FFd6 - Group 2

[Truce]

When everyone agrees to leave, your group plus Icon head towards the Airship docks. As promised, transportation has been provided - a ride to Ilium, a city located near the edge of the desert. After acquiring some supplies so that you don't die from dehydration or starvation, or get burnt to a crisp, or otherwise die a horribly stupid death before your mission even began, you acquired chocobos and sped off into the desert.

It's almost sundown on the second day of travel when you finally arrive at your destination - a small oasis in the middle of the desert. Near the water, some of the vegetation has been cleared, revealing the entrance of the ruins. However, Jal notices Icon's eye widen slightly at the stone cover, which has already been pulled open.

There are signs of people arriving before you did. A number of people had already entered the ruins, though...

Fortunately, it seems though they had never come out.

Icon analyzed the situation. As his master expected, someone else had heard about the ruins after all. The worst case scenario had been avoided, though; the treasure they were looking for would likely still be inside.

However, Icon decided that while it would be ideal for them to simply wait for the other intruders to come out with the treasure, their supplies likely wouldn't permit them to wait too long.

"I assume this shouldn't pose any problem for your group," he says, handing over the map to Jal.

The map is straight forward. The ruins are a series of chambers, following a straight line that gets progressively deeper. For most people, it would be impossible to get lost within its halls.

Its main purpose however is to point out the traps located inside. Though there seem to be nothing noted in the first few chambers, the hallway that follows immediately after the third marks a series of tiles - though you would have to go inside to figure out the reason they were marked.

[Krylo]

Looking over the map for a few moments, marking in his memory how many chambers in the first marked traps are, Jal rolls up the map and tucks it into his cloak before turning back to his compatriots with a decidedly unsettling grin on his face.

"Well, looks like things are going to be a bit more interesting than we expected. You all try to stay one room behind me, I'll wave you forward when it's safe. Well then, no time to waste, if we're going to get to the prize in time, eh?" he said as he turned and entered the caverns, seeming to disappear into the shadows almost immediately.

-------
Moving forward cautiously with stealth. Will search the first chamber, and then poke my head out to suggest they all come in if it is safe (or if the other treasure hunters are visible immediately).

May or may not (attempt to) disarm traps, depending.

[Truce]

As Jal climbs down the stairs into the first chamber, the first thing he notes is that there are torches lit on the walls. The room is a simple rectangle, with no decorations within it save for the inscriptions on the wall. However, even if one were not familiar with the Ancient language, one could easily recognize a pattern of symbols that repeat over and over all around them. These symbols, however, are not distributed in a uniform or organized matter - no, many of them seem to have been carved hastily into the stones they occupy, with no regard to their size or orientation. It seems that whoever made this tried to fill every inch of these walls with those symbols - and they certainly succeeded.

Jal, however, could read Ancient. Even in the flickering light of the torches, it was easy enough to figure out that phrase that was etched into everything.

"Beware the Atrocity of Grace."

The second and third chambers were no different. Those same inscriptions appeared everywhere along the walls, and those rooms seemed to have no other purpose but to hold those words. Jal, fortunately, sees no sign of the other intruders or any traps - until he reaches the hallway that was marked in the map.

There, the floor is segmented into different tiles similar to the ones on the map - and the walls on either side are riddles with spherical holes. Jal immediately recognizes them for what they were - in certain places, arrows have embedded themselves opposite of some of the holes, and more than one seems to have drawn blood.

There are no bodies here, however. Whoever was here was no doubt further in.

[Krylo]

As Jal stood before the tiles he pulled out the map and looked at it for a few moments, carefully marking the tiles that were marked on the map and those which were not in his mind. After he felt he had something of an understanding of which was which, he pulled out a pair of somewhat heavy stones from his cloak (Bottomless pockets: Truce said I don't have to use destiny as it's pretty minor) and tossed a stone onto a marked tile, watching and listening for any signs of the mechanism firing.

