I'm not so sure the cautious aren't right at this stage, I had kind of forgotten the stone men when thinking of probable threats and they easily could have been patiently waiting behind door #1 and fully functional for who knows how long unlike something living or operating under the illusion of living.
... spirits, !golems, behind the middle door there's a corridor that leads on, or a hole in the ceiling or a hole in the bottom, granting access to another level or ...
Why not?
... spirits, !golems, behind the middle door there's a corridor that leads on, or a hole in the ceiling or a hole in the bottom, granting access to another level or ...
Why not?
Which as we had seen are very much inactive. If theres an alternate entrance, then we uh do not actually have to run through the fire sprites?
Or for the matter for anything we find, we have no obligation to do anything other than slam the door shut?
... spirits, !golems, behind the middle door there's a corridor that leads on, or a hole in the ceiling or a hole in the bottom, granting access to another level or ...
Why not?
It looks like the fire sprites seriously blockaded the entrance. The stone men were deactivated, and it looked like a lot of them were in that leftmost room.
Those dangers sound like nothing when compared to fleshy.
If we are afraid of a bit of spelunking when we've killed the biggest baddest predator holding the place, and there's a literal firewall to keep things from sneaking in...
I really hope we just explore a bit more before leaving. We're likely never coming back here, and frankly paranoia is running rampant. If there's danger we can back away before it notices us.
I really hope we just explore a bit more before leaving. We're likely never coming back here, and frankly paranoia is running rampant. If there's danger we can back away before it notices us.
Not taking any insane risks. We are ridiculously low on our healing supplies, and if we get a infection we will suffer a major penalty. We only bought enough healing for a single person, and that is almost spent. With several days off the nearest city, that means it's a risky expedition at best. Instead I propose we go back, stock up on some more supplies and return here. We already have a alternative entrance to the complex instead of the Fleshies cave, as such it's not time constrained like it was before. Worst thing about this situation is that there doesn't need to be anything powerful behind those doors.
Edit: Also to finish learning how to read. As it currently stands, we have no idea what we are doing. I'd like to know about the stuff we are looting. For all we know the murals could be telling us "Giant Demon! Beware!"
Not taking any insane risks. We are ridiculously low on our healing supplies, and if we get a infection we will suffer a major penalty. We only bought enough healing for a single person, and that is almost spent. With several days off the nearest city, that means it's a risky expedition at best. Instead I propose we go back, stock up on some more supplies and return here. We already have a alternative entrance to the complex instead of the Fleshies cave, as such it's not time constrained like it was before. Worst thing about this situation is that there doesn't need to be anything powerful behind those doors.
Edit: Also to finish learning how to read. As it currently stands, we have no idea what we are doing. I'd like to know about the stuff we are looting. For all we know the murals could be telling us "Giant Demon! Beware!"
Since it's been stated that we can make more healing supplies, only it takes time, we don't need to go to city to restock. We got almost a month of supplies yet, only the medical kind are lacking. And a burn tend to close itself unless bad second degree or third degree, so infection would be hard even if damaged. Honestly, just for the 0% chance of we failing unless something new appears, I wouldn't run away.
Since it's been stated that we can make more healing supplies, only it takes time, we don't need to go to city to restock. We got almost a month of supplies yet, only the medical kind are lacking. And a burn tend to close itself unless bad second degree or third degree, so infection would be hard even if damaged. Honestly, just for the 0% chance of we failing unless something new appears, I wouldn't run away.
If we improvise wound dressing, we gain a +50 to the check, which bumps it from 70% chance of Dressing the wound to 20% chance. Considering that bad dressing will further the wound made, this would only make it worse. For us to be capable of making more healing supplies, means we need to have higher Medicine and Intelligence to pass the checks. While we are close on both, we still lack until we can pass that hurdle (each point gives us 20% chance on dressing the wound, meaning we should get 3-4 points to be safe.)
Literal sea of fire, with unknown things behind the door. Having something to patch you up seems like a reasonable preparation. Medical supplies are pretty high up on the list for any would be adventurer.
If we improvise wound dressing, we gain a +50 to the check, which bumps it from 70% chance of Dressing the wound to 20% chance. Considering that bad dressing will further the wound made, this would only make it worse. For us to be capable of making more healing supplies, means we need to have higher Medicine and Intelligence to pass the checks. While we are close on both, we still lack until we can pass that hurdle (each point gives us 20% chance on dressing the wound, meaning we should get 3-4 points to be safe.)
