These people were making too much of a racket, Darilan thought. If there were any monsters around, they would know the adventurers were there. Sound could echo and travel a great distance in these caverns, so it was difficult to do much of anything and go unnoticed. That was true for the monsters as well. Though the darkness limited his sight, it didn't do a thing to his hearing. He stood still, waiting to see if any monsters would reveal their presence [Awareness Check].

Abel fighured he was in for a fight not that he could really meditate on the ride. So when he got off he found a place out of the way of any of the others and crossed his legs and thought about possible enemies and the thought of death of all his allys to ready himself.

It didn't seem likely that monsters would come and attack the group within distance of where a group of their infernal brethren had fallen. For some reason or another it seemed more likely that if there were reason to unsheathe blades and weapons, it would be somewhere farther a long the track, somewhere where aid would be unfortunately too far to extend a hand.

All of this led Rosen to believe that any clues left behind were surely to guide them through the labyrinth of tunnels and shadowy veils. And although cataracts were curtains on Rosen's eyes already for many years prior, the goron did follow Darilan's lead in listening to the chimes of water that bled from their last battle and the echoes that would hopefully give way to some hint as to what lies before them.

Awareness Check

Valens caught the echo of a whisper in Gerudic resonate for a second in the dark tunnel, but he assumed it was none of his concern. If only he had learned Gerudic. Aria’s dim, torchlit search was fruitful, but not in a very helpful sort of way. There were indeed tracks to be seen on the floor of the cavern, but these were, of course, logically placed. The vague, small footprints of a stealthy Garo and the large, deep footprints of Iron Knuckles were nothing unexpected. What Aria might have been surprised by were the various small footprints, some barefoot, some not. The tracks led in both directions. It was clear that this route was a well-travelled one. Despite the rocky makeup of the floor here, the ground appeared worn by travellers.

Due to Eberron’s current inability to see the ground he was running his large, Goron hands across, he was unable to tell the difference between tracks and normal, rocky cavern ground. Aria’s discovery of tracks leading in both directions, however, was not one that should have been unexpected by any person present.

Both Darilan and Rosen were unable to notice anything out of the ordinary in the tunnel, and they would be relieved to learn that there was, in fact, nothing to be worried about at that point. Rosen’s inner sentiments were indeed correct. It seemed that while his elder years had given him cataracts, grumpiness, and other undesirable ‘old man’ traits, they had also given him wisdom.

As the group pressed on, they were met with nothing but silence, save for the murmurings of those who had spoken. The tunnel continued on for a few minutes. Suddenly, Valens came to a halt. His torch light revealed something that he had feared all along.

A wooden door, just wide enough for the adventurers to walk single file through, was all that could be found at the end of this second passage. It looked beaten and poorly maintained. That or it had been poorly made to begin with. General Valens turned to the adventurers with a downtrodden smile. “I hope you are all ready. This doesn’t strike me as the sort of place for a friendly group of people to be staying.”

He prodded the door open and stepped through, looking around briefly before beckoning the others to follow. The adventurers had followed the second passage around a bend and were now facing south.

In this dimly lit room there was not a great amount of interesting things to take note of. On the south wall were two doors, one on either end. The southeast door was barred, much to Valens dismay. It appeared that whoever had been living here had access to some sort of architectural technology. The southwest door, however, was not barred.

Two dormant and unmoving Armos statues stood facing the adventurers. Valens assured the volunteers that they were not a threat while in this state, but urged them to be cautious when approaching them. A dying torch was placed on each wall of the room, allowing the adventurers present to at least see their surroundings.

"Plenty of footprints here," Aria reported to the group. "Could only be a few people, could be several. Either way, we might have missed some of those ninjas during our first trip down here. I think only a fool would remain uncareful."

She remained quiet as they walked farther down the tunnel. The Gerudo was becoming unnerved. Surely there had to be some guards left behind. Where were they? Aria nervously looked around, but saw nothing but those people who had rode the wagon down here with her.

But it seemed there had been guards set behind the poor excuse for a door. Except that the Armoses where unmoving. A witch by secret she might have been, the ranger knew nothing of enchanting inanimate objects to come to life. As such, her ignorance on the subject should go unchallenged. "How likely is it that these will come to life if we walk by them?" she asked. She wanted to investigate the two doors, but did not want to be interrupted.

Kagari looked at the to armos statues. Not deadly in this state.... he was going over it in his mind. "Shadowmeld," He whsipered as he dissapeared into the shadows. He then silently walked past the group of adventurers and the armos statues. He has pulled his weapon to his side just incase.

Eberron felt chills running down his spine as Vallens opened the door. He didn't like this place. The two imposing statues seemed to have everyone worried, and he wasn't quite sure why. Other then being odd and slightly creepy looking, Eberron didn't detect any immediate threat. Perhaps there was something hiding behind them that he hadn't seen...

