Martaug and wolf will go check out the nook...rifle bedding, open any drawers/containers. While there, Martaug will take time to scan the grounds outside if there are any 2nd story windows.

Like-wise, searching everything especially for clues as to what's been going on here, especially anything describing the shafts leading down or any other tunnels. Wait, I'm illiterate, so if I find any written material I'll just hand it to my betters :-)

I also drop my pretense of hiding my illiteracy if that means Grumble reads Cale's book aloud :-)

I'll give you what you can tell in fifteen minutes. That's enough time to move very cautiously through the building and see the main features. Time may be of the essence somewhere, so if you want to spend more time searching, rather than moving someplace else, let me know.

There are windows on the second floor, mostly in the living area to the south. The long, narrow windows on the north wall continue up to the second floor. The third floor is dark. It contains shelves, and was likely intended to act as a storage area as well as a sleeping post, but that was back a long time ago. Recent work suggests that someone with professional skills spent a good bit of time (weeks, perhaps) rigging dozens of automated traps. Many of them include wires that run down, all the way through the holes in the main floor. (That is, if the traps are triggered, the subject might be stabbed by a spear, sliced by knives, etc, and some alert would be sent down somewhere.)

Grumblenaught, the book isn't a diary, as such. There are poems and tales, in various stages of completion. Some of them are in common, but others --all in short lines-- are in some other language, indeed, some foreign script. (If you think Japanese kanji, that old be a pretty good analogy).

Some of the stories are ones you've heard Cale tell, and the most popular ones have glosses, like "pause here for a full breath" and "funny voice? no." In each, there's a moral to the tale, either underlined in the story, or else written in the margins.

The morals, taken together, form bits of a coherent ethos: the world is dangerous, be prepared for whatever may happen (in one story this preparation comes in terms of physical skills and another highlights having the right tools for the job), and be ready to act on a moment's notice. Comic heroes are seen as mercurial.

Water features prominently in a handful of tales; it is always used as a prison or restraint.

Much of the earlier poetry has a consistent fire-based imagery, and have a voice of pleading and supplication about them. Many of the early versions to those poems include words in the foreign script. Those kinds of poems get rarer as the book progresses, and you can't find any among the final third.

I presume (hope) we're able to rig the alarm wires for the further traps we find so as to not alert whoever's at the other end, but can we tell if the trap(s) we already set off have "alarm" wires headed down?
(i.e. did the alarm already go off) ???

Hmm...
I just want to look for what the best means down to/from the cavern system below, if there is rungs in the shaft(s),
(i wasn't 100% clear if it was possible to climb down the shaft, at least with a rope... 2 ft wide seems do-able, if snug...?)
or any secret doors elsewhere. Looking down the canyon face from wherever's the best vantage, do I see any signs indicating where the surface has been disturbed, or anything like a mineshaft entrace somewhere on the sides of the canyon below?

"What does dwarf think? Your people hatch in eggs underground, know much underground lore, right?"

About the shadow, I have a ground shaking theory to share:
"Yalka think shadow-demons only be kill by weapons of magic like Martaug and Yalka save from at Barn"

Is there any obvious blocking mechanism for the machinery running the ropes?

How is it going, Chris? I hope your Mom is doing better.

@Gav: BTW, are you making it to P-Con?
It'd be great to get in a game together, even if not w/ Martaug & Yalka :-)

EDIT: if you are, feel free to drop me an email at remember (at) psyon (dot) org

Yep! I get in Thursday, take off Monday morning. I am almost counting the minutes. This will be my first completely 'me time', not-work-related vacation I've had since I've before I got married (13 years!). RPGs and sea food? Can I get a hallelujiah!!

Awesome!
I JUST figured out that the event sign-up was online.
I'm hoping to do the Iron Illustrator, but the Fight Club says "if it's your first P-Con you MUST fight" so I'm sortof conflicted. I suppose if I just rank the Fight Club really low, there probably isn't roving Live Action RPG enforcers roaming the halls looking for first-timers not at the Fight Club :-)

And I don't think I'm going to be putting it up there in my highest preferences, but the timing for the live-action Yeti game works out well for some things, so I may end up in THAT game too :-)

I'm not certain, but I think that may just be playing on the rules of the Fight Club book/movie. First time members to Fight Club have to fight.