Walking to Rosewater

[Anastasia]

'Hold,' Syala calls, 'I want to see one of those books.' She kneels and checks one, flipping through a few pages.

'It's a sales pitch.' Syala's voice is short, 'Guides to choosing the right skills from souls.'

[Ebiris]

'A regular boutique,' Alicia's mental voice is dry. 'Come along, lets soon put an end to this enterprise.'

[Anastasia]

Another door, bypassed as surely as the first. The second room is comfortable, luxurious. Some sort of cozy meeting room - there's even a bed. The door out of this room, however, is made of black Styx water around a core of what looks to be heavy metal, probably adamantine on a glance.

[Ebiris]

Is the wall any better defended?

[Anastasia]

Not on a glance of the surface of it, no.

[Ebiris]

It's possible just the door is reinforced as an obvious structural weakness while the overall physical framework of the walls remains unchanged, especially since they're already well fortified and enchanted. But just in case, Alicia divines the immediate future of her zapping a pin-prick hole through the wall above the door.

Alter reality for augury-a-like so I get a weal or woe response.

[Anastasia]

Your answer is woe.

[Ebiris]

Interesting. They're close enough that they could go loud and make a rush for Violet, but even a few seconds of warning would be enough time for her to cast a time stop or two and get her panoply of combat spells working. She'd really rather avoid that if possible.

Same divination for the ceiling and floor then.

[Anastasia]

Woe and woe.

[Ebiris]

Could always just wait here for Violet to come out, but that gives more time for someone to get really alarmed about those missing guards.

She'll have a proper look at the magic on the door, then.

'Don't mind the delay, the defences grow greater in depth here so the same methods as before aren't necessarily viable,' she sends to her companions.

[Anastasia]

'I assumed so,' Syala says, 'We can't afford a mistake now.'

Latha is silent, waiting in unspoken anticipation.

CL check on the door, this one's obviously a thing.

[Ebiris]

[16:57] <@Ebiris> roll 1d20+37 arcane sight CL
[16:57] <Kobot> Ebiris rolled 1d20+37 arcane sight CL --> [ 1d20=11 ]{48}

[Anastasia]

No magic.

This must be Malcanthet or Violet's work to resist your power, for on the surface this door cannot be mundane.

[Ebiris]

She shakes her head, ending her arcane sight effect and re-enabling it to hopefully get glimpse through the vagaries of chance that define such spells. The gulf between them isn't an insurmountable one.

[17:11] <@Ebiris> roll 1d20+37 arcane sight CL recasting
[17:11] <Kobot> Ebiris rolled 1d20+37 arcane sight CL recasting --> [ 1d20=17 ]{54}

[Anastasia]

This time you can see and perceive the magic. Ah, the magic helps the waters of the Styx flow in, which are mixed with the Chaos Ichor epic poison to both have the effects of the Styx and that poison. What's more is that it sets of hundreds of alarms all over, as well as causes hunks of the wall to animate as stone golems who are mindless (and this immune to the Styx) and enchanted to move through the waters freely.

Oh, and the floor sprouts hundreds of poisoned spikes too since at that point why not?