the lock, summoning a mage hand to lift the chains closer to him trying to seduce whether the squirming lines are in fact some kind of script.
Joren shakes his head slowly. "Not being sure of anything whatsoever. Only that the three sets of footsteps, including the ones starting from exactly where Ash was standing where I last saw her... all three tracks are leading right to this locked cellar door that wasn't here before."
Keeping his Echo right by the cellar entrance, Joren attempts to watch for threats, both from there, and approaching from elsewhere while Vilus works.
Tanis(Ranger1):Shiverquill's Tempest City | Barn(Paladin1):Damian_May's Ereworn Under the Shadow | Lyra(Warlock2/Bard4):VitusW's Silverwood Forest
Joren(Fighter6):NotDrizzt's Simple Request | Sabetha(Monk3):Bedlymn's Murder Court | Quyen(Adept1, ba5ic system):ConstancePhokas' Nentir Vale (Discord)
Xarian (Fighter3):Luna_Dust's Marks on the Map | Ophelia (Sorcerer2):BillM's Icewind Dale | Shin(Wizard1):Culuril's Strixhaven
The chains clink and jangle slightly as Vilus uses a spectral ahnd to bring them to his face, he stares deeply at the odd lines moving on the surface and then past them, something is wrong as he starts to rub at his deep dark ringed eyes and grumbles some expletive as he starts rubbing his head. The lock falls through the palm of his summoned hand, the chains fall to the floor in a pile despite the fact vilus did nothing to them, "I hate it when that happens..." he says in a low complaint, "it's not even real, lock, chains, none of it" and with that he grabs the handle of the cellar door and pulls it open, if indeed the door itself is real.
Joren grunts, blinks and squints hard at the lock and chains that are not, trying to excise the image of the illusion from his mind.
"Well done. Wondering if the illusion is Malachi's or belonging to whatever it is that is drawing our three friends seemingly down inside and below..."
As Vilus attempts to open the cellar door, Joren moves his echo up close. The half-dwarven warrior reaches a meaty hand up to the goliath's shoulder.
"I am thinking my echo first to absorb greatest risk, then me, as I am having darkvision and blindsight from my training in the fog of the Veil. You being rear guard, Vilus, staying behind in the light as long as possible, having a free hand to ignite a torch if you are needing."
Tanis(Ranger1):Shiverquill's Tempest City | Barn(Paladin1):Damian_May's Ereworn Under the Shadow | Lyra(Warlock2/Bard4):VitusW's Silverwood Forest
Joren(Fighter6):NotDrizzt's Simple Request | Sabetha(Monk3):Bedlymn's Murder Court | Quyen(Adept1, ba5ic system):ConstancePhokas' Nentir Vale (Discord)
Xarian (Fighter3):Luna_Dust's Marks on the Map | Ophelia (Sorcerer2):BillM's Icewind Dale | Shin(Wizard1):Culuril's Strixhaven
Vilus let's go of the handle and gives a nod for the echo to take the lead.
Though something is still not right. He kicks the chain by the foot of the slanted door, it still jangles and moves as real as anything else. "It no illusion, at least I don't think... It's not real but I... I'm not sure what it isn't, but everything that it is, is wrong. I should probably figure this out, whatever it is feels important" He kneels down placing his curious goggles on his face and taking a further look, but that just makes him scratch his head more.
Finally he sighs, "I didn't want to have to use this..." He grumbles to himself as he takes the goggles off and turns one of the rims aligning runes etched on the outer edge. When he puts them back on the lenses glow.
"This... It's like... Hmm. We're going to have to be careful with what we encounter down there Joren. If this is a signal of what is to come things are going to get odd, and that's by my standards... This lock exists and works when those who perceive it believe that it exists and works. It's entire function and existence are based on that. It could be incredibly useful, Samir should really take a look at these when we find him. Can you imagine chaining someone with these and telling them that this is made of the strongest metal in the realm. Really make them believe it, do you think it would make it true for them?"
Joren's broad brow furrows, frowning at what Vilus is trying to tell him. As if the word "is" no longer means what it should. He sighs and shakes his head.
"Aye, supposing it might. Having great power, both the workings of our minds and the very nature of possibility."
