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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 3365298" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #384] We Were Dumb[/PLAIN]"Oi, what be that?" Karak grunted his ruddy face gone suddenly pale. He started clanking back down the narrow hallway shouting, "Are you all alright? Aryemac? Shamalin? Ixin?"Morier and Huzair followed on his heels.Shamalin was once again slapped roughly on the face by the irony which had begun to plague her life since she'd been discovered by The Order. That her life had been saved by something that had once belonged to the monster who had tortured her almost to death was very nearly perverse. It was also true. If she hadn't been wearing the heavy plate armor, she'd have probably been squashed into paste by the crushing trap. As it was, her left arm was twisted horribly - sprained if not broken by the impact - and her head was ringing from the rough contact with the wall, but her internal organs remained in place, protected by the thickness of her enemy's former-breastplate.She heard a series of racheting clicks as the far wall pulled back, releasing her and her companions. Somehow the pain was greater with the pressure removed and her knees unhinged, dropping her to the tiled floor with a cry. Beside her, both Ayremac and Ixin fell bonelessly to the ground. Neither of them were conscious, she saw and she'd reached for her holy symbol and was muttering a curative before she fully realized what she was doing.Karak clattered around the corner, arriving at the doorway to the tiled room in time to glimpse turning gears and an enormous steel piston pull the right-most wall back into position. Then it snapped back into place and only the muffled clicking of the clockwork hinted that there was anything off about the wall at all. He saw only the merest fraction of the mechanism powering the trap, but he could tell that it was a marvel of engineering nonetheless.A deadly marvel.He stood in the doorway as Morier and Huzair piled up behind him."Mind yer step, lads," he warned them. "There may be more traps about.""Shamalin? Are you-" Morier started to ask, but a fierce look from the priestess silenced him. And anyway, the way her left arm hung limp at her side and blood trickled from beneath her helm down across her face answered his unspoken question."We were dumb!" she croaked as she moved from the stirring Ixin to Ayremac. The holy warrior was in bad shape; one of his ivory pinions was mangled horribly and wet with crimson. Shamalin's expression was pained as she went about the motions of healing him."Huzair," Karak grunted over his shoulder, "I suggest ye check for traps before enterin'." The mage snorted and pushed his way passed Morier to stand beside the dwarf."By the gods, you read my mind," the wizard sneared. "You are smarter than you look, Karak." He whacked the dwarf on the back of the helmet, which hurt Huzair's hand more than it did Karak's head. As he massaged his knuckles, he listened to the whirring and clicking behind the wall to his right; the trap was resetting, but it wasn't ready to activate again just yet."Watch and learn," Huzair said and proceded carefully forward into the room."Thank you," Ayremac said to Shamalin with a perfunctory nod as he flexed his newly restored wing. He turned away from the cleric and stood, saying, "I believe Umba can do the rest." He called on the goddess of the dead to grant him the power of Sacred Healing and felt positive energy suffuse his body."You guys should get out of here before the trap resets," Huzair said, cocking a thumb over his shoulder. To Ixin he said, "Ixin, gethrisjosvith ghoros irthos-korth." She nodded."Aurthon!" she agreed, hustling out of the chamber with the wall still clicking beside her. "Yarchonis marnuade duil." Ayremac followed her and after Shamalin had healed her own twisted arm she did the same, leaving Huzair alone in the room. He went to work at once and had just discovered a tile on the leftmost wall that had a hole in the center of the carved pupil that looked an awful lot like a keyhole."I found some-" he began to say but Karak cut him off with a startled bark of alarm."The wall's stopped its clickin', lad," he said. "I'm thinkin' the trap's reset."Huzair wasted no time. He sprinkled the pinch of Pixie Dust he had palmed before entering the room and immediately Levitated off the floor. "Pull me out!" he called, reaching out toward the doorway. Karak extended his banner pole and dragged the weightless mage out of the chamber."What now?" Morier asked. "Go back to the chests?""I found what looks like a keyhole in there," Huzair said. "With some luck, I should be able to pick it without triggering the-"He stopped as an ominous vibration moved through the floor followed by a thunderous KA-CHONK!!! and a tremendous rush of air as the wall slammed outward passed the doorway again. The wall remained in place for a few seconds and then the clicking began again and it started to reset. This time they all had a chance to stare in awe at the complex clockwork mechanism driving the crushing wall trap as it retracted the stone bludgeon back into position.</blockquote>

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