DDo-based RP

"I genuinely wonder what that librarian must be hiding down here... But if I need to help to turn it off, I'm ready to assist at any time Arynna!" he takes a more relaxed pose and listens closely aswell, trying to discern once more the sound of lightning striking down. The hallway as is appears fine, but there is too much risk involved for him to step in haphazardly.

"There are two ways forward. Through this door, or through a pool of water and floating bodies..."

Arynna hums in thought. She examines the wall around the lever as best as she can from the 5ft distance between the lip of the basin, and the wall. She can't find any foothold around it; the wall is flat, and solid. There's no way that she could climb around it and pull the lever.

"Everin! I need your help with something."

Everin turns towards her almost instantly. He had been covering his nose again from the stench and as such his response is somewhat muffled by the chainmail and plates of his suit of armor. "That was quick. What do you need me to do?"

"It's simple really! I need pull that lever, but I'd rather not step in to the water without knowing if it's safe. Who knows if the lightning beyond the door can travel through and reach the water pool?"

Arynna stands at the very edge of the basin.

"Hold on to me somewhere. I'm going to lean forward and reach the lever, and you're going to make sure I don't fall in, OK?"

Everin crosses his arms for a moment after which he agrees with a hesistant "...Alright."
He holds one hand near her sides and takes her hand with the other so she's able to lean forward without interruption. He tightens his grip and positions himself solidly on the ground, relying on the grip the weight of his armor should afford him. "Tell me when you're ready to lean forward. I'll... Try and hold on."

"Ready!" Arynna announces. With Everin holding her, she leans forward over the edge, extending her legs and arms as far as they will let her, in order to reach the lever. She positions herself so that she only has one foot still on solid ground. With her left foot on the edge of the basin, and the right over the water, she reaches with her right hand. Arynna grabs the lever and pulls it down, careful to not upset Everin's balance.

"Pull me back, pull me back!" she says once the stone door starts to open.

At Arynna's mark, Everin pullsher back by the arm. Needing to swing her back a bit, he takes a good hold of her waist and catches her in his arms, leaving her hanging there and both her feet back on the floor. "That did the job quite alright." Everin says as he lifts Arynna back up. "We should be able to go from here I reckon. But ehm... You're ok? Wasn't too rough I hope?"

"I'm fine ye' dolt. I wouldn't have asked if it hurt." Arynna says. She sighs, getting fed up with him being afraid of doing anything. "If I can't take a little pull on my arm, why am I doing this? Adventuring and fighting creatures? I'm going to get hurt, and if you're going to fuss over every little thing..." She rolls her eyes. Arynna wonders if he really does think so little of her.

"I'm glad to hear that..." Everin says to her with a sigh, picking up on her annoyance of his overprotective behaviour. "Let's just advance, there'll be much more nasty things ahead, I'm sure" Everin takes his sword and shield, raises them to a protective height and corrects his posture before he carries on.

"Let's not be too hasty." Arynna cautions.

The room sealed behind the stone door has been revealed. The room is more like a long hall, with small open chambers jutting out from the main hall. There are three of these chambers on either side of he hall.

At the end of it, lays an ornate lever on a raised dais. The lever is surrounded by a shimmering globe of magic.

The entire length of the 50ft by 10ft wide hall is flooded in water that would go just above the ankles on an average height human. The only places not flooded by water, are the juts along the length of the hall, and the raised dais.

And true to Arynna's guess about lightning. The ceiling holds three arcane constructs, placed at equal lengths from each other spanning the length of the hall. Every minute, the constructs activate and unleashed a bolt of lightning in to the water. For a few feet around the area of the strike, the water boils furiously before returning to normal. Arcs of electricity dance all around the surface for a while after the strike.

Everin nods and walks about and observes the chamber. He curiously asks "So how did you plan to approach this? I know a suit of armor isn't going to help me alot here. We just... Make sure to be safe during the intervals and advance as neccesary?"

He crouches and gazes over the water surface. The jolts of electricity don't appear to sustain for long and the arcane device appears poorly equipped to ramp up the speed any further. It did strike Everin as odd however that someone who had been keeping secret a body-filled cellar for so long would invent a trap based on an ingenious contraption, yet such poor execution.

Arynna hums for a moment, thinking through her plan. "I think we have... fourty seconds to move through the water. We'll want to wait after the lightning strikes to make sure the water isn't electrified before we go. Then we just go to one of the side chambers and wait."

Arynna's plan is very simple, and does not take any other possibility in to account, but it's the only one she can think of. If the situation changes mid-way through her plan, then she'll have to adapt.

"I'm seeing a pattern in this place... I think we have to get to the lever." She puts her hands on her hips, and waits.

When the lightning crashes down, she waits until the waters surface becomes calm again. With a wave, she gestures to Everin that it's time to go now. She steps in to the basin before the door, and moving as fast as she can in water, steps on to the side-chamber's raised platform. It took her under ten seconds to reach it. The platform's have very little distance between them, only a couple of feet that need to be travsersed through water.

Everin follows right behind. With his shield raised and his sword kept on his shoulder, his greaves produce profound clunking sounds as he makes his way through the shallow water, creating large splashes and reaching the platform aswell.

