Scatter the Pieces [IC]

[SPoD]

The goblin muttered to herself and shuffled along a little further. At Eztra's response to Samuel she glanced up at the Hartali girl, "Well, whatever it was, you were very assertive," she smiled.

Eztra blushed and smiled, looking down at her feet. "Thank you," she said. "It's easy with tile. Tile has low self-esteem. Same with glass, or pottery. Other things...well, only the small ones listen."

[Starwulf]

"Oh. Well, if you want to talk about it sometime, 'id love to! Whatever you did, it's certainly unique, and I love learning about people's various abilities!" Samuel said, barely able to contain the excitement in his voice. Then, looking up the stairs, and realizing he was probably the most fit to climb them, Samuel turned and addressed the group as a whole Well, someone's got to make a try at climbing those stairs, and since I've climbed a lot of them in my life-time, I guess it will be me!" finishing, Samuel looked upwards a bit nervously. While it's true he had climbed a lot of stairs, he hadn't ever climbed any quite as dangerous and steep looking as these. Gathering up his courage, he quickly cast a spell

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Or two, if Ajadea allows it

, grits his teeth, and proceeds upwards.

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Casting the Light spell on my signet ring, and if you allow it, the Fist of Stone spell to increase my Strength by 6(please check the OOC thread for my reasoning). If you do allow it, add 3 to my climb check, I'll just roll a normal d20 for now. Climb check: (1d20)[20]

[PollyOliver]

Sorra stares at the steps for a moment. She isn't very strong. But if there might be answers at the top....

She grits her teeth and follows Sam, trying to find a way up.

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Climb (1d20-1)[14]. Lets see if our intrepid and slightly crazed monk is thwarted by a staircase or not.

[Ajadea]

Samuel's ring begins glowing with what vaguely resembles torchlight. Of course, no mundane, non-alchemically-enhanced, torch has ever or would ever glow purple, but such was arcane magic-overly ostentanious and predisposed to explosions. He ascends the steps swiftly, bracing against the walls and using his hands to keep balance. All too soon, he is around the corner and out of sight.

Samuel

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Up the stairs and around three narrow twists, you come to a landing, and another sliding door is evident. However, the light of your ring flickers at an opportune moment, and you spot a wooden panel, about three feet square, in the wall. A sharply angled brass handle hints that it can probably open.

Sorra tries to climb the stairs next. She gets a few steps up, but then her foot misses its mark and she falls backward, catching herself quite neatly at the bottom of the stairs. These are not going to be easy to climb, though the fact the steps have been worn smooth through use seems to hint that somehow, many someones could get up these with ease.

[PollyOliver]

Sorra picks herself up and glares at the steps.

"Do you have any rope?" she calls up.

In the meantime, she keeps staring at the steps. Smooth and steep, but they look like must have been well-used at some point. She looks for some sort of hand hold, or anything else that might have let people climb them more easily in the past--or anything out of place.

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Search for handholds or a rail or any sort of mechanism. (1d20+5)[19]

[SPoD]

Eztra sat, waiting for Samuel to either return or call down to them. No sense worrying about the stairs until she knew she had to ascend them.

[Starwulf]

A quick mental review of his supplies indicates to Samuel that he doesn't have any rope, and he calls down thus "No, I have none, I'm sorry. I did manage to make it up here all right though. There is a sliding door up here, but also a wooden panel that might possibly conceal something. I'm going to try it before I go through the door.'. Having said so, Samuel examines the panel for any signs of traps before he tries to open it.

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Search for traps first: (1d20+2)[19] If none are found, I grasp the brass handle and open up the wooden panel

[Ajadea]

Samuel

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No traps are visible. The wooden panel swings inward when you open it, revealing a passage slightly taller than the panel. It is runed, not smooth like the stairs. It would probably be a good size for a gnome to run through. Seeing as you are most certainly not the size of a gnome, you will have to crawl if you wish to investigate.

[Starwulf]

Seeing the runes, Samuel pauses before crawling through, trying to make sense of what they are there for and what they may mean.

