After inspecting the spray mechanism with some curiosity, Sly hands the potion back and explains what it does. "One wonders what adventurer this beast acquired such technology from."
Mun considers the tree. The eye room is still yet to be explored, but would this tree allow them to access the mouth room? She voices her thoughts, where should they go first after their short rest?
Daewen's eyes gleam with a sly glimmer, a wide grin plastering itself across her face as Sly identifies the potion as Fire Breath and hands it back. I knew it! I knew it was worth the risk!she thinks, her mind already racing. A weaponized potion...and a spray at that! Perfect for a front-line brawler like Bilyur, who gets right into the thick of it.
Without a word, Daewen pivots to Bilyur, extending the dragon-shaped bottle to him. Her hands move swiftly, signing: "Take this. You are best user for powerful potion like this." (assume for brevity's sake that Mun translates that out loud)
Her attention then snaps to the gaping mouth where Xarkris has deposited the troll's severed arm. Daewen moves with purpose, following Xarkris to the gaping stone maw, her eyes fixed on the entrance, eager to see if their grotesque offering will finally open the path forward.
As Daewen eagerly observes, Xarkris dumps the putrid troll arm onto the flat tongue of the mouth door. Almost immediately it swings down like a set of scales, and there is a click sound from behind the door. In an instant, just as Xarkris moves his own arm free, the teeth of the door slam shut, hiding the inner mechanism, and you all hear a slow rhythmic ticking coming from inside the mouth, like a lock being picked, alongside the hiss of what sounds like a fluid being released, and the arm dissolving. Interestingly, a graffitied passage has been smeared across the flat surface of the teeth, written in what appears to be dried blood. It reads 'MEAT TAKES 8 HOURS TO DIGEST. WATCH WHERE YOU WAIT'
To Shadar Kai bred Daewen, bodies are but temporary vessels for the soul, and this door's unique 'digestion' is merely another fascinating, if a bit slow, form of transformation. A faint, almost amused, glint enters her eyes as she processes the warning. Eight hours? What an inefficient process for a door. Her curiosity satisfied by the spectacle of the ravenous maw, Daewen's head subtly swivels, her keen eyes beginning to sweep the rest of the blood-splattered room, searching for any other secrets or points of interest.
‘Perhaps’ she signs back. ‘Perhaps time to explore the eye room? I think Bilyur was interrupted’ and her sign for Bilyur is now something like a very small, very strong bear.
Bilyur accepts the potion, though he looks worried at the mention of a rest. “The message is ominous. Clearly, more is happening than just a door opening.”
(Mun obviously has no objection to scabbard ownership as a non-blade user)
(Also, if the mouth needs a long rest’s worth of time then it feels like a prompt to take one. I just wouldn’t want to be surprised by the eye room before we do).
[Yep, you can rest and recover from the Troll fight during the 8 hours wherever!]
You all enter the eye room, aside from Eggo, as ever since her brief encounter with the ill and unconscious Hugh in the last dungeon, she's been away with the fairies; perhaps some of the illness he had caught has passed on to her, seeing as it began with extended periods of brain fog and unresponsiveness, although it seemed to you like the illness had reached its pinnacle with Hugh, so this likely won't be a long-lasting or impactful event. [The disease in question began as a joke to explain missing players, but now has became a bit of a relevant plot point, as all DND gags do. It's called Numerous Personality Changes Flu, or NPC Flu for short, and it gets this name from the symptoms of its second stage, where the infected begins to exhibit a broad range of personalities as their own fades, as if there mind has been shattered. Hugh is the first to reach the third stage, in which he has settled into a single personality, that of the powerful Oinoloth Bhereg, though the party know very little about this]
The rest of the party find it more of a squeeze than Bilyur did to enter [The tunnel in takes double movement for Medium or larger creatures] Once inside, you find a light and well-aired place to rest. With Xarkris around, and more time to take the place in, you notice that each of the statues scattered around has the head of a rainforest predator; there's a caiman, snake, leopard, piranha, gorilla and grung. They also are carved to wear tribal armour, as if they're guards of some sort. The other items to note consist of the dilapidated campsite and berry vine. The campfire is long extinguished, but the charcoal is dry; you realise that despite the abundance of moss and vines growing here, rain can't penetrate the Shadow Weave, even with the cracks in the temple roof; therefore it must be the water from the humid air feeding the plants, aside from the one macabre outlier that the troll was growing in. The fabric of the tent is so tattered from the tears and holes in it that you'd consider it worthless, though the pegs are still driven stalwartly into the cracks between the bricks. Finally, the vine seems to hold a bountiful harvest of berries. You don't recognise them immediately, but they resemble dark purple grapes.
