A blink of an eye set Cor's mind at ease. He had just finished casting Raise Dead on Althena and when she blinked he knew he had been successful. "Gave us all a scare there lass; without ya we canna finish this mission." Cor wasted no time in casting healing spells upon here and soon she was in full health. Turning his attention to Evie, Cor tried in vain to raise her. "Seems the gods have firm hold on this one. I hope she is in a happy place." With one raising spell remaining he moved to the Elvin Cat. 'I wonder?' he thought to himself. Moments later he cast his spell on the dead feline and was somewhat shocked that it actually worked. After a few healing spells, Cor spoke to the cat. "Good kitty. No go see your master for she will need some cheering up."

When all raising and healing were finished, two still lay dead. Neither Evie nor Divot would walk with the group any more. "I donna mean to sound callous but check them for useful items. There is no way to bury them here and a fire would risk a smoky death for us all. Arrange them as best we can and we wil pray over them. Say your goodbye's but do so quickly for we must move on. We stay this night so we can all regain spells and move again as soon as possible."

Cor settled in for another quick slumber.

Rayne had tried and tried again to Raise Divot. She made her prayer but nothing flowed from her as she cast--or she tried to cast it.

When Cor spoke Rayne looked up and sat back and stood up. "So be it, what the Gods desire is." She would miss that scamp Divot, always delving into to things some better left undiscovered and untried like when he poisoned himself on the trap at the outer door. Evie, she hardly knew the young woman, but any such loss was felt.

She brings help to arrange the bodies and uses their own bedroll to cover each up. She prayed over them both wishing them best for their souls.

Cycil healed where healing was needed and prayed with the others when Cor and Rayne tries unssuccessfully to raise Evie and Divot. She was glad when Athena, Haila and her cat had been raised and tried to remain hopeful for the others that were still dead.

Other than that she relearns her spells, and stays close to Connall, without being a tagalong.

It is hard not to dwell on the green worls she had been pulled from, but she knew she was not ready for it yet, there was too much that needed doing in this world.

"Ulthok," a soft gentle voice called out from behind him. "It is not yet your time to be here. Your friends need you by their side, still."

The halfling turned around to see a gentle looking elven male. His eyes contained knowledge and wisdom, his very air projecting a sense of authority and power.

"Then I will go," Ulthok said without a hint of regret in his voice. It was to adventure yet again, this nice place could wait a bit longer.
Ulthok woke up to the sight of Rayne's face. Her lavender eyes peered into his with Golden colored hair a little disheveled. A soreness ached through his body as if it was getting over being stiff, or being A stiff. He wondered if what he had just gone through had been just a dream or if it had been real. Him, speaking with a god, yeah. He scoffed at the notion that a god would lower themselves to speak with him. He was just one of the wee fold after all.

He heard Cor's shouts and Rayned sprinted over to the dwarven priest. Ulthok's body protested as he got up and hobbled to where the two were at. It was Divot. Rayne's lips moved as if in prayer, and after a couple minutes, she opened here eyes and just shook her head.

"Brother," the word came out as a whimper, and Ultok dropped to his knees.

The times they shared as little halfling children. When he had yelled at Divot to stop diggin around in them holes and to just be content to see the animals when they surfaced. Divot had never been a normal halfling by any means, but he was his brother after all. And weren't you supposed to have feelings for your brother?

Ulthok contented himself to curling up in a seated position with his legs up to his chest and gently crying himself into a slumber.

(OOC: Alright, he needed to rest anyway, so there it is. Upon waking, Ulthok will study his spellbook as he must put the good of the group before his own emotions. Oh, and can we have two rings of wizardry or just one?)

As per spells memorized:
1st- 2x Burning Hands; 4x Magic Missile; 1x Spider Climb; 1x Detect Magic
2nd- 2x Invisibility; 4x Acid Arrow; 1x Mirror Image; 1x Summon Swarm
3rd- 1x Fly; 2x Lightning Bolt; 1x M.Summoning 1
4th- 1x Imp Inv; 1x M.Summonin 2; 1x Polymorph Self
5th- 1x Teleport; 2x Cone of Cold

"I would like to take the Haversack, it would be very useful to me," Cynil pauses and looks about the group, if no one asks for it she walks over and takes it. "Whomever is down healing potions should take them first, if not I will take them to be used as needed for party members."

