Chapter IV: The Heist (Part II)

Daxius had just smashed the fake stone on the ground. The party is relatively split on what to do. Xar wants to go back to the temple immediately while Bink wishes to leave the city unless Daxius helps them. Daxius is concerned about leaving the tower and being recognized at the temple but ultimately accept and tells Rydel to entertain the guests while he gets ready.   Rydel takes the party down a couple floors to the game room containing dice, billiards, card tables, darts, and a dueling/fencing ring. Xar initially plays some darts while Daxius yells down for Rydel to tell Leander to go scout the area. Rydel leaves and the party play some darts and cards until Rydel returns. Once returned the party asks him if he wants to play some cards with them, he says it is not his preference to which Aire asks him if the combat arena is his preference. He almost cracks a smile and says he could partake. Xar decided to go up against him not knowing how to wield a rapier and immediately loses to Rydel. They start to hear bells ringing that sound like alarms.   After an hour passes, Daxius comes down the the game room freshly bathed and in new gold trimmed robes, fine silk hood, and silver staff. He has an owl on his shoulder who he refers to as Leander and says that he scouted and saw new guards coming from the crown district. If they left now they would beat them there. There are two guards inside the temple tending to the unconscious guards and two guard dogs out front. The party goes around back to the area they were before and climb atop the building. They target one of the guards and quickly dispatch him. The second one hide and they talk him into throwing his weapons down and lying down next to the other guards. He tells them he doesn't know how to work the stairs as the missing guard who went to get help is the one who is typically stationed below and knows how to work the levers to open the staircase. They party makes him drink some of the sleeping sap and put him to sleep.   Once they lower themselves inside of the temple they start investigated the area. Shen finds a book on the legend of Galren while Bink finds a scroll that seemingly tells a condensed version of the story. Shen inspects the statue of Delmoth and finds it is holding a katana. When he takes the katana he sees apparitions on the peripherals of his vision. Aire inspects the statue of Nushala and finds a bo staff. Xar objects to the taking of these artifacts in the museum though he is convinced that they will bring it back when they are finished with the items and that is it for the good of the world. Daxius also agrees that they should steal the items from the museum as he believes Galren to be a con man.   Xar volunteered to attempt pulling one of the levers. He sliced the pad lock of the cage around the levers. When he pulls the first one nothing happens, same with the second. When he pulls the third, however, the floow beneath him opens up and he falls into a cell in the floor below. Aire then tries to pull the levers and also falls to the floor below. Bink then attempts to pull them failing until he realizes that the answer is in the scroll he found. The stairs open to go down to the other level. Meanwhile, Xar attempts to pick the lock the only way he knows how, with his katana. Shen then grabs the rope from Daxius who has also climbed down. Shen ties the rope to the cage around the levers, pulls and holds one so Xar and Aire can climb out.   In the floor below they find the statue of Galren with the crown on the top, an old alter, bookshelves, an old throne, and a globe. Shen takes a charcoal copy of the globe then starts throwing books into his bag. Bink takes a nearby ladder and grabs the crown from the statue. They ask Daxius if this is the real one and as they do, Bink touches the stone and is polymorphed into a frog. Daxius confirms that this is the correct stone. Shen then takes the prayer book from the alter while Aire finds that there is a tile that is loose underneath the alter. Removing it they find a hole that leads down to some underground tunnels. Aire goes underneath and finds a door and three tunnels. Attempting to open the door he and the debris in the room start falling upward with some of the debris hitting Xar while he was peering into the hole. The spell ends abruptly and Aire falls back to the floor. Upon finding this, they hear commotion from the floor above. Everyone quickly goes underground while Xar contemplates fighting his way out. Daxius convinces him the best option is to go down and they lower themselves, replacing the tile as they do. Lighting up the tunnels, Aire begins to travel down the north tunnel with frog Bink. The further he goes down the colder it gets and there is no end in sight.   Shen decides to open the door Aire attempted to open and find an old, dusty study/bedroom. Inside he walks around the rug to the bookcase and starts looking through the books and taking a few. One of the books is an old jounral telliong of something who's trying to make magical items and failing. He talks about an amulet, a ring, and a stuffed bear with the bear being his only real success. He sees a chest and tells Xar to go open it. Upon walking on the rug, it springs to life and smothers Xar. After a drawn out battle of Xar being smothered, Shen setting the rug and Xar on fire, then Daxius putting out said fire, they defeat the rug of smothering. Xar punches Shen and opens the chest to find the ring, amulet, and bear. Upon further reading, Shen finds that the items are the Ring of Stone skin, Amulet of Featherfall, and Sir Stuffed. He was studying a magical deck of cards to try and figure out how to imbue items with magic and talks about hiding the deck away. Xar decides to trade shen the items he found for the katana they found on the ground level. Shen tries on the Ring of Stoneskin and is turned completely to stone. Xar sees the ring isn't stone and takes it off returning Shen to normal. At this point, Aire had come back and tried on the Amulet of featherfall to which is turns into a feather and falls to the floor. They do not know what Sir Stuffed does and cannot figure it out.   Aire goes into the rooms and moves the empty bookcase to find a hidey hole behind it. Reaching in he finds a pouch containing an ornate deck of cards with only five cards remaining. He pulls all five cards causing a kobold, a fire giant, a succubus, a priest, two acolytes, and a copy of himself to appear in the room with them. He has a connection to them and can cause them to do things, but they soon find out that they are just illusions.   They decide to take a short rest here before they venture down one of the tunnels. After the short rest, Bink returns to him normal form and all the illusions disappear.