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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 1287388" data-attributes="member: 1210">The Three-Armed StatueA four-armed statue squats grotesquely before our heroes.  Well, it was four-armed once; now one arm lies nearby, broken off.  “What do you think?  Coins?”  Lester is speculating on what they should put in the statue’s hands.Dubious, Drelvin says, “We don’t want to make it animate or anything...”“No, look, there’s a place to put stuff- it probably opens a secret door or something!” the L insists.  Drelvin slips a coin into each hand of the statue.  Nothing happens.  He tries again with gold instead of silver.  Still nothing.  She takes a closer look at the concavity.  “It’s about the right size for a gem,” Rex suggests. The party loads a gem into each of the three hands, and to their surprise- well, a little, anyhow- the hands clamp closed, crushing the gems to powder.  “Anyone see anything open or anything?” Thrush asks, glancing about.  There’s a moment of silence; plainly, no one sees anything obvious.  The group searches around for a few moments, and when Rex examines the broken arm on the floor, he finds something small and transparent- some kind of lens!  He exclaims in surprise and the party moves to examine the piece of treasure.  “It’s magic,” confirms Ulla after a moment.  Rex holds it to his eye and peers through it, and blinks back in surprise.  There’s a certain clarity through the lens...it’s indescribable, but somehow looking through the gem there’s a sense that he sees more correctly through it.  He reports his finding to the group, who all share his wonder.  Someone suggests that they might need it to find something, and the group resolves to use it when searching for secret doors in the future when possible.  A thorough search turns up nothing else, so the party crawls back out to where the larger Sybele and Azekia wait, in the hall of spheres (well, circles, really).  The two of them have been talking in the meantime, with the solar trying circuitously to talk Sybele over to the side of Good while Sybele inquires about the status of the warrants on herself and several other party members from the Court of Law.  That adventure seems an age ago, but it was only about six years, Sybele realizes.  Sadly, Sybele doesn’t seem too interested in changing her neutral ways.  On the other hand, Azekia isn’t entirely clear of the status of the legal problems the party has found it in, so it comes out even.  Nevertheless, it’s friendly discourse, and the two find each other to be respectable company until the other members of the party pop back out of the crawlway.  “What’d you find?” Sybele calls out excitedly, and the others tell the two that waited behind about the statue.  “Why are we here again?” Thrush asks, half-sarcastically.“Felenga’s phylactery,” Angelfire reminds him.  “The riddle.”  Thrush just grins.  He briefly considers taking one of his remaining doses of luhix (a drug he took off a defeated enemy’s corpse some time back) but wisely decides against it.“So what’s next?” asks Patyn.“Well, let’s finish checking for secret doors here,” Sybele suggests.  “Maybe some more of these circles have crawlways behind them.”  So the party resumes their search, triggering another spring-loaded hammer trap that strikes Rex a stinging blow, and soon the party finds another crawlway.“I’m not gonna be able to go anywhere,” Sybele groans. “We can find a way,” Angelfire says confidently.  “For now, why don’t you two stay here and we’ll go check it out.”  Sybele nods and the rest of the group other than herself and Azekia move, one by one, into the small crawlspace.  After they’re gone, Sybele looks at Azekia and smiles.  “I guess we’re gonna have more time to get to know each other better,” she says brightly.The rest of the group worms its way forward slowly- twenty feet, forty feet, eighty feet of twisting tunnel.  “This is ridiculous!” moans Drelvin, not too happy to be an elf bellycrawling underground in an evil tomb.  The tunnel keeps going- forever, it seems like.  Finally, Angelfire, in the lead, comes to a blank wall  She gives out a choked cry of despair, but then uses the cusp.  A secret door is plainly visible!Excited, she starts feeling the edges of it, trying to find a mechanism.  Soon she detects a small stud; depressing it causes the secret door to slide aside!  Angel scrambles out of the tunnel and looks around wildly, not wanting to be taken by surprise; but there’s no sign of an enemy to fight.  Instead, there are three rows of pews facing an opalescent blue altar.  A tiled mosaic path leads between the pews and a dais upon which sits the altar; and the skeleton of some hapless human lies blasted on the floor, pointing an accusing finger at an archway of roiling orange mists of an exciting hue.“Another arch,” comments Thrush dryly.“Yep,” says Rex.The walls are painted with bizarre scenes of normal life- except the figures depicted, such as farmers, craftsmen, etc. are shown with skeletal hands, rotting flesh, worms eating them, and other weird imagery.  Even stranger, there are several images of holy symbols of good alignment.  Patyn sneers; clearly, it’s some sort of attempt at sowing doubt and confusion in attackers.  He won’t fall for such an obvious ploy.Rex moves to search the altar.  As soon as he touches it, however, the altar reacts rather harshly....Next Time: The Chapel of Evil!</blockquote>

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