Renew the Pact: Time of our Lives, part 14
Log Info
- Title: Renew the Pact: Time of our Lives, part 14
- Emitter: Whirlpool
- Characters: Paenitia, Aryia, Seyardu, Lyme
- Place: Goldcoast of Veyshan, Tashraan, Temple of Navos
- Time: Friday, September 03, 2021, 11:59 PM
- Summary: The battle with Shaevin and the corrupt Navosians over, the party searches the shrine. Lyme finds a bathroom in the barracks and cleans up. No one hears the whistling. The shrine is entirely empty. Paenitia locates a door with an hourglass shaped hole in it. With no clearer plan, she places it in there and the door opens. It reveals a room with a similar shaped socket in the floor, and masses of arcane script surrounding it. Sadly, Seyardu is the only on who understands magical writings, and this is beyond her also. Lyme and Aryia are equally stumped, Paenitia suggests trying the next doorway, and warns that the room might flip upside down. After a quick check for magic, the hourglass is placed. It rotates, the giant clock ticks... and then Shaevin is there, and he has the hourglass, and a very confused expression which is mirrored on everyone. Except Paenitia, she has a grinning mask.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Appearing -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Paenitia 3'0" 34 Lb Halfling Female A Lucht knight, dark skinned in bold feathery finery. Aryia 4'8" 110 Lb Shadow Elf Female A heavily scarred mul with a curious look about her. Seyardu 5'6" 150 Lb Sith-Makar Female A friendly silver sith-makar with a perpetual squint. Lyme 7'2" 435 Lb Orc Butch Black-skinned oruch of suitable stature -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= NPCs of Note =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Shaevin Hostile Dawn Elf Male A priest of Navos, the douchiest, a secret Voidist. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= As the GM -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Whirlpool 5'0" Otyugh I am stinky! -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=
When last we left our heroes, they had defeated ... whatever that was. There was a small hourglass located.
And now an entire shrine to Navos to explore.
Paenitia goes over to stare at a wall. Actually, it's to get the hourglass out of her breastplate and this is not a procedure she wishes to share with an audience. After a whie she produces it and turns back to the others, "So, we have this."
She starts looking around the shrine.
Lyme starts looking around, carefully. He glances back at Paenitia cautiously. "Careful with that. I don't... trust time right now."
Aryia, exhausted, sweaty, and spent, thuds on over to the priest's corpse and turns it over, emptying out pockets and patting them down. Looking for anything that might help with whatever they hell just happened. Uncaring of what the others do at the moment.
Seyardu stowed her weapon, and looked away at the remains. "Is anyone injured?" Seyardu asks everyone around, while she went to investigate the only remaining body, that of the head priest. "I was not, expecting him to be so twisted, to truly believe what he was doing."
The silver sith-makar sighs. "This one will take a look, to make sure the ritual is no longer ongoing. Then, what? Perhaps Farland is here? If he was not, used as part of this ritual."
The temple is, at least, quiet for the moment. If anyone is here, they're not screaming for help. Still, a lot of building is left to explore.
Lyme shakes his head. "It's not too bad." He's not looking fantastic, but he just moves on. "Let's keep looking." And that's what he does. He looks.
"Well, let's check the altar, then the priest barracks, then the basement." Paenitia suggests, holding the hourglass carefully, "Unless we want split up to see the rooms faster."
Lyme nods. "I'll check the barracks." Did he... he did! "I'll yell loud if I need you."
Aryia all but dumps the body off to the side, unsatisfied. "I'll go to the basement. Seyardu, come with me. I can't yell if I need help." <Handspeech>
"I do not really want to split up, to have some picked off by more, void spiders, or whatever that was." Seyardu sighs. "But if that is what it takes, I will accompany Aryia. We need to find Farland soon, and there are still the guards. We should likely be away from this city as soon as possible
GAME: Paenitia rolls perception: (18)+4: 22 GAME: Aryia rolls perception: (5)+15: 20 GAME: Seyardu rolls perception: (6)+3: 9 GAME: Lyme rolls perception: (6)+4: 10
So, the good news.
There's no one left in the shrine. A cursory examination reveals that. Even the bathroom is empty, thankfully, and you're at least given a chance to wash some of the grime and blood and 'ick' off in the fresh water. Veyshan has indoor plumbing! Or at least the temple does. To some extent. It's fancy.
There is one locked door in the whole, small building. There is a convenient and clear impression where an hourglass shaped object would fit in the highly secure, vault-like, metal door in the very center of the temple, beyond its shrine.
Paenitia holds up the hourglass to the lock, "So, set in so the sand is flowing, or so the sand flow when it is turn?"
Lyme comes back, looking refreshed. ...what? He squares up to the door, and the hourglass. "I'd set it so the sand is flowing, but..'" He shrugs. "I'm probably not the one to ask." He /is/ the cleanest one to ask, and there's a twinkle in his eye over that.
GAME: Seyardu rolls knowledge/religion: (7)+6: 13
Aryia gives a nod towards Lyme as they regroup, finding nothing else in the building. She did not, to some's dismay, wash her hands when given the opportunity.
The Red Knight stands on her tip-toes and aligns the hourglass so the sand is flowing. She pushes it into the slot, then attempts to turn it, or open the door.
"I have been in the place, where the time rush in when the door opens. I am not sure if this will happen now."
As the hourglass is placed, there's a series of clicks from the doorway. The impression suddenly rotes to the right. The sand stops flowing.
The door pops open with a crunch and a crash.
Lyme readies his war-knife, and steps through the door.
Seyardu reached the door where everyone had gathered. She leans in to inspect the door, squinting at the impression and the small hourglass. She steps back with a hand on her breastplate, but the door merely opens as it is set inside.
