[17:55:34] [The intrepid party regroups at the bottom of the temple ruins.] [18:05:12] We've got more places to loot before we leave, we may as well get to it. [18:07:56] So... after that, what now? [18:08:29] * Olivia nods a little to herself and glances to Charlotte, "At the least... we cannot leave his research laying about." She idly gestures at Simon's body. "He was talking about not being able to do anything, but maybe he just didn't care to." [18:09:29] Leave them to starve. [18:09:35] I'm not about to open any more of those doors. [18:10:17] Hey. We need to do what we can for them. The ones that're still sane, anyway. [18:10:55] I must not have been clear enough about this. [18:11:05] A bear, Charlotte. A bear with TENTACLES INSTEAD OF A FACE. [18:11:12] * Olivia half-smiles at the cat. "I meant the book research, not the... live experiments." She glances to the one that was following them or something, then back to Biff. [18:11:45] Follow: "Is he dead? Is he really dead?" [18:12:28] [The prisoner can not help but stare at Simon.] [18:12:46] * Biff casually urinates on what's left of Simon's face. [18:12:54] Yeah, pretty sure he's dead, there, champ. [18:13:16] [The prisoner starts to smile and sway a little.] [18:15:51] He's dead. I think [18:17:12] Let's head back upstairs, maybe try to find the other entrance to the coffin room. [18:19:04] * Olivia nods a little, glances at Simon, then adds, "No reason not to light him on fire, yes?" [18:19:09] Amarette: "I'm going to stay down here for a few more minutes. Take a look at that giant. I'll see you upstairs." [18:19:37] Have fun. Try not to accidentally destroy anything load-bearing. [18:24:20] * Charlotte nods [18:25:37] * Olivia will head up for more searching. It's fun and profitable. [18:25:54] * Biff hops up onto Big O's shoulder. [18:26:06] Sup, toots? Hope you got your looting gloves here. [18:26:29] [The party, minus Estivan and Amarette, work their way up the slope into the area where they met Simon.] [18:27:41] * Olivia glances over at him and half-smiles. "I have some gloves. I sometimes loot with them." [18:27:47] [The room is much as they left it, with the slope leading down where they had come from, the passageway leading toward the cells and a third passage into the rock at the far end of the room. The sand in the center of the chamber has been disturbed. This is likely where the feathered lizard was kept.] [18:30:48] [The small workdesk is still at the edge of the sand pit.] [18:31:40] * Biff hops down and noses around the workdesk. [18:35:35] [Biff locates several of Simon's notebooks and some masterwork surgical tools.] [18:37:35] Who wants some midnight reading? [18:38:07] * Biff takes out a mummified hand and uses it to pack away the surgical tools... just in case. [18:41:03] What else is there to check? [18:41:10] Hmmm... [18:41:16] * Olivia warily searches through the sand pit... probably to find little but previous snacks. She says, from sandpitland, "I am sure Nyyx would like those distilled down into something helpful." [18:41:32] * Biff does a quick round around the walls, looking for a secret door. [18:44:20] And I could make an attempt at that. [18:45:26] * Olivia picks up a few feathers, holds them up to her torch for a moment, then takes those few because who knows when you'll want feathers. Emergency Mardi Gras mask, perhaps. [18:50:18] * Olivia walks over to the desk and helps herself to the notebooks, glancing at them quickly to see if there's anything like 'organization' that could make them useful in the next minute or so. [18:52:04] [Each of the notebooks is labeled. Most refer to experimental biological prototype trials. Some reference basic graft theory. The largest is simply labeled 'Plaguemouth.'] [18:54:55] * Olivia frowns and opens that one to look for a bit more depth/context. "Well, mostly about making abominations, to nobody's surprise..." [18:55:56] [After a few minutes, Amarette and Estivan appear at the top of the slope.] [18:56:56] ['Plaguemouth is apparently a reference to the beast downstairs. From the forward, Simon built it as a conduit for the jungle plague...] [18:58:28] * Olivia comments, "The giant..." she glances over to Amarette and Estivan and holds up the book, saying, "It seems that giant was somewhat central to what they were doing here." [18:59:01] What the heck were they doing? [19:01:55] ... eugh [19:02:01] So... any idea how ot end this? [19:02:52] * Olivia purses her lips as she peruses. "Using the plague, as that... Gregor talked about. Part of blocking the afterlife, or getting rid of the animals, maybe both." A small chuckle. "Quite a bit to take in, and I haven't even read the journal yet." [19:03:07] The plague's still a problem. And we need to free whatever prisoners still have their minds. Maybe find a way to help them [19:03:20] * Olivia closes the book. "I get the feeling that 'simple' isn't the word to describe their plans." [19:04:49] Fine. Looks like we have to go up another level. There's nothing here. [19:09:21] * Olivia nods a little and socks the books away for later 'enjoyment', before saying, "There's another path off this room, yet," and gesturing down towards it as she takes a step that way. [19:10:09] * Biff blinks and turns around. [19:10:13] ...where did that come from? [19:10:27] [The party passes through a narrow gap in the rock and follows it up to a curtain of rough blue cloth hung across the passage from a pole jammed into the rock walls.] [19:10:38] ... huh. [19:10:42] Wonder what's here. [19:11:58] * Olivia murmurs, "Something very modest?" [19:13:36] * Olivia idly flips a dagger into her hand before she pushes the cloth aside. [19:17:55] [As Olivia begins to move the fabric, she sees the glint of steel underneath and senses the weight of metal in the cloth. She withdraws her hand. Behind the cloth is a set of