"That is the only room we visited," Neya says, "I doubt we need to visit the rooms the other two keys came from. But, I can imagine the carnage considering what that kobold said. Regardless, yes, let's see what trap lies in wait there."
At Utar's question, assuming again she managed to finish her work in a timely enough fashion, she directs the group over to the next nearest door, and leave them to handle the puzzle/traps inside. At least initially as another inspired thought had her penning down more notes from the entryway of their next intended trial!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
When you realize you're doing too much: Signature.
Key collect, prisoner hoisted, and next room selected, Neya, Graxx, and Utar step out of the southwest area and into the northwest one. Black stairs descend into a 20-by-20-foot room hewn from the same stone as the circular chamber, but with walls that are decorated in glossy-black and bone-white tiles. A short, triangular altar of black stone rests atop a low triangular platform at the opposite end of the chamber. A single swolbold lays at the foot of the altar, its features melted beyond further recognition.
Pacing around the circular room while taking notes and drawing sketches, Obsben peeks into a third alcove. She picks the southeast one and stands right at the top of the stairs that lead down into this next small room. The air in this 20-by-20-foot room is acrid and sour-smelling. The set of stairs descends past walls of shiny green tiles some 8 feet to the sunken floor below. Half-a-dozen or so dead swolbolds lay strewn about; their bodies strangely contorted as if they died in abject agony. A round altar of green stone lay against the far wall.
Utar swings his vision around the room checking for anything magical in nature, although given the other room, he doubts anything will likely be in here either. Taking a peek at the swolbold's melted face, Utar thanks Torm that breakfast was long enough ago that it isn't likely to revisit him.
"Given there's a dead Spernik lackey in here, anyone want to bet that the trap in here is acid based? Do we reckon this is one of the keys we already hold?"
"Hmm~... Poor saps. I'd say 'may you rest in peace', but something tells me that won't quite be so given who you've likely aligned yourself with."Obsben comments while looking over the bodies at a distance. After her gaze naturally drifts to the altar, she digs out the keys on her person just to reconfirm their qualities, before then putting them away again and returning to the main circular room to await the others.
Because tempting as it was, she'd only rely on her people's luck as protection for so much before falling back to basics. In the meantime, she'd send a mental message to Salty Bottom just to check up on the familiar.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
When you realize you're doing too much: Signature.
"It could be acid. This was a temple for dragon-controlling druids. So, theming their traps after dragons would not be out of place," Neya ponders out loud.
Neya considers the connection between the keys and the traps they have seen so far.
”We only have a few charges. I don’t want to risk wasting it if the key has been taken from this.”
Graxx will look at the Swolbold. Can he tell if the Swolbold was standing up, what direction the acid may have come from? Like is it more on the top of its body it’s melted like it poured on it or just all over melted?
@Utar: Your hunch is confirmed by the your active spell. Nothing in this second chamber is magical in nature.
@Neya: Putting the info you collected and your own observations together, you realize a pattern is emerging in these rooms. They each seem to be themed after a color, a shape, a trap, and a key with some sort of sensory effect. "Dragons" is a good thematic guess, but you feel you need more data points before confirming your theory.
@Graxx (lets call that a medicine check, for a total roll of 12): The swolbold is facing up, though there is no face to speak of. Part of the chest is also melted. You reckon the damage is similar to the acid you can pour out of your alchemy jug, so that's your best guess for a culprit. Judging by the body's position, the type of damage, and the location of the wounds, you guess the acid may have come directly from the triangular altar, though it could have fallen on him from above as well, with the swolbold looking directly upward before he was struck.
@Obsben: Touching the green and black keys again, you are reminded that the former makes your fingertips feel a bit itchy, as if you were developing a rash, while the latter stings slightly, as if it was slowly eating away at your skin. Salty Bottom is distracted by the many swolbold bodies lying around. He pokes one's eye and later tries to remove a piece of armor from another.
Still holding Spernik over one shoulder, Utar stops and startssetting out what they know from the rooms so far.
