Gabriel points at the pool and speaks: "Some sort of conjuration, probably magic keeping it fresh down here. Although with all the strange things around here maybe it summons those flying heads. The magic in here is so old, its hard to tell."
Thorfinn looks over at Ioxeia and Chimaeryus. "Either of you have a guess what this pool does?"
Once Chimaeryus gets back up, Thorfinn will open the next door.
Opening the door you find another set of stairs leading up ending in another closed door. Opening the door it leads to a set of spiral stairs leading up. Getting toward the top you find the stairs are collapsed and it would require a great deal of excavation to clear them out.
Thorfinn grunts. "Wonder what we're under?" He tries to figure that out based on the buildings around the Glassworks and how far the party has come from there.
"Figure we should go back north, finish up in the room we found that goblin. There's a doorway there we didn't check out."
"Lead on Thorfinn."
Heading back to the room with the pits, you continue where you left off. The tunnel leads south before ending in a closed door. There is a side fallway that leads off to the east.
Thorfinn eases down the hall, then looks down the side hallway.
Looking down the side hall there is a set of spiral stairs leading down. Much like the other spiral staircase these are blocked off by rubble.
"Hmph. Brodert'll have us digging that out, sure as anything. Let's see what's back of that door." As soon as everyone's ready, Thorfinn opens the south door.
This strange room is a fifteen-foot-diameter sphere. Several objects float in the room, spinning lazily in space—a ragged book, a scroll, a bottle of wine, a dead raven surrounded by a halo of floating and writhing maggots, and a twisted iron wand with a forked tip. Yet perhaps the most unnerving aspect of the room is the walls, for they are plated in sheets of strange red metal that ripple every once in a while with silent black electricity that seems to coalesce into strange runes or even words far too often for the effect to be chance.
The dwarf pauses in the doorway, staring at the outre spectacle before stepping back. "Um...Ioxeia? Chimaeryus? Gabriel? This one's yours, I'm thinking."
Gabriel shudders for a moment in disgust of the strange room.
"I wonder though..."
Gabriel will toss a pebble into the room.
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"The runes are certainly Thassilonian, but they're either gibberish or ... perhaps some form of personal cipher or arcane notation? It would take some effort to construct a room like this, so unless the magic is gradually failing and distorting the words, I can't imagine why one would go to the trouble just for a display of nonsense."
Prompted by Gabriel's experiment and Chimaeryus' terse comment, when Ioxeia reaches for the contents of the room, she'll also see if she can tap into the room's magic to levitate inside.
Gabriel's stone enters the room and starts to float as it clanks against the wall and then simply starts to float as it losses further momentum. Ioxeia reaching into the finds her hand does in fact begin to levitate as well.
Thorfinn rummages in his pack and produces a coil of rope. "Here, one of you take one end and jump in. Me and Gallus will pull you back out once you have everything good, or if you start getting hurt."
"Let hope it's the former rather than the latter." Gabriel will tie Thorfinn's rope around his waist and hop in. Once in Gabriel will start pushing valuable looking objects towards the party.
Appraise take 10 = 16.
Gabriel pulls out the bottle of wine, the old tome, the scroll and wand. He easily gets in and out with no difficulty.
"Best we tell old Brodert about this place, too. He might be able to read the words here." Thorfinn coils the rope and stows it in his pack again before heading back towards the statue.
The book is a magically preserved but still ancient. It is written in a strange language.
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Ioxeia leafs through the book but shakes her head in frustration. "It looks like it might be Abyssal, which I don't read. And it's ancient, which is fascinating, but so much more bad luck. With some help and a very good library I might be able to get the gist of it, but our best bet might be to ask that Brodert again if he or one of his Magnimarian cronies knows someone who could read it."
"Where to next?"
Thorfinn pauses to think for a moment. "Hallway east, near that statue. Haven't looked there yet. Let's go."
"Glad you've got a head for this stuff Thorfinn, I've got trouble keeping my bearings down here."
The dwarf leads the party back to the statue, then south a bit further before he turns east.
Heading back through the room with the imposing statue you continue down the south hallway and take the first branch to the east. The hallway continues for a bit before it widens here into what appears to have once been a small shrine, for to the northeast, steps lead up to a platform of gray stone. Sitting atop the platform is an ancient altar, little more than a jagged block of black marble with a shallow concavity on top of it. This basin is filled with what appears to be filthy water. There is a set of closed double doors leading to the southeast.
"Hm." Thorfinn looks around the altar for any sort of symbols that might indicate the deity to whom it's dedicated.
"Any of you know anything about this?"
Gabriel will check out the shrine and altar.