"Having no room to talk, I, given that my Echo both is and isn't. Being an alternate course of what might have been or still could be, yet I am controlling it and able to change my actions so they are coming from its positions, or switching places with it. Imposing my will. Believing. But always branching out, more than one truth and more than one fate, like echoes of eventuality, yet I was never thinking about it too hard during my training."
(Joren's echo itself appears to listen and look on impassively, arms crossed.)
With care, per Vilus' words,, Joren attempts to focus his mind as he does when in battle, fixing firmly in his head a certainty that the cellar door is unlocked and that he, his echo and Vilus will enter the passage safely and without harm to make sure their friends are safe in body, mind and soul.
With a nod his goliath friend to confirm all right, let's roll, Joren sends his echo just ahead into what he assumes is the way below, following after himself. Dunamis Blade in hand, taking step by careful step, but with a willful confidence that there will be no traps, mental or physical, impeding us.
(Darkvision: 60', Blindsight: 10')
Tanis(Ranger1):Shiverquill's Tempest City | Barn(Paladin1):Damian_May's Ereworn Under the Shadow | Lyra(Warlock2/Bard4):VitusW's Silverwood Forest
Joren(Fighter6):NotDrizzt's Simple Request | Sabetha(Monk3):Bedlymn's Murder Court | Quyen(Adept1, ba5ic system):ConstancePhokas' Nentir Vale (Discord)
Xarian (Fighter3):Luna_Dust's Marks on the Map | Ophelia (Sorcerer2):BillM's Icewind Dale | Shin(Wizard1):Culuril's Strixhaven
Vilus packs away the odd lock and chain. Thinking about Jorens echo and the similarities between perceived existence and possible existence make his head buzz a little. He bids giving the go-ahead but before entering proper he strikes up a torch and watches the small groups six.
The cellar door opens outward with a creak. A gust of cold damp air wafts out, reeking with the smell of mould and rot and dust. Stone steps descend into the darkness, seemingly untouched by the light from the declining sun. The stone walls have a faint sheen of moisture to them, and the passage is so narrow that Joren has a hard time not brushing against either side.
At the bottom of the stairs is a wooden door of half rotted planking. The door has a rusted padlock on it, but looks like it could scarcely withstand one solid shove. As Joren and Vilus approach it though, a low groan of... wind perhaps... passes through, and the walls seem to shudder, as if the building were sighing.
"Wait." Vilus asks in a concerned whisper as the pair follow the echo down the stairs, with whatever room they have before the rotting door, Vilus lowers the torch to the ground and looks around for signs of recent passage from the others, "there were footprints leading to the cellar door, I just want to make sure we aren't being led into a trap here, if they didn't come this way then neither should we." his ears perk up at the groaning, and the building reacts and settles. (survival for tracks and possible source of noise, if applicable, 21)
He is wildly aware of the illusion on the lock on the cellar door, and try as he might he wants to find tracks of the others, wants to be closer to finding them, despite his wants maybe altering the reality of the situation... if he finds tracks will it be because they exist or because he wants them to exist? It seems being separated from the majority of the group is bringing Vilus back to an overly cautious, perhaps paranoid state of being once more, and Joren would see that undeniably written on the Goliath's body language.
Joren halts, grunting quietly in assent, not intending to go rushing ahead when he had only just advised Vilus against the same rashness.
His echo remains in the lead, and the warrior is ready to smash the padlock on the wooden door ahead from the echo's position with the pommel of his Dunamis Blade, but only if and when the goliath gives him the go ahead.
In the meantime, Joren remains vigilant and doggedly tries to fix in his head the image and concept Malachi, Ashley and Samir safe and in a position where they can rejoin Joren and Vilus without any of their minds or bodies being harmed or compromised.
Tanis(Ranger1):Shiverquill's Tempest City | Barn(Paladin1):Damian_May's Ereworn Under the Shadow | Lyra(Warlock2/Bard4):VitusW's Silverwood Forest
Joren(Fighter6):NotDrizzt's Simple Request | Sabetha(Monk3):Bedlymn's Murder Court | Quyen(Adept1, ba5ic system):ConstancePhokas' Nentir Vale (Discord)
Xarian (Fighter3):Luna_Dust's Marks on the Map | Ophelia (Sorcerer2):BillM's Icewind Dale | Shin(Wizard1):Culuril's Strixhaven
Looking at the ground, Vilus can't see any sign of tracks, nor do his own footsteps seem to have left any trace of his passage behind. Listening closely, however, he does make out a faint voice, only catching a few of the words.