"Ok, so we cleared one room. White decor. Freezing cold. White key. Now we've black decor, likely acid trap. Spernik's swolbold's cleared two, so is this one that needs clearing or one we have the key for already."
Picking up on Neya's theory, Utar tries to recall what he can about the Queen of Dragons, see if he can't confirm her theory.
Realising that it might just be easier, and less likely to result in him being melted by acid, he calls out to Obsben, "Hey, we got two keys from Spernik. What colour are they?"
All is quiet in response to the call. At least first, but then Utar hears a whisper only meant for his ears, as the halfling seemed determined not to leave... wherever she was at that moment, "Black and Green with what appeared to be possibly interlocking points. I wouldn't recommend holding them bare handed for too long as they seem to retrain some aspects of dragonkind. Nothing too harmful of course, but I'd still be wary~"
After a few seconds delay, Obsben voice again chimes in magically for the half-orc, "One was itchy. The other stung a little. Best guesses ties them to green and black dragons all the more, just so you know. Ready to check out the last chamber to the North East? If so, I'll see you guys in the main chamber."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
When you realize you're doing too much: Signature.
Neya and Utar put their heads together and begin to connect the dots. Tiamat, the Queen of Dragons, is a five-headed dragon with each head belonging to a different chromatic nature. Red for fire, black for acid, blue for lightning, green for poison, and white for ice. The red door needs a four-part key to open and the group has three of them: black, green, and white (as Obsben confirms.) The keys and their sensory effects correspond to Tiamat's chromatic heads, so CRAP can then deduce they are missing the blue portion of the key, and that the room housing it will likely have a blue theme and be rigged with some sort of lightning trap. The southwest room is white-themed, the northwest room is black-themed, and the southeast room (again, as reported by Obsben) is green-themed. Should the northeast room be blue-themed, CRAP can then pat themselves on the back! All of this noted, the additional theme of having a different shape per room seems a bit overdone. That was most likely a confounding factor planned to throw explorers off.
Before undeniably confirming their theory, however, Utar makes a point of double-checking the black-themed, triangular altar. He confirms that there is no key on it and avoids triggering any traps. In fact, he notices a small pipe on the altar from which the acid likely sprayed forth. Analyzing it for a second, the half-orc guesses that the trap has been spent.
With that, Obsben mentally invites Utar to join her in exploring the last room but it is Graxx that gets there first (after the group reunites in the main chamber for a second). The northeast room is also 20-by-20-foot in dimension. It has a floor made from a single piece of beaten copper. Shiny, blue and yellow tiles line the walls and a diamond-shaped altar of polished blue stone rests atop a dais. Small bolts of electricity arc between something resting atop the altar and a number of copper studs in the wall. Utarnotices that the copper studs on the walls have been magically charged. There are no dead swolbolds in this room.
"Those copper studs are magical in nature, so might be that the trap can continually be reset? Although that would be a departure from the traps in the other rooms. All the other traps in here have claimed lives though, so might be this is set up specifically to inflict pain on anyone collecting the keys, kind of a prove your strength, show you are worthy kind of deal?"
While Utar ponders whether they could trigger the trap and it wouldn't reset - rendering it useless after the first attempt to access the key. The other traps they've encountered so far have been one and done deals, why not this one too?
Spending a moment thinking on all things magical, he remembers a scroll offering a cast of protection from energy.
"If we just want to walk in and yank the key out, trap be damned, I can try to help mitigate any damage. It wouldn't eliminate it though, you'd still get hurt, so I'd prefer a better plan if anyone has one."
Utar's eyes go wide as a realisation comes to him.
"Or it's that the traps demand a sacrifice and they're set up specifically to kill the first one to attempt to grab them? Let's definitely come up with a better plan."
Obsben absently nodded in agreement to assessment. "Wouldn't put it past them. Kind of a waste of resources, but most that go to these extremes don't rightly care about such things I suppose." She grins, and after waiting a moment to see what became of Graxx' "magic", the halfling began rolling back her sleeves.