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Knowledge Arcana Check: (1d20+6)[26]

[Eleanor_Rigby]

"How far do they go, Sam?" Magdi called up the steps once he'd disappeared. She looked Sorra up and down anxiously, "You didn't hurt yourself when you fell, did you?" she asked so only Sorra could hear, trying to avoid embarassing her.
Once confident Sorra was alright she turned back to the steps. "I wonder..." she raised her voice again, "I don't suppose you'd be able to catch something if we threw it up there for you?" she asked, eyeing her whip.

[Ajadea]

Samuel

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These runes were probably left by the same forces that created the Spire and put runes all over at least half of it. If you aren't entirely mistaken, this one is covered with runes saying something about plants-you can tell by the loops.

You aren't sure what they are here for. For thousands of years, scholars have come and gone searching for the same thing, except pertaining to the Spire as a whole.

[SPoD]

Having a moment of inspiration, Eztra began collecting pits of ceramic dust and debris from the floor. She had certainly made enough of it, perhaps it could be useful. When she had a handful, she walked over to the steps and sprinkled it across the first stair, creating a gritty surface.

She smiled at Sorra and Magdi, and then went back to get another handful for the second stair.

[PollyOliver]

Sorra keeps glaring at the nearest step, then looks at Magdi and her whip.

"Is there anything up there you could tie something to, or secure something somehow?" she calls up.

[SPoD]

Eztra coated the second and third stairs with ceramic dust before she ran out of debris. She wandered back into the main library room and asked if any of the tiles there wanted to help her. Luckily, she found some volunteers.

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When I run out of dust, I just go to the first room and use Baleful Utterance to make some more.

How many steps can I reach while still standing on the floor? As in, how many before I have to test the first one?

[Ajadea]

Eztra can reach up seven steps with some difficulty before she has to get on the first to reach the eighth.

[SPoD]

With seven steps covered in ceramic dust, Eztra carefully tested the first step to see if she is going to slip. Rather than walking up quickly, she carefully perches herself on each step for a minute before going to the next, holding her palms flat against each wall for balance.

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Can I use Balance here instead of Climb? Balance lets me walk on a slippery sloped floor, and this should be easier than that.

Balance: (1d20+3)[23]

In case you don't allow it, here's Climb: (1d20-1)[19]

[Starwulf]

Content that the runes aren't going to harm in any way, Samuel crawls through the small opening, wondering where it's going to lead him and what he may find.

[Ajadea]

Eztra makes it up the stairs easily, even swifter than Samuel did. It is unclear whether this is due to a better approach or the grit on the stairs. She heads around the corner and is gone from view.

Eztra (well, and Samuel too, but it's a recap more than anything else)

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You head up the stairs and around three narrow twists, following the faint purple light of Samuel's ring. You come to a landing, and another sliding door is evident. There seems to be a door of sorts near your feet, perhaps three feet square. It is open, and Samuel is about halfway through it. From what little you can see of the tunnel beyond, it's sized for gnomes and halflings, not humans. It is covered in runes as well, some sharp and angled, some wavy and softer-looking, some looped and almost knotlike.

[SPoD]

Eztra was relieved to get to the top of the stairs without breaking a bone. She turned and called back down, "Sorra, Magdi, try them slowly and carefully, like I did. I think it will work."

She looked down the tiny corridor where Samuel is crawling. Rather than trying to squeeze in behind the mage, she turned to the other sliding door and opened it.

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Opening Door #2...

[PollyOliver]

Sorra tries the stairs again as well, attempting to balance carefully on each before proceeding to the next.

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Ah, that's what she meant. balance - (1d20+7)[25]. Hopefully this works...

[Ajadea]

Eztra, Sorra

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Sorra takes each step carefully, going up and around the three turns to the landing where Eztra is. Eztra opens the door onto a whole lot of wreckage and blue-gray sky. The Myrain Medicine section, being considerably higher up than the ground floor, has suffered a lot more damage than the lower sections. Most of the outside wall has been shattered, and the ceiling is gone from most of where you can see. The remaining bits of ceiling and columns to your left seem unstable. At best. This is really not good, considering you can see the last bits of the fifth and six floors waiting to fall. Hopefully not on you.