barbed steel chains set to slice and snare the unwary.] [19:20:36] * Biff takes hold of that mummified hand again and uses telekinesis to push the chains aside to make room for Olivia. [19:21:21] * Olivia pulls that hand back for sure and laughs sharply a moment, before saying, "Oh dear. Metal accessories to the curtain." She lets Biff do that if he can. [19:21:46] [Once the curtain is out of the way, the party can see a small circular chamber on the other side. This appears to be Simon's lair and rest area.] [19:23:01] [The bed in the corner is rickety and fitted with old sheets. There is another desk here with a worktable. More tools are arrayed on the table and sections of magical creatures a kept in corked jars on a bookshelf along the nearest wall.] [19:23:28] * Olivia squeezes by the chains and frowns a moment before saying, "An odd, odd man." [19:27:56] * Olivia then heads over to the desk to give it a good search. [19:28:08] * Biff instinctively goes the same way. [19:28:14] * Charlotte follows. Carefully. [19:30:10] [The cat and Boccobite locate a few more notebooks, a few more tools clearly meant for dissection and a alchemical kitbox. The kitbox contains a medley of reagents and salves useful in surgery and taxidermy.] [19:30:49] [At the far end of the room, there is a section of loose stone that appears to be trapped.] [19:31:18] Oooh. [19:31:57] * Biff makes a big show of flexing his paws. [19:32:13] You wanna give this one a try, toots, or shall I? [19:34:49] * Olivia looks over at him and smiles. "I wouldn't mind giving this a try at least once today. Boccob says to never let your skills lapse if you can help it." [19:35:28] Go for it. [19:35:54] * Olivia reaches into her backpack and pulls out a well-kept set of thieves tools, before starting to work at the stone's trap. [19:41:05] [Olivia finds a bypasses a mechanism that appears to connect into another force blast device. The loose stones themselves appear to be a secret door.] [19:43:05] * Olivia opens the door once the trap is done and whews, putting the tools away. "Not too bad." [19:43:28] Another force blast. I'm still kicking myself over the first one. [19:44:11] [The chamber beyond is an absolute mess. There is wooden shrapnel and broken glass everywhere on the floor. A stone coffin sits at the far end of the room.] [19:46:20] Ah, the coffin chamber. Yeah, you can see where I sorta set off a trap I didn't even think to look for. [19:46:27] In my defense, I was sorta in a hurry. [19:47:07] * Olivia half-smiles and replies, "Well, you did succeed. So I guess it's forgivable." [19:47:59] * Olivia walks into the room and starts looking for stuff that survived. [19:48:27] * Biff walks in and resolves to take a good hard look this time around. [19:48:32] * Biff does, too! [19:51:03] [After surveying the room and Biff making sure to avoid borken glass and wood shards, the party finds that all but two objects in the room were destroyed in the blast. Only a large bag and an iron chest remain.] [19:52:40] Okay, the chest is mine. Check the bag, willya? [19:52:46] * Biff gives the chest the ol once over for traps. [19:53:07] * Olivia does the same for the bag, just in case. Bags can be tricky, after all. [19:59:03] * Biff finds nothing but the lock, and upon finishing his search, pops out one claw and goes to work, taking nearly two full minutes. [20:03:49] [The lock opens with a click. Inside, Biff finds four spellbooks, a set of prayerbooks, some jewelry, some spare clothing for men and women, two jars of dirt and a painting of a young girl.] [20:05:30] * Charlotte raises her eyebrow at the prayer books [20:05:56] Interesting. [20:06:09] Theo, spellbooks and such for you. [20:06:11] * Olivia blinks. "Very. Was he... known to shapeshift?" [20:06:29] Y'know, I'm just not gonna go there. [20:06:45] Y...eah. [20:07:01] How about y'all grab this stuff, and we'll zip on out. [20:12:22] * Olivia will start picking things up, yeah. Picking things up is fun. [20:15:08] Right. Unless anybody's got other ideas, I say we blow this joint. [20:16:41] * Olivia will indeed open the bag after taking stuff. Hopefully she doesn't get eated. [20:16:50] * Olivia , as she does, says, "I do wonder if we could do better by the captives. Our friend had mentioned that they could disable them all quickly..." [20:17:07] I could probably disable them. [20:17:16] But only for you to kill them. [20:17:42] Hey! [20:18:15] [Olivia opens the bag and can see that the interior space is far too large. There is another stone coffin inside.] [20:19:03] * Olivia blinks before saying slowly, "This bag... has another coffin inside of it. He carried... does that even work?" [20:23:52] * Olivia then shakes her head and says, "Well, he'll have trouble getting to it now, hopefully. Maybe we can bury it in a river too." [20:25:10] Yeah. [20:25:55] I don't know. I say we dump it out and destroy them both. [20:28:05] I wonder if these vials of dirt are for making backup coffins. [20:29:26] * Olivia nods slightly and says, "Well, if you want to dump the coffin out, it isn't as if I collect them." [20:33:05] * Olivia puts the bag on her belt, because she would rather not lose all her junk. "Anyway, back to the experiments... certainly there is no need to leave them in pain." She starts to head out of the room. [20:37:40] I'm pretty much out of juice here, toots. It's not like I can run around holding every monster up there. [20:37:48] That magic is hard. [20:38:23] Hey, we're going to help those people. [20:45:58] Fine, fine. [20:46:06] But when they all go crazy and try to kill us, it's your head. [20:46:10] * Theodore (Theodore@ip72-221-117-131.ri.ri.cox.net) Quit (Quit: Trillian (http://www.ceruleanstudios.com) [20:50:22] Sure thing! [20:52:01] * Biff stalks upstairs, muttering about idiot do-gooders getting everybody killed. [20:53:52] [END OF SESSION]