Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Lily follows her side of the story with curiosity until meeting the others again at the middle. "I think this place must have been a temple of some sort. Makes sense that an artifact such as the shield would be here."

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Laena hopped around the room, examining the carvings. They depicted a scene of carnage, the simple depictions of people still managing to show abject terror, some of them even seemingly committing suicide to escape some manner of horror that was either just off the edge of the mural or couldn’t be seen or depicted for whatever reason. Ultimately she came into the center with Lily, who claimed that they were in a temple… The harpy didn’t say anything, but she was pretty sure they had already known that. "Well… do we go right?" she asked, looking over towards the open door, "or do we try to open the others? I’d rather go right, myself. Maybe stay along the right edge to not get lost?" She would start to head that way before there was an answer, anticipating both agreement and her taking the lead.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (Sponge, Tiffanian, and Hentaispider)

Spoiler

Laena: HP = 71, PP = 58, EP = 48, Status = Pregnant, Fine

Lily: HP = 62, PP = 88, EP = 18/62, Status = Fine, Greatest Luck Manipulation, Light

"Yes.... But a temple to what? Some of these images.... They don't have anything to do with any gods I've heard of. And some of these shrines aren't even to deities that I've ever heard of!" Garrett said in response to Lily's comment. When Laena suggested that they move on, he nodded calmly and turned away, moving to follow her.

Assuming that the sidhe did the same, Lily would take up the rear as they proceeded through the right hand door, Laena going first. The passageway would take them forward a short ways before dropping them into a smaller chamber that opened up on the left containing a stone dais that was partially covered by webbing that at first looked like it was simply thick cobwebs. Such an assumption was revealed to be false, however, when they spotted the carcass of a spider the size of a velociraptor lying on its back in a corner. The overgrown arachnid's black and yellow carapace had been pierced through the middle by a blade of some sort, one that had left scorch marks around the wound, and then been tossed or kicked aside such that it was only barely visible in the light coming in through a large crack in the ceiling that permitted streams of daylight into the room. Its fangs and the whole front of its head had also been removed, likely to take its venom gland, and it was otherwise left to rot on its back, its legs curled up to create a spiny black forest, its whole form motionless.

The dais that had seemingly been partially covered had had the webs pulled away recently, exposing the surface of the front panel that was angled such that anyone standing directly in front of it would be able to look down at it and reach it easily. There were a series of square stone panels worked into a larger square, four by four to produce sixteen squares in total, each of which had a different pictograph on it. Some dust had been swept from a few of them, as if they had recently been touched, but time and erosion from the rain and sunlight coming down from the crack in the ceiling had weathered the right hand half of the stone pictographs away to the point that they were illegible.

Other than the dais, there wasn't anything of interest in the room, not even a stone bench or pictographs on the walls, and there was no other exit that any of them could spot on an initial sweep of the room.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Following Laena and Garrett through the door and into the small chamber. "Looks like someone got here before us." Lily comments, moving to take a closer look at the spider. "And not very long ago. Corpses in this climate decay fast."

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

"Well… This temple seems like it isn’t modern to me. Maybe people worshipped different gods when this was built" Laena offered, though she was somewhat skeptical of her own suggestion. They all made their way down the right passage until they came across another room, this one with rather large stone dais in the center, covered in cobwebs. Well, not mere cobwebs… They had once belonged to a single spider it seemed, an incredibly large one at that. That much the harpy could tell by the thing’s corpse in the corner. The sight of the thing made Laena feel nervous… she wasn’t a fan of spiders. It seemed to have been killed with a blade, a magical one at that judging by the scorch marks near the fatal wound. Whoever had killed it had also mutilated it, cutting out its fangs and much of the front of its head, though she couldn’t fathom why for the life of her.

After killing the spider whoever had been through these parts seemed to have ripped away some of the webbing that covered the dais, revealing a panel with a few small squares in what looked like a puzzle of some sort, perhaps. There were sixteen of them, all with a different image on them, though eight of them were completely illegible thanks to the weathering. That was all that was in the room, it seemed, nothing else worth giving a closer look. "Yes, someone’s definitely been here recently… What do you suppose those blocks of stone are for? On the panel? It looks like half of them are kind of useless… I guess we ought to move on" Laena replied, fidgeting a bit from side to side. She wanted out of this room, to be honest, and soon.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (Sponge, Tiffanian, and Hentaispider)

Spoiler

Laena: HP = 71, PP = 58, EP = 48, Status = Pregnant, Fine

Lily: HP = 62, PP = 88, EP = 18/62, Status = Fine, Greatest Luck Manipulation, Light

"To where?" Garrett reminded Laena, "this was the only open door. There has to be something else here... Keep looking!" Garrett would glance around irritably for a moment before looking back at the panel, and then at the spider, and then back at the panel. "These... Some of these aren't as dusty as the others... I think they can move!" he continued, and sure enough when he reached down obliviously and tried to shift one of the square panels it shifted to the side and then clicked into place. It had moved up into the top left corner, allowing two other pieces to move into its old position, and upon closer inspection both Laena and Lily would realize that the pieces that weren't too badly weathered to be legible could form a pattern of sorts.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

"It's... a puzzle of some kind? How peculiar." Lily moves closer to inspect the tiles, confirming that it indeed does look like a puzzle. "Does either of you have any idea what the end result should look like?"