Mun will spend a little time investigating the statue of the leopard. Are any of its teeth more mobile than the others, do any of its spots conceal a depressable button, etc?
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Daewen, upon entering the expansive plaza, stands back and takes in the entire view. Her gaze then settles almost immediately on the verdant green vine sprawling along the wall, laden with small, dark purple berries that resemble grapes. The contrast to the blood-guzzling Carmine Tree in the other room is stark, and Daewen approaches it with a quiet interest.
First, she scans the ground directly beneath and around the vine for any signs of disturbance -- scuff marks, broken berries, or other indications that the vine might have reacted aggressively to someone (or something...) else.
If she notices none, she moves closer. She kneels, and without touching the vine or berries, carefully edges her nose close to the clusters, trying to discern any scent. Curious, she thinks, I wonder if these are friend...or foe?
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
[I'd hold off on taking a long rest just yet! I'll take Daewen's actions before Mun's just so it doesn't get discredited, for reasons you'll soon see!]
Daewen is drawn to the berry vine, and analyses the area around it. The plant itself seems harmless; there's no sign that it could be animate. The ground has a few rough cracks and scuffs, but she can't see how they could have been caused like a vine like this, seeing as they're significant enough to look like the result of long term weathering, or a sudden clash between the bricks and another hard surface. Therefore, she steps forward. Giving them a smell, she can't identify any scent, though when close, she notices how the berries seem to hold the same coloration as the splatters of toxins all over the Troll room. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that these berries could therefore be poisonous, and one of the ingredients in the typical poisons used by jungle-dwelling folk.
Meanwhile, Mun analyses the Leopard statue. It is crouched over in a snarl, and she tilts her head around to see if she can identify any visible signs that its mouth could open. There isn't any sign of a hinge to its jaw, and when she leans forward, putting a hand to one of the spots on the statues head to see if it can press down, it bursts to life, leaping forward in a whirl of stone teeth and claws, sinking its teeth into her. As soon as this assault is launched, the other temple guardians spring to life, raising their claws and stone weapons, ready to fight. The grung and piranha statues in the middle of the room, knocked out of formation, seem to have been damaged from prior fights, since they are missing a few body parts between them, though they still drag themselves to their feet. Clearly Bilyur's original intuition was correct, and he may have been at the mercy of these creatures previously, had the combat with the Troll not drawn him away.
Leopard Statue: Attacks Mun with a Bite, advantage from Surprise Attack: Nat 20 to hit, 13 piercing damage.
Roll for initiative!
[Each Statue is marked with its associated initial. They use Gargoyle stat blocks but have had a couple aspects reflavoured, which are that the animals that don't have claws have had their Claw attack renamed to a spear, their lack of wings means they can't fly, though that doesn't matter much as this room is fairly low-ceiled anyway (15 feet), and they're Neutral aligned rather than Chaotic Evil]
{{Crap. I took a long rest already. I'll go through posts and get him back to correct status. In the meantime, 21 initiative. I'll wait for everyone else to roll to checkmif someone beats that.}}
After inspecting the spray mechanism with some curiosity, Sly hands the potion back and explains what it does. "One wonders what adventurer this beast acquired such technology from."
Mun considers the tree. The eye room is still yet to be explored, but would this tree allow them to access the mouth room? She voices her thoughts, where should they go first after their short rest?
Daewen's eyes gleam with a sly glimmer, a wide grin plastering itself across her face as Sly identifies the potion as Fire Breath and hands it back. I knew it! I knew it was worth the risk! she thinks, her mind already racing. A weaponized potion...and a spray at that! Perfect for a front-line brawler like Bilyur, who gets right into the thick of it.
Without a word, Daewen pivots to Bilyur, extending the dragon-shaped bottle to him. Her hands move swiftly, signing: "Take this. You are best user for powerful potion like this." (assume for brevity's sake that Mun translates that out loud)
Her attention then snaps to the gaping mouth where Xarkris has deposited the troll's severed arm. Daewen moves with purpose, following Xarkris to the gaping stone maw, her eyes fixed on the entrance, eager to see if their grotesque offering will finally open the path forward.
Last to know and first to be blamed...
As a free action, can I regret my life choices?
