"It looks like there's a door down here," Blikx says, pointing to its outline on the wall of the pit.
Osru checks out the other pits to see if there are any other treasures or doors, then climbs down where Blikx pointed out.
There doesn't appear to anything in the other pits. At the bottom of the first pit, you see a stone doorway that mostly blends in with the stone, thogh its flatness in a cicular pit gives it away. There does not appear to be any locks, and t moves easily on its hinge.
Zella will pick up a small rock, casts light on it and then throws it through the doorway to see if anything is laying in wait on the otherside.
As the rock sails through the small gap, it bounces once, then clatters down a set of stairs, making a lot of noise. Once the noise ends, stillness returns and nothing seems to respond. A small glow in the darkness can still be seen eminating from the rock somwhere, but all else is still dark.
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"Are we going down there? We've still got missing people to find, unless that snake-goblin-thing ate them all."
Blikx looks to the other party members for consensus.
"Somehow I don't think it was big enough to eat anyone," Ven says, and goes to take a look at the northern passage, trying to discern if it collapsed a while ago or recently, and if the latter, if they could clear it with any kind of speed.
The dust and dirt covering the stairway seems rather old and untouched. The stairway is almost full of rock and earth, and it would probably take a long time of excavating should this stairway continue for long.
"Well, doesn't look like anyone's come through here in a long time; if they didn't leave the ruin, then that door in the pit's really the only way they could have gone." Ven saunters over and slides into the pit to take a look. "Shall we, then?"
Osru replies, "Yes it appears this is the way in. Strange place for an entrance."
He follows Ven down the stairs, keeping his eyes and ears open.
Opening the stone door fully, you make your way to a short set of stairs to a section even farther underground. At the bottom of the stairs is Zella's glowing stone, but you can now see from down here, a half-way lit room. Along the walls are scones, but it seems only about half are lit, as though someone was lighting them or exstinguishing them in a rush and abadoned the task.
The room before you forms a long, barred hall, extending fifty feet or so to the north. Four small antechambers, each one blocked off with iron bars, line the east and west walls. Directly before you is an iron door that separates the small southern portion of the room from the rest, but the iron door already stands slightly agap.
Along the walls and inside the alcoves stand stone statues of men with snakelike features. Unlike the snake above, these are more humanoid beings, but where a human's head would be, instead a large snake protrudes from the shoulders. With some in various poses, are follow this concept, with the two largest around a pool of what appears to be water.
The statue that stands out the most, however, is the one along the right wall inside the alcove in which the barrier is broken. This statue appears as though someone has hacked at it repeatedly, and several parts of it are lying scattered on the ground.
From this vantage point, there does not appear to be any more entrances or exits.
Ven slowly walks into the room. "Mersoolian? Lucendi?" she says. She passes through the first gate in front, and stops briefly in front of the ruined statue before moving on to take a look at the pool of water.
There is no answer to Ven's calls as she moves forward. The statue from a closer perspective, now definitely appears as though someone had been hacking at it, and there are pieces of weapons on the floor as well.
The pool, meanwhile is strange. Not a clear blue, you cannot see to the bottom, and despite its complete stillness, there is no moss of any kind.
Upon descending, Blikx take a cautious look around, scanning the area for magical auras .
The broken statue seems to emit a faint aura of magic, but it seems to be fading. There does not appear to be any other source of magic in the room.
Ven considers the pool of water. "Hey, somebody toss me that stone that's lit up." When she has it, she stands near the water and carefully drops the rock with Light cast on it into the pool; if there is no immediate reaction, she leans forward and looks into the pool.
Zella will light up another small stone for Ven and hand it too her.
Osru knows when to stand by and let the others figure it out. He keeps an eye on the room and any possible intruders on the scene.
As the rock hits the surface of the water, it slowly sinks and immediately disappears beneath the surface out of sight. No light can be seen coming from it.
As Osru looks around, he notices a glint and pulls an unbroken longsword out of the mess that is the statue. Behind it, he also finds a key.
Blikx decides to look at the hacked apart statue and see if she can get any sense of the remaining magic clinging to it.
The magic seems to be transmutation in nature, but the purpose of it is outside of your realm of knowledge.
"Zella, come see what I found!" says Osru excitedly. He holds the sword up, checking its edge for flaws and finding none. "This might come in handy. And look- a key as well. Have we seen any locks this might fit?"
Zella comes up and looks over the items. "Nice looking sword. I don't think that we've seen anything that requires a lock in this place yet though. We haven't been down here looking for long though, we may yet find a lock that will fit it."
Curious about the water, Zella will go back over to it, cast light on her morningstar again and slowly lower it into the water up until the point where her hand would go under. She tries to judge at what point the light no longer penetrates the water.
The mace disappears into the liquid like the rock, completely invisible past the surface. The mace has some slight resistance, as though it is more of a syrup than a free-flowing liquid. As your hand touches the liquid, you feel a tingling along your skin, and you realize that lingering in the liquid will probably be bad. This liquid is probably acidic, and its bluish-green coloration is not because its water, but that's the actual color of the thick liquid.
Ven takes a good look around the room.
"Do any of these bars have locks on them?" Blikx asks no one in particular. "That key might open them, if there are..."
She walks around the room and looks carefully at each cage without touching them.
The door to each alcove has but a simple latch, and though on the inside, it would be easy to snake one's hand through and unlatch it if one desired.
