Challenge: Evaluate separate from ENCOUNTER
The next chamber is darkness, so complete the lamplight can scarcely penetrate it. The companions are briefly excited to come to a chamber whose far side be further away than their lantern can reveal, but as they proceed into the space the darkness begins to abate. It reveals a chamber of similar dimensions to all the rest, with a dark figure in the centre. The figure is clad in heavy plate armour of blackened iron, bristling with hatefully pointed spikes. The CHAOS WARRIOR hefts his fearsome greatsword and hisses out a challenge in some unknown tongue.
CHAOS WARRIOR SKILL 10 STAMINA 10
No quarter will be asked, nor given. The warrior leaps into the centre of his adversaries, swinging his sword in long arcs under which they must duck to keep their heads upon their shoulders. His overhand swings send up sparks and crack the floor where they strike. Swords bounce off the spiky armour, and Ilog's mace and chain can barely dent the surface. They strike in concert, ever more fiercely to match the rage of their foe, and the blows begin to tell. The Chaos Warrior slows and the hits against him become more frequent, eliciting more shrieks of inchoate rage and pain. At last he collapses in a heap. Ilog raises his morningstar above his head, and crashes it down on the awful helm of the prone warrior with both hands. Again and again he strikes, until the pool of blood on the black stone floor shews the foul knight to be truly, permanently vanquished.
[The fight took 7 rounds, and the Chaos Warrior didn't hit once. The PCs didn't roll super well either, and most of their hits were negated by armour.]
Grebdal Themp does not wish to watch Ilog making certain that their foe is definitively vanquished, so sets about examining his sword. The pommel is in the shape of a skull, with two small emeralds in the eye sockets. These he prises out and adds to his treasure pouch. [His Evaluate roll succeeded; the gems are worth worth 10gp each.]
Challenge: Ancient Lore (-2) reveals Awareness if failed, then... Secret Signs
Another series of friezes greet the companions in the adjoining chamber. At first glance they all appear to be historical scenes from the city's past.
"Wait," says Ksandajja. "This part is all wrong." [her Ancient lore and Awareness rolls succeeded]
"It's a group of soldiers," says Ilog, "pointing at the enemy. Is that not to indicate a challenge."
"It is... but look at their armour. Look at those swords. They're all wrong for the period. And the crested helmets are the wrong shape. They look neo-Zarite, not ancient Anhassuulite. And these, if I'm not mistaken, are Thralxan cavalry. They'd not long since arrived from Johor when Anhassuul's might was at its apex. Now, these ones are proper Anhassuulite soldiers. And they're pointing back toward the entrance, not at the enemy."
"It's the same on both sides," says Grebdal Themp.
"We should turn back..." says Ilog.
Room 24
Challenge: ENCOUNTER obstructs Healing (-2)
They retrace their steps through the Chaos Warrior's chamber where another passage leads to a room occupied by a SKELETON WARRIOR clad in a corroded mail hauberk and wielding a rust-pitted yet still formidable battle axe.
SKELETON WARRIOR SKILL 8 STAMINA 6
Battle is joined without a word from the grim companions or the grinning, silent skull. The skeleton warrior fights with the swiftness of its kind, but it proves no match for the living, and though its rusty armour is still the equal of many a blow, in less than half a minute it has been reduced to a pile of shattered bones.
Its only treasure is a healer's kit, nearly useless after so many years. Some unguent still remains, but no one is willing to risk using it.
Room 25
Challenge: Trap Knowledge (+2)
As they proceed to the next chamber, Grebdal Themp stops them short. "Look!" he says, "The walls are full of holes. And see round the edges of the door? I think it's just carved into the wall and painted." [He made his Trap Knowledge & subsequent Awareness rolls.]
They retreat to the skeleton warrior's chamber and take the other exit.
Room 28
Challenge: Acrobatics interlinked with Engineering
As they approach the next chamber, their lantern light glints off many lengths of chain suspended from the ceiling. When they reach the threshold, they find the room to have no floor -- or rather, it does have a floor, just three stories down. And set with iron spikes. The far wall is bare stone, but passages are visible in the centre of both side walls at the same height as the way in.
The chains are of thick links, forged from the same unknown metal used elsewhere in the temple, and each terminating in a larger ring. They seem at first to be distributed haphazardly about the room, but closer inspection shews them to be suspended in the tracks of some sort of mechanism on the ceiling. Ilog reaches out to grab the nearest one, and as he pulls it closer, all the other chains move as well, rattling along the looping track the same distance.
"This is how we're to get across, then," says the warrior pensively.
"Which way are we going?" asks Grebdal Themp.
"That one?" says Ilog, pointing at random.
"Let me go first," says Ksandajja. "And give me the lantern. If I fall, I should be able to use my magic to land safely."
