On a Spider's Advice...

[Kelleris]

I ought to get you to write down all these, for possible pilfering. All my knowledge of cant comes from Planescape: Torment.

Keys: [sblock] You rack your brains for anything that might help make sense of the situation - or prepare you for whatever dangers this place offers. Unfortunately, you don't come up with much. You do recall seeing little chapels like the one before you in other run-down areas of town, but you don't know what the significance is. You also recognize the old woman's song, badly whistled though it is. The "Services Rendered" sign could mean anything, though the business is likely the kind that relies on established customers. Possibly something black market, with a front shop. Or maybe a brothel or an unlicensed fortune-teller.

Your sweep of the street doesn't reveal much else, other than that the place is unsually clean for such a ramshackle street - no rats, no squatters, no refuse-piles. Focusing on the landmark spike, you can read a few of the larger graffiti, though. Most are the usual rubbish, proclaiming the love of two people you're fairly sure you don't care a bit about, or cursing the local boss. Others are seemingly nonsensical, jumbles of overlapping letters written by someone with dubious skills at the writing of Common: "OGV(something like a crude lightning bolt or jagged bit of material)BYIR" or "nahwod?nyt" Some of the very largest ones are carefully-drawn and slightly luminescent sigils of some kind - you have no recollection of anything similar, but you're not really a mage, are you? [/sblock]

 

[Ferrix]

I ought to get you to write down all these, for possible pilfering. All my knowledge of cant comes from Planescape: Torment.

Here's a good place to brush up.

 

[Uwohali]

Tyndra looks at the old lady in her chair, then turns to her companions. "Perhaps we should inquire as to our whereabouts. Keys, do you know where we're going?"

Tyndra looks around her cautiously, then pulls her cloak about her more tightly. I may enjoy spooky things, but this place gives me the willies.

"Keys, I'm going to talk to her. Why don't you and Skaith look around here; see what you can find?"

 

[Kelleris]

As you approach, the old woman glances up, her eyes narrowing, but in a moment she returns to her former attitude, leaning back in her chair with her eyes closed, waiting for you to say the first word.

 

[Ashy]

Skaith, intrigued by the spike, wanders over to examine it fully...

 

[Kelleris]

Skaith - Moving toward the obelisk, you cut through Madame Elsanna's bracken-filled yard, moving beyond the street's line of house to access your goal. As you pick your way through the weeds, the pillar comes more clearly into vision, and you notice a few things that you didn't notice before:

[sblock] Focusing on the landmark spike, you can read a few of the larger graffiti, though. Most are the usual rubbish, proclaiming the love of two people you're fairly sure you don't care a bit about, or cursing the local boss. Others are seemingly nonsensical, jumbles of overlapping letters written by someone with dubious skills at the writing of Common: "OGV(something like a crude lightning bolt or jagged bit of material)BYIR" or "nahwod?nyt". Some of the very largest ones are carefully-drawn and slightly luminescent sigils of some kind. Moving up to the wrought-iron fence surrounding the base of the structure, you study them more carefully. There seem to be a variety of spells tied to this structure - there's a minor enchantment designed to make it easier to locate via scrying, the light enchantment (some damaged sigils here), another spell to dampen the magical emanations of the pillar, and a variety of arcane marks left by sorcerously-inclined passers-by.

Studying the arcane marks, you recognize most of them as variations on well-known Guildmember glyphs, probably belonging to some apprentice or other. Nobody of any particular significance has left a mark here, though.

As you continue to trace the patterns of the spell-sigils, you notice that there is also a pattern of shallow scratches cut into the metal. It's not doing anything now, of course, but you think you could activate this myserious pattern with a sufficient charge of magical energy, were you so inclined. From your current vantage point, you can't tell what they do exactly, but they appear to circumscribe the othr enchantments on the iron landmark-spike, channeling them for some purpose. You've never seen anything like it before, and you've had the opportunity to study similar patterns in great depth in the past.

Your Spellcraft check - 35.

Your Knowledge (arcana) check - 30. [/sblock]

 

[Ashy]

Intrigued, Skaith summons the magical energy from deep within himself and places his hand upon the shallow cut marks. He re-focuses the flow of magical energy outward, into his hand, and into the cuts beyond...

 

[Kelleris]

I'm going to go ahead and tell Skaith what happens on his end, but his magic-making will take several minutes, so the other two should go ahead and post some actions.

Skaith: [sblock] Placing your hand on the pocked metal of the landmark obleisk, you channel a fair amount of your personal energy into the carefully-drawn maze of lines, just to see what happens. As you do so, you notice something that hadn't been obvious before - the scratches in the metal contain some kind of clear, dried substance, slick like snakeskin. You aren't familiar with this stuff right offhand, however.

Whatever it is, the effects are dramatic. Several of the arcane marks wink out and the light fluctuates wildly as their energy is drawn deep into the spire, along with your own. The ground under you starts to rumble threateningly, and you are thrown roughly to the ground when the earth under you suddenly buckles and falls away. As your hand leaves the iron surface of the landmark, the rumbling ceases and the flow of energy is broken.

Skaith has to spend a total of 7 spell levels to trigger the effect - how do you want to divvy that up?[/sblock]

 

[Ashy]

DM: [sblock]I guess start with lowest (0) and work my way up. Let me know what I have left, please.[/sblock]

 

[Kelleris]

Skaith: [sblock] Well, as I said, it costs 7 spell levels; so working from the bottom and assuming you haven't cast any spells today leaves you with 0/1/5/4/2. [/sblock]