As Daewen eagerly observes, Xarkris dumps the putrid troll arm onto the flat tongue of the mouth door. Almost immediately it swings down like a set of scales, and there is a click sound from behind the door. In an instant, just as Xarkris moves his own arm free, the teeth of the door slam shut, hiding the inner mechanism, and you all hear a slow rhythmic ticking coming from inside the mouth, like a lock being picked, alongside the hiss of what sounds like a fluid being released, and the arm dissolving. Interestingly, a graffitied passage has been smeared across the flat surface of the teeth, written in what appears to be dried blood. It reads 'MEAT TAKES 8 HOURS TO DIGEST. WATCH WHERE YOU WAIT'
Xaul Lackluster: Half-Orc Fathomless Warlock: Warlock Dragon Heist
Borvnir Chelvnich: Black Dragonborn Barbarian: Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Pushover Gerilwitz: Tiefling Wizard: Acquisitions Incorporated
Callow Sunken-Eyes: Goliath Arctic Druid: We Are Modron
DMing The 100 Dungeons of the Blood Archivist , The Hunt for the Balowang and Surviving Tempest City!
Killer Queen has already extended this signature, though not by much!
To Shadar Kai bred Daewen, bodies are but temporary vessels for the soul, and this door's unique 'digestion' is merely another fascinating, if a bit slow, form of transformation. A faint, almost amused, glint enters her eyes as she processes the warning. Eight hours? What an inefficient process for a door. Her curiosity satisfied by the spectacle of the ravenous maw, Daewen's head subtly swivels, her keen eyes beginning to sweep the rest of the blood-splattered room, searching for any other secrets or points of interest.
Perception: 20
"Nap time?" she humorously signs to Mun.
Last to know and first to be blamed...
As a free action, can I regret my life choices?
‘Perhaps’ she signs back. ‘Perhaps time to explore the eye room? I think Bilyur was interrupted’ and her sign for Bilyur is now something like a very small, very strong bear.
Bilyur accepts the potion, though he looks worried at the mention of a rest. “The message is ominous. Clearly, more is happening than just a door opening.”
[A paper drops out of a flash of light and drifts to the ground at your feet] -(extended sig)-
Daewen doesn't spot anything additional in her thorough search of the room. [Are you exploring the Eye Room now?]
Xaul Lackluster: Half-Orc Fathomless Warlock: Warlock Dragon Heist
Borvnir Chelvnich: Black Dragonborn Barbarian: Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Pushover Gerilwitz: Tiefling Wizard: Acquisitions Incorporated
Callow Sunken-Eyes: Goliath Arctic Druid: We Are Modron
DMing The 100 Dungeons of the Blood Archivist , The Hunt for the Balowang and Surviving Tempest City!
Killer Queen has already extended this signature, though not by much!
((If no one is interested in the scabbard, I would like it))
(Mun obviously has no objection to scabbard ownership as a non-blade user)
(Also, if the mouth needs a long rest’s worth of time then it feels like a prompt to take one. I just wouldn’t want to be surprised by the eye room before we do).
((Yeah, DM. If we have to wait 8 hours for this thing to digest, can we get credit for a LONG REST?))
OOC: Yeah, eye room next, as we wait for the mouth room to
digestopen up?Last to know and first to be blamed...
As a free action, can I regret my life choices?
{{Do we head to the eye room now?}}
[A paper drops out of a flash of light and drifts to the ground at your feet] -(extended sig)-
[Yep, you can rest and recover from the Troll fight during the 8 hours wherever!]

You all enter the eye room, aside from Eggo, as ever since her brief encounter with the ill and unconscious Hugh in the last dungeon, she's been away with the fairies; perhaps some of the illness he had caught has passed on to her, seeing as it began with extended periods of brain fog and unresponsiveness, although it seemed to you like the illness had reached its pinnacle with Hugh, so this likely won't be a long-lasting or impactful event. [The disease in question began as a joke to explain missing players, but now has became a bit of a relevant plot point, as all DND gags do. It's called Numerous Personality Changes Flu, or NPC Flu for short, and it gets this name from the symptoms of its second stage, where the infected begins to exhibit a broad range of personalities as their own fades, as if there mind has been shattered. Hugh is the first to reach the third stage, in which he has settled into a single personality, that of the powerful Oinoloth Bhereg, though the party know very little about this]
The rest of the party find it more of a squeeze than Bilyur did to enter [The tunnel in takes double movement for Medium or larger creatures] Once inside, you find a light and well-aired place to rest. With Xarkris around, and more time to take the place in, you notice that each of the statues scattered around has the head of a rainforest predator; there's a caiman, snake, leopard, piranha, gorilla and grung. They also are carved to wear tribal armour, as if they're guards of some sort. The other items to note consist of the dilapidated campsite and berry vine. The campfire is long extinguished, but the charcoal is dry; you realise that despite the abundance of moss and vines growing here, rain can't penetrate the Shadow Weave, even with the cracks in the temple roof; therefore it must be the water from the humid air feeding the plants, aside from the one macabre outlier that the troll was growing in. The fabric of the tent is so tattered from the tears and holes in it that you'd consider it worthless, though the pegs are still driven stalwartly into the cracks between the bricks. Finally, the vine seems to hold a bountiful harvest of berries. You don't recognise them immediately, but they resemble dark purple grapes.
