Jungle Ruins of Madaro-Shanti [IC]

[Mercurion 2]

Ignasio sorcerer-ously brushed aside the soggy, accumulated flotsam but found only a stone floor beneath. Seeing nothing else unusual in the cubbyhole either, he picked up the carved head and scuttled up the wall over over the lip of the well.

[Oso]

Karan watched the whole Ignaso-pompon-head affair with feigned indifference, but allowed himself a grunt of approval once the merchant/bard floated above the well's rim.
"Perhaps", he suggested, "it's the other heads that need to go below instead of this one."

[Fitzroy95]

As Ignasio reappeared from his excursion into the depths, Axwheel called over to him, asking what he'd discovered. When the #1 head appeared, she took her own #1 across in order to compare the two.

"Maybe there is something inside one of the buildings that is controlled by this, because if so, we aren't going to be able to tell when changing heads has an effect. Still, I guess we can try putting our heads together and try to work out what this means"

She grins at her little joke, stares thoughtfully at Ignasio's choice of footwear, but decides not to comment, then waves her arm at the other 4 heads spread around the well.
"Want to try placing a different one down there and see if it makes any difference ?

[Mercurion 2]

The heads looked identical as Axwheel and Ignasio compared them, other than one being still wet from being submerged for many years.

OOC: Ok, now what are you doing folks?

[Koral]

Ignasio made his way out of the well with mixed feelings, on one hand it seemed that everybody thought he was doing something right and the stone statuette he recovered seemed to steer some excitement (and he kept his pantaloons almost intact…). On the other way this was a little anti climatic compare to the expectations he had of this well, the least that he was hoping for was a desperate letter confessing the desperate love of a young guard to a high noble damsel, next to his bones of course. None of that.
He packed his fluffy slippers and pulled up his high boots again while the others were pondering over the statues. “Maybe we can find some use for them later on” he said impatiently “Lets go into this palace, or temple, or whatever this scary building is”.

Spoiler: OOC:

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Apologies for being so late. Passover hit us hard this year with multiple family events all involving excessive eating and drinking, followed by guilt and remorse.

[Fitzroy95]

Axwheel frowned at the collection of heads, sure they were missing something. No-one had a hidden valve at the bottom of a well with a concealed carved head there, unless there was a reason for it.
On the other hand, even if they moved the heads around correctly but the effect occurred somewhere else nearby, they weren't going to know that anything had happened either.

Grudgingly she rose to her feet, grunting slowly as she straightened her tired knees which had stiffened somewhat as she knelt down at the heads, but they'd loosen up again fairly quickly once they started moving.

She grinned slightly to herself (of course, her luxurious beard covered up most of that) as Ignasio changed his fluffy slippers. They certainly seemed rather out of place, but clearly they did the job.
So, with one backward glance at the heads, she nodded to Ignasio.
"Agreed. I'm sure theres summat here we're missin',
but better keep movin'."

[Oso]

Karan would have loved to sit this one out, but still, he thought it was too soon to give it up:
"Wait. We know that 'The Well moves the walls'. We know there's something related to these heads. So it's possible that another head put below will make a difference, or that we'll need all of the heads - in the right order - in the future. Let's try putting another head below before we move on, at least."

[Koral]

Ignasio eyes lit at Karan’s suggestion. That was a really cool idea that surprisingly enough, he did not consider first.
He hastily reached in for his slippers again, somehow in the few minutes time they found their way to the very bottom of the bag and multitude of items had to be pushed through to reach them again.
Eventually he got them and replaced his boots, yet again.
“Interesting, I thought that we should order them in some way, you are saying that it is the one in the well that matter.
So lets try them all!. Send them down with a rope and I will use them one at a time. Just need to figure out how you can see if any of them is doing something”. He found a spot of mud that made his way to his left pompon unnoticed and busied himself removing it with his 3rd scented handkerchief. “Well, if it does move entire walls I think you would notice” he said eventually, happy with the condition of his slippers he made his way back in, waiting for the statues to follow “Just don’t re-fill the well while I’m in there, I can swim, but I’d hate to wet my hair”

[Mercurion 2]

Back at the bottom of the well, Ignasio had the heads sent down to him one at a time. The air he was even more stifling than above where at least there was a wisp of air movement under the black cloud.

He tried placing one after the other into the niche, but they caused no apparent change. The slicks of water remained here and there on the floor, refusing to dry in the humid air, and the bronze stem and wheel remained unchanged, the metal reflecting dully under a thin layer accumulated muck.

