Where oh Where?
Log Info
- Title: Where oh Where?
- Emitter: Delilah
- Characters: Delilah, Donna, Ashes Elyanna
- Place: Underground: Magus Ectra Na'Garra's Manse
- Time: Monday, June 28, 2021, 8:34 PM
- Summary: The Valethor gang search Ectra's room completely and find nothing of interest. Poppy tells them that her Lab is trapped, and that Veren, her assistant-pet had a secret room. They decide to investigate further. It's been completely scrubbed, but Delilah and Donna remain convinced that however clever Veren is, she still likely forgot something in her rush to leave. Ashes is not as convinced, expecting an elaborate, overly complicated trap. Elyanna spots the anomaly, a tile in the privy, which covers a safe. It's too securely in the ground, so they make do with some of Lerethil's acid, hoping to eat the edges away and reveal... something.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Appearing -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Donna 5'4" 106 Lb Human Female A black-haired human girl in black robes. Delilah 5'4" 106 Lb Human Female A golden haired human girl in white robes. Ashes 5'11" 177 Lb Hobgoblin Female A somber arvec in grey clothes with a skull face Elyanna 5'11" 153 Lb Half-Orc Female A grim, Arvek-blooded woman in raven feathers. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= NPCs of Note =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Lerethil Half-elf Female A trader with questionable connections. Poppy Human Female A ghost, daughter of the body that became Ectra. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= As the GM =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Delilah 5'4" 106 Lb Human Female A golden haired human girl in white robes. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=
The party remains, for the moment, in the bedchambers of the slain illithid and would-be lich, Ectra. Her bones remain on the bed where they had been until recently, a good deal less animated than the wizard might have preferred, but then, things don't always work out as planned. There may be members of this group who know all about that.
For now, books have been gathered up, bones are being... examined, and Ashes is getting a bit of a headache to match the one Donna is, by now, dealing with. Apparently that is what Ectra's traps do, if you manage to resist their other effects. Well, at least it's manageable.
"Is there anything else we need out of this room?" Delilah asks. "Because, seriously, this entire place is creepy. Creepy to the point that I'll never complain about another sewer job again. I'd take icky over this any day. I keep feeling like something's about to eat my brain."
"I don't know." Ashes says, closing her eyes and rubbing at her forehead. "Did you check the drawers? Maybe there's a hairbrush."
She pauses, "No, there wouldn't be a hair brush."
"We need to find the vessel, and Veren's room." The ashen Arvec concludes.
"This room? The bones, once everyone is properly recovered." Elyanna returns, looking to Delilah. She rolls her shoulders a little, stretches a little more and wiggles her fingers, starting to feel somewhat more like herself in fits and starts.
There is a moment or two that she looks with subdued concern at the Mourner, taking in what she has to say and countering, "If she had guile of any measure, a brush may well be the answer for that reason." That said, she moves to start tossing drawers.
"Ain't gonna be properly recovered til we're back at home," Donna mutters, massaging the bridge of her nose. "But yeah... I think we're best off gettin' out of this room 'til we got everything else we need. Didn't Poppy say she knew where Veren's lab was, just that she couldn't disarm it?"
"Yes, that sounds good." Ashes is agreeable. "I need to pack up her friends. Are there two labs, Veren's and Ectra's?"
"There is only one lab." Poppy has reappeared, albeit she is just looking in from the hallway. "And I cannot go inside it, so you will have to brave it on your own, I'm afraid. I'm sorry, I really am, I wish I could help you better." She hugs her arms about herself, and looks down at the ground.
"Veren's chambers are hidden. The access to them is from the main hall, but is behind a bookcase. You need to know how to open it. Ectra did not always like to admit that she had a human protege, you see. I'm not sure if she thought the other illithids would think her strange, or if they'd just want to eat her. Possibly both."
The Keeper stops what she's doing and closes the drawer before turning toward Poppy, "Which bookcase, can you show us?" she asks, and starts to head in that direction.
"Yes, let's look at the bookcase." Ashlee says, her voice flat but her words have an edge to them. The headache, which hasn't abated. "I think I have some spells that will help with traps, but Detect Magic is probably it."
"It's all right, Poppy," Donna says, reaching one hand out to pat the ghost's head... then stopping, as she realizes what that would likely lead to.
"Let's find that room then... An' see about the lab after, maybe. Our luck, the traps'll burn it all down."
Ashes shakes her head a little, as Donna is about to touch Poppy, then says, "Veren's room may have the most useful things."
And she thinks about countering the Illithid, between the ache in her head. Is this supposed to be tenderizing her brain. "A less self-conscious slug would have explained her away as being raised for slaughter."
"If she was truly as respected, or feared, as she blathered, none would dare question her decision." Elyanna notes with a little shrug, "Power deflects the scrutiny of cowards. Stronger rivals may be impressed by her brazen choice in pet."
Poppy looks up at Donna, and looks for a moment genuinely pleased at the prospect of being touched by another living being; but of course, Poppy is not herself a living being, nor a corporeal one. She hides her crestfallen look by turning to lead the party back down the hall, and into the main room where Lerethil is still busy... cataloguing.