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

"Well, there are other doors back in the room" Laena replied, shrugging a bit. When Garrett walked over to the panel and started moving the little patterned things around she said "I thought it was a puzzle, I just didn’t think we could finish it with so many pieces blanked out." She hopped over to the thing though, giving it a look. "I guess we could try, though. Might as well. It’s not like we’re on a time limit…" Lily asked if either of them knew what it ought to look like, and the harpy looked at it long and hard. "I don’t know, maybe if we shift a few pieces around… move this one here… and this one…" she murmured, starting to move pieces around carefully.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (Sponge, Tiffanian, and Hentaispider)

Spoiler

Laena: HP = 71, PP = 58, EP = 48, Status = Pregnant, Fine

Lily: HP = 62, PP = 88, EP = 18/62, Status = Fine, Greatest Luck Manipulation, Light

Rolls

Spoiler

Perception: Failure.
Mind Check: Failure.

Garrett would shrug in response to Lily's question, "maybe something on the walls, or on the doors?" He would step aside, allowing Laena to try and assemble the pieces into something. Unfortunately, as she shifted the square pieces from position to position, she couldn't form anything that looked like an anything, and there were no signs of anything working to open up either of the other doors. She could keep trying, or turn it over to Lily or Garrett.

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Laena shifted the pieces back and forth, mumbling to herself as she tried to find some kind of pattern that they might fit into. She spent some time on it before letting out a frustrated sigh, looking over at Lily and saying "maybe you should try it. I can’t make heads or tails of it, doesn’t seem like I’m making any progress at all. I think I’ll check the room a little more carefully for hints" before hopping away from the podium, going to check on the walls and especially the doors, thinking maybe there might be a hidden symbol on each door that would open it if formed.

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Lily shifts the light upwards and looks at the ceiling and the walls, trying to find something that matches parts of the puzzle before stepping next to Laena and trying her hand at solving it.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (Sponge, Tiffanian, and Hentaispider)

Spoiler

Laena: HP = 71, PP = 58, EP = 48, Status = Pregnant, Fine

Lily: HP = 62, PP = 88, EP = 18/62, Status = Fine, Greatest Luck Manipulation, Light

Rolls

Spoiler

Perception: Success.
Mind Check: Success.

The walls in the room itself contained no hints, nor did the ceiling, with the crumbling stone bare of any revelatory pictographs. As Lily played with the various tiles, however, she realized that she could replicate some of the symbols they'd seen in previous room. Three pictures, in fact, one from each portion of the mural depicting a plague, a savior, and a god, with whichever one she chose to recreate causing a soft click and the tiles to momentarily lock in place. If she moved them after that, another click would occur. Laena, in the meantime, would find something happening in the other room as Lily chose which picture to make...

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Lily contemplates for a moment before going for the image of the saviour.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (Sponge, Tiffanian, and Hentaispider)

Spoiler

Laena: HP = 71, PP = 58, EP = 48, Status = Pregnant, Fine

Lily: HP = 62, PP = 88, EP = 18/62, Status = Fine, Greatest Luck Manipulation, Light

As Lily shifted the tiles into place to form the image of the savior, Laena would hear a soft grinding noise as the stone door in the center slowly slid open, revealing a passageway beyond. Lily, however, would have no indication that anything had happened.

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Laena examined the walls of the room they were in for a bit, finding nothing, and then hopped back to the other room, leaving Lily and Garrett to try and figure out the puzzle for a moment. Maybe she could find a clue there… She isn’t far from figuring out herself that the images from the central room could probably be recreated with the little puzzle console when she hears a rumbling from behind one of the doors, and after a moment one of them slowly slid aside to reveal an empty passageway. The harpy quickly began to hop back to the others, shouting "Lily, you opened one of the doors in here!" after a little bit, not wanting her to do something that would somehow close it for good. You never could know with these crazy temple things…

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

As she finishes the puzzle and nothing happens, Lily frowns to herself. Maybe I should have done one of the others, after all.. She doesn't get far in her thoughts, however, before Laena calls out to her. Now curious, the sidhe peeks into the other room. "Oh, hey. It worked."

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (Sponge, Tiffanian, and Hentaispider)

Spoiler

Laena: HP = 71, PP = 58, EP = 48, Status = Pregnant, Fine

Lily: HP = 62, PP = 88, EP = 18/62, Status = Fine, Greatest Luck Manipulation, Light

"Really?" Garrett asked as Laena shouted, moving back towards the doorway and almost colliding into the harpy as she hopped back towards the room. "Which one?"

 

[Tiffanian]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Laena hopped along pretty rapidly, fast enough that she barely stopped herself from smacking face-first into her mate as he walked out the doorway. "Gah" she sputtered as her claws clutched at the ground for a moment, sticking her in place. "The one with, ah, the image of the savior guy on it" she replied, turning and hopping back towards the room, a little bit excited that they were making progress.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Into the Darkness (Sponge, Tiffanian, and Hentaispider)

Spoiler

Laena: HP = 71, PP = 58, EP = 48, Status = Pregnant, Fine

Lily: HP = 62, PP = 88, EP = 18/62, Status = Fine, Greatest Luck Manipulation, Light

Garrett, who had also stopped in place after nearly colliding with Laena, replied; "Shall we go and check it out?"

 

[Hentaispider]

Re: Into the Darkness (Tiffanian and Hentaispider)

Lily slips into the room after Garrett, shining light into the newly revealed passageway. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go." Without waiting for the others, she heads into the tunnel to see where it would lead.