"Well, I do have this little trick up my sleeve that aughta work, since its not too far. But~ Everyone else probably want to back up just in case."She waits patiently for the others to move or stay, before taking her place just outside the copper floor plated room. Or if better yet able to see the dais and stone from further out, then she'd do just that, before waggling of fingers at it and singing a soft a verse.
In an instance a spectral and larger copy of her hand appeared in the room and reaches out to try and grab the stone. Then if all went well there, she'd bring it over to the group.
Taking Utar’s suggestion that the rooms are sacrificial in mind, Neya looks around for any sort of restraint in order to confirm or refute the suspicion.
@Utar: Your conclusion seems quite plausible. Traps here are mostly single-use, except perhaps for the swinging blades one. That one seemed to reset on its own, though the mist obscuring the blades wouldn't have reset. You suspect the copper studs have been magically charged for one large, life-claiming blast. You think the druids would have to recharge this trap after it is spent.
Thinking someone may need to volunteer to trigger the trap, Utar then offers to use a spell scroll to offer some protection from energy. That said, the cleric himself does not like this idea. Graxx seems to agree and decides to gather more information through his wand of secrets. This time, the wand reacts by pointing to the entire room, or nearly that. The wand points to the altar, the copper studs, and also the copper plate flooring in the room. Graxx concludes that the trap is less of a hidden secret and more of a general area threat.
Neya would also like to gather more information. She looks into the room specifically in search of restraints of some sort but fails to spot anything of the kind. Then, having seen enough, Obsben rolls her sleeves and asks everyone to take a step or two back. She summons her mage hand and collects the diamond-shaped stone from the dais. As the hand moves back, the arcs of lighting traveling from copper studs to the altar suddenly lose their grounding. The lightning looks for the nearest alternate grounding path and blats the copper flooring of the entire room in one large explosion. It is quite a display, and CRAP could easily imagine suffering life-threatening injuries from such a blast. As it is, though, the floating hand easily brings the stone back to the group. Resting on top of the stone, there is a blue-colored key fragment that is quite similar to the others, including the jigsaw-looking protrusions on its back.
(OOC: Well done, everyone! What an elegant solution to a devastating trap.)
"That... was spectacular~"Obsben commented in a dreamy voice and swayed a little on the spot. But fortunately, she comes back to her senses within a few moments and brings the last piece to the group. Short of someone else then snatching it up, Obsben rolled back out her sleeve to pulls it over a hand to grab the key with. "Mn~ Now for the real fun part. Assembly! I've always kind of liked puzzles. Though if one of you want to try at first."She holds up the key and digs out the others to offer the group. "If not, uh, just give me a few minutes. Or if more preferred, we can take our time a bit to properly patch ourselves up? That last scrap was a bit of a fierce one, and I usually do my best puzzle work while telling a good story."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
When you realize you're doing too much: Signature.
"Surprising that such a straightforward solution resulted in success. I'm not going to question it, just going to enjoy that no-one got fried in the process."
Heading back to the central chamber, Utar looks around the chambers and finds a spot to gently place Spernik back on the ground.
"The Lord Sage did ask us to do a little work for them while we were here. Might be worthwhile putting some of that paper and charcoal to use? If you need some time Obsben, we could look to, I don't know, take some rubbings, do some sketching, make some notes."
"That is the only room we visited," Neya says, "I doubt we need to visit the rooms the other two keys came from. But, I can imagine the carnage considering what that kobold said. Regardless, yes, let's see what trap lies in wait there."
Extended Signature
At Utar's question, assuming again she managed to finish her work in a timely enough fashion, she directs the group over to the next nearest door, and leave them to handle the puzzle/traps inside. At least initially as another inspired thought had her penning down more notes from the entryway of their next intended trial!
When you realize you're doing too much: Signature.
