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Mogall nods "The question is why did someone go to the trouble of staging this site?
The Wayang thinks for a moment before continuing, "Didn't Zefiro the curator of the Museum of History say these ruins would earn great prestige for a colleague at Egorian's Athenaeum and that a lost colony of ancient Taldor within the Kharijite province would give the empire a strong claim to the region?"
Using a prestidigitation to fiddle with a small stone as he thinks out loud, "I would conjecture that Chelish wanted the Pathfinders to verify this site as authentic so that they could lay claim to the Kharijite province. How much do we tell Zefiro when we see him next considering he is only an acquaintance of the Society? If the people who perpetrated this hoax find out what we know I would suspect they would try to silence us before getting the information back to the Society. We should document the inconsistencies, but hide them well."
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"Fake statues? The Chelaxians must be behind that. With their constant need to revise history and use it as a tool for their own purpose, it is by no mean surprising to see that deed done. You're right Mogall, we need to be discrete about it as long as we're in Chelish territory, but the truth must come out of our report!"
The final statue, which is being flanked by the two 'lions', is an ancient statue of the god Abadar, which blocks the way to a double door.
The statue is indeed an illusion, intended only to block access to the double doors behind it. Adrianna easily sees through it.
Beyond the door, shadows cast by a blazing brazier behind a metal lattice to the south flitter across the wall paintings, granting the images the illusion of haunted animation. A seven-foot-tall statue of a hunched, robed figure with three eyes and a mouth ringed with tentacles stands before the lattice.
This area is dedicated to the archdevil Barbatos, whom the statue depicts in grisly detail. The paintings portray a battle between the troops and div allies of Ancient Osirion and the artificers and constructs of the Jistka Imperium. These two powerful nations clashed for several hundred years around –3000 AR, and the Jistkans eventually lost the prolonged conflict.
The metal lattice is rusted, and should take only little effort to open.
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Mogall looks over the inter sanctuary comment as he does "That statue is of the archdevil Barbatos. The paintings portray a battle between the troops and div allies of Ancient Osirion and the artificers and constructs of the Jistka Imperium. These two powerful nations clashed for several hundred years around –3000 AR, and the Jistkans eventually lost the prolonged conflict. I guess they were hoping we wouldn't find this room."
The lattice crumbles away from the wall as soon as Adrianna applies a minimal amount of force. On the other side, a fiery brazier at the east end of the chamber makes the air uncomfortably hot and acrid. An eight-foot-tall statue of a devil with large, curved horns stands at the west end. Across from the metal lattice is a collapsed, descending staircase. An ancient skeleton is partially buried under the rubble.
Decsending the staircase leads to an echoing, lightless hall, which has a dark pool that extends most of its length. A walkway runs above the pool, but much of it has collapsed, leaving only the support pillars below. In the south, upon a platform at the end of the hall, stands a seven-foot-tall statue of a horned humanoid with a large, cryptic disc mounted upon its back. The hall turns to the west before the platform, turning into a hallway with staircases leading down to the north and west. The wide staircase to the west leads to a room illuminated by the warm glow of a small, fuel-less forge next to an eight-foot- tall statue. The statue depicts a handsome, winged humanoid, though one side of his body is notably angelic and the other half fiendish. Skeletal remains in a red uniform lie in the middle of the room.
Adrianna notices a carved, broken rod near the skeletal remains.
The rod is, in fact, a broken ivory baton, which the Jistkan artificers used to control their constructs.
Mogall starts realizing that the statues depict the archdevils that rule the layers of Hell.
The statue depicts Barbatos. The current ruler of Avernus, the first level of Hell, Barbatos holds the keys to the gateways into Hell. He has dominion over birds that feast on the recent dead.
Dispater: The immense, iron-walled city of Dis, the second layer of Hell, is ruled by Dispater, Hell’s greatest politician and jailer. His followers revere hounds.
Mammon: Hell’s treasurer and accountant, Mammon lurks in the dark, rat-infested sewers below Dis—a lightless realm called Erebus that is the third layer of Hell.
Belial: Desire and adultery are the areas of concern for Belial, ruler of the molten layer of Hell’s fourth circle, Phlegethon. His followers considered goats sacred.
The skeletal remains are those of a Chelish soldier, who has a gaping but cleanly cut hole through its rib cage. One of the corpse’s skeletal hands still clutches an amulet.
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The echoing voice coming from inside the suit of serrated armor contrasts with its usual tone, sounding almost excited and positive for once.
