Age of Ruin IC: When all your friends are dead

[The Great Skenardo]

Livina Lightfoot
Livina doesn't need telling twice, but curiosity seems to have gotten the better of her as he hesitates at the doorframe, and settles for standing in the hallway, peering into the room.

[Lycar]

"Ready or not!"
Then she slowly opens the door in one turn, using her limited strength to force it open, pushing it properly or using any latch or handle. "Raise me with your 5k if I die Akim."

Orin goes wide-eyed "No ! Don't !" he exclaims, but it is too late to stop Lucidae by now of course.

He can just grimace and duck a bit, expecting something spectacularly bad to happen.

Lycar

[Ozzy_G]

Lucci walks to the nearest door, which is the one with a picture of a bejeweled Dwarf on a throne on top of a pile of gold coins.
She pushes the door, but it doesn't open, it must be locked. There is no keyhole or latch. However, Kizima earlier found three buttons on it: one on the crown, one on a ring on his hand, and one on an amulet around the Dwarf's neck. Perhaps pressing one of those will open the door?

[Moechi_Vill]

Lucidae

Lucci pushes the button on the crown.

[Brickwall]

Kizima

Kizima slows down considerably as she gets to the top section. Doing her best to avoid arousing suspicion from the tomb guardian (if it is even intelligent enough to be suspicious), she begins inspecting the trap she had disarmed earlier. If it did something useful, maybe she could stop something from chasing them.

[Ozzy_G]

Kizima carefully studies the trap. She reckons it wouldn't be too difficult to rearm, and it's obviously rigged to go off when people step through the doorway and onto the pressure plate. But she can't see what it is that it actually does.

Downstairs, Lucci presses the crown in, with a click.
The door slides sideways into a slit in the wall, revealing a room full of treasure.
The floor is covered in chests overflowing with gold, and there are gold manikins of Dwarves with jewels for eyes, prostrated towards the back of the room. They are bowing down to a manikin on a golden throne, wearing fur adorned with jewels.
The room is about 20 foot square.

[Moechi_Vill]

Lucidae

"This is what hirelings and farm animals are for." Lucci says, espying the grim floor. "I'll purchase a few for you to bring, next time."

"One of the other buttons should be to close the door, and the last is probably a trap. Does anyone have a twelve-foot pole to poke at the floor inside?"

"If this place isn't too full of arcane energies..." Lucci continues in a subdued voice. "... then maybe I can smuggle out the goods with my teleport."

...

"I - figure it is someone else's turn to walk in?" she smiles at Akim.
"Thanks for trying to protect me. I'll gladly walk in or open another door for our group." she looks at everyone.

[The Great Skenardo]

Livina Lightfoot
Livina whistles appreciatively at the sight of so much gold, but her approach to the doorway is a wary one.
"Nice work, Lucci. Let me have a quick look for any traps here."
She sniffs at the air, hoping to catch the particular scent of gold as she sets to work searching.
Search - (1d20+8)[14]
...EDIT But she has difficulty concentrating in the presence of so many riches, and keeps glancing up at the heap.
"Can you guys tell if that stuff," she waves a hand towards the hoard "is just illusion? It breaks my heart, but if this tomb is a fake..."

[Lycar]

Orin take a big sigh. "Please don't do that again ever miss Baker. Or do you want to give me a heart attack ? Also... well... there are some things a leader ought to do himself rather then ask his subjects to do for him... either way, i will check to see f i can make out any auras of illusion magic."

Orin concentates a bit and casts a simple incantation.

Spoiler

Show

Casting Detect Magic, then going to scan the 'treasures' Lucidae unveiled. Using a 1st lv. spell slot for this.

"Now let' see what we really have here.. oh, and gold covered lead doesn't even detect as illusion magic ...." he mumbles as he lets his gaze sweep across the room's contents.

Lycar

[Ozzy_G]

Livina smells the musty scent of stagnant air, though it is not nearly as bad as you'd expect from a tomb several thousand years old.