"How likely is it that these will come to life if we walk by them?"

Stopping dead, Eberron looked with a horrified gaze in his eyes at Aria.

"They come to life?"

His whisper echoing around the room, Eberron slumped back and eyed the statues carefully. He for one wouldn't be going anywhere near them. He'd never heard of statues that could move before, his father had certainly never mentioned them.

"They come to life?"

Alpha glanced at Eberron, taking note of the fear in the Goron's tone and eyes. "They've been known to . . ." he replied softly. "Normally one has to trigger their awakening though; often it requires you to pass too close to them, and some only respond to touch. As long as we keep our distance, we ought to be fine." Of course, these could have been just regular statues, too; the group really had no way of knowing, as Armos were nearly impossible to discern from true stone until and unless they started moving.

Still, he wasn't about to take his chances; if they could avoid fighting he'd prefer that they did, for a battle would surely result in much attention from whatever else might be lying in wait. The trapdoor had surprised him; he hadn't expected such a thing to be waiting here, and it seemed to further his suspicions that they were not dealing with mere mindless beasts here - something or someone was controlling them, manipulating what remained of Ganon's troops into doing his/her/its own bidding. Whether that fell in line with Ganon's will or not didn't matter much.

Glancing around the area, he noticed that besides the two Armos were two doors, one open and the other blocked off. Open pathways were the most obvious of routes to take, but he shied away from the southwest portion of the room and instead made his way towards the barred doorway in the southeast corner. Bars meant that there was something worth protecting here, which implied that, in the long run, this was the path they'd likely prefer to travel down. Glancing about, he immediately began examining the location, hoping that his sharp Sheikah senses would pick up some way that the bars could be removed. [Awareness Check]

56/56 HP
45/45 SPL

Darilan shared the others' concern of the Armos statues. He wondered what it took to activate them, assuming they could come to life. Fearing that they might be able to detect swift and sudden movements, he crept around to the side of them, and then picked up his pace once he was out of the way of their peripheral vision (that is, if they could see). Once he was behind the inanimate objects, he felt safe to examine them. He crept up close to one, without touching it, and looked it up and down to see if there was any way to bring it to life, because it would be good to know how to avoid awakening these things [Insight Check on Armos statue].

It wasn't so much that the silent that purged the air was malicious so much that was an irritation to his stomach which was far more vocal with its suspicions. Of course, Rosen could always pass it off as the rushing water they encountered earlier, perhaps the echoes of enemies nearby, surely not the two statues that stood ominously in front of them.

To be honest, what was really tempting the goron was to simply just throw a few bombs at the creatures and be done with them before anything starts running, hopping, walking around. But it seemed that while that decision was unorthodox, it would definitely not gain any smiles from the warriors that stood by clearly voicing that they'd rather not take any chances.

Eyes following Alpha, Rosen agreed with his actions. It was all a means of misdirection leaving one door open and the other not...but maybe our enemies were that smart...so they assumed that and left the important stuff behind an open door because everyone would assume it's behind the barred door. It was all very confusing to Rosen, going back and forth between mentalities.

In the end, he decided to help with Alpha's search, waddling close with tapered eyes at the armos statue which would hopefully be guarding some trigger to open the door. Boy was it tempting, just a little nudge and we might make this little scavenger hunt that much quicker. A sigh collapsed from his mouth.

"You know," he bellowed out," I doubt we're going to get by this place without having a few skirmishes with these statues...I think it's time...that we buck up..."

No, it couldn't be, what was unfolding now was a frightful story surely to suspend fear above the trapped eyes of sleeping children for Rosen in all his wisdom was nearing the statue in dangerous inches...

"never mind." he said with a smirk, hiding his own cowardice and caution against these stone sentient...

He continued with tapered eyes, following the outline of the statue and all it touched.

Awareness Check on the armos

Eberron let out a little squeak of fear as Rosen approached the statue, closer and closer...

"never mind."

Eberron could have hit the elder Goron, how... how...

"Urgh, don't do that again."

Eberron gazed in mock anger at Rosen, his eyes moving back to the statues that sat dead still. He wasn't sure what it was that scared him so much, why was he behaving like this? Something about the idea of a statue coming to life when you weren't ready... Eberron shivered. Give him any other monster, any time of day. This was just plain creepy.

Taint pressed a finger to his lips, urging his partner to keep quiet. She nodded, and landed on his shoulder, watching the scene from his own viewpoint. As they ventured through the door in a single file line, the Zora looked around the room. His eyes fell on the statues, and it was only now that he realized the blanket of apprehension that covered the room. The darkness of the room was ushered away by the illumination of the torches that were giving off a dim light on the walls. "This is so surreal... like something from a story..." Lilly commented, as Taint proceeded into the room.