As Blikx studies the bars, Ven passes by along the wall, before stopping at a familiar discontinuation. Right between two of the barred off areas, Ven notices that the wall's stone is craftily different. Alongside the edge of this, there is a small hole. Without having known of the key, it probably would have been easily passed over.
Ven lights up as she brushes her hand over the stone. "Hey, over here! Looks a lot like a keyhole to me," she says. She checks for traps along the discontinuity of the wall.
There are no traps that you can perceive.
Osru is practicing swinging his new sword around while the others check out the room. When Ven mentions the keyhole he perks up and hand over the key, eager to see what may be revealed.
The key turns easily, and as it does, the stones move forward slightly. With a little push, a door made of the stonework swings open without a noise and no resistance.
Past the secret door, you see a dimly lit corridor that winds upward, past another already open stone door. The first two scones along the wall are exstinguished, but the rest give enough light to see the interior rather easily. You gather that the first two are probably out to keep light from possibly escaping through the door's cracks and giving it away.
The corridor is about five feet wide, but you can just see that the corridor seems to open up past the next door.
Osru heads cautiously down the corridor, taking a peek inside the next stone door.
Zella will follow after Osru. "I wonder if the archeologists made it down here this far? We still haven't seen any sign of them yet."
At the next stone door, you can see that the pathway becomes a ledge, about four to five feet wide, that winds up around a pit about twenty feet or so below. Inside this pit, a thick, bright green liquid awaits any unfortunate souls. A small ripple can be seen occasional beneath the surface.
At the top of these winding sets of stairs, a landing stretches out, splitting into two different pathways, each with a closed stone door at the end.
With all the sconces lit, you can see that the pathway is in good condition without any bad spots and should be an easy walk. However, Zella notices something along the far wall. A snake-like statue, less humanoid than the previous ones, is mounted upon the far wall above the pit. You catch a faint glint of metal within the mouth of the statue, and following its line of sight, you notice a few rough marks along the wall against the ledge, as though bludgeoned with an object. So far, all of the walls beneath the main chamber have had little imperfection.
As the party enters the room, Blikx once again scans the area for magical auras . She glances down at the green liquid in the pool for a moment, then remarks, "That can't be safe."
"Where else could they have gone, though? The passage back there was long collapsed, this appears to be the only way forward," Ven says. She takes a look around, keeping clear of the serpent's mouth.
"Could we have missed another secret door somewhere?"
Zella looks around the room and at the statues.
"Hey, what is that metal thing in that one snake statues mouth?"
Zella follows the line of sight from the metal object to the wall and runs her fingers around the wall.
"I wonder if there are any secret passages in this room?"
"I can retrieve it without touching it," Blikx replies, pointing to the metal object in the snake's mouth. "I can pull it out with wind...if it's not too heavy...or stuck...or part of the statue..." she trails off with a shrug of her shoulders.
The serpent stares directly at the ledge along the northern side of the room, and need to be passed if continuing on. There does appear to be a trigger spell placed on the serpent as well.
As Ven looks at the serpent, though, her expertise clues her in that this is definitely a trap. Though not fully sure how it works, something is likely ejected to hit the wall when someone attempts to walk by. It might be possible to disarm if one was clever enough.
"It has a spell on it that will warn somebody that someone has passed by here after them," Blikx says. "I don't know how to keep it from happening," she adds apologetically.
"Or it's being used as a magical trigger mechanism. Let me see here..."
After studying the device for a minute, you believe you know how it works rather well. The metal glint is probably a grappling hook of some kind that pulls someone into the acid. Why else would acid be down there?
Grabbing up a small rock, Ven tosses it a few times to test its weight. Then with a strong pitch, she hurls the rock directly into the mouth of the serpent. A clang sounds, and the head of the serpent twists slightly before three grappling hooks all tangled drop about six inches out of its mouth, the rock within the claws of all three. They do not return into the statue like you believe it should, so it is probably safely disarmed.
You do not hear anything after the device is disabled, though. If the spell was triggered, it is a silent one. You do notice the green liquid rippling a little more for a while before settling down again, though.
Two stone doors remain now, one to the east and one to the south of this spiraling chamber.
"Well done, Ven!" admires Osru. When they follow the path around to the first door, he stops to examine it.
The door appears to be the same as the previous two. Solid stone, it does not appear to have any sort of lock. This door has not been created as a secret door like the first, and stand out easily within its frame. Nothing can be heard from the other side.
Osru has learned by now. "Ven, after you!"
"Yes, yes, just give me a moment," Ven says in good humor as she checks for traps.
There are no traps around the door, and with a slight push, it opens inwardly to reveal a library. Inside, the room takes the shape of a strange, star-like pattern. Each triangular alcove is sectioned off with bookselves crammed with books, and the ceiling is high enough to accomdate a loft area above each alcove which seems to house more bookselves. A ladder leans against the bookselves making up the front of each alcove, allowing one easy access to each loft. Along the floor, a snake-like pattern of tiles decorate the entryway.
A table sits in the middle of the room with a few chairs to provide a place to read. A few books lay open upon the table and the layer of dust on most other things is completely missing from the table and the books. A quick search reveals no one in the room that you notice.
Zella looks about the room with great interest after she enters. "Ok, so this room gives me a bit of the creeps, buts these books are really interesting. They might contain some actual bits of historical lore and bits of arcane secrets. They all look like they are seriously, really old. I would love to get these translated or to learn to read them myself."
"Arcane secrets!" Blikx replies in an excited tone, her eyes going wide as her gaze moves towards the books. She moves over to the table and looks over Zella's shoulder at the open books. "What sorts of spells are in there?"