The exception to the illusions is the doors; the doors appear wooden, but they're actually made out of matrite.
Atheele goes over to the door on the upper left, with Kenlow, and they carefully push it open.
Behind the door is a largish room, about 40x30, and there are a number of benches placed vertically against the north and south walls, reminescent of the temple that the party was just in.
At the far end of the room is a raised platform, with an altar above it, and another small room is barely visible behind it.
Akili wanders into the opened room when there is clearly no one inside, and spellcrafts the area. He picks up on a Desecration spell placed on the Altar, but "There aren't any illusions, Atheele." Except for the one over the northern door, which is yet again one of wood over matrite, which Sarai figures out. The smaller wooden door to the south, though, appears to actually be wood.
Kenlow takes a sounding of the room, and finds that the small room is actually a hallway, and there are a few more hallways and small chambers nearby.
Oyaht casts his Scrying spell again, this time on Matro, and sees him in a room, peering into a mirror-shaped object in the floor. Through it, Oyaht can see Sarai and Akili.
Oyaht backs up a little to get out of the sensor's range, and whispers to Akili that Matro is spying on them, but to not panic.
Akili struggles to keep the fur on the back of his neck from rising.
Andune lines up behind Oyaht, also safely out of range.
Atheele, fortunately, has already spotted the sensor on his own, and whips out his bow, firing arrows again, and destroys it.
Through Oyaht's sensor, he sees Matro's mirror abruptly disappear. He grunts in irritation, then peeks over his shoulder, reaches out a hand, and crushes Oyhat's sensor. Her scrying spell abruptly ends.
Relieved that Matro isn't spying on them - for the moment - Akili goes down to the door on the bottom, and attempts to open the door, but it's locked. Forgetting that he's trying to be subtle, he draws out his lockpick (the plasma sword) and barely manages to not slice himself open with his own blade, as it not only reflects but *fractures* into several bits of sword lengths, off of the 'wooden' door. Clearly, it is actually matrite after all.
Kenlow approaches the corridor in the far end of the room, feeling rather queasy as he passes by the altar, and peers down both sides, with doors at either end, but the corridor itself is strange. Going north, the floor slopes up, and hanging from the sixty-foot-high ceiling, pointing towards the floor, is a bronze dragon, wedged into the ten-foot width, which may or may not be a statue... right now, though, it is certainly not moving. And if it were alive, it would be decidedly uncomfortable.
The rest of the party follows after Kenlow, figuring it would be wise to not wander too far away from the Godslayer. Atheele attempts to disbelieve the bronze dragon, but whatever it is, it's definitely there. Akili spellcrafts it, and is baffled, and relays his confusion to Sarai, asking her to spellcraft it as well. She readily agrees, and while she's not sure about the dragon, the floor is covered with a alchemical chemical that is capable of conducting electricity.
Akili opines that this is probably a trap of some description. Atheele, having some experience with alchemical compounds, determines that not only does it conduct electricity, but it will also become slippery when electrified.
Kenlow, knowing that bronze dragons breathe lightning, he looks up at the 'statue', and asks in Draconic, "Hail thee, kin, are thee friend or foe?" There is no answer.
Kenlow fires some lightning into the substance, and it temporarily darkens, before returning to its original sheen.
Atheele, thinking he'll use some of his acid stash to clear off the substance, pokes around to see if he can spot any abnormalities in the floor first, such as pressure plates, and doesn't find any.
Andune then walks in, and promptly confirms that it's a trap. The idea is that if you go up the hall, you'll be zapped by lightning, which will cause the substance to slicken, leaving you to slide back down the hall.
Kenlow carefully climbs up the walls, having sticky fingers, and climbs up to the bronze dragon. As he draws closer, he determines that it is actually made of good, but styled to look like bronze.
As he draws close to the dragon head, it fires lightning at the general area, covering the area around Kenlow. He also gets the idea of channeling Air in an attempt to 'catch' the lightning ball that is created by the trap, to fling it back at the statue. Kenlow takes some slight damage from the attempt, but flings most of it back at the dragon, which unfortunately is still firing. He crawls back to rejoin the party, and sits down in a lotus position for no explained reason.
Andune moves down to the door near the tower, and picks up the sound of some 30 guards. Atheele goes up to the door, and is able to determine by sound that they're playing cards and dice, and ten of them are sleeping.
Perhaps not very wisely, Akili judges the distance between himself and the dragon statue, pulls out his 8-Ball, and fires off one of its Weirdness effects, figuring that whatever happens has a good chance of disrupting or breaking the trap.
From the 8-Ball, an arm appears, wearing white gloves and white sleeves that extend to the gloves, and around the wrist is agold bracer. A voice says, "I think you really need this cosmic ray." A brilliant beam of energy lances forth with a keening noise, and blackens the statue, but it is still there.