Nobody seemed to want to move, so the Zora decided he would take initiative. He wandered away from the group, and into the darkness, approaching the only door that was available to them. "This looks like the only way further into these passages." The Zora called just loudly enough to the group. "If anyone wants to follow me, I'd appreciate it- but I don't have all day to spend in here. I'm heading in." He opened the door and walked through. Unlike everyone else, he had no interest in the statues, and he had no interest in a door that he couldn't walk through. If who they were dealing with had any brains at all, they wouldn't put the key/switch to a locked door in the same room that the locked door was in.

OOC: Sigh... Everyone leave it to ZV

"Damn I don't want to worry about a fallen teamate this early.' Abel decided that these adventurers would be fine if he left them here. He ran trying to get to Taint eventually he got to him and said "Is it safe to be going through this tunnel?" Abel said with a hint of fear in his voice.

Abel wrote:"Is it safe to be going through this tunnel?"

The fear in the man's voice was evident, even to someone as oblivious as Taint. The Zora turned to talk to Abel as he walked. "Well, if I wanted to avoid danger, I wouldn't be doing what I do, and I certainly wouldn't be here." He looked ahead once more, scanning the area for any signs of the danger that Abel feared. He didn't want to be caught off guard, especially when he left on his own so recklessly.

[Awareness Check]
[Nomadic Awareness L1]

Whilst staring further down the cave, Taint decided to strike a conversation with the Hylian in hopes to kill the apprehension that so deeply held his mind in its clutches. "So why're you down here in these caves if you're gonna be afraid of a little adventure?" Taint asked, keeping his eyes forward. "Lilly and I here, are just seeking a little adventure is all. Might as well help out a good cause while we're at it." Lilly lifted off of the Taint's shoulder, and examined Abel. "You look strong- but if you're traveling with us, you're gonna have to prove it."

Taint chuckled. "You're one to talk." He commented towards the helpless little fairy. She knew that she depended solely on Taint's sword, so she didn't retort. "Besides, I'm more hoping that he doesn't have to prove how strong he is. In case you didn't know, I'm not exactly looking for a fight here. In fact, I'm in high hopes that this'll be smooth sailing." Lilly buzzed back towards the Zora, and planted herself back on his shoulder. "But I want to see some really cool moves..." She whined. "Yeah, don't get your hopes up..." He muttered with a smile. Secretly, he was hoping that a few more adventurers might follow, but if it were just him and Abel, he figured they'd be alright should a small skirmish arise.

Valens answers Aria's inquiry with a degree of uncertainty. "It is never a guarantee that an Armos will remain harmless. These statues do not appear to react to touching," he notes as he gestures towards Rosen, who has already begun to feel the potential enemies in question. "They could simply be pure, non-enchanted stone placed here only to create this sort of paranoia..."

As Kagari becomes one with the shadows in this dimly lit chamber, Valens takes note of his visual absence. He can at least be sure that the Sheikah has not fallen behind, or worse. He wonders what Kagari hopes to achieve by melding with the darkness, but is sure that the adventurer has some sort of plan.

Despite Alpha’s notorious Sheikah senses and his ability to detect the seemingly undetectable, he is unable to make out any sort of contraption controlling the bars on the southeast door. There is no switch in plain sight, so the conclusion to this conundrum escapes the Sheikah. For now, anyway. [3+4 vs 10 Fail]

Darilan is having the same problem as the other Sheikah. In such a poorly lit area, it is no surprise that even one of the shadow folk is finding it difficult to notice anything out of the ordinary. Wyndisis’ follower is unable to notice anything special when examining the statues. They appear to be nothing more than lifeless, life-sized figurines. [4+3 vs 10 Fail]

Fortunately, Rosen is able to find something curious engraved on the back of one of the statues. The same engraving can be seen on the other Armos as well. In very small print, an illegible few words can be picked out from the regular stone. It appears to have been written by some sort of monster or a member of Ganon’s horde. The writing will need to be translated before any meaning can be discerned. [16+1 vs 10 Pass]

The young Zora named Taint is having problems of his own at the southwest door. Alpha should consider himself lucky that he has chosen to focus his attention on the barred door, for as soon the youth’s hand touches the metallic knob on the old wooden door something most unexpected happens. The door, hinges and all, comes crashing down on the Zora without a moments notice. It appears to have fallen hard, and Taint is damaged as a result (Taint -10 HP). A cold stone wall is revealed behind the trap door, but is covered as the door returns to its position.

OOC: Because of Taint’s little mishap, none of his checks from his last post are counted. Sorry about that, ZV. Let's keep it to one check at a time for this event.