Unsure of what to do, Tahldar begins to circle around.

OOC:  Detect magic lasts for 18 rounds for Tahldar so I assume it's still going from when I cast it on the stuff we found.  He will first encircle the walkway scanning for magic.  Then he'll look for secret doors on the carvings and the like.

Detect magic:  Duration: 2 rds./level, Area of Effect: 10 x 60 ft.

For detect magic, it does last 18 rounds, but he must concentrate for the round he is detecting. For example, the spell says he can scan a 60 degree arc per round.

Is the party going clockwise or counterclockwise?

Shae follows Tahldar. Let's assume counterclockwise to the first carving. She is alert to the carving but is also trying to observe the green glowing orb to figure out what it might be.

You circle the 35 feet to your right (counterclockwise) to the first wall carving. Looking more closely, you see that it is intricately carved. Even the tentacle spirals seem to pop out in great detail. In the center of the carving are two indented slots, one in the black spiral and one in the white spiral (see picture in previous post).

In the white spiral slot, a green peridot gem is imbedded. The slot in the black spiral is empty.

The green orb bobs a bit more and then dips down into the pit out of view.

From your new positioning, it appears the floor and wall continues counterclockwise to another of these octopoid carvings at the next 35 foot interval.

The mist is still just as heavy. Its smell is slightly sweet. It is not entirely water based.

NOTE: I am not sure of your light sources. It is pitch black in this room except for the glowing green orb and whatever light sources you are using.

"Well, it would seem we need to put something in the empty slot, but lets check the other carvings first.  I suspect that we will have to move the green gem from the white slot to the black one.  The green gem I think represents the green blob.  But it's not clear to me if we will need to move one gem in one carving, or more than one, in some combination."

"It could be that moving a gem will cause the blob to move to the place the gem is moved.  I'm not sure." Tahldar says as he continues to move.

Shae says, "I think we need more information. Let's go to the next carving." She will follow Tahldar counterclockwise to the next one and inspect it.

You move counter clockwise to the next carving. It is like the other, but in this one, there is an agate in the white center spiral. The lower black gem slot is empty.

The green orb bobs just a bit more before starting to head in your direction. It is vague in form, not wholly spherical but glowing like a large firefly. It veers right about 20 feet counterclockwise from you and hangs above the path you are on, bobbing as if asking you to follow.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:31, Mon 16 Mar 2020.

"Well, what is the worst that could happen?", Leo remarks skeptically.

With a shrug Tahldar says "Let's follow."

Shae will also follow the green glowing orb.

Kahan shrugs and follows along. "Hopefully it doesn't lead us into a trap," he laughed, half sarcastically.

OOC: Last I remembered, we had some sort of Continual Light torches or something but I don't know if that's still the case.

Don't they always?  Leo follows along as well.

The group begins following the bobbing green sphere as it circles the pathway. When you reach the next octopoid statue, you feel the floor slightly give, and before you have much time to react, the entire floor collapses. Like the previous room, the marble floor had been an illusion, and the actual floor consisted only of a thin layer of rotted wooden planks.

Only Borimer and Tahldar manage to jump back in time to avoid the fall, Borimer is on the far side of the now 10 foot hole in the floor, and Tahldar is on the near side.

Kahan, Leo and Shae fall beyond the sight of Borimer and Tahldar...

The green glowing orb almost immediately sweeps down into the center area of the pit. A moment later, it pulses brightly from the deep area of the pit, and a shriek pulsates and nearly deafens you.
Just after the shriek, Tahldar senses movement to his right. He turns and sees that some of the bones and skeletons on the wall are starting to move. Borimer sees the same thing on the wall of bones behind him. They are trying to excavate themselves from the walls as they come to life.

NOTE: I had to laugh when I saw Leo and Kahan's posts, since I knew what was coming. I almost felt guilty about the trap. Almost.

PM

"Borimer, bring me down below!" Talhdar says to his flying companion.

OOC:  Reminder that Tahldar is immune to 1st level illusions.  Any basic visual only, or auditory only, illusion won't affect him.  In any event I wish for Borimer to grab me and bring me down below to check on the others.

Leo gets up and attempts to climb the walls.


17:24, Today: Leogold Silvershaper rolled 14 using 1d100.  climb walls.

Shae transforms into a large eagle to fly up out of the pit, and she tries to take Kahan with her as he begins casting. She will go back up to the ledge by Borimer.

But just before transforming, she yells up, "Borimer, fly down and get Kahan," just in case she can't pull him up.