Key collect, prisoner hoisted, and next room selected, Neya, Graxx, and Utar step out of the southwest area and into the northwest one. Black stairs descend into a 20-by-20-foot room hewn from the same stone as the circular chamber, but with walls that are decorated in glossy-black and bone-white tiles. A short, triangular altar of black stone rests atop a low triangular platform at the opposite end of the chamber. A single swolbold lays at the foot of the altar, its features melted beyond further recognition.
Pacing around the circular room while taking notes and drawing sketches, Obsben peeks into a third alcove. She picks the southeast one and stands right at the top of the stairs that lead down into this next small room. The air in this 20-by-20-foot room is acrid and sour-smelling. The set of stairs descends past walls of shiny green tiles some 8 feet to the sunken floor below. Half-a-dozen or so dead swolbolds lay strewn about; their bodies strangely contorted as if they died in abject agony. A round altar of green stone lay against the far wall.
Utar swings his vision around the room checking for anything magical in nature, although given the other room, he doubts anything will likely be in here either. Taking a peek at the swolbold's melted face, Utar thanks Torm that breakfast was long enough ago that it isn't likely to revisit him.
"Given there's a dead Spernik lackey in here, anyone want to bet that the trap in here is acid based? Do we reckon this is one of the keys we already hold?"
"Hmm~... Poor saps. I'd say 'may you rest in peace', but something tells me that won't quite be so given who you've likely aligned yourself with." Obsben comments while looking over the bodies at a distance. After her gaze naturally drifts to the altar, she digs out the keys on her person just to reconfirm their qualities, before then putting them away again and returning to the main circular room to await the others.
Because tempting as it was, she'd only rely on her people's luck as protection for so much before falling back to basics. In the meantime, she'd send a mental message to Salty Bottom just to check up on the familiar.
When you realize you're doing too much: Signature.
"It could be acid. This was a temple for dragon-controlling druids. So, theming their traps after dragons would not be out of place," Neya ponders out loud.
Neya considers the connection between the keys and the traps they have seen so far.
General Intelligence: 2
Extended Signature
Graxx looks down at his wand.
”We only have a few charges. I don’t want to risk wasting it if the key has been taken from this.”
Graxx will look at the Swolbold. Can he tell if the Swolbold was standing up, what direction the acid may have come from? Like is it more on the top of its body it’s melted like it poured on it or just all over melted?
Straight 20 Roll: 10
@Utar: Your hunch is confirmed by the your active spell. Nothing in this second chamber is magical in nature.
@Neya: Putting the info you collected and your own observations together, you realize a pattern is emerging in these rooms. They each seem to be themed after a color, a shape, a trap, and a key with some sort of sensory effect. "Dragons" is a good thematic guess, but you feel you need more data points before confirming your theory.
@Graxx (lets call that a medicine check, for a total roll of 12): The swolbold is facing up, though there is no face to speak of. Part of the chest is also melted. You reckon the damage is similar to the acid you can pour out of your alchemy jug, so that's your best guess for a culprit. Judging by the body's position, the type of damage, and the location of the wounds, you guess the acid may have come directly from the triangular altar, though it could have fallen on him from above as well, with the swolbold looking directly upward before he was struck.
@Obsben: Touching the green and black keys again, you are reminded that the former makes your fingertips feel a bit itchy, as if you were developing a rash, while the latter stings slightly, as if it was slowly eating away at your skin. Salty Bottom is distracted by the many swolbold bodies lying around. He pokes one's eye and later tries to remove a piece of armor from another.
Still holding Spernik over one shoulder, Utar stops and startssetting out what they know from the rooms so far.
"Ok, so we cleared one room. White decor. Freezing cold. White key. Now we've black decor, likely acid trap. Spernik's swolbold's cleared two, so is this one that needs clearing or one we have the key for already."
Picking up on Neya's theory, Utar tries to recall what he can about the Queen of Dragons, see if he can't confirm her theory.
Religion - 28
Warily stepping forward, and careful not to get close to the altar, Utar cranes his next to see whether there is a key still on the altar.
