Chapter 4: Master Of Puppets

Melianne visibly jumps when she sees their missing friends, and her eyes widen at the sight of Korsak's struggle with the scepter - or with whichever magic is possessing him. "Hold on, we will help-" Her words get stuck in her throat as the dancer struggles to tear her gaze apart from the green pulsing light.

Somehow you have the feeling that the pulsing light grows a bit stronger...

Annika shakes her head as if to clear it, and black flames erupt from her hands. With a snarl, she strides towards Korsak, hurling bolts of darkness into the delicate-looking mechanism of the orrery.

Melianne quickly glances around, confused by the sudden appearance of a ghostly voice and somewhat mistrustful of it. Her suspicion and startlement only grow when Annika pushes past her to attack the orrery, and the dancer instinctively tries to take a step back.

"Who... Who is talking? Show yourself!" Melianne draws her rapier, although she has no idea where to point it. "Who are you?!"

Melianne swings her rapier through empty space as the dark energy of the eldritch blast flies by. The bolt of darkness carves a path of destruction through the delicate arms of the orrery and then hits the central orb.
A web of cracks appears on the surface of the orb, sickly green light shining through it.
What have you done!? Oh wait you won't escape! You're coming with me! a female voice hisses.
The cracks widen, the green light grows blindingly bright so that it hurts your eyes when you look at it. The sphere explodes with a load shattering noise, the whole room is bathed in light so bright that you can't see anything and it feels as if a wave of ice cold water sloshes all over you.
You feel like you are falling backwards and await the impact. The impact comes but even though it felt like falling over backwards you land on your feet.
The light is gone and it's completely dark. The air is moist and you hear some faint dripping sounds.

Melianne yelps and stumbles around, disoriented by the feeling of a fall which isn't a fall at all, as well as the sudden darkness surrounding her now. She stills after a moment, nervously looking around, trying to see anything in the inky blackness. "...Hello? Annika? Krenmuth?" Firebird calls out hesitantly, her hand with the rapier trembling slightly. "Anyone? Where are we?" She twirls around, attempting to figure out where the sound of dripping liquid is coming from, then stops. "Oh, right, I can give us light!"

She waves her free hand, summoning familiar colorful spheres of light to float around her, hopefully enough to dispel the darkness.

The lights illuminate the room. You are in a small chamber with a high ceiling that is just large enough to hold 10 or so people.
The walls are made from smooth stone blocks.
Rusted iron rings are fixed to the wall and iron manacles are hanging from some of them.
The room has one door that is made from heavily rusted iron bars. You could probably easily break them.
Astrid and Hjalmar lie in the floor, breathing but unconscious.
Korsak sits in a corner, the sceptre he held lying beside him.
He squints his eyes and looks at you.
Well.... That was one way to break the curse... he says with a weak voice

Annika was looking around the room in the darkness, but has to shield her eyes against the sudden light.

"Yes, I find violence usually works," she responds to Korsak. "Any idea where we are?"

Korsak slowly moves his head left and right.
Looks like a dungeon cell... But where this dungeon is hard to tell. My guess is that it belongs to the ruins we are excavating.
When I...*cough* *cough* Korsak has a short coughing fit. He stands up while leaning against the wall
As I was interacting with the sceptre I felt that someone is trapped in the ruins. And that someone wants out. Your destruction of the orrery thwarted that plan. At least for now. So I guess we are somewhere in the ruin complex. Probably underground...
I guess we should look for a way out. Is this door open?

"I will check it," Krenmuth says as recovers from his disorientation. "Thank Valkur we are all here. I heard water dripping. Do we know where that's coming from?"

Krenmuth walks to the door. "Melianne, would you please move the lights this way?" He looks through the bars to see what's on the other side, then he tries to push (and pull) open the door. "No point in making more noise than necessary."

Melianne's ball of light sheds light through the bars and casts long shadows on the floor in front of the door.
Krenmuth peers through the bars. On the other side is another cell pretty similiar to the one you are in. The door is closed and corroded too and a skeleton is leaning at the wall there. Other than that he can't make out any significant details
Krenmuth grabs a bar of the door and the metal begins to crumble as he pushes and pulls it. With little effort he can break it off. Seems like this cell isn't really hard to escape from...

Melianne stands up on her tiptoes and peeks over Krenmuth's shoulder at the other cell, her lights floating idly behind them as the dancer squints into the darkness and winces at the sight of the skeletal remains. "This is horrible," she whispers and then carefully tries to touch the cell bars as well, to feel their state for herself. "Was us being transported here the doing of the voices which spoke earlier? Are they the ones who Korsak felt were trapped here?"

She pauses, then glances around the cells. "...And are there any three petals anywhere?" The question is something of a non-sequitur, so Melianne quickly adds: "The Tree advised me to look for them if I... fall underground."

Annika arches an eyebrow. "I don't expect to find many flowers down here, but we'll keep an eye out. My main worry is that our enemy, whoever this trapped creature may be, can send us straight to jail - even though the jail itself may not be in a condition to hold us, that's a degree of magic more powerful than anything we've faced before."

Aravel arched an imperious eyebrow at Melianne at the mention of three petals, but instead of engaging that line of questioning her elegantle bowed over to pick up the broken scepter for further study. It seemed likely it held the power of transportation that got them here. Rather disconcertingly, he was well aware that the rest of the complex held no way to reach the surface, hence the excavation effort. Then again, he could breathe, so not all was lost just yet. Over the scepter he glanced down his nose at Annika.

"And, pray tell, what exactly did you face before?"

"Not real flowers, a crest. I mentioned it to Aravel while we were walking towards the dig site: there were once elven kingdoms in this land, and one of them had a city somewhere in the area of this temple. It had a crest of three petals, directed towards one center point, similar to a flower." She gestures with her hand in the air, trying to indicate the image, and the glowing lights rearrange in the air trying to follow ther hand movement. "It will lead the way back to light, according to the Tree."

The dancer anxiously watches as Aravel moves to pick up the sceptre, but doing this gives her another thought and Melianne curses under her breath. "Astrid, Hjalmar! We should check on them." She hastily walks over to the two unconscious archaeologists, dropping to her knees next to them and examining their state. "Korsak, do you need any help as well?"

Annika matches Aravel's gaze. "A mummified corpse, animated by foul magic. It spoke of a fallen empire, and tried to make us slaves with spells of mental domination. We resisted, and destroyed it. But it also spoke of a High Mage, similarly entombed down here - it would fit for that to be the greater magical threat that I believe we now face."