Through the Keyhole, Past the Veil
26st of Rova 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)
It is tempting to follow along, but there is a time and a place for opportunism and that is not when silence and speed are paramount. Those answers are worth more than a thousand gold pieces and they don't way a single gram. Inwardly you can 'hear' Sirim's amusement. Though the wizard approves, he seems to find the notion of weighing knowledge novel. So the five of you wait while the door opens with a click then swigs shut behind the man. It does not take long after for the glamor to fade as Cob gets to work on the rightmost door, springs and spikes clanking from his new tool as you mutter
words of good fortune again and again and again until it feels like your tongue is going to fall asleep doing it.
Then a clink and a frankly worryingly enthusiastic 'ooh' from Cob as the door swings open and he scampers around it to something on the other side. "You got jar 'r pot?"
"I'll have to look through my pockets," Sirim answers sarcastically as Gorok asks a more neutral "Why?"
"For the acid, take all." So saying he twists the tool in his hand into a somewhat crooked metal tube and sure enough twists and pulls until a clear liquid flows from inside the lock and into the jar Gorok had handed him. "
Trap for them that pick the lock wrong. Break glass, make acid drip into lock, squirt into face, burned face, lock not work anymore."
Cob Disable Device: 1d20 + 11 +2 (Masterwork Tools) +1 (Guidance) = 30 (Success)
Gained 1x Acid Flask
"Which inherently would preclude using yet more acid to open the way," Sirim adds, his tone unreadable though he's certainly scrutinizing Cob more carefully.
Ahead the corridor opens into another fork with one path descending into long shallow stairs and the other veering even more to the left. As you and Cob move ahead along the path there is a crack like a heavy stone shifting and a strange figure appears. Like onto an grizzled man it is with a face like soot, curling ram's horns, and curled the snail shall upon its back that streams with incense into the air. As it leans upon a staff topped with a silver cage with a wailing ghostly face within it booms: "Halt! Thief! The dead rest here by the charge of the Lady of Graves! Take but one more step and your earthly life is forfeit!" It motions to the chamber to the left. "Stand ye upon the mark of Penitence and ye may be forgiven!"
At these words Mina pales, eyes growing wide. "Please, no...!" Her expression shifts into a frown, though before she can say one thing more Cob had taken out one of the last of the duergar sausages and hurled it clean though the strange creature.
"Magic trick! See, more traps."
Will Saves (Akorian, Cob, Gorok, Mina, Sirim DC 15): 12, 22, 22, 23, 12 (Failure, Success Success, Success, Failure)
"Clever," Sirim notes, as Mina gets her breath back, very much not in agreement.
"That's... that's blasphemy! Using one of Her servants as a cheap trick to scare people!"
"The Lady of Graves would presumably approve of the purpose of dissuading unauthorized access to the tombs, if she were to even notice so petty a spell," the shadow mage counters. "A clever illusion to weave in such a place."
"The smoke does not move right," Gorok offers and only then do you notice he is right, the smoke from the various censers the illusion is trailing back as if in a light wind, though the air is not moving.
Still, you are curious about where it would have lead so you cautiously poke your head in the doorway to the left to find a semicircle of benches arrayed around one wall facing a list of carved names, the honored dead one assumes, and on the other side an alcove about ten feet wide carved into the wall marked with a rune upon the floor. It does not take a lot of looking to notice either the pressure pad or the iron portcullis that would doubtlessly have come crashing down once the
penitent intruder stepped on it.
Akorian Perception (DC 15) : 1d20+8 = 27 (Success)
Cob gains 800 XP; All other characters gain 200 XP
In more welcome news, Mina had stumbled upon a stash of scrolls inside an opening in the center of the memorial wall. For once she does not even have to struggle to translate the magic script, for whoever was using these was either in the habit of mixing up their scrolls or a bit too neat for their own good. The first is a scroll to inspire
hope in the grieving, the second a
bane against the risen dead, and the third and perhaps strangest grants one the
seeming and something of the protections of an angelic spirit.
"Loot?" Cob asks, pocking his head in.
"I can't learn the invocation of hope, that's divine magic and of a particular sort..." Mina starts, though it's clear from her hesitation that she is not sure if she should take any of the others either.
"Our goblin companion stole the vitriol from the lock entering this place. Passing in and out like ghosts is out of the question regardless," Sirim points out aloud in a raspy whisper.
What does Kori think the party should do?
[] Take some of the scrolls
-[] Write in which
[] Take none of the scrolls
[] Write in
OOC: If all the players had all failed their saves against the illusion that would have been an... interesting debate.