Orin mutters his incantation. He realises that there is indeed magic in front of him. A few seconds later, he starts to make out auras. Or rather, one aura... the whole room, in fact everywhere he can see with his magically-enhanced senses, radiates incredibly strong transmutation magic. It is too strong for him to make out whether or not there are other auras present.

[Moechi_Vill]

"Thanks." she replies with a brief smile at Livina and steps back, more careful of actually entering.

"I am sorry. I simply thought it was in my place to risk my life first."

"What do you see?"

[Lycar]

Orin takes in the sight before him, then he takes a deep breath an sighs

"Well... it is hard to make out any details and i'm not claiming to be an expert with traps but.... well... the entire room detects as one big magic field. So... i dare say what i remember about dwarven burial rites is correct and everything past these doors is one big trap. I suppose the door wasn't trapped to lure any looters into a false sense of security."

"I'm afraid i'm running a bit low on ..er.. arcane virility by now. Otherwise... there is a simple spell that creates a sort of.. animated force field, which we could send into the room instead of henchmen or farm animals. It isn't very sophisticated, but it is enough to retrieve simple items from this room. Or rather, it will probably trigger whatever effect is waiting to be triggered here."

Orin shrugs and turns around. "I could take a look at the other doors while the detection spell lasts. If there are magic auras of comparatible strength in the other rooms too, it might be possible to get a glimpse of them too."

And so he goes for the other three doors and checks them for magical auras leaking through the doors.

Lycar

[Ozzy_G]

Orin turns around to go to the other doors... and sees that the main room also has an incredibly strong transmutation aura. Wherever he looks, he sees the same aura.

[Moechi_Vill]

Lucidae

"We could rest... or one or two of us could go in together."

"If you will spare no expense..." she looks at the rest of the group in the room. "... in having me resurrected with or without a body - I'll gladly venture forth."

"Perhaps I should learn a planar summoning spell..." Lucci mumbles indistinctly.

*magic missile*
She throws a magic missile set at the pile of gold.

If it has no effect she uses Mage Hand to move any treasure within range so long as she doesn't have to enter the room.
... she raises a hand as if to say she knows she might not be taking the precautions everyone else would want: "I would throw a fireball but it might upset the guardian of the tomb. I think we're dealing with a transmuted monster here." If nobody minds she continues to pelt the gold with another two set of missiles, eventually finishing off with a fireball.

"This is really a job for a large group of people." she says with a bright smile.

If things have progressed smoothly to this point Lucci waits for orders to stand down or take new action.

[Ozzy_G]

Lucci waves her hands, and 4 bolts of magic energy shoot into the room at a pile of gold. They vanish through it, with no obvious effect.
She tries to move some gold with magic, but it doesn't work. She throws two more magic missiles into the gold, with no effect. Next she gestures, shooting a small orange ball into the middle of the room, where it explodes with great ferocity.
The room doesn't seem to be affected at all, everything is in exactly the same place, unscorched.

[The Great Skenardo]

Livina Lightfoot
Livina is taken aback at this wanton display of arcane power, but as she peeks a round the doorframe once more, she sighs.
"Yeah, okay. That's fake treasure. Probably illusion, or something. Dammit. I wonder if Kizima's found anything upstairs?"

[Ozzy_G]

Orin, Lucci, Krashnix and Livina notice that Rego doesn't seem to be with them anymore. Maybe he went back upstairs?

[Moechi_Vill]

Lucidae

"He's probably reading something upstairs, or kidnapped and possibly dead. May we aquire his person and recoup here peaceably Masters Livina and Orin?" She finishes with a little bow directed at the two.

[The Great Skenardo]

Livina Lightfoot
Livina looks nervously around.
"He was leading a noise mule. Those things can't go up and down stairs quietly. Where'd he go?" She walks to the foot of the stair and calls up
"Key, Kizima? Is Rego up there?"

[Ozzy_G]

The mule is still standing in the middle of the room, looking blankly at Livina.

Kizima hears Livina shouting up from downstairs, but she hasn't seen him come up the stairs.

[Brickwall]

Kizima

Kizima gives the trap a glare before she turns to the stairwell to reply. Happy as she is that Livina is still alive, she is still quite agitated.

"No, he hasn't come up at all. Maybe he went to check out another door of death?"

