Vast, disgusting, yet somehow still oddly beautiful chamber

[DM Bob]

Chat opens the door and welcomes the others to look. To her left a massive room is revealed. And by massive, I mean some 120 x 70 feet massive.

Intricate mosaic tiles are laid upon the ground, in various shades of slime green, void black and crimson red. Four gigantic black pillars, some twenty feet tall support the ceiling. A great obsidian statue of a hunched, warty, lanky humanoid stands some 12 feet tall to your left. Around its neck, a bronze key.

To the opposite end of the room, a matching statue, not made of obsidian but of chiseled sandstone lurks. No key is seen around this cousin's neck though.

An altar or work table rests in the middle of the chamber. A jade carving of a jar(?) with nine wavy lines, er, tentacles or smoke or heat symbolism(?) rests dead center about a mass of dark candles in various states of melt. You are now familiar with this symbol as that of Mak Thuum Ngatha the Nine-tongued Worm, false God of the Psurlon and possibly other squishy things.

On the floor, runes made of the tiles mimic the shape of the jade carving on the dais. These detect as magic, but not traps and Chat has walked upon these before.

All about the walls, scenes of decay, melting bodies, malformities and bits that remind you or suggest carnality, but not in the standard sense of the term...

How would one put it?

Alien.

A large pair obviously locked of bronze doors stand in the opposite end of the room.

[Deleted]

"No traps!" Chat'cho exclaims, immediately setting herself to work. She strides on over to the statue with the key around its neck and tries removing it, slowly and carefully.

[DM Bob]

Other characters intent, positioning or observations, etc... at this point? In other words, let the others read the room.

[Coden Rokos (Jesse H.)]

"This room must serve some ritualistic purpose. One doesn't make a hall of this size and adorn it like this without having some... special function," murmurs Coden. "Though I guess that's an obvious observation."

He points to the key on the lanyard around the statue's neck. "There's that key you were talking about," he says and chuckles.

[Attilius]

"WAIT!" Attilius shouts from the entrance. Provided the kreen doesn't touch the key, he'll remove his two 100' Giant hair ropes and tie both of the statues legs together with layered crisscrossing threads and multiple knots. The idea being if they start to walk, they'll trip and fall face down. Once done, he'll move away and nod to Chat'cho to proceed with the key.

[Deleted]

Chat'cho will wait for Attilus to execute his strategem before going for the key.

[Quila Oris (John M.)]

Quila enters the sprawling ritual room impressed by the display. "Oh my, what a room. Let me take a second to investigate the altar and the mosaic to see if I can make sense of it some more. This will only take a moment," Quila says to no one specifically, and, seeing Attillus unroll massive ropes and go to work on the statues, adds, "It seems I would have time for that indeed."

She will scoot to the altar and make an assessment of it in combination with the magical mosaic tile runes on the floor as to it's most likely function.

To that effect she looks at the candles and the jade jar (is it a jar made of jade, or a carving in jade laid into the altar slab?) and tries to ascertain when it was last used, are there traces of dust, handprints, scratchmarks, or anything at all visible in the wax of the candles? Or any organic material left behind by usage or altercation, even as remote as a piece of bone, some saliva, a hair, a fleck of skin?

She will then take out a bowl fill it with some water and spin Snarf's Fang in it to activate a very precise and hopefully informative Know Location, (rolling 13 on 20, success) hoping the clairvoyant tooth will provide her with some much needed information regarding this room or tomb.

After that, she looks up and asks the group "Do we want to use clairvoyance to look behind these doors first?"

(OOC: 40% chance to make any sense of the magical runes if they count as having some historical significance. Quila will also use her Artistic Ability (Jewelry) NWP (rolled 8 on 18) in assessing the tiling and jade, and if applicable here also Astrology NPW (rolled 12 on 17) in case there's some patterning anywhere that resembles the Athasian night sky or is attuned or derivative of celestial objects and/or events.)