When nothing happened, he repeated the same actions, to the same less than exciting results, which lead him to stop for a moment and stare at the tiles, looking for dust and what not. It appeared that the party that had moved before them either didn't know about the trap or didn't care, stepping on both kinds of tile equally, at least at first, from what he could tell looking at the dust, but fewer steps happened on tiles that the map designated as they went on, and there appeared to be some blood on tiles a ways beyond the tiles the map had marked.

This, however, all still seemed a bit too inconclusive for the thief to risk his, and his guildmates' lives on, and so he moved to the edge of the tiles, consulting his map again, to find one that was marked and pushed on it with his hand. The tile moved in this time, the weight of the stones he had grabbed being, apparently, insufficient for the job, but still there was no trap to be sprung. Wondering on this, Jal repeated the step on an unmarked tile to find that it did not depress at all.

He stood up relatively confident he knew how the trap worked now, judging by the fact that they moved about with no concern at first and tapered off later, and that multiple people had apparently bloodied the arrows, he figured that it took multiple mistakes to actually set off the trap. How many, he wasn't sure of, but it was either that or it was out of ammo, and he doubted himself that lucky. Further, he determined that the unsafe tiles had been marked on the map, not the safer ones.

However, a vile thought entered his head of connecting the mechanism for the trap to some other trigger to catch the other group in case they got past himself and his companions, and so, drawing his blade he attempted to pry off one of the stones. Unfortunately, he couldn't get it under the stone, and after a few moments he elected that it was not worth injury that would result in continued attempts at this time. Though he still did want to get a look at the trap, for purely academic reasons.

"Ah well... maybe later..." he mumbled to himself as he stood up and looked over the map and the floor once more.

In his mind he quickly marked out a relatively safe route through the stones. There wasn't any straight dash that he could make without hitting a marked tile, but there was one that wouldn't hit a marked tile until the very last tile row.

Hunching down, Jal sized up the distance and dashed across with blinding speed, making a quick leap as he reached the edge of the last tile trusting in his speed to get him across the eight feet before the arrows could catch him if he was wrong about the mechanism.

As luck would have it, however, he seemed to be correct and no arrows fired. Skirting around the tile he had leaped, Jal walked back to the entrance cautiously while avoiding the tiles marked on the map. As he walked through the entrance to the previous chamber he gestured the rest of the party in with him.

"Step only on the tiles I step on," he said quietly as he pointed to the arrows in the walls, though he allowed a smile to spread across his face as he pointed out the bit of blood on the ground. "You're all fortunate you've got me along. Whomever's in there ahead of us wasn't bright enough to figure this out."

With that he walked slowly across the tiles, making sure that everyone else followed along behind him and didn't touch any of the dangerous ones, looking at his map the whole way.

[phil_]

Bello looked around the walls of the chambers curiously. "Hey, what does all this writing say? Looks kinda creepy. Also, maybe one of you guys should grab a torch. I would but..." Bello stood on his tip toes and waved an arm above his head to demonstrate the hopelessness of his reaching a torch. "I could get one down with magic, but we're trying to be quiet, right?"

[The Argent Lord]

Vit took two torches, handing one to Bello. Then, stepping lightly, he followed Jal across the tiles.

[Bard The 5th LW]

"You're all fortunate you've got me along. Whomever's in there ahead of us wasn't bright enough to figure this out."

"Be careful," Ralts said as he to grabbed a torch off the wall. "Saying something like that is liable to get you killed a moment later," the mage continued with an amused voice as he carefully followed Vit across the riles, scanning the walls, worried that Jal may have overlooked something.

[Truce]

Your group passes through the hallway without incident. Making your way past the tiles carefully, everything seems to be going smoothly.

That is, until you reach the end of the hallway.

The next room is pitch black; there's only a faint light at the other end, where the other exit was. It's impossible to tell just how wide the room is, though judging from the map it should be slightly bigger than the first few chambers. However, unlike the hallway, which only pointed out which tiles to avoid, there is only a single straight arrow going straight through the room.

