Above & Below

Brask is paying more attention to the way they came, looking to see if someone is following or watching them.

Perception 1

Don't see much, he says flatly.  You?

Effort, I hope you don't mind me rolling for you in this instance. With Kurama's 25 I didn't think there was a lot of tension left about perceiving anything, haha.

Investigation: 12

Brask trails the group heading down the stairs and as they enter the large chamber, he pauses. Listening and watching up the stairwell, the only thing he sees is a bit of light dancing off the walls from his torch. 

Kurama pauses a moment, moving his gaze thoughtfully and letting the contents of the room enter his consciousness. Not much sticks out - there are obvious bits of stone, wood, and a few old weapons being stored here. Nothing looks particularly exciting - a few rapiers, a lance, what look to be arrow heads. Something does catch his attention across the room though. The doorway looks unremarkable enough, with more stairs heading down further into the mountain. On the wall a few feet to the right, however, Kurama picks up on a tiny bit of stone dust built up on the floor. As he casts some light over it, he sees something etched into the rock just above the floor. 

Destiny leads us down dark roads

but sometimes they are necessary

to see the light

Effort joins him in observing the etching as Burik and Pip dig through the storage area. As she stands, she gets a strange sense about her. Roll an arcana check.

(Sorry, pretty much in an election coma for the past few days, LOL)

Effort Arcana: 5

ugh XD  Using inspiration!

Arcana check: 6

... dice roller!!!! *shakes fist*

Effort tries to place the strange feeling, but can't quite put her finger on it. She looks around the area for a bit for any more clues or to see if she can pinpoint what she thought she sensed, but doesn't have any luck. Burik and Pip join you at the top of the stairwell. "Nothing useful here, unless we want to burn some wood for a fire," Burik passes his illuminated weapon in front of the stairs. It sends a burst of orange-yellow light downward, revealing more stone and not much else. 

"Hmm and interesting phrase to be etched into the wall." Kurama comments out loud to himself as he scrawls it into one of his many notebooks.  After taking a few moments to ponder it's meaning without coming to an answer, he turns to the group and says, "Perhaps we should keep heading down? (via the stairs we just found)"  If there are no objections, he'll take his torch and begin to head down the stairwell, straining his senses to discern what might be ahead.

Perception: 16

Brask follows Kurama.  Your friend likes to hide?  Good at it, then?  he remarks casually to Effort.

As the light of your torches leads the way down the stairwell, you descend further into the mountain. Even this deep into Whitehold, the steps are finely carved and polished. Nothing extravagant, but something that probably took ages to finish. You might think about this as you carefully work your way down more and more steps...and more, and more. A full minute passes, then two, then five. The stairwell never turns or shifts...it just continues downward. An unsettling feeling comes over you.

"Does this passage seem odd to any of you?" Kurama comments quietly to the others as momentarily stops; feeling the hairs on his arms standup on their ends.  "Effort could you possibly have Cadamel scout ahead of us for a bit?  Maybe they can figure out how much longer this stairwell goes, and what's at the bottom..." 

"We were all good at hiding," Effort answers Brask.  "The only guy in Euphoria's group who was a real brawler like you during my time was Suffering.  And I didn't see him present at our happy reunion, so you can see how well that worked out for him."

She continues along the passage, watching her step.  "Cadmael can try, but it will be difficult to discern things in the darkness without light... and I have an uncomfortable sensation that providing too much light the further down we go would alert whatever might await us here to our presence.  Something about this place... does not feel right," she says, brow wrinkling, but unable to pinpoint why.

Reaching out, she strokes Cadmael on the head, casting guidance on the owl, before sending him off.

(Cadmael will scout about 70 ft ahead and return.)
Cadmael Stealth: 19 + 4
Cadmael Perception: 16

Cadmael drops off of Effort's shoulder and flits downward. You watch as he and his shadow fly through the stairwell, eventually exiting your torchlight. 

It certainly is dark down-Hey!...I found the bottom, he thinks. Only another sixty or seventy feet. Just past where your light is currently shining. Through his eyes, Effort, you can barely make out the opening of the stairwell into another room. Cadmael peeks in, noting that it seems to branch off in two directions. No movement or light, though. He turns, flying back up the stairs and returning to your shoulder.

You make your way downward, waiting to reach the bottom. You travel sixty or seventy feet, but the bottom never arrives. The stairs continue, another sixty feet. Another sixty feet. This...isn't right, Cadmael thinks. There was another room. There isn't any way it was this far.

The light from Burik's weapon illuminates his face and his furrowed brow is clear for all to see. "I don't like this one bit."

Kurama will first do an Investigation check of the stairwell to see if there's anything physically off with it: 13

He will then ponder (Arcana check) on anything magical that could be creating this effect: 13

Kurama, you hold your torch up to the wall, running your hand over the stone and looking as closely as you can. You take a few steps down, inspecting the steps, the ceiling, the wall itself. It all seems completely normal. 