[AthasianLaborer]

'Muiko pauses just inside the doors and takes in the room.  If necessary, he will cast Detect Magic again before starting to divine the schools applied to the tiles.  If the shared sensory connection with Yvera allows her to detect the magical auras, 'Muiko will waste no time moving into the room and getting straight down to business sketching the most heavily covered wall as a single page layout while Yvera emerges from his robes onto his shoulder "It's lines on a wall you distractable motherfucker" she says before jumping down and skirting the glowing tiles pointing them out and declaring their school in Elven.  She is directing her declarations at Niachi.

Once she has pointed out every thing (tile or not) that detects as magic, she climbs back up to 'Muiko's shoulder and rests her head on his neck, watching him finish his sketch.

If the connection doesn't allow her to surrogate for 'Muiko, the process takes slightly longer as he is thoroughly distracted by the murals.

Artistic Ability rolled a 7 needing less than a 13 (Success: 'Muiko will replicate the wall with as much accuracy as possible, matching colors and scale, bringing it from wall sized to the size of the largest sheet of parchment he has with him)

[Attilius]

The half giant laughs deeply as he ties his knots

[Quila Oris (John M.)]

Quila tries to pet or at least get the attention, if only momentarily, of Yvera the Janx. She contains her smirk when she hears the janx cuss it's master.
When Quila is busy with the tile pattern, she will compliment 'Muiko's familiar, "You're very thorough and well-versed in this Yvera. And you certainly have an interesting vocabulary."

[AthasianLaborer]

Yvera looks up as if just realizing that Quila is there "Of course I do!  I am wholly unlike any other Jankx you will ever meet! She points to the closest tile and faces Niachi [Elven: "{Insert School detected}"] she says, looking back up at Quila [Elven: "You can speak Elven too can't you?"] she asks before climbing to Quila's shoulder and sniffing any exposed hair or skin.  Despite her speech, this behavior is very reminiscent of how a domesticated ferret might investigate a new human for the first time.  She's just a Jankx in this moment, or so it seems.

After sufficient investigation, Yvera stands her hind legs on Quila's shoulder and holds her weight on Quila's head, balancing in such a way that she can point out tiles with her front legs and have them be in Quila's field of view.  

If she's allowed to do so, she will do all the remaining callouts to Niachi and Quila from her position mounted on Quila's head.

[DM Bob]

There was much intent to be had as Quila speaks to Muiko and approaches the altar. The "jar" is simply jar shaped. The largish ornately carved jade symbol simply looks valuable. The number of hours of work to carve such a work by hand is simply incomprehensible.

Muiko examines the tiles beneath his feet. You think that these may aid in conjuration of elemental spirits.

The goliath does not get much further than removing the rope and beginning to unfurl the lead as he stoops to begin tying his knots when...

This is when Chat wants to jump away at the motion.

This is when anyone with Sensitivity to Observation feels like their being watched.

And two open obsidian hands smack into Attilius hitting both his ears for 32 points of damage.

Initiative, intent, rolls and... COMBAT!

[DM Bob]

[We can keep combat to this thread. There was a personal debate that I messaged between friends last night about whether golems constitute being a trap. They specifically don't detect as magic as per description and they are said to be alive, animated by elemental spirits. Thus not mechanical in nature. I wanted this to be clear as certain detections were active that they've been under proper consideration. I even reread the short story about the original Jewish clay golem before posting, and much like Pinocchio, there is life (just angry life) involved.]

[AthasianLaborer]

Initiative 6 (rolled 4 -1 for Dex +3 for Casting Time)

The urgency of the moment causes 'Muiko to totally overlook his act, openly casting Slow as the air fills with chalk motes and the sounds of scribbles.  The taste of gum arabic and the greasy feeling are brief.

Question regarding next rounds intent: Does the Obsidian statue count as a creature?  If yes, next rounds intent is to Polymorph Other the Obsidian statue into live prey (athasian hare or something like that) for Yvera.

If Yvera gets an action too?  She uses Grease on the tile the Obsidian statue is standing in, trying to not catch Attilius (it's a 10'x10' area it covers)

[DM Bob]

'Muiko knows little about such constructs. As for your familiar, it is free to act as well.