Samuel

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You crawl through the cramped tunnel, ring lighting the way. After a while, you come to a crossroads. Forwards, the tunnel turns sharply right. To your right, the tunnel quickly is obscured by darkness. To the left, you see a hint of white light.

[SPoD]

Eztra poked her head in the door and looked both ways, then back to the stairway in time to see Sorra carefully making her way up the stairs. She smiled, then said, "I don't think we want to go in there. It looks dangerous." She paused. "More dangerous. At least this stairwell seems pretty solid."

"Should we follow Samuel? He went down here," she asked, pointing out the three-foot-tall corridor at her feet. "Maybe we should wait for Magdi, though. At least she can stand upright in there."

[PollyOliver]

Sorra peeks through the door and nods in agreement.

"It doesn't look very stable," she says, backing away slowly. She turns to call back down the stairs. "Are you going to try to come up?" she asks. "The medicine section's wrecked, but there's another door."

[Starwulf]

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Is my Light spell still active on my signet ring? If it isn't, I'm going to recast it on my ring again.

Samuel thinks for a moment, then decides to travel right, into the darkest pathway, hoping that's the most likely place for something important to be hidden. Before he starts though, he hollers back to his companions as loudly as he can "Hey, this little tunnel splits into three different directions. I'm taking the darkest passage way, which is to the right. If you guys have gotten up here and decide to follow me, take one of the other two paths, ok? Just be careful!" saying that, he then proceeds into the darkness.

[SPoD]

Eztra became a little worried at Sam's words...she had been seeing mostly by the light of his spell reflected off of the walls. "Do you have a light source?" she asked Sorra, "I don't."

[PollyOliver]

"No," Sorra says, staring down the tunnel. "I couldn't find my flint after...." She shakes her head forcefully, as if to dislodge the memory and send it to the back of her head.

"But he said he took the dark path. Does that mean there's a light one?"

[SPoD]

Eztra looked nervously at Sorra. She didn't like how the group was seeming to split up with no real purpose. "I don't...I don't want to crawl in a dark tunnel," she finally blurted out. "Please don't make me."

"Samuel," she called anxiously, "Please wait for us. I don't want us all to be in different places, and Madgi hasn't gotten up the stairs yet." She didn't want to be left behind again. She could feel her heart beating fast in her chest.

[Eleanor_Rigby]

Magdi watched Eztra and Sorra vanish into the darkness as Samuel had. The stairs were cold but musty and primally black. Though she was still in the library with three caring companions in body, in mind she was back in her hiding space in the ruins of the city, dust clouding her eyes, the smell of drying blood in her nostrils and the sounds of the dying screams of strangers echoing in her ears. And she didn't like it.
Of all the bright and the beautiful who'd walked the streets of Sunspeak Spire it was particularly wretched luck that Magdi, a woman incapable of climbing a simple flight of stairs, had been one of the precious few of them who'd survived.

"I don't...I don't want to crawl in a dark tunnel...Please don't make me..."



Magdi remembered she had to climb the stairs and join her friends.
"I'm on my way up now!" she called up to them sweetly.

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Balance: (1d20+2)[22] Fingers crossed...

[PollyOliver]

Sorra reaches out and puts a hand on Eztra's shoulder.

"No one's going to make you do anything," she says, perhaps a little to fiercely. She licks her lips and tries again. "We'll stay with Sam."

[Starwulf]

Samuel makes it just a few feet before he hears his companions calling him, asking him to wait for them due to having no light. "One of the branching tunnels has a light at the end of it, I'll wait for you here at the middle, then we can split up from there. If you all can get Magdi up here, she can take the other tunnel, you and Sorra can take the one with Light and I"ll take the darkest tunnel, is that ok?" he shouts back down behind him, then scoots backwards until he's back at the forking path.