And paying absolutely no attention to the party, other than to say "Let me know if you find anything valuable!"
Well. Poppy just glides past, and up to one of the bookcases, where she reaches underneath to poke at something. "Ectra made sure I could do this, even as a ghost," she explains; and then the bookcase just kind of... opens, revealing a passageway behind it.
The rooms beyond are much like Ectra's, if smaller, in that there's a chamber for sleeping and a personal room. There's a bed, shelves, and various other furnishings, but by and large, it looks... rather barren, and generally devoid of personal effects.
Ashlee follows along, she pauses to look at Poppy, staring unblinkingly, "I've had spirits possess me. We can try that when we're out of here. You can touch all the things you want."
A dangerous offer in a lot of ways.
The Mourner looks into the sparse room, touches her breastplate and says, "Feiu of the Tears, let me see." Her eyes begin glowing and she gazes about. "This may need a more mundane searching. Look for a hiding place she might have made against Ectra."
"Although, one that could survive her mind being read is hard to conceive of."
"If she survived bein' an Illithid's apprentice bein'*that much* of a duplicitous bitch," Donna grumbles, "I expect she had her ways." But as if in agreement with Ashes' analysis, the brawler starts carefully looking through things. "She'll have packed up everythin' that was *seriously* important, but... you always forget somethin' when you're escapin'."
The voice of experience? Very likely.
Elyanna keeps her thoughts to herself on the Mourner's offer, some tickle of paranoia or concern called to mind, if only for the barrage of reminiscince of earlier days and the world she'd come from. The red woman ventures into the room and gives it a lookover at first, considering the lay of dust and the passage of these past decades. She sets her gauntleted hand against a wall and, between steps about the perimeter of the room, begins to tap-tap the tip of an armoured finger up and down the wall with a studious expression on her face, the ear closer the wall perked just a little more than the other.
GAME: Ashes rolls perception: (14)+3: 17 GAME: Elyanna rolls perception: (20)+8: 28 GAME: Donna rolls perception: (3)+12: 15
Searching around in Veren's room is... difficult. Or perhaps easy, depending on one's perspective. Donna and Delilah, working together, are able to find a veritable cornucopeia of absolutely nothing interesting; generally valueless knicknacks, personal effects that are... useful to someone who wants to look their best but easily replaced (probably why they're here to be found), and such like. There are books here, too, but mostly consist of trashy romance books and such like.
Ashes' receives a little similar help from Poppy, who helpfully points out this, that, and the other, none of which turns out to be in any way useful; though Ashes may note, given the spell she'd cast earlier to sense magic, that the room and its contents have been 'scrubbed', in a fashion; their link to their previous owner has been broken, removing any usefulness they might've had for scrying. As of now, it's all just stuff. Possibly it would have been anyway, given the length of time it's been here. But, you never know, it might've been worth trying.
But it's Elyanna who makes the real discovery. In the personal chamber, on the floor there is a tile that looks like it's just slightly off from those around it. It's easy to miss, really, it's just that it sits slightly higher than those around it.
And naturally, this turns out to be the lid over a safe.
A locked safe.
Hello, sailor, what's this?
The hobkin cants her head a touch at the slight disparity under her boot, forsaking her accoustic search for a more multisensory one. She crouches, carefully fidgetting with the tile with a declarative, "I have something."
Crouched in a three point over the exposed repository, she withdraws her goblin army knife and starts to fiddle with tiny levers, "Does anyone have any particular expertise in opening saves?" A blink, "Safes?" She sounds a little fuzzy on the plurality in Trade.
"No." Ashes says distinctly, looking up from examining a bed-knob. It might have been removeable, there could have been more there than overnight gum. She crosses around the bed to examine the discovery with glowing eyes.
"I think it would be trapped, or warded, inside and out." The Mourner says, standing at the doorway and looking in so Delilah and Donna's view isn't obstructed. She faces the golden haired twin, "Did you prepare 'Knock' today, or something similar?"
"...Well shit," Donna mutters, answering the question slightly indirectly. "Wonder if Lerethil out there's got a set o' picks..."
Crouching down on the other side of the safe from Elyanna, Donna peers at the contraption, tilting her head. "...Wonder how wide the thing is. If we can't get it open, may as well try later..."
Delilah shakes her head. "Preparing is a wizard thing," she points out. "I'm a sorceress. Which, for the record, is infinitely superior." She draws herself up and puffs out her chest proudly. "I have every spell I know at my fingertips, whenever I want it. ...Thing is, I don't entirely choose *which* spells I get, and so far the 'knock' spell has not been one of them."
The golden haired twin shrugs her shoulders. "That said, I could always cast magic missile at it. I have ways of opening things, they're just... a lot more violent and a lot less subtle than knock."
Poppy, for her part, drifts in to look over Elyanna's shoulder with palpable excitement. "Oh! You found a safe! I didn't know Veren had one of those in here, and I've cleaned this room a thousand times. And it's *locked*. That must mean something good is inside it."
The red woman sighs slowly and brushes her hair back over her shoulders, "I doubt anything in this will help." she says before restowing her Goblin Army Knife.