Still, though you cannot see anything inside of the room, or hear any movement coming from it, you can smell blood - which only grows stronger as you approach.

[phil_]

"Well, if nobody minds me making noise, I can always send this torch in to scout." Bello spun his lute from his back to his front. "What do you say?"

[Krylo]

"We'll call that plan B, if I have any trouble with this room, alright? I'd rather not alert the people in front of us before absolutely necessary. Stay here, I'll be back in a minute," Jal said as he pulled down his own torch from a nearby wall, shining it into the room ahead.

The light splashed across the previously darkened floor, revealing the corpse of something near the center of the room, though little else could be seen. Poking his head through, Jal looked at the walls quickly, checking for signs of more arrow or spear holes, and, once satisfied, stepped through the door revealing the backs of two massive statues in full armor and allowing the light to shine more fully on the body.

The body had, at one time, belonged to a galkan. The more moral amongst those gathered might have felt a pang of regret at this as they watched from the door, knowing that galkans had no way of increasing their numbers, and so this death brought their race one step closer to extinction in a very real way.

Jal, however, had no time for such thoughts as he studied the floor near the body and the body itself. The galkan had been carrying a torch and a gun. Both now crushed, much like the galkan's body. The object used to crush the poor being appeared to be a very large sword of some sort, as best as Jal could tell, but not one sharp enough to cut as a normal weapon would.

The statues, however, weren't facing the dead galkan. He, and Jal, were behind them, and their pose, in their stone armor, looked as though they were chasing something.

Jal now believed he knew how this trap worked, and was glad that he elected to come in instead of sending the torch. The torch would have just gotten smashed and left everyone thinking that they would just have to sprint across as fast as possible, and god only know what evils the next room would have if they ran straight into it like that.

However, just to be sure of his theory he wound up and lobbed his torch out in front of the two stone giants and toward the left side of the room. It clattered on the floor, burning brightly as the statues jerked to life, their heads turning toward it as dust fell from their joints, followed by the stomping sounds of their feet. Each step caused Jal to cringe a little as he silently hoped that he wasn't alerting the others who had come before, until finally one of the statues brought down its sword, crushing the torch to dust. Then, there was silence.

After a few moments, those listening and watching at the entrance may have heard the rustling of clothes being moved near the center of the room, followed by the light at the other end of it being interrupted by the silhouette of a man in a hooded cloak, as he looked into the far room.

The silhouette disappeared quickly, and shortly after Jal appeared back in the doorway with something of a fiendish smile, obviously quite pleased with himself. "This time I was brighter than the map makers... but you should all wait here. There's a mechanism in the next room that I don't trust. The entire room smells like a death trap," the vaguely disguised Mithra said as glanced at the light shining through the far door. "If you happen to hear my death screams, the only way to safely make it through this room is to put out your lights and follow along the right hand wall."

With his message given Jal seems to disappear once more. He does appear to be quite good at that, but, then, he should be.

The party could see his silhouette in the light once more, if they cared to watch and wait, and this time he seemed to be moving about, playing with some sort of contraption. Anyone watching would have a hard time telling exactly what he was doing but after a few moments he disappeared into the darkness again, followed by the sound of something heavy being dragged across the ground. Two silhouettes appeared in the light after that, one laying against the edge of the door, the other reaching up and then doing something to the first. Followed by the second silhouette, presumably Jal, hopping 'down' into the next room and disappearing.

It's a few minutes later before the silhouette reappeared in the door, holding a torch this time. It crouched down before moving with high speed into the shadowed room, the torch dropping behind it just past the doorway. The ancient stone guardians awoke once more to crush the light source as Jal kept up his frenzied pace, sliding into the room where the rest of the party waited. He pulled himself to his feet after a second and caught his breath with a snakish grin on his face, "The others are in the last room, behind a closed door. I have a plan. If you all hide just outside this room," he said pointing back to the first of the untrapped rooms, "On either side of the door, I'll go open the last door, and set off all the traps behind me as they chase. And then, if they're still in any position to fight, we'll finish them there, and take the book."