Xaul Lackluster: Half-Orc Fathomless Warlock: Warlock Dragon Heist
Borvnir Chelvnich: Black Dragonborn Barbarian: Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Pushover Gerilwitz: Tiefling Wizard: Acquisitions Incorporated
Callow Sunken-Eyes: Goliath Arctic Druid: We Are Modron
DMing The 100 Dungeons of the Blood Archivist , The Hunt for the Balowang and Surviving Tempest City!
Killer Queen has already extended this signature, though not by much!
Mun will spend a little time investigating the statue of the leopard. Are any of its teeth more mobile than the others, do any of its spots conceal a depressable button, etc?
{{Unless Shiver says otherwise, I'm gonna give Bilyur a long rest.}}
[A paper drops out of a flash of light and drifts to the ground at your feet] -(extended sig)-
Daewen, upon entering the expansive plaza, stands back and takes in the entire view. Her gaze then settles almost immediately on the verdant green vine sprawling along the wall, laden with small, dark purple berries that resemble grapes. The contrast to the blood-guzzling Carmine Tree in the other room is stark, and Daewen approaches it with a quiet interest.
First, she scans the ground directly beneath and around the vine for any signs of disturbance -- scuff marks, broken berries, or other indications that the vine might have reacted aggressively to someone (or something...) else.
If she notices none, she moves closer. She kneels, and without touching the vine or berries, carefully edges her nose close to the clusters, trying to discern any scent. Curious, she thinks, I wonder if these are friend...or foe?
Non-threatening Perception: 18
Last to know and first to be blamed...
As a free action, can I regret my life choices?
[I'd hold off on taking a long rest just yet! I'll take Daewen's actions before Mun's just so it doesn't get discredited, for reasons you'll soon see!]
Daewen is drawn to the berry vine, and analyses the area around it. The plant itself seems harmless; there's no sign that it could be animate. The ground has a few rough cracks and scuffs, but she can't see how they could have been caused like a vine like this, seeing as they're significant enough to look like the result of long term weathering, or a sudden clash between the bricks and another hard surface. Therefore, she steps forward. Giving them a smell, she can't identify any scent, though when close, she notices how the berries seem to hold the same coloration as the splatters of toxins all over the Troll room. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that these berries could therefore be poisonous, and one of the ingredients in the typical poisons used by jungle-dwelling folk.
Meanwhile, Mun analyses the Leopard statue. It is crouched over in a snarl, and she tilts her head around to see if she can identify any visible signs that its mouth could open. There isn't any sign of a hinge to its jaw, and when she leans forward, putting a hand to one of the spots on the statues head to see if it can press down, it bursts to life, leaping forward in a whirl of stone teeth and claws, sinking its teeth into her. As soon as this assault is launched, the other temple guardians spring to life, raising their claws and stone weapons, ready to fight. The grung and piranha statues in the middle of the room, knocked out of formation, seem to have been damaged from prior fights, since they are missing a few body parts between them, though they still drag themselves to their feet. Clearly Bilyur's original intuition was correct, and he may have been at the mercy of these creatures previously, had the combat with the Troll not drawn him away.
Leopard Statue: Attacks Mun with a Bite, advantage from Surprise Attack: Nat 20 to hit, 13 piercing damage.
Roll for initiative!
[Each Statue is marked with its associated initial. They use Gargoyle stat blocks but have had a couple aspects reflavoured, which are that the animals that don't have claws have had their Claw attack renamed to a spear, their lack of wings means they can't fly, though that doesn't matter much as this room is fairly low-ceiled anyway (15 feet), and they're Neutral aligned rather than Chaotic Evil]
Xaul Lackluster: Half-Orc Fathomless Warlock: Warlock Dragon Heist
Borvnir Chelvnich: Black Dragonborn Barbarian: Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Pushover Gerilwitz: Tiefling Wizard: Acquisitions Incorporated
Callow Sunken-Eyes: Goliath Arctic Druid: We Are Modron
DMing The 100 Dungeons of the Blood Archivist , The Hunt for the Balowang and Surviving Tempest City!
Killer Queen has already extended this signature, though not by much!
Slys Initiative: 11
{{Crap. I took a long rest already. I'll go through posts and get him back to correct status. In the meantime, 21 initiative. I'll wait for everyone else to roll to checkmif someone beats that.}}
[A paper drops out of a flash of light and drifts to the ground at your feet] -(extended sig)-