"It's a shoddy design, but I don't think my armor likes it nonetheless." he says as he sheathes his sword. In the hopes of getting more mobility, he fastens his shield to his back and holds his sheath tightly so it doesn't obstruct his legs too much.

"What are you talking about? It's a bloody arcane machine that shoots lightning. I'm certain it's purpose was to shoot lightning. It's doing a damn good job of that" Arynna retorts. She crosses her arms and sighs. For someone who thinks himself to be so smart, Everin is quite the idiot.

"Well, sure it does! And it's well built, that's for certain. Concerns me though it's used like this. I mean, there must be a much better use for bloody arcane machines that shoot lightning!" Everin raises his hand to his chin and ponders "Now that I think about it, Fallowmir's not shown himself to be a particuliary good trap designer... Or he's just been too busy with other things. What do you think, Arynna?" he asks, watching the arcane machines closely to run for the next platform.

"I'm quite happy that his traps are poor! What, did you want them to be very well thought out and deadly?" She asks mockingly.

"O-of course not Arynna! ...You might just say I'm sort of disappointed though, the man's surrounded by books! And we were actually led into his trap." Everin says somewhat flustered. He had been taking note of the machinery and with the lightning striking once more he says "Stand ready to advance."

When the three machines deliver their lightning strike, Arynna waits until it is safe for her to dash through the shallow water, and get to the next safe spot to stand. She leans against a pillar, facing the rooms exit. She waits for Everin to follow, knowing that he's slower than her.

While waiting, Arynna spots sigil of sorts, or some kind of arcane rune set in to the wall. It glows with soft blue magic. Arynna wonders if it is connected to the force field that protects the lever on the far end of the hall, or the lightning-spitting machines.

As expected, Everin follows behind at a slower pace, the metal of his armor suit grinding against the stone and his feet once more displacing the water drastically. This time however he manages to arrive on the next platform much faster. Hanging his shield on his back and holding his sheathe had made him much swifter and with much less effort. Getting rid of the obstruction that his equipment would usually offer allowed Everin to be much more fleet, and he stompingly sets foot on the platform near the exit, shaking his legs to rid himself of the excess water.

He walks towards Arynna, taking note of her eyeing something and turns around himself to look in the direction aswell. He too spots the feintly glowing rune, but instead of marvelling over it gets on his knees and opens his back, fervently searching for something. After rummaging around a bit he takes a few sheets of parchment from his bag and goes through them. On the front parchment the sentence "d'Jorasco Notes" can be read and Everin takes one of the papers seemingly filled with runes and their descriptions. "Arynna, you should look at this." he says as he points at the rune on the parchment corresponding with the one on the wall.

"I've looked at it enough... I'd rather not touch whatever that is just yet." She peeks her head out around the pillar, just as lightning strikes again. She's blinded by the bright flash of light for just a moment, but is otherwise unharmed by it. Arynna rubs her eyes, hoping it will clear the spots in her eyes and the pain quicker.

"We've got no time for reading right now..." she starts, but sighs. "Tell me what you see."

Everin starts to explain what he gained from copying d'Jorasco's notes. The rune Everin is pointing at is a crudely drawn copy of the rune used for operating magic devices. Indeed, no degree of mana infusion or mechanics would guide the operation of a magic device better than a rune setting everything in motion. While the lightning would cover it, upon closer inspection it seems the rune lights up whenever the device is activated again, as if it too is fed by the powerful magic surrounding it.

Looking towards the end of the hallway, a similiar rune is portrayed on the wall, it too glowing and to any person keenly observing it, it would seem it is used to control the activation of the devices. After finishing his explanation Everin says "So in essence, one of us could just run over to the lever, unhindered by the other to have their back covered for if anything tries to sneak up from here. This should give us a much easier time."

"It should... But we still should be careful in case the rune does something else." Arynna stands up straight, turning her back to Everin. "Do you know how to shut it off? It'd be better if I did the running, and you stayed put." She believes that Everin won't protest against this, knowing that he's weighed down by his armor.

"I've had some experience with magic runes. If you can't figure it out, perhaps I can."

Everin nods "Alright, I'll stay put" he says as he continues to look about the room with his notes. "I'll tell you if something changes, you should be able to disable everything in here by pulling the lever we were heading for anyway, but I'm getting the feeling that would be too simple to be true." Everin puts his notes on the ground in order to draw his weapons and kneels down next to the rune. Whatever strange things could happen when he disabled the rune, he wasn't going to be caught flat-footed.

The takes a moment to read his notes once more and the specific workings. Touching the rune seems to give a feint response, but applying his knowledge he manages to weaken the rune's effect, shutting it off entirely after a few more seconds.

The effect of shutting off the rune doesn't become apparent until a minute passes, and no lightning is unleashed from the three arcane machines.

At the end of the hall, the shield remains protecting the lever. The mechanism or enchantment that maintains the shield must be somewhere else.

Arynna steps in to the water, confidant that it's safe now.

Everin stays on guard, a smile appearing on his face in knowing that disabling the rune worked. "I'll tell you if the runes light up again, make sure to find where to disable that forcefield!" he shouts over in Arynna's direction.

He however keeps watching the long, wet hall suspiciously. Surely disabling a rune like that couldn't be all.