[The Great Skenardo]

Livina
"He's too much of a coward to do that. But I'll look."
True to her word, Livina paces around the chamber and peers into each hallway.
"Besides...he didn't have a torch lit. We'd be able to see it down here..."

[Ozzy_G]

Livina looks down each corridor, but cannot see Rego.

[Lycar]

As Orin turns around to check the other rooms, he suddenly blinks and looks quite taken aback. He takes a few more moments to double check what he is seeing and then seems about ready to faint.

"Uhm. Maybe we better rest upstairs. Or even better outside the tomb entirely. At least, cultists can be fought off with steel. But.. i have no idea what to do about a place that detects as one big transmutation magic field...."

When he turns around, he can only watch aghast as Lucidae fires off a veritable broadside of evocation magic at the 'treasures' in the room in front of them.

"... okay.... right, i think we can agree on this romm not containing anything worth getting in there. Can we please go someplace else now ? Like upstairs ?"

When he hears that Rego Vel has gone missing, he seems to be stunned for a moment.

"You mean... our expedition leader is missing ? "

Orin throws his hands up in the air in a gesture of exasperation.

"Oh this keeps getting better and better...."

But then again, Kizima said she didn't notice anyone passing her.

"See... that's what you get for honouring your word. If we just had gone back to raise our fallen.... "

Orin keeps searching for clues about the whereabouts of Rego Vel, using his magically enhanced sight to look for clues while the spell still lasts.



Lycar

[Moechi_Vill]

Lucidae

"Great minds think alike!" Lucci grins at Akim.

[Ozzy_G]

Livina and Orin start to look around for clues as to where Rego might have gone, but cannot see anything that would indicate his current location.

[Regwon]

Krashnix

Krashnix looks at Lucci and then at Orin. He frowns as he speaks.

If you would both rather leave then do so. You have been lying to us since we met so your word means nothing. As such there is nothing keeping you here. Go if you wish but, by the Grey Watcher's balls, be silent if you stay. This constant bleating is beginning to grate on my patience.

[Moechi_Vill]

Lucidae

"There is a lurker or other unknowns in this tomb. Your strategic goal has been accomplished and our tactical situation has been compromised."
"Akim, I believe the two of us could convince the others to retreat for the moment and recoup and thus we would all be in a better shape. In the morning you could take your share of the spoils and whatever you would all grant me. I would rather have it with the ressurection fund if the two of us leave tomorrow. I could escort you and provide our splinter group with rapid situational transferral.

If you refuse I could go alone, though it would be unseemly for me to venture alone once again. In this event I will do as I am told and resources can be trusted to my care. If I am deemed untrustworthy despite the truth I have shared with you which I will later share with the others, I will still leave on my own. This place is a deathtrap, if only the scholar could have been more mature and listened to me. Alas."

She grabs Akim's (Orin) sleeve and moves to make him follow her out of the post-mortem sanctuary. "You coming with me? You know who I am and I have been honest to you. You can probably sense I care more about what is in the heart then what errors you might have commited. I have been around for long enough to make up my personal mind about what matters. Perhaps I chose some ideals and pragmatical methods over others at some point, but in this it appears we are nearly the same. You know what the noble knight and thief thinks of you. Livina has been decent to you and me, but are you willing to risk your life because she remains?"
"The rest of you? A little rest might be a good idea if you are going to take on this place."

[Regwon]

Krashnix

Krashnix stands in the room with crossed arms, an unamused look on his face. Clearly he is becoming more and more frustrated.

It is as if an alley cat is being slowly crushed to death by an iron shod boot. You wish to leave, so cease your griping and begone, lest we must remove our own ears to spare ourselves from this continuous noise.

[The Great Skenardo]

Livina Lightfoot
Livina looks around the tomb once more, worried now.
"You don't think any of those cultists followed us, do you? They'd have to sneak past Kizima and the guardian..."
She lifts her torch higher and dedicates time to a more thorough search of the room for traces of Rego.
(Taking 10 on search for 18)
she rolls her eyes as Lucci talks.
hell...what's wrong with her? She's just...off.