Traps and living statues

Next, we went to the force wall and Treble checked it out for traps. He noticed pressure plates in the floor and a hidden control panel. Treble assured everyone that the pressure plates were disabled, but when he stepped on it, he and Aurora were blown back. He managed to trigger the trap two or three times before managing to disable the force wall. At that point, we decided to head back up to rest. Brogar was laying on the trap door, but he let us in when Phelaia spoke to him with her mind. We rested there, and the next morning, under the ostensible cover of augmenting her weapon's accuracy, I got to take a good look at Phelaia's staff. By the creator's sigil imbued onto it, I could see that she is still using the weapon that Nasira made for her. I'm glad to see that it is still serving her well.

We went into the underground lair and again, we drank the magic water. This time, I got the power to discern lies, and Phelaia got the ability to speak with the dead. Colvin, on the other hand, didn't fare so well and ended up feeling quite ill. (That same night, Aurora, Brogar, and I healed him, so he did not have any lasting effects.) We proceeded through the now-disabled force wall and into another room. Through there, Treble told us that he saw a lightning trap ahead into the next room. So several of us crowded into the small anteroom to check it out, and found ourselves shot with poison needles. Ouch. In the end, I bolstered Phelaia with strength and she and Treble headed in to disable the lightning trap.

We found ourselves at another large room with runes on the floor. We were debating the best cautious and tactical approach to take, when Colvin exclaimed "It's time to be bold!" and charged in. Immediately four fire elementals appeared in the runes and all attacked him. He dropped and found himself dying, until I healed him. That's twice now that I've saved his life. Then, after I brought him back up, he was trying to find the best way out of the pickle he'd got himself into, and the best plan he could come up with was to roast the area before fleeing. Unfortunately, Brogar was standing there and wasn't looking too hot, and Colvin pretty much did him in, too. I brought Brogar back up, too, and together we all destroyed the fire elementals. Weaker ones kept appearing as time passed, and Aurora ran over to the brazier and pushed it over, causing it to break into rubble. The runes went dark and the summoning stopped.

We entered the next room, which was filled with statues and a grid of letters on the floor. We checked out the statues (except Aurora who was knocking them over and vandalizing the place). Between Phelaia and me, we weren't able to figure out how to work the puzzle or how to disable the trap. Treble got tired of waiting and put his foot on the letter "C," immediately causing five of the statues to come alive. The statues seemed pretty strong--one of the fist ones dealt a pretty devastating blow to Phelaia right off. I shot some bolts at the crossbow one, hindering its ability to attack, while boosting the abilities of my allies to attack and cause damage to their targets. The cobra statue poisoned Brogar and Mishaan, and after taking a bunch of hits, Brogar dropped again. This time, Colvin helped bring him back up, offering an apology as he healed the paladin.

After defeating the statues, we determined that the puzzle activated a magical teleportation device. After a number of unsuccessful tries, we finally decided to have four of us stand on a letter each spelling "CROW," and the statue that we had put into the teleporter disappeared. Now we know how to activate that when we are ready to come back and go into the vault tomorrow. In the meantime, we healed Colvin and Phelaia talked to the dead, asking them how to get safely to the vault and inquiring about their next planned quests before their deaths. I suggested moving the enchantment from our unused longsword to another weapon, and Aurora was interested in upgrading her mace, so I spent some time in the evening imbuing the magic onto her mace and removing the enchantment from the longsword. I'm happy with the finished product, and I think it will serve her needs well.