Perception - 21
Realising that it might just be easier, and less likely to result in him being melted by acid, he calls out to Obsben, "Hey, we got two keys from Spernik. What colour are they?"
All is quiet in response to the call. At least first, but then Utar hears a whisper only meant for his ears, as the halfling seemed determined not to leave... wherever she was at that moment, "Black and Green with what appeared to be possibly interlocking points. I wouldn't recommend holding them bare handed for too long as they seem to retrain some aspects of dragonkind. Nothing too harmful of course, but I'd still be wary~"
After a few seconds delay, Obsben voice again chimes in magically for the half-orc, "One was itchy. The other stung a little. Best guesses ties them to green and black dragons all the more, just so you know. Ready to check out the last chamber to the North East? If so, I'll see you guys in the main chamber."
When you realize you're doing too much: Signature.
Graxx listens to Obsben's words.
"Stings... Like acid..." says Graxx.
Graxx looks at the dead swolbold.
"I believe this key has been taken. Let us go to the North East." says Graxx.
Graxx will make his way to the main chamber to meet Obsben.
(OOC: Natural 20!)
Neya and Utar put their heads together and begin to connect the dots. Tiamat, the Queen of Dragons, is a five-headed dragon with each head belonging to a different chromatic nature. Red for fire, black for acid, blue for lightning, green for poison, and white for ice. The red door needs a four-part key to open and the group has three of them: black, green, and white (as Obsben confirms.) The keys and their sensory effects correspond to Tiamat's chromatic heads, so CRAP can then deduce they are missing the blue portion of the key, and that the room housing it will likely have a blue theme and be rigged with some sort of lightning trap. The southwest room is white-themed, the northwest room is black-themed, and the southeast room (again, as reported by Obsben) is green-themed. Should the northeast room be blue-themed, CRAP can then pat themselves on the back! All of this noted, the additional theme of having a different shape per room seems a bit overdone. That was most likely a confounding factor planned to throw explorers off.
Before undeniably confirming their theory, however, Utar makes a point of double-checking the black-themed, triangular altar. He confirms that there is no key on it and avoids triggering any traps. In fact, he notices a small pipe on the altar from which the acid likely sprayed forth. Analyzing it for a second, the half-orc guesses that the trap has been spent.
With that, Obsben mentally invites Utar to join her in exploring the last room but it is Graxx that gets there first (after the group reunites in the main chamber for a second). The northeast room is also 20-by-20-foot in dimension. It has a floor made from a single piece of beaten copper. Shiny, blue and yellow tiles line the walls and a diamond-shaped altar of polished blue stone rests atop a dais. Small bolts of electricity arc between something resting atop the altar and a number of copper studs in the wall. Utar notices that the copper studs on the walls have been magically charged. There are no dead swolbolds in this room.
"Those copper studs are magical in nature, so might be that the trap can continually be reset? Although that would be a departure from the traps in the other rooms. All the other traps in here have claimed lives though, so might be this is set up specifically to inflict pain on anyone collecting the keys, kind of a prove your strength, show you are worthy kind of deal?"
Arcana - 24
While Utar ponders whether they could trigger the trap and it wouldn't reset - rendering it useless after the first attempt to access the key. The other traps they've encountered so far have been one and done deals, why not this one too?
Spending a moment thinking on all things magical, he remembers a scroll offering a cast of protection from energy.
"If we just want to walk in and yank the key out, trap be damned, I can try to help mitigate any damage. It wouldn't eliminate it though, you'd still get hurt, so I'd prefer a better plan if anyone has one."
Utar's eyes go wide as a realisation comes to him.
"Or it's that the traps demand a sacrifice and they're set up specifically to kill the first one to attempt to grab them? Let's definitely come up with a better plan."
Graxx retrieves the Wand of Secrets and hold it out in front of him.
"Let this give us some type of idea of what we might be facing." says Graxx.
Graxx waits to see how the wand reacts.