[Fitzroy95]

Axwheel nodded slowly.
"So the heads down there don't seem to make any difference,
the one thing that you haven't tried is turning that wheel.
Now it might make the thing fill back up again, or just maybe
it opens something.
After all, they hid it under 20 feet of water, so maybe it
does something interesting."

[OOC]
Is there any way of determining exactly what the wheel and shaft actually do, just by examining it ?

[Mercurion 2]

Axwheel nodded slowly.
"So the heads down there don't seem to make any difference,
the one thing that you haven't tried is turning that wheel.
Now it might make the thing fill back up again, or just maybe
it opens something.
After all, they hid it under 20 feet of water, so maybe it
does something interesting."

[OOC]
Is there any way of determining exactly what the wheel and shaft actually do, just by examining it ?

OOC: That depends...does Axwheel go to exam it?

[Koral]

Hopping restlessly from one slipper to another while the others kept silence, Ignasio finally lost his patience.
“OK, only one good way to find out I guess” he said with resignation “I will go down there and try the wheel. If things go the wrong way I can at least run up before the water floods…. I hope”
He took only the bare essentials this time, leaving his backpack and crossbow behind and securing everything else as best as he could “I just hope it is not rusted shut, not sure I will be strong enough in case it is seriously jammed” and he walked down the empty well, again.
As he reached the bottom he started by clearing the mud from the wheel’s area to better examine the contraption. After a short examination he sighed, and start rotating it with both hands, carefully at first and then faster and faster.

[Oso]

"Hey, wait a minute", Karan shouted down. He then threw down one end of a rope. "Tie this to your waist, just in case."

[Goby]

Thorik watches the head swapping, looking puzzled.

Perhaps we're doin' this backwards, what if it ain't puttin' a head down there that's the trick? Maybe the point is the head that was hidden. What if we swap the one down there with the one up here that it matched? Would that do anything?

Once Ignasio is done trying the wheel, Thorik will lower down the dry version of head #1, and ask him to put in in the cubby, and then put the underwater one in its place up top.

[Koral]

Thorik watches the head swapping, looking puzzled.

Perhaps we're doin' this backwards, what if it ain't puttin' a head down there that's the trick? Maybe the point is the head that was hidden. What if we swap the one down there with the one up here that it matched? Would that do anything?

Once Ignasio is done trying the wheel, Thorik will lower down the dry version of head #1, and ask him to put in in the cubby, and then put the underwater one in its place up top.

Spoiler: ooc:

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Hey Goby, we already tried that a few posts back :)

[Mercurion 2]

OOC: Guys, please see the last post on the OOC thread. I'm still waiting in the answers to those two questions before I can move us forward.

[Oso]

OOC: Guys, please see the last post on the OOC thread. I'm still waiting in the answers to those two questions before I can move us forward.

OOC: Just popped to point out I didn't get an email notification about that last post. Perhaps the others didn't notice it either.

[Mercurion 2]

OOC: Just popped to point out I didn't get an email notification about that last post. Perhaps the others didn't notice it either.

Yeah, unfortunately the website does that on occasion. Additionally, after it sends you one email, it won't send you another from that thread until you visit the forum, so it is easy to overlook an email and not realize there have been others.

Nonetheless, with no answers from anyone in three weeks, I think we are going to have to call it. There just isn't enough momentum to keep it moving ahead.

The Council of Madaro-Shanti was bitterly disappointed that their last best hopes disappeared into the jungle and were never heard from again, watching helplessly as the black cloud slowly but surely overwhelmed the town.

Well, thanks for playing all, and I know I'll see some of you around again.

--Merc

[Oso]

Sorry about this, Merc. Thanks for the effort - it was a fascinating go, such that it went.

[Mercurion 2]

Sorry about this, Merc. Thanks for the effort - it was a fascinating go, such that it went.

No worries, my friend. I am sure we will run into each other in the gameverse again. In the meantime, stay safe with all the crap going on there.

And BTW everyone, I was asking about where the party had the heads at the moment, because removing the head from the niche causes the wheel to turn in one direction, flooding the chamber again, while having any head in the niche causes the wheel to turn in the other direction, opening access to the secret spiral staircase down in the middle of the floor (which is why I kept asking if the dwarves in the party were going down into the empty chamber, since they would likely notice the unusual stonework).

And what would the party find as they descended the staircase? Well all the things Ignasio speculated on earlier: "the skeletal remains of desperate lovers who threw themselves down and a secret passage leading on to a forgotten underground crypt where the restless spirits of ancient king roam, ooh, and traps, lots of traps!."

Obviously.