Literal sea of fire, with unknown things behind the door. Having something to patch you up seems like a reasonable preparation. Medical supplies are pretty high up on the list for any would be adventurer.
You realize this literal sea of fire won't burn us unless we run through it, right? If there is something out there, because teh chances are pretty low, then we can simply walk through the flames. If this thing comes after us, it's him getting burned, as long as we keep a distance. This is not a stacked deck against us, it's a series of low risk rolls, actually, the very first ones are automatic success.
You want to go away because if there is something, if we can't deal with it, if we have to run, if we get hurt by the flames while running, we might run out of bandages to be safe. You really think our lucky is so bad that all of this will align?
What are you even trying to achieve, @TotallyNotEvil? We are fully encumbered anyway. Unless the loot us very light, we cannot even take it with us. So why endanger ourselves now only to have to come back later to gather the loot?
And calling all people who voted for leaving heretics is sort of rude.
[X] Go back to the main chamber.
-[X] Take the middle door.
1.6.17.10.10.3 - 3rd of the White Storm
For a long while, you ponder if you should go on or not. That the Stone Men here are dead doesn't mean that there aren't others, which might be very much alive and take objection to your presence. Yet the allure of this place wins out in the end. The treasures found in a compound dealing with alchemy might be truly great and the Fire Sprites might have kept out most other explorers and dangerous things that could have moved in. Sacrificing the knowledge found within these halls to vague notions of what dangers might lurk is not appealing to you at all. No. You will not squander this chance over worrying too much.
Past the Fire Sprites it goes again, though this time you are much calmer about the experience and easily weave around them, albeit still very slow. Xochi look expectantly at you when you reach the entrance chamber again, but settles down again as you nod towards the middle door and press on. Yet again the sprites thin noticeably once you are past the empty stone arch of the doorway, leaving you to walk on at a brisker pace. Soon enough you emerge into the next room and you nearly gasp as the shine of you torch reveals your surroundings.
Around you rise row after row of shelves, tightly packed with codizes. A labyrinthine hall, stretching farther then your torch can properly illuminate, and nothing seems to be here then these shelves full of knowledge. Greedily you move to the first of them, gripping a codex through the thick layer of dust that covers it, but as you try to pull it out, you only tear off a few clumps. With horror you look at them and notice them to not look like the dull brown of old paper, but utterly black, like charcoal. You grab another codex and feel it yet again crumble under your touch. Then another. Then you go to next shelf, but the same thing happens there. As you brush off the dust to get a clearer view, coughing a while because of the grime twirling around you now, you finally realize that the shelves themselves are not stone, but wood. Also blackened and flaky, like a log in a campfire that was not allowed to burn down completely.
Despair grips you as you look along the corridor you stand in. All of these codizes and they are all beyond salvaging. All this knowledge, taunting you with how it just stands here undisturbed since the Fall, yet not a single sheet that has remained readable. For a long while, you just wander the hall and brush dust off the shelves in the vain hope to find something on them, yet there are only row upon row of charred vellum and paper. Maybe you could break them all apart and see if some parts of the pages in the inner parts have survived, but what use would it be? A few scraps of singed paper make no codex and anything that might be still read on them would be useless fragments of what was lost. You would need hundreds to carefully pry apart this library and would have so very little to show for all these efforts.
You are nearly ready to go back, abandoning your fruitless search, as you spot something out of place among the shelves. Immediately you take a step back behind the corner you just rounded and give it a closer and cautious look. A small free space was made by turning a few shelves around, closing off some of the corridors and forming a rough approximation of a closed room. Skeletons litter the floor, too many and to haphazardly thrown around to count their number, yet all of them human. The only free space is a carefully drawn circle unlike any other work of alchemy you ever saw with five blue crystals, each carefully polished and the size of your fist, sitting at odd and uneven intervals around the drawing. What truly catches your eye through is what is above it. In the middle of the air, with nothing to support it there, hangs a human skull above the diagram. It's nothing more then bone of a yellow to brownish color, weather with age and would be truly unremarkable, had it just lain there with all the other.
You came here hoping to find some of the lost arts of old, yet as you see the bones strewn around, you are no longer sure if it is so safe to proceed. Lone skulls do not float on their own accord, so whatever this was, it was not as dead and harmless as the Stone Men.
[] Investigate the diagram and the skull.
-[] Write-In what to do.
[] Go back.
-[] Leave.
-[] Explore the last door.
AN: Decided to end this chapter here, since the previous vote was rather close on the amount of poking people where willing to do, so I decided it would be better to give you a chance to leave the creepy floating skull alone.