She will also take the lute as a memorial to the young woman they had known so briefly.

Kenji stood watch after his rest and meditation; he left the others to grieve over their fallen friend and brother. He had not known them all that long to become attached to any of them, besides it was not the Samurai way to mourn those that fell in battle. They had fulfilled their destiny and died with honor, it was the way of life and all that any could hope for in the end.

When instructed to strip the dead of anything useful, Kenji would help to remove the packs, weapons and other items that they might need on the quest. He himself was only interested in food or healing type potions, things he might find useful. The other items he put in a pile for the others to decide what they wished to take. He could carry some extra things if need be, but he would not load himself down so that he was hindered in his movements.

Once this unpleasantness was over, he would wait for them to be ready as he was to head out and on to the next challenge. He would be ready and in whatever position that their Leader wished him to take. He only ached for a real foe they could battle with steel; all these silly traps were not something the Samurai was use to and he felt inadequate when he could not help them escape some death trap that required minds greater than his own.

Everyone rested for but the briefest of time as they slowly regained strength and spells. Having experienced death each was lost in his or her own thoughts and as if watching from the edges each sleeper could feel the presence of the sword, yet it made no move to control any, perhaps its experience with Haila had given it pause. 8 hours later it was once again time to continue forward and with gear from the two they would have to leave behind packed equally among all they set forth.

With a last silent goodbye to both Divot and Evie, Ulthok once more in the lead position, the party moved out of the room, the once open door slamming shut behind the last one out once more.

The party covered ground quickly as they first moved around a turn to the left then 50 feet later a turn to the right coming almost at once to yet another door exact as all the others before.
A quick check by Ulthok, no traps found, the door opened and in the party went, to find themselves in a 20x40 x30 room.

The center of the room was highlighted by a simple plain stone block raised to just about chest high on a normal human frame. The top of the stone block the party could see was flat and unmarked but for two round open holes in progression leading to a third rounded hole holding a pink peg. To the side of this resting in an attached bowl were 8 more rounded pegs in the colors of Red, Yellow, Green, White, Bronze, Black, Gold and lastly Blue.

The room empty but for this stone block, a door to the east, and numerous small holes in the base of the walls, stood quiet, undisturbed, the floor and stone block covered in dust.

(OOC: Ok there you have it the next room in this dungeon... Good Luck......)

Cynil looks about taking in the black ater and the pegs.

"Something tells me we have to find the right pegs to put in the holes so that the door will open for us. I would suggest we look about for some clues or riddles to help us figurew out which pegs go where."

(OOC Cynil took the haversack and the lute, see last post by me.)

Kenji was glad to be underway again, he hated sitting around waiting for anything. He tread softly behind Ulthok as the Halfling checked for traps; when they reached the next room and the door was cleared, Kenji entered his hand on the hilt of sword.

Scanning the room he was a bit disappointed to see no enemies to battle; he sighed as yet another puzzle was revealed to hold their lives in the balance. The Samurai hated this solving of riddles and puzzles; it was not his forte; he preferred a stand up fight with an enemy that he could kill.

"Something tells me we have to find the right pegs to put in the holes so that the door will open for us. I would suggest we look about for some clues or riddles to help us figure out which pegs go where." Cynil spoke up.
Kenji grunted in acknowledgment and slowly moved around the room looking for clues, anything out of the ordinary and of course another way out of this room. He brushed at the dust on the floor and then, with a sudden thought, went up to the stone block and with his left hand he carefully brushed at the dust there hoping it might reveal some writing or drawings that might solve this puzzle.

Cor waited until the others had a look at the latest puzzle and then moved up himself. "I agree that the pegs are the key here but how is the question." The old dwarf scratched his head. "I suppose that using a red peg, then a white peg that together add up to the already placed white one would be too easy. And I am sure that wrong answers will be 'rewarded'."

Rayne looked at the puzzle before her. As she named the colors she remembered the riddle at the beginning of the testz. She fought to recall it. It mentioned the colors red, green black, white, and that they would choose the right ones.

So this was that test. She walked up and then around the pillar and examined it from all sides.