"Who knows what that priest kept in a place only they had access to." Seyardu notes. "Or maybe others did, but still. Be careful, everyone."
Paenitia brings up her shield, draws her sword and follows behind Lyme. "I behind Lyme, do not step back."
Aryia gives a tired sigh, but she cracks her neck and readies herself as she follows in with them.
...in you go.
First, the door is easy enough to pull open now that it is unlocked and there seems to be a large room -- larger than *ought* to fit in the building based on what you can tell and your previous explorations. A bit weird, that.
At the center of the room is another hourglass shape in the ground, similarly for the hourglass you had to open the door. It's set in the center of a circle, here. All along and all around is *great* variety of arcane script.
The Red Knight clanks in behind Lyme. She takes one look at the slot in the magic circle and says, "We need the key again, Friend Dragon. Do you understand the markings there? Or There?"
"Start the reading anywhere, there is enough." She laughs, swinging her warhammer in a circle, "this place have the extra space too."
Lyme just looks at the ground, shaking his head. "It's not right, is it. Not the same space."
Aryia does not trust the arcane script in the slightest, her stepping off center and letting the more educated deal with it
GAME: Seyardu rolls spellcraft: (1)+5: 6 (EPIC FAIL)
"I will try to discern what I can from the floor." Seyardu replies to Paenitia as she steps into the room. She steps around, squinting at the hourglass, at the floor. The silverscale sighs.
"I can barely make out the writing on the ground. It could be a door, possibly? Perhaps a Navosian cleric would use a giant hourglass for something such as that."
Lyme pauses. "Could you sound it out if we write it down for you?" Because /that's/ a good idea. Clearly, he doesn't know a lot about magic.
"The giant one out front is too big. I think. The one we use to get in here look the right size." Paenitia stares at the floor and the writing a moment longer, then goes to retrieve the hourglass from the first door.
Anyone see what make the crunch noise when the door first open?" She expected some broken glass, perhaps a second hourglass that broke into minutes.
Aryia raises a brow, her scratching her head and peering around as well to look for broken glass.
There doesn't appear to be any sign of what caused the crunching sound. Might've just been part of the door mechanism, regardless.
Retrieving the hourglass from the first door is easy enough, leaving just placing it in the gap. It's a key, after all.
Lyme crosses his arms, and looks towards Seyardu as magic happens. Eyebrows raise, waiting
GAME: Seyardu casts Detect Magic. Caster Level: 6 DC: 13
"It could use the same key." Seyardu nods. "The runes worry me, I cannot make them out."
The silver sith-makar places a hand on their breastplate, and offers a short prayer, metallic eyes glowing faintly to take in any ambient magic in the room.
The hourglass is retrieved. The Red Knight takes it towards the circle, pausing at the edge. She looks around, eyes meeting everyone else's through her mask. She exhales, and cheerfully suggests, "I am closest to the ground? Put it in?"
She rocks the hourglass, hopefully it doesn't contain an hours worth of sand. "So, there the many things it might do."
"The room might spin so the floor is the wall, and the sand will flow. Or the thing will be called to the circle, or there is spiders." Sand pours from one chambre to another, "Maybe if the sand balanced both sides, that is the different result."
"I try the balancing in. Be ready for the falling." Paenitia crouches and slips the key in. "The surprise will not be very long."
Lyme reaches down to stop Paenitia. "Lizard is casting magic. Wait for the magic."
"Please, wait a moment, Paenitia." Seyardu warns as she steps around the circle. "It does not seem to be anything active, at least. I cannot tell what, if anything, will happen when it is placed.
They sigh. They did not like wandering in blindly. More blindly than usual.
"I do not know, but we may need to put the hourglass in, and see what happens.
Lyme nods, and steps back.
Paenitia places the hourglass into the slot.
The sith makar growls and stumbles a bit on the spot, falling to a seat on the ground as they wave away the magic, or seemed to, as their eyes were tightly closed. "Too bright." She shouts to the room. "It's something big, for certain."
As soon as Seyardu has spoken, a light flares up from around the hourglass as it locks in place. The hands of a clock animate, spinning slowly around it and the hourglass elevates slightly in place as the stone raises beneath it.
It looks like it's expecting you to do something else, next, and a powerful thrumming energy fills the air.
Lyme looks around, scowling. "Where the fuck are the not-crazy Navosians when you need them?"
A tension fills Aryia, though she was exhausted, and wanted to see this through. To the Lucht, she turns one hand over, then points elevated hourglass. Flip it?
"Oh good!" Paenitia chuckles, stepping into a braced position with her shield raised, her warhammer cocked to the ready, up to bat, "I worry it will be too small."
She stares as the stone raises, "Okay, it wanting the next thing. Anyone have the ideas? Maybe the prayer?"
"Oh Navos, show us what we need to see." The Dark Lucht calls out. Aryia's hand-sign is clear enough. Flip it. Nodding, she does.
Seyardu cracked her eyes open, squinting more than usual. She looks around, at the giant clock, clambering to her feet. "I am not sure what to do. Perhaps it is flipped, yes, or perhaps something with the stone itself?" She offers, feeling at a loss, and still reeling from the overwhelming brightness.
Lyme pauses, and moves to lend a hand to the flipping. He's got no real clue, he's just following along.
The stone the hourglass is turned into is, in fact, a dial. It begins clicking as you turn it and you suddenly feel a great lightness, as if you yourselves had lost your presence for a few seconds.
...and then it stops, because you stopped turning.
Shaevin is here, and he looks quite stunned to see you.
"...what on earth?! How did you get back here?!'
Wait, what? He looks perfectly normal, and alive, and is holding an hourglass in his hands. You know, the one you've got in the st--- wait. Now it's gone. And is just in his hand.
Oh. Oh boy.
