Chronicle: The Frozen Throne

You touch the staff to two of the spheres and... nothing happens. Behind you you can hear the coughs of Legolas, wet with his own blood. You remind yourself that everyone you brought down here was ready to die in order find Alfred but you still can't help feeling bad.

Panic and frustration. I'm a prince and a mage! Things aren't supposed to go this way. I'm losing control, fueled by the thirst. I'm calculating less, throwing caution to the wind.

I swing the staff wildly at the spheres, screaming.

Still nothing happens. The sarcophagus appears to be made of very solid black marble. It shows no signs of giving to your flimsy frustrated attempts to damage it. During a brief lull in your assault, there is a *thump* from behind you.

I hear the thump and spin around to see what's there. I'm tired from taking my rage out on the spheres, but my head is clearing a bit.

Turning around you see that Legolas has collapsed and is now laying on his side, as still as the grave. Blood and puss slowly ooze from lips and the horrible leaky burns on his face and hands to pool on the ground. The captain hasn't seemed to have noticed, absorbed as he is with his own steadily worsening condition (if you recall, he is burned almost as bad as Legolas is). A few seconds later the Captain also succumbs, slumping over.

I run to their sides and feel for a pulse.

Legolas' is still and quiet and the captain's is weak and fading fast.

This is getting worse. I may have to abandon my comrades. I get up and go to the north side of the room and examine the door. I also use mage-sight to understand the magic of the room.

(roll Wits + Investigation - 3 for investigating the door and Intelligence + Occult + Prime - 3 to activate supernal vision, make sure to label the rolls)

Investigating the door.

The member 'grahamsnumber' has done the following action : Dice roll

'd10' : 2, 7

Correction: investigating the door.

The member 'grahamsnumber' has done the following action : Dice roll

'd10' : 2

Supernal vision.

The member 'grahamsnumber' has done the following action : Dice roll

'd10' : 9, 7, 8

As far as you can tell, the door is perfectly normal (Investigation is an extended action which means you can continue to roll for it if you wish. Each roll represents 5 minutes). You activate Supernal Vision and the world blurs and distorts, revealing the resonances and magically channels which permeates the dungeon. There is nothing abnormal about the door but behind you, you can see the slightly pulsing glowing green lines of Life magic swirling around each of the four spheres on the corners of the sarcophagus.

Maybe I've approached this the wrong way, assuming that the way to find the secret of the coffin was to stop the fan. There is life magic around the spheres, and maybe this can be useful. It wasn't helpful to touch the spheres with the staff -- what about touching them myself? I'm desperate here, driven by thirst. Before studying the door any more, I go to the spheres. I look at them, staring nervously. I reach out and touch the two spheres on the western end of the coffin, one hand on each sphere.

As far as you can tell, nothing happens when you touch the spheres.

(Please note: there is a new house rule in effect. this rule is taken directly [i.e. copy pasted] from the book World of Darkness: Mirrors, pg. 222. Here it is:
"When Good Failure Goes Bad
Maybe you want to build a rule off the existing dramatic failure rules, something akin to the chance die, but with a little more punch and frequency. Try this on for size:
Any time a roll comes up a failure, roll one die — we’ll still call this the “chance die,” because that name is perfectly delightful. If the chance die comes up a “1,” then welcome to Dramatic-Failuresville, Population: You. You mispronounce the demon’s name and he curses your family tree, or you accidentally launch the lockpick into your eye and tumble into an open manhole." The normal chance die rule is still in effect. If you are reduced to zero dice on a roll you may still opt to roll a chance die with the normal risks.)