Turn 20: Exploration"Hey, guys, this vortex is safe to travel around. Come on, let's go!"
Keep checking out rooms until I get a roll of 4 or higher.
[4] You find a larger, more interesting room. Some of the debris is algae or barnacles instead of just rocks!
More importantly, the doorway in the back leads to a somewhat darker hall. It's small, only large enough for one person and awfully short. It occurs to you that it is a lot easier to move through when you're swimming rather than trying to walk, though.
The hallway leads right to a short set of stairs going down and left to a small set of steps leading up. The halls both turn and branch somewhat, but the basic pattern of left to go up and right to go down seems somewhat steady. Unfortunately, there's no other way to tell what's what- you don't know what's off in those side rooms, you can't find any significance or deviation to the architecture, etc. The only thing you do note is that whatever this light is, it's apparently only active in the rooms facing the vortex- the hallway is periodically lit by doorways leading from said rooms, but the other side passages are dark.
"Sorry, can't help you there. My specialty is wind," Athara said with a shrug of her shoulders and wings. She set off after Pitonous. "Hey, you're a swordsman, right? Think you can give me a few pointers?" she asked.
Follow Pitonous as he sweeps the room just in case he gets in trouble. Also try to finagle swordfighting lessons out of him.
[4] Pitonous runs into no trouble- well, no physical threats, at least. Figuring out where to go in here might be an issue.
For the moment though, you indeed manage to improve your sword grip. It's no substitute for actual combat practice, but for someone of your particular skill level, a bit of instruction can go a long way.
+1 SwordsSearch the surrounding area for any sign of...anything really. Tracks, paths or rooms.
[3] You gaze around the very underwater region. Aside from the massive temple in the middle, the surrounding area seems fairly fertile but not especially interesting- sea life grows all over nearby rocks, and the ground is mostly sand, but nothing really sticks out to you. Certainly the area doesn't seem inhabited as far as you can tell.
Walk up the stairs and examine my surrounds
[2-2] You stumble up the stairs and examine your surroundings, mainly by bumping your nose into a wall. Ow. Guess you're still too blind to really make much out.
Drzkktizz nodded to Ochita.
"Think Ochita needs to go back tower...but not sure if the Empress will let us leave the ocean alive. For now, Drzkktizz make defense for Ochita, to stay in place, since we cannot stay to defend...want making, Ochita-son?"
Action: Drzkktizz makes a poisonous warding ring around Ochita so no monsters can get to him, if he agrees.
Then he follows Pito.
[3] With Ochita declining your protection, you instead simply follow Pitonous down the hole and into a room. It occurs to you that if the temple does spiral slowly, as it seems to, each offshoot could have nearly limitless space, ending abruptly or sprawling on as need or desire dictated. This isn't especially helpful, but it does remind you not to underestimate the size of this place.
"Ah, n-no. I'm fine, and stable for the moment. Don't worry, I won't be stupid, and having a water mage in a water temple of all places should be useful, no? And actually, talking about critters.."
Decline the poison ring, and change my action to sending a pulse of hyper sensitive water, like when I was at the shore.
[6-2-1+2] You send out a weaker, but more sensitive and omnidirectional pulse. You can feel it sliding along the temple, across the sand, and through the water.
The image you receive is very similar to the one you received simply from looking around. The rocks and sand on the bottom is largely uninhabited by anything large- you can feel the scurrying of crabs and such, and feel a handful of small fish swimming through the water, but the largest things are what you would guess are crabs the size of very small dogs, huddling in the lee of some stones nearer to the cliff walls.
Your efforts to scan inside the temple are met with less success- you feel fairly certain that anything short of physically touching the vortex is safe, and that touching the vortex itself wouldn't be directly harmful, just a sure way to end up dragged somewhere you might not like. Beyond that, however, the walls and floors largely defeat you.
Overall, the outside, at least, seems perfectly clear and unassuming, while the inside remains a mystery and the vortex is a bit more benign than you would have expected, albeit no weaker or more difficult to escape from.
You also double over a bit and realize that walking around with a hard plug in you going clear from front to back is probably not healthy. You should probably get that looked at.
+3 WaterDrzkktizz Kothraze
10/10 HP
+1 Dodge (0/8); +1 vs surprise
---
+2 Poison Magic (3/16)
-L1 Poison Dart
+1 Alchemy
+0 Butchering (1/4)
+1 Medical (0/8)
MINION?: Skel
Maikah Moonfur, Light of the Lost
4/10 HP
+0 Dodge (2/4); Spell Absorption on 6 vs spell
Blind
---
+1 Light Magic (1/32)
+1 Polearms (0/8)
Ochita the Scholar
??/10 HP
-1 Dodge
---
+2 Water Magic (13/16)
-L1 Minor Slip
+1 Swords, +1 dmg
Athara Opanine
10/10 HP
-1 Dodge
---
+2 Wind Magic
-L3 Gale Push
+1 Flight (6/8)
+1 Medic (1/8)
-1 Swords, +1 dmg (1/2)
Pitonous Ross, Swordsman
10/10 HP
+0 Dodge (0/2), dmg on 6
---
+2 Swords, indestructible (0/16)
+1 Fire (0/8)
-L2 Flame Shroud
10/10 HP
-1 Dodge (0/2)
---
+2 Spears (0/16)
+1 Nature (0/8)