Sarai, having finished flipping through her spellbook, attempts to cast Spider Climb, but realizes the spider she put in the bottle has died. Andune casts it on Sarai, who climbs over and investigates its muzzle, and while it's blackened, she determines it's made of gold. She then attempts to see if she can detach it from the wall.
Akili points out that if she puts the bag around its muzzle, it can't fire lightning at anyone, but Sarai points out that she doesn't want to damage her bag.
Sarai eventually concludes that the statue is magically mounted to the wall with an arcane effect that she doesn't recognize, but the trigger appears to have been destroyed or otherwise disabled.
Moving back to the party, she listens to their plants of freeing the dragon. Atheele suggests using acid, but with gold against matrite, it's probably not going to dissolve much.
Kenlow mentions that he owes a dragon a debt of gold, which this statue would pay off. Sarai ignores him.
She address Andune, volunteers that he can lightning-bolt the floor. Akili suggests his sword, at which point Sarai assembles her plan: she'll cut the statue free after Andune electrifies the floor, causing the statue to fall, slide along the sloped floor, and through the wooden door, into the area where the 30-some soldiers are camped out.
The rest of the party moves into the small passageway that leads into the hallway, out of the statue's way. As they prepare, Sarai realizes that Kenlow's earlier lightning effect was also sufficient, and Andune prefers that, so he can hold onto his spell.
Sarai climbs up the wall with the Scepter of Eryn, attempting to cut down the statue in such a way that it will not fall on her as it goes, with the intent of Kenlow electrocuting the floor approximately at the same time the statue falls.
The attempt is almost successful, except that the door at the bottom is made of matrite... the statue crushes up against the door. It's also blocking off the rest of the party, so Sarai wields the sword to cut the statue into chunks to stuff in her bag of holding. Unfortunately, it's not all gold; some of it is chunks of steel. Everyone is irritated, but they still salvage what they can.
Grinning, Akili asks Atheele, "Hey, are the other ten sleeping guards awake yet?" His question is punctuated by a clangity-clang-clang against the door at the bottom, as the guards attempt to open the door with the giant statue now resting against it.
As the party moves up the corridor, they hear sounds approaching from the chapel area, indicating that the guards are following them. Atheele works on using a couple vials of acid to etch off some of the slippery stuff, so the rest of the party won't slide into the guards when lightning is inevitably flung.
Atheele gives Sarai a thunderstone, instructing her to throw it down the hall. She turns and hands it to Kenlow, to use at his later determination. He puts it in a pocket.
As guards pour into the south end of the corridor, they start peeking through the hole Sarai carved through the statue.
Kenlow crawls up the wall to the ceiling.
Akili then chucks one of his growing seeds at the hole in the statue the guards are starting to emerge out of. Atheele notices the movement, and hands the seed Akili have him earlier back to him.
One of the guards manages to leap forward out of the growing underbrush, putting him in the direct line of fire of the rest of the party.
Andune pulls out his bow that he almost forgot he had, and while he whiffs the first shot, the second one is well-aimed, pegging the reflexive but unwise guard.
Oyaht checks the door behind them, and confirms that it's another matrite door.
The guard takes out his bow, and starts firing, but is too unnerved and in pain to aim quite so well.
Atheele, realizing how long it's taking him to etch off the material with the acid, decides not to care about that. Drawing his own bow, he shoows a flurry of arrows at the single guard, dropping him effortlessly.
Since the rest of the guards are cut off, Sarai knocks on the door, but isn't able to determine anything useful. (You're not Kenlow, Sarai!) She tries, and is able to open the door. It opens into another fairly small room, with a single door out. She walks in, seeing nothing threatening. Disregarding the guards for now, Akili joins them, as does Kenlow.
Andune follows in as well, searching for illusions and traps, and only spots the typical door illusions.
Atheele also joins the party, and quickly spots a scrying sensor, destroying it. Oyaht also leaves the corridor. As soon as he gets inside, Sarai listens at the next door, hears nothing, and opens it, which opens into a cross corridor, with doors in all three directions.
Akili, stepping up to Sarai, Spellcrafts the room, and detects a small bit of magic near one of the doors. Suspecting that it's another sensor, he calls for Atheele to investigate it when he has a moment. Finishing his destruction of the current sensor, Atheele then goes over to see what Akili was talking about.
Andune also steps into the cross-room, and peeks around the corner Akili was gesturing towards. She spots sixteen little levers in the wall, numbered 1 through 16, in four rows, each with three positions, with a message scrawled above them: 'I and myself and myself make four, but nothing is five and six'. The top and bottom rows are all up, and the middle rows are all down.
While the rest of the party looks at it, Andune carefully reaches towards the levers to investigate them, and feels an intense heat. Sarai suggests that Akili destroy them with his sword, which he's skeptical of.