Obsben absently nodded in agreement to assessment. "Wouldn't put it past them. Kind of a waste of resources, but most that go to these extremes don't rightly care about such things I suppose." She grins, and after waiting a moment to see what became of Graxx' "magic", the halfling began rolling back her sleeves.
"Well, I do have this little trick up my sleeve that aughta work, since its not too far. But~ Everyone else probably want to back up just in case." She waits patiently for the others to move or stay, before taking her place just outside the copper floor plated room. Or if better yet able to see the dais and stone from further out, then she'd do just that, before waggling of fingers at it and singing a soft a verse.
In an instance a spectral and larger copy of her hand appeared in the room and reaches out to try and grab the stone. Then if all went well there, she'd bring it over to the group.
When you realize you're doing too much: Signature.
Taking Utar’s suggestion that the rooms are sacrificial in mind, Neya looks around for any sort of restraint in order to confirm or refute the suspicion.
Perception: 19
Extended Signature
@Utar: Your conclusion seems quite plausible. Traps here are mostly single-use, except perhaps for the swinging blades one. That one seemed to reset on its own, though the mist obscuring the blades wouldn't have reset. You suspect the copper studs have been magically charged for one large, life-claiming blast. You think the druids would have to recharge this trap after it is spent.
Thinking someone may need to volunteer to trigger the trap, Utar then offers to use a spell scroll to offer some protection from energy. That said, the cleric himself does not like this idea. Graxx seems to agree and decides to gather more information through his wand of secrets. This time, the wand reacts by pointing to the entire room, or nearly that. The wand points to the altar, the copper studs, and also the copper plate flooring in the room. Graxx concludes that the trap is less of a hidden secret and more of a general area threat.
Neya would also like to gather more information. She looks into the room specifically in search of restraints of some sort but fails to spot anything of the kind. Then, having seen enough, Obsben rolls her sleeves and asks everyone to take a step or two back. She summons her mage hand and collects the diamond-shaped stone from the dais. As the hand moves back, the arcs of lighting traveling from copper studs to the altar suddenly lose their grounding. The lightning looks for the nearest alternate grounding path and blats the copper flooring of the entire room in one large explosion. It is quite a display, and CRAP could easily imagine suffering life-threatening injuries from such a blast. As it is, though, the floating hand easily brings the stone back to the group. Resting on top of the stone, there is a blue-colored key fragment that is quite similar to the others, including the jigsaw-looking protrusions on its back.
(OOC: Well done, everyone! What an elegant solution to a devastating trap.)
"That... was spectacular~" Obsben commented in a dreamy voice and swayed a little on the spot. But fortunately, she comes back to her senses within a few moments and brings the last piece to the group. Short of someone else then snatching it up, Obsben rolled back out her sleeve to pulls it over a hand to grab the key with. "Mn~ Now for the real fun part. Assembly! I've always kind of liked puzzles. Though if one of you want to try at first." She holds up the key and digs out the others to offer the group. "If not, uh, just give me a few minutes. Or if more preferred, we can take our time a bit to properly patch ourselves up? That last scrap was a bit of a fierce one, and I usually do my best puzzle work while telling a good story."
When you realize you're doing too much: Signature.
"Surprising that such a straightforward solution resulted in success. I'm not going to question it, just going to enjoy that no-one got fried in the process."
Heading back to the central chamber, Utar looks around the chambers and finds a spot to gently place Spernik back on the ground.
"The Lord Sage did ask us to do a little work for them while we were here. Might be worthwhile putting some of that paper and charcoal to use? If you need some time Obsben, we could look to, I don't know, take some rubbings, do some sketching, make some notes."
"Great thinking everyone!"
Graxx puts the wand back in his backpack and once again has his mighty axe.
"I'm always up for a good story Obsben and I've never been good with puzzles. Please see what you can do."
Graxx nods to Utar.
"Charcoal and paper sounds like something I can do!" says Graxx enthusiastically.