Soon, a report comes back on the Link from a Ptolemaeus copy searcher that an area is found with several signs that he can interpret, with cages destroyed, and bodies, but no slaves found yet, alive or dead, so the other searchers are continuing while the copy studies the scene and reports. All of the information goes on the Link.
The search pattern comes to an area not far from location10, about 200 feet away to the northwest across the cavern; not quite at the midline across the cavern from east to west, and toward the south wall. The visual comes onto the Link and Star adds it to the combat map with color coding.
The Ptolemaeus copy reports that the central cage in the tan tinted circle is almost completely destroyed. What is left of the cage’s bars is twisted wood instead of the burnished dark silvery look that the rest of the bars have; several in the party recognize the coloration as a very dense armor-grade alloy of Adamantine and Mithril.
There are other cages with some bars that are partially or wholly made of wood, though not twisted, instead of the glossy, dark silvery alloy, in an area surrounding the destroyed cage. Closer in, the bars are wood from floor height almost all the way up; further away, the bars are wood only for a section part way up from the floor. Bars at the most distant edges of this phenomenon have just a touch of wood, part way up the bar.
With Spellcraft, the Ptolemaeus copy can see, and others on the Link with excellent Spellcraft like Halt and Ror can confirm, that two Spells in combination were cast, first Transmute Metal to Wood, then Warp Wood. The larger radius of the globe of Transmute Metal to Wood touched bars on outlying cages, while the smaller radius of the Warp Wood was just enough to destroy the central cage.
The tan circle represents what the Ptolemaeus copy sees of the wood bars area.
At the northwest edge of the circle, and lying partially within the circle, is a square cage tinted in red on the map.
That cage also has wood bars that are not warped, but the bars are splintered inward, with shattered pieces littering the floor of the cage. Careful observation shows the scuff of a bulky form across the floor of the cage, and some large booted footprints in the sawdust crossing the cage from near the intact back wall and exiting from the cage through the splintered hole. No bootprints entered the cage.
Between the hole in that cage, and the destroyed, twisted wood cage, are three bodies, of Umber Hulks that look much like the follower ones that attacked groups 1, 2, and 6. The Umber Hulks are partially dismembered, and deeply scorched with blast marks. The polished stone floor is heavily clawed in this area, clear signs of a battle, and it is strewn with rubble from the Umber Hulks’ burrowing holes in the floor, that they made on entry.
The Ptolemaeus copy recognizes the blast marks; they look something like Lightning, but he realizes they in fact look like pure Arcane Energy, much like the Eldrich Blast of a Warlock… not quite, though; something is wrong with that idea... Looking even more closely at the damage on the Umber Hulks, it is focused on their claws and mandibles, what they use to attack, rather than their armored forearms and torsos, what they use to defend.
An Eldrich Blast would leave a uniform scorch across much of the creature on one side, not scorch marks on specific locations like this, used for the Umber Hulk’s attacks. It is as if their attacks had provoked the damage.
Dimly, the Ptolemaeus copy, with PtolemaeusO’s memories, recalls an older Magic, said to have been practiced more widely during the First Age but very rare now; with Ptolemaeus’ direct knowledge bounded by the Second Age, he has to rely on the inaccuracies of hearsay: practitioners whose blood was so laced with Arcane Energy that wounding them released a torrent of it, like fire from the blood of their wounds; it was called…
…Bloodfire.
All the Umber Hulks have these scorch marks; despite the partial dismemberment, it looks like it was the scorching that killed them. Who or what in this Age would be so suffused with Arcane Energy is curious; the Ptolemaeus copy recalls on the Link that the Deities were more closed about this type of Magic in the Second Age; though not banned, it was something of a secret.
The Ptolemaeus copy reports one more curious observation: The alloy bars on that cage to the northwest also show quite a bit of damage; it wasn’t just the wood that was blasted apart. Their surfaces show streaks of crystallization from instantaneous heating, in a pattern that radiates outward from the twisted cage at the center, toward and onto the northwest cage. Ptolemaeus has seen that kind of destruction, from weapons that project high energy, amplified coherent light to burn through whatever is in front of them… though even those might have trouble against an Adamantine–Mithril alloy. What could do this… another mystery.
For the rest, I need that percentile roll from Ptolemaeus…. +2 for Luck, hope to roll a natural 98-99-00!!
For what’s in this post…
The two knowledge checks:
Rolled 1d20+44 : 4 + 44, total 48, that was very good, not a 50+ but almost, and so it was not good enough for the deep inside story, but definitely good enough to analyze the radial damage pattern to the alloy bars and identify it as high energy, amplified coherent light, from Ptolemaeus’ extensive experience with technology.
Rolled 1d20+44 : 12 + 44, total 56, even better, well into the 50+, and so it was good enough to analyze the damage and identify it as Arcane Energy focused in a particular way, which paved the way to recall some details about that very specific type of damage with its telltale signature… but not a 60+, not quite enough to get more details about a very obscure practice in the Second Age (for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the Deities’ secrecy).
And the Spellcraft roll:
Rolled 1d20+44 : 4 + 44, total 48, not quite a 50+ but still plenty good enough to figure out the Transmute Metal to Wood/Warp Wood combination.
Re: Knowledge of All Things Bound: 10/14 left for the day… these rolls were for the copy to report back, so that’s zero uses of Knowledge of All Things Bound for PtolemaeusO; they were by the copy. When Ptolemaeus makes his own copies, their uses count against his total, but this copy was provided by Ror, so the copy’s uses don’t count against the original.