Sarai goes to investigate the panel, since she's more protected with her ring of elemental protection. She can tell it's blazing hot, but it doesn't hurt her one bit. She asks Akili for his scepter, which he hands over. She thinks about the puzzle, and pokes at it, and attempts to chop into it with the sword, quickly determining that the entire panel and the levers are made out of matrite.
Atheele then spots another sensor, and destroys it, while Akili attempts a Knowledge: Arcana check against the panel. Neither the riddle nor the switches are familiar; he expects that the heat is due to a invisible Wall of Fire.
Akili suggests that Sarai loan Andune the elemental resistance ring so he can safely fiddle with the mechanism. Sarai agrees, and Andune sees what he can do.
He picks out the entire area of the Wall of Fire effect, and is *certain* that those levers don't trigger anything. With that statement, the party stops bothering with it. Atheele then picks up on the sound of dripping water to the east.
Sarai goes up to the eastern door, and pushes it open. This pathway leads into a large room, about 35x50, with a 30' ceiling, and there are lots of stalacties made of matrite hanging down. There is also a single pair of boots, which seem to still contain feet. Ew. Or bones, rather; it's at least seventy years old.
There is a creature hanging from the ceiling. Akili recognizes it as a Lurker, having summoned one fairly recently. It looks exactly like a stalactite, except for the blinking eyes. While the party is briefly distracted by the sounds of approaching soldiers, they lose track of it.
Sarai steps a slight five feet into the room, and casts a levitation spell to draw the boots towards her, and she spellcrafts them, determining that they're just really nasty boots. She puts them in her bag of holding.
Atheele points it out to Akili, who still can't see it. Atheele complains, "You *still* can't see it? Here!" He draws his bow, and fires four arrows at it. They all stick. Several stalactites are shambling in their direction. The party rapidly retreats and closes the door.
Kenlow and Andune, still next to the south cross-corridor door, open it. Below is a room that joins into the chapel below, about 30x30. In the center is a round table with chairs surrounding it. The room is currently unoccupied. Andune walks into the room, inspecting the short hall to the right, and discovers another closed door. As she steps towards the door, he hears a click, and a whirling wall of blades is now behind her, although they're not moving.
Kenlow reaches into his pouch, and pulls out a length of matrite, and instructs Andune to cover his face and eyes, while Andune attempts to disable the trap. Her attempt fails, and the length of matrite is torn out of Kenlow's hands, and is randomly hurled at Andune, which painfully bounces off of her.
Sarai joins Matro, and thinks about using her immovable rods to stop the blades, but concludes that she's not fast enough to stick one in and trigger it before it would be knocked out of her hand.
Oyaht, closing the last door behind the party, sees the concern of Kenlow and Sarai, and joins them to spot the blade barrier spell, much like his own, that has imprisoned Andune. He casts Dispel Magic, and successfully negates the spell. Shortly after that, Akili and Atheele join the others, and another scrying sensor is quickly spotted and destroyed.
Andune successfully picks the lock on the closed door she was previously trapped against, and opens it. Behind the door appears to be a blank wall. Oyaht puts a hand against it, and feels matrite.
Kenlow picks up one of the chairs next to the table, and tosses it at the door to the south, which leads into the chapel. It clatters against the door, and one of its legs break off. No apparent trap is triggered.
Akili spellcrafts the wall, and concludes that the wall is actually there, and that the trap is still active. Andune and Oyaht carefully step back through, not triggering the trap.
There is a bit of discussion about what to do here - Sarai makes the very good point that as long as they follow the 'rules', they have a very slim chance of getting to Matro. Akili agrees, but with Matro's palace being made out of matrite, breaking through it seems beyond their abilities. Akili then suggests that Atheele try the Mace of Ruin against a matrite-made object, such as the northern door, as it is particularly powerful. Unfortunately, it does nothing useful.
Akili asks Sarai if she has figured out any way of breaking through it, with what she has learned. She regrettably says she has not, but also makes the point that just because they can't break through the structure doesn't mean it can't be subverted to their purpose.
Andune discerns that there is something odd about that northern door, but can't determined what it was. Atheele goes up with her, and finds an illusion concealed a recessed panel. Andune manages to disbelieve the illusion, and doesn't see any traps. Atheele reaches in to grasp the handle, and opens the door.
After the door is opened, another empty room with three doors is revealed. Nobody detects anything out of the ordinary, except Andune, which picks up on the signs of a magical trap, but isn't sure where it is. He steps a small distance into the room, and determines that if he stepped any farther, he'd trigger it, so he attempts to disable it... and is successful! She found the trigger to disable, but isn't sure what kind of trap it was linked to. She doesn't spot any other triggers.