There's a nod to Ashes's summation and her query to Delilah's spells, then a look to Donna on her musing and, "Little would surprise me on that front."
She looks up to Delilah's answer, arching an eyebrow as she reaffirms her bosom, then, "I do not expect it to be very large at all. Clearly the slug had gaps in her awareness, but Veren would still need to sneak it in, somehow."
she straightens some as Poppy chimes from utter silence right over her shoulder and she looks up at the apparition, considers things for a moment, "Could you look inside, please?"
"Ectra's head, except we know it isn't." Ashlee says, staring at the box in the floor. Something good is likely, if they were dealing with a normal person. This is the room of an accomplished serial killer, an assassin, whose first victim was someone she was in close proximity to who could read her mind at any time.
A room that's been scrubbed magically, and possibly non-magically also.
"Veren likes elaborate, complicated plans. Does cleaning her room and 'forgetting' her safe seem likely or is it going to have a trap in it, specifically to be discovered."
The Mourner adjusts her shoulder strap, "Oh. The reliquary could be in there. Maybe that was the ceremony, to put Ectra in a state where she needed her Reliquary but it was hidden from her so she couldn't get it."
Poppy leans down, and manouvers her face towards the safe; and she draws up short, then, looking back up at Elyanna with a shake of her head. "No, it's... it feels bad, getting close to it. But." She sinks down into the floor, vanishing entirely from view for a few moments before coming back up. "It's not very big," she offers. "It's... probably only big enough to keep something... I don't know. It's probably got a space inside it that's maybe eight inches across, I'd guess?"
Meanwhile, Delilah chews her thoughts over, and wanders back into the main room. "Oi, Lerethil," she can be heard asking, "Got any lock picks? And, perhaps, some idea how to use 'em?"
A moment later, she returns. "Lerethil does't have any lock picks," she pronounces. "But she has this." She holds up a small vial that has something shimmery and golden looking in it. "She says it's acid. Apparently it'll dissolve," she ahems, "Any metal. We could try it, I guess, but we might want to be careful not to dissolve what's inside?"
"An' I'm'a need a pickaxe an' a good few hours t'dig it out," Donna murmurs, raking a hand through her hair. "Okay... Poppy, would y'say that it's about as wide as the tile that was coverin' it? I figure if we work on the sides, best chance of not eatin' through what's inside."
"I have some eye-droppers and syringes." Ashlee volunteers, reaching into her satchel and bringing out a box. She glances around at curious eyes, "It's a medical kit. The syringes for corpses are back at the temple."
She sets the box down and flips the lid, revealing what seems to be a pristine kit, hardly any supplies used at all. Of course, magical healing trumps everything, and perhaps there is some hesitation in receiving mundane treatment from one whose main experience is making corpses look presentable.
Ashlee has some big needles and uses wide stitches, with flesh-toned wax to make incisions seem nice. Not exactly the best thing for first aid. She picks up a syringe and holds it out, "Here."
Feel's bad for a ghost to get close to.
Interesting.
She looks to Ashes at that, arching an eyebrow, thinking perhaps it is just as the Mourner says.
Donna's notions about renovation prompt a thoughtful nod before Delilah's imput prompts a query, "Just metal, or especially metal?"
"Just metal." Delilah shrugs her shoulders lightly. "Lerethil was quite specific about that. It'll eat any sort of metal, but not stone, cloth, wood, or your face." She pauses, about to say something else, before she just hands it over. "Someone less nervous than me might wanna do this, 'cause I'm far too worried that I might just go ahead and melt the one thing that might save me from eventually getting caught and receiving an axe through the neck. In fact, I'm going to go keep Lerethil company." She sets the vial down carefully beside the safe, and stalks forthwith out of the room.
Meanwhile, Poppy is giving some information about the safe. "It's about this big from side to side," she states, gesturing with her hands above the safe, "And about this deep."
Which means it isn't a terribly large safe, but an object doesn't have to be large to be valuable, of course.
Donna glances at the syringe, then at Elyanna. "I could, but I kinda think you'd do better. Only, uh... What's the needle made out of?"
The plan does seem solid to the brawler, absent one or two minor details.
The syringe is made of glass with a metal needle, which could be a concern, as could the plunger shaft, also metal. The plug is proper rubber and even with the needle removed the opening is still going to work, more or less. It might not last long if there's some leakage. At least it's not all metal.
Elyanna looks at the Mourner's tools as she brings them out, Ashes herself, then the sisters, agreeing, "I can do it."
She eyes her elaborate gauntlet, then removes and sets it aside before taking up the syringe and vial of golden hunger. Rust monster bile, perhaps?
The Keeper rises and steps back a couple of paces to transfer the potent liquid into the grey woman's device.
If Taara's watching this, Elyanna will know very soon. Ashlee moves her kit, and flips her satchel around to her back. She also steps back, she's got some nice metal armour it wouldn't do to test its splash resistance. It is enchanted, but she has no idea what the liquid is.
"Avoid inhaling the fumes." She advises.
And waits.
And stares.
