Chapter 3: A Dangerous Detour

[Longman]

Yuan Cheng, the new party leader it would now seem, makes his way downstairs carrying a torch. He makes it to the third landing and halfway down the stairs and he can now see that it opens out into a long, open hall, about 50 feet across, and longer than his torchlight can penetrate.

Standing in 5' niches all along the walls are more monkeys - not just gorillas, but chimps, and baboons as well. All are frozen in the same way as the others. Most are unarmed.

In the middle of the hallway are rows of even more monkeys - the same mix - also standing on small platforms, and also frozen.

He gets the sense the hallway continues beyond his torchlight and there is ore to the complex down the other end.

(If you go further I will map this.)

[quozl]

Are there any inscriptions? Anything at all to explain the statues in the room?

Yuan-Cheng will start searching as he waits for his companions to come down.

[mTeasdale]

"That fur looks soft..."

Jaali touches one of the monkey.

[Longman]

Jaali touches the fur. It feels furry! There's no sense of life underneath. Some dust comes away, having fallen from the ceiling over time. Nonetheless, the creature seems well preserved, despite the long time it has clearly stood here. He'd guess some magic is at play, to keep the creatures in this state.

The monk looks around for writing or other clues, from he entrance to the long hall. He sees nothing at all, at this stage.

[Woe]

"Perhaps we should cleave one and see if the organs are still present." observes Kanya. She'll search the room as well, not touching anything. What are the primates armed with? Any markings on the platforms?

[Longman]

Kanja said she was close to the back, but now appears to be in the long hall with the monk. I'll wait til tomorrow before I assume that everyone has moved in there.

[quozl]

"Do not harm them! I do not believe they would be too pleased if that is what breaks the spell. Let's search onward."

[Woe]

You said a long hall. I figure even in standard marching order, the long hall is longer than the party's formation.

(Yes - it's not a matter of you not fitting, it's a question of who else has moved into the room as well. I didn't want to speak for Saracen and Maju.)

"Oh look, the aesthetic monk now thinks he is an expert in magic. Maybe you'd do better keeping Jaali's hands off the apes than bossing us around." Kanya retorts snidely.

[SerGavin]

The monk may have a point. I would not touch them, there is magic at work here and until we know what it is, leaving them be would be the wisest course of action.

[Longman]

Here's a map. Squares are 10' wide.

The grey shaded areas of the hall are the actual floor you can walk on. The white areas are long rows of monkeys on small daises. Those monkeys on the outer walls only number 2 per square, facing inwards. Those on the inner rows number 4 per square and stand back to back, facing the walkway avenues on either side of the central row. You can see regular niches with glow-spheres in the walls and ceiling, but none are currently working.

Most are unarmed - the guards in the stair have metal staves, but those down below have almost no armaments and hardly any clothes.

There are no inscriptions of note anywhere in the room, although you can now see a series of tattoos on the hands and faces of all the monkeys - a regular series of symbols, but never 2 exactly the same.

Maju gets the feeling none of these monkeys were particularly happy, in life. No one else notices - or in Kanja's case, cares.

The long hall room is 170' long, and right at the end there are 2 large metal doors, to left and right.

Just in front of the left-hand door there is a discarded torch. It looks like it has been there a long time, but in such a closed environment, it is hard to tell.