"Mal........ you? ....in.... cellar!" It sounds like Ashley
Vilus looks up at Joren and his echo shaking his head at the lack of tracks. Then his ears pick up the speech, "hey that's Ash!, Joren take the door, ASH! STAY WHERE YOU ARE! KEEP TALKING, WE'RE COMING!" like a yo-yo Vilus seems to be springing between paranoid hesitation and impatient frustration. Wanting to charge ahead and be careful all at the same time.
Joren turns to look momentarily at Vilus, both sympathetic, yet also disquieted by his friend's barely-restrained rash urgency to charge ahead.
As if you are acting any more judicious and wise than he is, Joren, smashing some likely illusory padlock leading to some mind-trapped horror, no doubt...
As he moves his echo into position near the padlock and motions for Vilus to stand back along with himself before he smashes it with the pommel of his Dunamis Blade, Joren takes one last pause, straining his ears after the sound.
"Being... being sure that was Ashley? And not... something imitating her? Coming in here after Mal without us... not feeling sure she would do that."
Joren's Perception to discern whether the faint voice was really Ashley's: 16
IF he thinks it is likely Ashley's voice, or if Vilus confirms that it is, Joren brings the pommel of his Dunamis Blade down on the padlock to smash it from his echo's position, with himself and Vilus standing 10' away. (OOC: let me know if an attack roll or Athletics check is needed.)
Tanis(Ranger1):Shiverquill's Tempest City | Barn(Paladin1):Damian_May's Ereworn Under the Shadow | Lyra(Warlock2/Bard4):VitusW's Silverwood Forest
Joren(Fighter6):NotDrizzt's Simple Request | Sabetha(Monk3):Bedlymn's Murder Court | Quyen(Adept1, ba5ic system):ConstancePhokas' Nentir Vale (Discord)
Xarian (Fighter3):Luna_Dust's Marks on the Map | Ophelia (Sorcerer2):BillM's Icewind Dale | Shin(Wizard1):Culuril's Strixhaven
It sounds like Ashley. It must be. She disappeared, and her footsteps led to this cellar. With no other feasible interpretations at hand, Joren smashes the padlock with his pommel. The lock dents but holds. The door behind it, on the other hand, falls right off of its rusted hinges, collapsing into the room beyond. The ground trembles underfoot, and a shriek of air, now hot and damp, gusts around them. First it sounds like wind, then screaming. Then laughing, then wind again.
Joren and Vilus find themselves looking into a large stone cellar. Barrels and crates, once perhaps neatly arranged and stacked, are strewn across the floor in a horrible mound of wreckage that looks difficult to navigate without getting poked by splintered wood or nails that have turned orange with rust. The room reeks with the spilled contents of rotted meat and rancid potatoes. Far up ahead, there is a dim blue light coming through a trapdoor with a ladder leading up to it.
"I am not liking what I am sensing, Vilus," Joren growls uneasily. "Living. As if this very house is a mad living thing down whose gullet we are delving."
He looks at the mess of the cellar and the blue light faintly beckoning from the trap door on the other side of the jagged debris.
"Yet being in for a copper, then in for a gold, aye? Our friends... I believe am having a way myself to send my echo and swap to the other side without crossing through all of that. But I cannot be taking you along in doing so. Are you knowing a way, perhaps magic, to be crossing safely yourself?"
The warrior scans the room for any sign of movement or hazard beyond the obviously physical ones.
Tanis(Ranger1):Shiverquill's Tempest City | Barn(Paladin1):Damian_May's Ereworn Under the Shadow | Lyra(Warlock2/Bard4):VitusW's Silverwood Forest
Joren(Fighter6):NotDrizzt's Simple Request | Sabetha(Monk3):Bedlymn's Murder Court | Quyen(Adept1, ba5ic system):ConstancePhokas' Nentir Vale (Discord)
Xarian (Fighter3):Luna_Dust's Marks on the Map | Ophelia (Sorcerer2):BillM's Icewind Dale | Shin(Wizard1):Culuril's Strixhaven