The rest of the party follow Andune inside. Both he and Atheele hear dripping water from the north and west doors; the east leads into the earlier lurker room.
Akili goes back and closes the doors the party went through to get into this room; no point in making it easy for whoever might be following them.
Kenlow steps into the center of the room, kneels, and starts praying again to Annor's Gods, something along the lines of, 'May the souls of all those claimed by Matro's hand or in Matro's name, and may the karma of Matro's actions in the genocide of his own people, guide us to him and help us slay him with proper slayage and... make that proper retribution.' In response, he thinks that North is the proper direction. He knocks on the door, and hears an ominous click from the other side. He then pushes it open.
There is another 30x40 room with a corridor at the far end. Lying there, roughly in the center north of this room, is an old skeleton of what appears to be an adventurer, with a small pile of gold next to it.. Andune picks up on a trap, and thinks the skeleton is the trigger for it.
Atheele predictably finds an destroys another sensor. There appears to be one in every room. Both he and Andune also spot a secret door, and it doesn't seem to be an illusion.
Andune steps up to the secret door, and listens at it, while the rest of the party steps in. Not hearing anything, she activates the switch, and the door slides open, revealing a stairwell, going up and to the east. It stops at a small landing, then turns south, still going up.
Grouping themselves into a marching order, everyone ascends the stairs, checking for the miscellaneous traps, or other hidden doors, or more scrying sensors, and stuff of that nature.
What they fail to detect is the dragon-bone golem that was standing around the corner from the platform, that gives Kenlow a pretty solid whack.
As Kenlow staggers back, Sarai steps up and unleashes her own spell, Improved Combustion, a variant of Thrindle's Combustion, which explodes around the golem, scorching its bones.
Atheele draws his newly-obtained Mace of Ruin, comes up the stairs swinging. He solidly connects.
Andune throws an Ice Storm spell at it next, pummeling it with frozen stones of ice. It is damaged, but something else about the spell seems to have harmed it in a not immediately discernable way.
Kenlow, still managing to cling to the wall, launches a flurry of blows at the golem, some of which connect.
Akili also steps forward, and stabs it with the plasma blade, doing some more damage.
The golem lashes out at Kenlow again, for a painful 26 points. Kenlow staggers, but still does not fall.
Oyaht pulls out her Kwalish and climbs in.
Circling back to Sarai, she steps up within its range to safely cast another one of her Improved Combustion spells, careful to aim it such that it doesn't hurt Kenlow, Akili, or Atheele that are right up next to it. It goes off, but doesn't do quite so much damage as it did the first time.
Atheele swings his Mace of Ruin again, and whacks it very hard.
Kenlow draws Godslayer, and strikes the golem with it. For 120 points of damage. Doing more damage to it in one pair of attacks than anyone had done up to this point. Fortunately, there were no scrying sensors in this particular passage, leaving Matro still unaware, for now, of what they carry.
Akili strikes again, and deals a moderate amount of damage with his pair of blows.
Oyaht summons his Hound Archon, and it promptly attacks the golem as well, striking it with its greatsword.
The golem strikes Kenlow again, smacking him for another 25 points.
Andune throws another ice storm, which unfortunately encompasses the Archon, but it can take it.
Kenlow whacks the golem with the Godslayer, and does a lot more damage, and then he escapes around the corner.
Akili weighs his changes, decides it's been enough, and steps back five feet... and unleashes Chaos Attack. The golem is promptly encased in carbonite, and combat ends.
As Oyaht heals up Kenlow, Akili decides to use his chaos die for an aid-query effect.
He barely dodges back out of the way as a bag of what sounds like coins falls at his feet. He hefts it curiously, then shrugs and hands it over to Sarai. 90cp, 110sp, and 100gp are contained in the bag.
Atheele asks him to do that again. Akili shrugs, considers that they're about to rest for the night anyway, and casts it out of his spell point total.
A door appears. Sarai listens at the door, and doesn't hear anything. Akili walks up and opens it.
In the room beyond, the environment is quite different. Very pleasant, after the oppressiveness of Matro's castle, with the scent of something yummy inside. Intrigued, Akili steps inside. There is a desk, table, chairs, cots... and it smells really nice. There's a fountain of chocolate in the corner. After an impressive spellcraft check, Akili determines that this entire place is edible. Dinner is served!
Sarai asks, "Hey Akili... did your spell just make a hole in matrite?" Akili is at first sure it was, but on reflection, concludes that it's probably just an extradimensional space.
Once Akili is sure the room is going to last a safely long time, the party retires inside to rest up, and otherwise enjoy the pleasant comfort. The door won't disappear on the other side when it is shut, but it includes a minor aversion spell. They decide to be okay with that, once they confirm that the secret door they opened has been closed behind them.
The game is paused here.