Pink what does pick have to do with any of the extra colors. She discarded the rainbow and a possible solution, black, white gold, bronze and pink were not part of the rainbow. From her childhood she remembered that the primary colors were red, yellow, and blue. Intermediate colors AL other colors could be made form them but black, white and true grey, and gold and bronze were metals. Were they to organized from dark to light for from light to dark. She thought of her lessons in painting and drawing and the mixing of colors, She love to mix up the colors when she was young. She might have shosen the primary colors if the pink peg were not already in the third hole.

So to her mind the pink peg was the clue. It was the only clue she could find in the room besides the riddle. Pink is a mixture of white and red so perhaps she is to look for others things that are a mixture of colors. So Rayne continued to reason this out. Green was the mixture of yellow and blue, and bronze could be made in paints by adding black to gold. It was "a" possible answer but not necessarily "the" answer, and one thing she knew is that a mistake was prove costly to them all. She had to share her idea with the others.

"Listen, I think I have a possible answer to this puzzle. I thought about Primary colors, neutrals colors, and metallic but with the pink peg up there already, then the pink peg is the clue. Pink is a mixture of white and red. There are two other mixed colors, green is the mixture of blue and yellow, and bronze can be made by adding black to gold. Based on that, I think the the missing pegs are the green one and the bronze one. That is I I hope those are the ones. On the other hand could be just the red and whit peg too because red and white make pink but I think that is too simple and easy a combination of colors and many would think of them. This test was not designed for the many"

"However, I want to think some more about it more and listen to any other possible explanations before we try anything. If we do this wrong I know that it would most likely set of the trap and those have proven costly."

Taking action, Rayne moves forward and takes up the bronze and green peg.

"Be prepared this may not be right, but it is my best guess as to the answer to the riddle."

Rayne places the bronze peg at the top and the green second. the pink peg stick out of the bottom hole.

Cynil was about to agree with Rayne when the Ranger-Cleric moved forward. "Be careful," she warns as she watches Rayne select the pegs.

With the room described and the challenge of what colors where, all that was needed now was one to set it all in motion. With Divot’s death that task seemed to have fallen to none other then the Ranger/Cleric Rayne.

With two open peg slots leading to a third holding a pink peg it was she who did attempt the first of the color combinations hoping it would be right. The bronze peg first, the green one second all waited to see the result...

A grinding sound as if metal doors raising was clearly heard by all but it was Ulthok who first noticed from where. As the party had first entered they had noticed the small openings around the floor of the rooms walls now Ulthok could see a lightening of the dark area’s there. As he brought the rest of the parties attention to them they could see the shadows disappear, a pause, then a few moments later from one of the holes there appeared a single strange creature of which the party had never seen before.

Before the party, standing at only a foot tall, was a creature of two arms, one holding a stone axe, and two legs with a boulder type shell upon its back. Its face hidden, but for two glowing eyes from within the shell, it seemed to gaze at the party in an intelligent manner as if sizing them up, chirping a strange language to itself. Then as if it had seen enough it was gone, back into the nearest opening from which it had first emerged.

The room quiet once more, the main door out yet closed, the pink peg still lodged firmly in place........

(OOC: Ok as I am having to work at least the next ten days straight, all nights, there will be no post by me till after that, so there should be no reason why all the existing players still in the game cannot post. Hope to see those posts people.)

Kenji stepped back from the stone as Rayne came up and began to mess around with the pegs and talking of how different colors made other colors. He knew alittle bit of what she was saying from his Sumi-e paintings back in his homeland. While it sounded like a plausible solution he was a bit concerned when, without waiting on the council from the others, Rayne began to insert pegs into the stone. The Samurai took a step back and his hand involuntarily went to the tsuka of his Katana.

When the holes in the walls near the floor opened, he took a step back and grasped the Katana tightly. He looked at the small creature questioningly and took in its obvious weapons and demeanor. It looked like it was made for battle and capable despite it’s small stature.

When it went back into the hole Kenji became a bit concerned and turned to the others.

“I think it best we do something else to close those holes,” he said still gripping the sheathed Katana’s tsuka, “I fear those things will return in greater numbers and if there are enough they could overwhelm us.”

Turning back to look at the holes, Kenji stood poised for an attack that he thought was coming.