As you think about this, you focus your energy on feeling anything beyond the material - and you sure do. While you can't decipher the source or nature of the magic at play, this is no simple illusion spell. Cadmael seems to have found the bottom of the stairwell moments ago, traveling only a bit further than you were at the time. The feeling you get doesn't seem to have a boundary to it - it's everywhere you focus your energy, and it has somehow trapped you in this place.

Brask scratches an itch under his left armpit.  What's up?  he asks Burik.

"... there must be ancient magic at work here," Effort says warily.  "Perhaps this was once the lair of some great creature, whose inherent magic imbued the walls of the castle itself with its power.  I've only read about such things in books before, but have never witnessed it myself," she says.  "I do not believe continuing to descend will get us much further, however.  Nor do I believe that ascending will return us to the entrance.  We must try to find a way to break out of this maze, for a maze is what it is." 

She rubs her chin.  "I did see the exit to this corridor through Cadmael's eyes.  If we could assure ourselves that we were within thirty feet of it, I might be able to teleport myself out and find a way to reach you.  But ... there is no guarantee of success, so let us exhaust what options we can first."  Placing her torch firmly on the ground, she turns to Burik. 

"Can you light up one of Pip's arrows?"  She then faces Pip.  "And then can you shoot it down the stairwell?  I would like to see where it lands.  Be sure to aim low.  It may circle back around to reach us."

"Will do," Burik takes one of the arrows, and briefly closing his eyes, sends a pulse of light into it. It glows in his hand as he offers it to Pip, who seems rather confused about what is going on, but takes it nonetheless. He kneels down and releases it, firing it about two feet off the ground. It flies down the stairwell, and you all track it as its light gets further and further away. Quickly it's out of sight, with no indication that it reached the bottom of the stairwell. It never circles back around either. As far as you can tell, it flew and landed just as a normal arrow would in a normal - albeit long - stairwell.

"Has to be something we missed," Burik turns and looks upward, the direction you came from. He tugs at his beard in thought.

It's just magic crap, Brask says reassuringly to Pip.  Don't worry, Effort and Burik will think their way out of it.  Our job is to keep watch in case monsters jump out.  They often do.

(hmmm anyone have any thoughts on how to get out of this mess?  Maybe Effort should try teleporting and see what happens?)

Effort closes her eyes and thinks for a long moment.  Then she opens her eyes and settles down, rummaging through her pack.  Pulling a crowbar out, she hands it to Burik.  "Light this one up next," she says.

After the deed is done, she picks up the shining crowbar and ties it to the end of her length of rope securely.  She then hands it to Brask.  "Hold the end of this rope securely in one hand, and toss the weighted end with the crowbar down the stairwell as far as you possibly can.  In a manner in which you can drag this crowbar back, should the need arise."

Once this odd task is complete, she faces the others.

"Cadmael was once able to reach the end of this hallway on his own.  It may be because he is not a true owl, but a being summoned from a different plane than our material one.  So it may also be that he will be able to break out of this trap on his own, so long as we are not by his side."

She points down the corridor and addresses Cadmael mentally, though she does repeat her word aloud, so the others can follow her train of thought.

I will be asking much of you, little one, she thinks fondly, petting the owl's head.  Then she turns serious.  "I want you to fly down, following the length of this rope, until you see the lit crowbar.  Land, take the end of this rope in your beak, and drag it with you for as far as you can, or at least until right before you lose mental contact with me -- or the rope grows taut.  If you manage to reach the end of this corridor, I will attempt to transport myself to your location using my misty step."

She then addresses the others.  "By doing this, I will theoretically be outside of the lair's endless corridor maze, while the rest of you will still be inside.  But we will be connected by the length of rope which Brask will be holding in his hand.  Join yourselves together, and I shall pull on the rope to guide the rest of you out.  It is a long shot, but it is the best I can come up with at this moment."

Brask tosses the illuminated crowbar down the stairwell. The narrow path makes it difficult for him to get his full force behind the throw, but it clangs about thirty feet down the stairs, bouncing and continuing to clang two or three more times until it comes to rest. You can still see its faint glow as Cadmael lifts off and heads down the stairs again. Through his eyes, you see the light from the torches fade as the light from the crowbar grows brighter. Cadmael lands, deftly picks up the end of the rope, and takes off again. The fifty feet of rope become taut rather quickly, though, and Cadmael is left flapping as he holds onto the rope. He seems almost frustrated for the first time. Looking down the stairwell through the light of the crowbar, he sees nothing but more stone. 

"Hmph," Burik peers down toward the light. "I have more rope, but I'm not sure that would do us any good. Hm...why could Cadmael reach the bottom before, by himself? It doesn't make sense."

"This is turning out to be a long, dark road indeed," Pip references the etching in the stone in a half-joking manner tinged with an anxious undertone. 

"Long, dark road..." Kurama ponders to himself as he continues to think on what to do.  Inspiration striking him, he shares with the group, "Do you think we need to continue down these stairs in the dark, literally?  Cadamel made it when he flew by himself earlier so maybe the text above was more literal than we originally thought?"