Borimer flies to Tahldar and takes them down the pit to rescue Kahan and bring them back up.

Leo begins scaling the inside walls of the pit to escape the grasping corpses.

Kahan begins casting.

Shae transforms into an eagle and flies up to the top.

Borimer grabs Tahldar and goes down, where they see that the pit is covered with skeletons and bones that are animating and coming alive, moving like a mass of grubs over each other to attack their prey, which happens to be the trio who just fell down.

Leo successfully scales the wall using his rogue abilities. Shae makes it safely to the top.

Borimer grabs Kahan out of the pile of moving bones.

Kahan casts a spell. It is unclear if it had any effect or not because the bones are still moving, skeletons are reanimating, and they are reaching out to get you.

The party makes it safely to the top again, but the bones from the pit--some whole skeletons, some part skeletons--are trying to scale the wall from below.

The green glowing orb bobs up and down, still hidden in the mist but now back at eye level about 35 feet from you toward the center of the pit.

OOC: Would it be possible to get some sort of map or picture of what the room looks like now? I'm not sure how much was illusion and how much was real.

Hopefully this will help. I made up this room so this is a rough map. The room is octagon with 35 foot sides. The ledge going around is 8 feet wide. Approximately 8 foot square stone blocks make up the ledge, four for each side of the octagon (with two center ones being square and the two outer ones being more like trapezoids). On each of the stone blocks is the symbol of 8 arrows pointing out from the center. (The diagram below just shows the arrow diagrams on one side, but they are on all of the stone blocks going around the entire room.)

The pit is 75 feet across and 50 feet deep (at least, 50 feet down to the pile of bones--no one knows how deep the pile of bones goes). In the map below, the party started at the southern entrance and traversed two sides of the octagon. Each side has the strange octopoid carving. Upon entering the second side, one of the stone blocks in the floor was only an illusion, similar to the illusion in the room you just exited. All other blocks you walked across so far appear normal.

There is a deep sour, green mist blocking vision of most of the room. The green orb thing bobs about and pulsed and screeched once, which seemed to bring the skeletons to life.



This message was last edited by the GM at 04:42, Mon 16 Mar 2020.

Kahan pulls out his mace and shield and gets ready for the skeletons. "Someone else can work out which of the tiles are real or not, I'm tired of falling on spikes," he grimaced, although he was still mostly healthy so he didn't worry too much about healing. If there are any moving skeletal bodies nearby he'll smack them with his Mace of Disruption and watch them go boom.

"Lets stay put for now." Tahldar says in reply to Kahan.  Using his last third "level" spell he begins to cast.

OOC:  Tahldar will cast fireball, centered on the green mist.  In hopes he hurts it and takes out as many skeletons as possible.  Rolled 43pts damage.

19:06, Today: Tahldar of Tyrannia rolled 43 using 9d6.  Fireball.

Shae transforms back into her normal half-elf self. "Only one more transformation left today," she mutters. Then she pulls out her spear, ready to attack any skeletons.

"Kahan," she says, "You're a cleric. Can't you turn the undead?"

She will wait to see the effects of the fireball. She transformed back to herself on the north side of the illusion. (Everyone else is on that side too, right?)

She also glances at the octopoid carving to see if it the same as the others or has any differences.

NOTE: Sorry, I made a mistake. The trap was one more rotation up on the octagon than the map I made. Here it is, along with the placement of the gems in slots:

The numbers correspond to the Adventure Items, Goals and Info thread I created to help keep track of these things.



Tahldar casts fireball. It is effective...perhaps too effective. Just a little too late, you realize that the green mist with the strange smell is flammable. The entire room is like a fuel tank.

There is a blast below as hundreds of skeletal beings explode in fire, but you have no time to contemplate that as you jump for the corners and cover yourselves when the room is engulfed in flames...

Borimer: 13 hp dmg
Kahan: 15 hp dmg
Leo: 12 hp dmg
Shae: 15 hp dmg
Tahldar: 20 hp dmg

Feeling charred and with smoke flowing off your bodies, you rise up. The room is still mostly intact. Kahan hits skeletal hands reaching from the walls, and they fall to the ground.

For a moment, the mist is gone, and you see that the entire room, as predicted, has 8 of the octopoid sculptures, but the one directly in front of you (north face) has something different on it.

There are still many skeletons all around, even if many are scorched, but none appear to be moving anymore.

The green orb has moved to the far corner away from you, pulsing quickly. Green mist is again pouring into the room from below and above. Soon it will be just as thick as before.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:49, Mon 16 Mar 2020.