[No one has either skill, so this is just tests of SKILL. They will only fall if they miss their roll by 2 or more; they keep rolling until they succeed or fall.]
Grebdal Themp starts to hands her the lamp, but she stops him. "Let me get underway first." She takes the ring from Ilog in both hands, then drops into the void. Her momentum sends her a little way along the track, and all the other chains clack along the same distance in various directions. Ksandajja hangs in space for a few moments, then must awkwardly swing herself back and forth, trying to shift her weight more in the direction she wishes to go. After a few tries, and a lo of lost ground, she get close enough to the doorway to accept the lantern from Grebdal Themp's outstretched hand. She hooks the lantern's handle under her thumb against the ring, and then begins the slow and laborious process of swinging jerkily along her track, until she can get close enough to reach the next ring with her free hand. She changes to the next ring with great care, but always swings out of control for a few seconds as her weight propels the new ring in an unexpected direction.
It takes fully ten minutes of swishing and clacking -- punctuated by some most unladylike turns of phrase -- before she has safely come to the other side. [SKILL 6; 2d6=4, success]
As they had hoped, Ksandajja's movement to an exit has moved another chain close to the entrance. Ilog whispers a prayer to the gods of his ancestors, and bravely tries to swing across. It's much harder than he'd expected -- not that the sorceress made it look easy! He seems to be moving sideways more than across. Did he reach for the wrong ring? Now he's going in circles. Maybe it's best if he go back to--
And then he is falling. Somehow he lands between two spikes, and rolls with the fall. He's going to have a bruise all up his left arm and across his ribs, but he feels remarkably whole. Perhaps the gods of his ancestors like to have their little japes from time to time. He calls up to his companions to let them know he's unhurt. [His SKILL is currently 5, so he elected to Test his LUCK (10), but rolled an 11... reducing his Luck to 9. He tries again, rolls a 12; to avoid damage in the fall, he must test Luck again at -2; he succeeds, but his current Luck is now 7.]
Grebdal Themp catches the nearest ring with some difficulty. His passage is no less ungainly than Ksandajja's, but at least he doesn't fall. Once he is safely in the passage, Ilog throws his rope up to his companions to pull him up.
Having all caught their breath, they proceed to the next chamber.
Room 29
Challenge: Challenge: Second Sight (+1) reveals Swim
The stone floor of the next room is but a small semicircular platform by the entrance, a few paces in diameter. The rest of the room is a deep pool filled with still, limpid water.
"Trial by air, now a trial by water?" says Grebdal Themp.
"Shhhh," scolds the sorceress, "I'm concentrating."
The water is clear, but in the flickering lantern light the bottom of the pool isn't visible. Ksandajja gazes upon it with her second sight. As her vision slides from this world to the next, the glare coming from something at the bottom of the pool momentarily blinds her. She steps back, hands over her eyes whilst her vision clears. [2nd sight +1=8: 2d6=3]
"What?! What is it?!" shriek her frightened companions.
Ksandajja looks up up at them with a broad smile. "There's powerful magic in there!" she beams as her loosened sword-belt slides to the floor with a thud.
"At least test the water first," admonishes Ilog, "if water it even be."
"I'm hoping it is," says Ksandajja, kicking off her sandal. "The air is so dry and stuffy in here. A bathe sounds heavenly right about now."
Having divested herself of all her equipment, the sorceress dips a toe into the water. She shivers at the cold, but as nothing untoward happens, she pronounces it safe. Taking only the gold backed mirror as protection, she leaps into the water near the edge, drenching her companions with an almighty splash. When she surfaces, she can barely suppress a giggle at the stern and not-at-all-amused countenances staring down at her. "Oh, it's really rather divine," she says, "honestly, you'd ought to try it! No? Fine. You've only yourselves to blame."
Her companions can make out very little, now that the surface of the pool is awash with ripples and a great deal of murky sediment has been stirred up. After a breathless age, a hand breaks the surface of the water, clutching a human jawbone. Ksandajja's head and shoulders follow. The shine of the gold backed mirror in her teeth illuminates her triumph. But she only reluctantly climbs out of the pool.
"Where's the rest?" asks Grebdal Themp.
"We keep looking!"
Grebdal Themp and Ilog pause to partake of some provisions [+2 Stamina each] whilst the sorceress does her best to wring out her clothes and squeeze the water from her hair.
They go back to the chain room [Room 28]. Instead of swinging their way back to the other side, they instead use Ilog's rope and grappling iron to climb down to the bottom and walk across. Grebdal Themp slips and falls halfway down when trying to climb back out, but other than that they get through without incident. [His climb roll (at +2) was a critical failure. He had to Test his LUCK to avoid damage from the fall.]
next post: The Skull!
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