Not being raised in Yharnam the word 'Pthumerian' means nothing to him, This is clearly not the case with his companions and he makes it known.
''Pthumerians? Who exactly were the Pthumerians? I've never heard of them.''
The troubling question, though, is what happened to them?
"They're none of our business. We'll take the books back to the College later. They'll get something good out of them. We need to keep looking." Morgam declares firmly.
Dominic readies both pistols. "Why don't one of you melee types go try the door, and I'll shoot anything that lunges out at you?"
"Ah, Pthumerians. I heard a little about them. They lived here before us and there's not much known about them." She answers Sigmund and walks to the left door.
"Let's see if it leads anywhere." She checks the door and opens it if it doesn't look like there are any traps.
Morgam waves them on ahead as he goes to investigate the watch.
"What do you make of this?" He asks nobody in particular.
While Sybille and Dominic are checking the first door Morgam moves to the work bench to investigate the odd time piece. It was made of the pocket watch and sits closed. The casing is a dull emerald green and it has finally done gold etchings across its surface. It appears to lack a chain entirely.
Sybille meanwhile is confident that the door is not trapped. She reaches out for the handle just as Morgam picks up the timepiece. Everyone stops simultaneously as they feel a huge drop in pressure within the room at that very moment, as if all the air had been sucked out at once.
A noise in the room draws the hunters attention. One of the gears hanging from the ceiling has started to swing softly. The thread holding it strains and finally snaps causing the whole thing to come crashing down in a huge cacophony, destroying a nearby workbench in the process.
Before the hunters can collect themselves more objects around the room begin to move of their own accord. Gears and springs free themselves from the ceiling and hang ominously in the air while books, chairs, and tools rise up from the ground in clear defiance of gravity.
"What the hell is that?!"
"We've got trouble!"
Dominic just rolled his eyes.
Sigmund echoes his companions sentiments, expressing confusion and a little worry.
''What in the name of Hell?!?''
"Damn."
Despite their collective surprise, the hunters are seasoned killers and not caught off guard so easily.
Sybille whips out her hammer and makes a wide swing at the floating gears. "That's ridiculous!"
Morgam looks for an opening to duck out of the swirling debris.
Grim pulls out his greatsword, glowing as he draws and swings violently at one of the chairs.
"They're gears! They don't bleed! Through the door, quick!" Dominic takes his own advice, trying to dive between the gears and through the newly-opened door.
Seeing that most of the things surrounding him are flammable, Sigmund draws his sword with a flourish and with a click of his thumb lights it in oil. He swings at the nearest object.
Round 1
Morgam ducks out of the crowd of floating debris while Dominic pushes through the door and finds himself in a large office. The rest of the hunters stand their ground. Sybille and Grim both smash an object from the air with their attacks while Sigmunds hammer sets one ablaze. The fire spreads quickly to several books and a chair. Most of the object shutter in the air before falling promptly to the ground.
The objects start hurtling around the room wildly. Sybille is struck soundly across the jaw by a gear while another fly's dangerously close to Grim. A book shoots at Morgam but misses wildly and a flaming chair explodes next to Sigmund as it strikes the ground.
"Shit!"
Sybille swiftly follows Dominic into the room, brushing the flying gears off.
"Let's get to cover!" Morgam orders, following Dominic and Sybille.
Dominic stands by the door, ready to slam it shut once the others have piled through.
Grim will also try and go for cover realizing that he is having little affect on the objects.
Seeing that the others have all decided to escape, Sigmund decides the battle is no longer worth pursuing.
Slamming his sword back into his sheath, he dives forward in a gap between burning books and chairs. Rolling to his feet, he scrambles for the door.
The hunters all follow after Dominic, ducking into the office. A book explodes on the wall just as Grimm enters and they quickly shut the door before more objects can attack. Sybille helps hold the door which sounds with the impact of objects striking against it, yet it seems to be holding.
The office has only the one exit (the door the hunters just exited) as well as a desk covered in papers and books and a chair. It's decently sized, though with everyone inside it is somewhat cramped.
"You just had to touch the watch... anything legible in these papers?" Dominic asks, bending around Morgan and grabbing a handful to flip through.
Sybille joins Dominic and rummages through the papers and books.
Morgam takes the watch out of his pocket and eyes it with a wary curiosity. "Accursed little thing, isn't it?" He sets it on the desk and takes a look at the papers that the others are occupied with.
"What do we have here?"
He raises his head up long enough to catch Sigmund's eye. "You two hold that door, will ya?"
Glancing at the pocket watch Morgam figures it must be broken. The hands move wildly across the face without any concern for whatever time it may be.
Looking through the papers they are mostly faded with age. The ones that aren't are comprised of the same incomprehensible writings as before, though among them there are a few documents that have graphs, charts, and schematics for various timepieces.
One page shows a schematic of a mechanical hourglass incorporating something that looks like a human heart in it. It looks to be part of some larger design but the rest of the document is too faded to read and the notes are indecipherable.
"Yeah sure"
Morgam turns the watch around in his hand and furrows his brow. He casts his gaze towards the door. "It's more like a compass." He paces a bit to see if it keeps pointing towards the door or if it's just pointing to generally that direction.
Pacing around Morgam finds that the hands continuously seem to point towards the door/wall leading into the adjacent room. The hands have no means of going up or down, only spinning around the watch face so he's not entirely sure. When he lifts it vertical the hands usually orient themselves to a single point and then remain there.
He's confounded though, as midway through his searching the sounds of objects crashing against the wall dies down before disappearing entirely. Shortly thereafter the hands spin wildly around before finally orienting themselves directly towards Dominic.
Sigmund nods at Morgam to show that he heard him but says nothing. He braces his shoulder against the door to help hold it closed but over his shoulder he sees Morgam fiddling with the watch and hears the sound of crashing objects dying down.
Slowly he backs away from the wall and looks at his companions.
''Is it safe to back away from the door now?''
Dominic shrugs. "Open it and see. I'll just be over here."
"Nothing useful here." Sybille shrugs. "And as there's no other exit, we don't have any choice."
Morgam continues his pacing, this time casting his gaze suspiciously towards Dominic.
"I think we should give it another minute, just to be safe."
"I agree, the fact it just died down for seemingly no reason is a reason for worry."
After a few minutes have passed without any other incidents, Sigmund leans back from the door and graps it in hand. He opens the door a crack and peers into the opening, ready to slam the door shut at any sign of danger.
Morgam instinctively levels his pistol toward the door.
Opening the door reveals large piles of broken, scorched, and tattered objects lying in front of the door and along the walls. With the absence of any other mysteriously floating things in the room it would seem that they exhausted themselves trying to break through the wall and door.
After a moment Morgam lowers his pistol. "Huh. Must've been some kind of simple magic. And here I was afraid we had a demon workshop on our hands."
He picks up the watch from where he'd set it on the table and moves for the door, still keeping his eye on the hands.
"Hurry up with that table. We have more ground to cover."
"So... I suppose we'd best head back to Crox, hmm? Unless someone spotted some hidden door."
"We still have the stairs and the door." Sybille points out to the alcove and the last door. "We should check them first. I say we check the door first."
"Yes, we should check the other door before going."
Sybille nods and checks the door for traps before opening it.
Morgam hangs back out of the light as the others prepare to open the door. His pistol hangs casually at his side.