"Magnificent! This must be one of the ivory batons which the Jistkan artificers used to control their constructs. I never saw one before, but Master Zey used to tell me about those - before, you know..."
The voice returns abrutply to a more sorrowful tone, given the circumstances.
"Well, and those are all archdevils: Barbatos of Avernus in the previous chamber, Dispater of Dis in the room with the brazier, Mammon of Erebus in the flooded hall, Belial of Phlegeton in the last room. Respectively the archdevils in charge of the first four layers of Hell. It appears there's a progression. Where are the other five?"
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Mogall nods in agreement with the the knowledgeable Sir Jalthas. The wayang's respect increase by one notch for the eternally armored fellow.
If you prefer us to roll knowledge checks, I'm fine with that just trying to save gratuitous dice rolling and time since I didn't know what checks were available. I usually roll unless I absolutely don't want to miss and it's an easy take-10.
FAQ taking 10 on knowledge checks link
earlier and clearer post on take 10 knowledge.
As Jalthas moves to inspect the statue of Belial, the lord of the fourth layer, the ivory baton start to tremble.
Mogall manages to restore the rod to power. Since there are no ancient constructs in view, he can't really test the function, though he doubts the rod would hold out more than once anyway.
The human corpse has a Jistkan gold bracelet that has the head of a goat engraved on it. The bracelet has faint abjuration aura on it.
The stairs down lead to a dim hallway. On the east end of the hallway, two staircases lead to the north and south but the one to the north has collapsed. A painting on the eastern wall depicts four figures guided along a path by a rat, a goat, a raven, and a hound. A rounded tunnel extends to the west, and glowing runes on the floor divide the floor into four areas. Stairs at the far end of the hall descend into a larger room, and a decrepit corpse wearing a silver amulet is splayed precariously across the upper steps.
From afar, Lance sees that the corpse wears a silver amulet that looks like a rat curled into a circle. Before he moves closer, Mogall manages to identify the carvings: they are an allegorical representation of the path of damnation, the passageway into the deeper layers of hell. Each carving is associated with a layer, and with an animal (rat, goat, raven, hound). The four runes seem to be wards of some sort, that each must be disabled by carrying the right object.
The corpse with the rat amulet lies just beyond the third rune.
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Adrianna speaks to herself, but in a voice all can hear. "So. The painting back there depicts four figures guided along a path by a rat, a goat, a raven, and a hound. The corpse with the rat amulet lies just beyond the third rune. So it may have a goat talisman on it somewhere also. Can we somehow hook a rope to the body and drag it to us? What else have we found that may be useful to us? The rod...was that it?"
The runes clearly refer to the first four layers of the nine hells:
The first reads:
The anguish of the people whose place is here below,
has touched my face with the compassion you mistake for fear.
The second reads:
Pale were the lips I kiss’d, and fair the form.
I floated with, about that melancholy storm.
The third:
Today I swallowed a hole
It voraciously
Devoured me whole
The fourth reads:
They struck against each other; at that point,
each turned around and, wheeling back those weights,
cried out: Why do you hoard? Why do you squander?
Lance travels back to see if he missed something, and returns to the statues of the hounds. There, buried under a slab of rock, he finds the body of a Chelish soldier - long decomposed - holding a token of a hound.
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Mogall thinks back to the statues of the first four layers the planes, "I believe it should be: first raven, second hound, third rat, and forth goat."
The small wayang looks to see if there is a place to put the animal keys to disarm each area without entering the areas, "Now how do we use the obejct keys."
Adrianna doesn't see an indentation to put the objects in, but Mogall already discerned that just displaying them while walking along the corridor might be sufficient.
There is still the issue, though, that to reach the rat token the adventurers must pass the rat carving. Which is potentially unhealthy.
With a rope and grapple, dragging the corpse in is easy. With the four tokens in hand, the adventurers can pass the infernal carvings without fear.
At the end of the corridor, stairs descend to a large room. The air in this chamber is strangely humid, and a thin layer of fog clings all across the floor. Another staircase descending to the west is fully obstructed by rubble. Several statues with serpent motifs stand in the area. To the north, a large, green stained-glass window looms behind a twisted statue of three serpentine men conjoined at the hip. Vines snake across the floor from a central pool filled with luminescent green liquid. In several places, faintly glowing arcane script inscribed on the floor tiles shines through the mist.
Mogall identifies the statue as that of the archdevil Geryon. The stinking swamps of Stygia, the fifth layer of Hell, are the dominion of the Serpent—Geryon—source of all great heresies.
The faintly glowing arcane script provides dim illumination throughout the room.