Larra and markhet can find no trace anyone other then you has been down here in some time. No dust seems to touch the place, but the same could not be said of the stairs. Only two rooms can be seen down here. One is the chamber at the end of the Hall Celena found earlier, the one with the odd cage like object with the moving earth below it. The other is a tall(30 feet) round room with arches.
The area below only has the two rooms, other then the first area with the trees and fountains. To the left is the single room, with the high ceiling and arches that seem to go nowhere and down the hall is the room with the cage and faces in the earth.
N'djamena, can find very faint traces of of conjuration magic within the arches. The man room also reads moderate conjuration magic, the tree and water most strongly. However even standing outside the room with the cage like device and the faces in the earth you can pick up very strong transmutaion and conjuration magic
Assuming N'Djamena tells us what he sees. "Don't trust what you see. This could be most anything." Kelden prepares for more conflict as they go into the other room.
Everyone can see the faces
The faces seem to repeat the same things over and over again, but not in any tongue you seem to know. If you had to guess , you would say it is clearly not a human language.
Also once N'Djamerna stepped into the room, runes started to flash along with the faces, you would guess they might be the same language the faces whisper.
N'Djamena scratches his bald pate. "I'll pray to Nethys for knowledge when we return. For now, we know for a fact there are troglodytes to deal with, and no doubt there are more gnolls as well."
How much of the compound is left unexplored? How many buildings did we see when we scouted?
"Markhet thinks we should turn back," the gnome says, "Find us some gnolls and deal with all of them before we think about exploring any of these untouched ruins."
I thought we'd already decided to go into the room. Oh well. "The gnolls don't seem to know of this place yet, so, if we're careful, we can probably use this as our base of operations as we clear out the ruin."
"Hold on, friends -- the gnolls can wait. Only Nethys knows all, but I'm convinced there is something vital to our enterprise that lies beyond those faces."
Just to clarify -- those faces are behind some kind of bars, so we would have to remove the bars somehow?
"Let me go first. Me can check out to see what traps may be there; important things usually are guarded. Maybe you check for magic first, friend N'Djamena?"
Vrealk creeps forward after the others check for magic, if appropriate. He'll inspect the area for traps.
The "Cage" is not solid. More like what you would see in a lift, three solid sides and one with an arch to allow someone to enter. The faces are only upon the floor within the cage however.
Vrealk sees no traps, around the cage. He is unsure if the floor with the faces and runes is trapped without touching them. However he does not think they are.
"Sigh," The little gnome says, "Nobody listens to Markhet Larrs."
"Merow?" Larrs asks as he perks up upon hearing his name.
"Markhet can't believe this! She is being ignored even by her own lion! This one almost hopes there is some ungodly nasty thing lurking inside that cage so she can taunt everyone till the end of time after we are all killed horribly. This one will haunt the ghosts of her friends and say "I told you so" till the end of time. But Markhet isn't bitter. She just wants everyone to know the horrible consequences of ignoring her advice."
"A 'gut' feeling? Nay, let us rather call it divine inspiration, as it was when we visited the ruined chapel and a Higher Power led us to this fine relic." He displays Tempest proudly.
The faces do not seem to try and attack or interact with you at all, other then the whispers and the Runes. N'djamerna feels strong conjuration magic about the face covered floor, but nothing he can identify.
Anyone with linguistics may make another check as you know know that lang it is.
N'djamerna is not positive, but he thinks the whispers and the runes may be asking someone to "command the earth". That may be some kind of password or it may be asking you to do something.
The channel seems to have no effect. Something about what Kelden says seems to feel right to N'djamerna, as if they have struck a cord on some long forgotten memory.
So far no one has seemed to follow you below and this place may be as safe or safer then the haven you had with the Gnolls foes.
