|+Thermoregulate – 28— 55% [
|+Heat (Touch) – 24— 88% [
|+Chill (Touch) – 24— 37% [
|+Hotspot (Area) – 19— 89% [
|+Condense – 1— [
Only a few hours after the group had fully split apart, Dakkon was out observing the so-called restricted area located on aeromagi guild land. Dakkon had initially tried to contact Benton, the aeromagus whom he had hunted alongside of in the first group he was a part of after arriving in Tian, but the mage was offline or, at least, unresponsive. He’d been asking around about the compound as discreetly as he could manage, but the answers he received were anything except useful. Players and NPCs had extremely varied ideas about what the place actually was. Some believed the area was an advanced training ground for wind magi which offered faster-than-tavern mana regeneration and access to hidden, rare and powerful spells. Others believed the area was a secret society which hoarded exotic treasures, gave out rare classes and quests, and had special maps on display which showed all the best dungeons for the area. That seemed highly unlikely, but the mention of rare classes, no matter how unlikely, would always pique Dakkon’s interest. Another group seemed to believe the area was a playground of the rich which featured free, priceless meals that increased stat bonuses to astronomical levels. While this, too, seemed farfetched, the final iteration was loosely supported by the fact that chefs were frequently escorted into the large, closed-compound throughout the day. Other figures—cloaked to obscure their identities—were escorted in as well. The truth of the matter, however, was about to be revealed to Dakkon because he had walked inside only moments ago.
Getting into the building had proven to be a task suited to the talents Dakkon had cultivated. Two men stood sentry at either side of the large, wooden double doors leading into the compound. Dakkon had observed the two halting each individual and group approaching the entrance. One member of a group would raise a hand, then the guards would allow them entry.
After Dakkon had slowly worked his way to a sufficiently close vantage point, he was able to see that which granted the groups admission. Above each mage’s upturned palm, there twisted a miniature vortex of swirling air. It appeared to Dakkon that entry into the restricted area was dictated by a certain degree of technical mastery in wind magic. He supposed it made sense. If there was a sufficiently skilled wind mage, the guild likely trained them, or at least knew of them. If you want an area to be exclusive grounds for wind mages, why not make the entry requirement wind magic?
Dakkon didn’t know any wind magic, but he had created a whirlwind by accident through magically charged hot and cold air. It had been quite a while since he had made the dust devil in the inn and, since then, Dakkon had progressed significantly as a thermomancer. He figured the task should be easy.
Deciding that he could no longer learn anything useful from simply watching the door or asking vague, unassuming questions, Dakkon pulled the hood of his cloak around his head, dusted himself off, and walked up to the two guards. They turned to him, opening their mouths to speak as Dakkon’s hands pulsed with hot and cold magical energy, funneling it into the air between them. Dakkon now knew how to condense the magical surges of temperature and did so to great effect.
A burst of swirling wind erupted from his hands, blowing off his hood and causing the guards to stumble back slightly in surprise.
“Easy now, we get it,” said one guard.
Dakkon re-settled the hood around his head, his visage completely exposed for a moment. Any passing players would have been able to see the blue name floating above his head while the cowl was down. The NPC guards would also be able to recognize him if they needed to find him.
The guards opened the wooden double doors enough to grant him passage into the poorly furnished entry hall. As doors closed behind Dakkon, leaving him inside and alone, he could hear one guard’s protests about new mages showing off.
The long antechamber looked to be made entirely of smooth, hard stone with a couple of large, symmetrically placed holes on either side of the hall that you could see into—to an extent—when walking deeper into the building. The holes didn’t look to be decorative, nothing in the hall did, which meant that they were functional. If the corridor were trapped, that would explain the lack of ornamentation. Dakkon walked carefully down the corridor, placing his feet gingerly on stone tiles and testing the ground in front of him. Perhaps a display of wind magic was only part of what was needed to gain entry. Perhaps any misplaced foot could lead to a gruesome end. Perhaps he was being paranoid, as one tends to be when doing a poor job of infiltrating a restricted area.
After Dakkon stepped over a stone threshold that looked as though it might have the ability to raise and seal off the antechamber, he found himself in a round, warmly-lit, and lavish nexus with five large passageways which split off like spokes from the hub of a wheel. The hallway to the far left was labeled by an elegant sign with crimson letters on dark tan leather which read ‘Lounge.’ Muffled noises and delicious scents wafted to him from the lounge corridor. Dakkon decided that path would likely be the safest to explore as strangers were expected in lounges—but if there was anything worth finding, it would probably be down one of the other paths. Dakkon eased his nerves by reminding himself that he didn’t break in—he was granted entry. Plus, he was expected to arrive there anyway—albeit sometime tomorrow. What’s the worst trouble he could get himself into?
Dakkon decided he would take his chances with an unknown hallway, choosing the first counterclockwise corridor from the antechamber he had entered through, directly opposite of the lounge. The round hub room had been invitingly illuminated, however the hallway he now tread down had just enough lighting to have a rough idea of where one was placing their feet. Dakkon’s eyes quickly adjusted to the low-light environment. About 40 paces dead ahead of him, he found a stone slab barring any advancement. There was no hinge nor handle on the door of stone. There were, however, three small holes on either side of the slab, each about the size of a human palm. As far as Dakkon could see, each hole travelled in a different direction inside the wall, and they did not inter-connect.
Dakkon figured that the holes must relate to how the slab is raised and lowered. The problem was, he had no idea how it worked. The obvious answer, being in a zone belonging to powerful wind wizards, was that it was some sort of gust-activated puzzle. Placing one hand on a hole and producing wind that spun in the correct way with one’s left hand and in a likely different way through another hole on the right. Were that the case, the puzzle seemed like it would make for an effective lock. Dakkon could produce wind by manipulating temperature, but he had never tried to do so with each hand, separately. There was also the strong likelihood that using the wrong holes would spring some nefarious trap. That’s how he would have designed the puzzle if he had something to guard—and perhaps having something to guard this well meant it would be worth the risk to have a crack at it.