With the name now remembered you call out "Chev-re-shne-kar" as you step into the reliquary. Bracing yourselves nothing happens and you breathe a sigh of relief giving you opportunity to look at the layout of the reliquary.
Beyond the reliquary’s open entryway is a huge atrium. The ceiling here is well over three stories high, and supported by a forest of tall stone pillars, each carved to resemble a host of flying, sword-wielding angels.
The walls here are covered with a series of brightly painted frescoes depicting a valiant warrior-woman doing battle against an assortment of monsters, dragons, and evil creatures. Directly ahead stands the towering statue of Admiral Naratha the Twice-Martyred.
From Kirzon's divination he can feel a presence of magic on top of the dais but you are not close to tell what it might be.
She will let Cassie and Amigail go first...for now.
Keeping her eyes out for trouble, Merelda will draw her hand-crossbow, load it and follow the others inside.
Once half-way in, she will look at Cinder and gesture up, her intent obvious from their magical bond. Cinder begins searching the higher areas, and hidden alcoves for danger or anything that stand out as 'not normal.'
Amigail approaches the statue at Merelda's nudging. She kneels before the statue and raises her face and squinting eyes, looking for the hidden signs. She remains kneeling before the saint for a good, long two minutes, patiently scanning for the elusive signs.
Moving closer into the atrium you are able to get a better look of the dais. A huge bronze statue towers over the reliquary’s atrium. It depicts the paladin-hero Naratha standing vigilant in her full plate armor. She holds her left fist over her heart and clutches the pommel of her greatsword in her right hand with the blade’s tip touching the ground. A pair of large stone urns carved to resemble regal gold dragons flanks the statue. The urns radiate a constant stream of flickering red flames that bathe the statue in an eerie scarlet glow. There appears to be another entryway behind the statue that leads into a smaller room.
Kirzon indicates that it is the urn's that are radiating a weak dwemor of magic. Cinder notices nothing out of the ordinary as he flies about. Amigail makes her way up and kneels before the the statue.
"Anyone gots some silver on them? The note says we'll be needin' it ta find what we're lookin' fer."
"I have a few coins."
Ami memorizes the rune as best she can and then moves to rejoin the others.
"When you look up at the statue's face, a glowing silver rune appears under her chin. I'm guessing that now we need to find some bearded squire, if I'm remembering the directions correctly?"
Her eyes begin scanning the frescoes for such a figure.
You notice no frescos and the others look at you with puzzled expressions when you point to the chin of the statue. Clearly not seeing anything of the sort. The likely place to check appears to be the smaller chamber behind the statue.
Merelda shrugs.
"Maybe her squire was buried here too? That small room could be his. Let's check it out. Cinder! Come back to mommy."
Innis watches over the group quietly as they conduct the investigation. Hanging back in hopes no one notices her exhaustion. She nudges their natural talents where possible while she is unadmittedly out of her environment in these lifeless, passionless crypts.
The party moves to the small chamber behind the statue.
This low-ceilinged tomb is dominated by a large rec-tangular sarcophagus, carved to resemble a sleeping dwarf wearing a suit of full plate armor. The walls of this small tomb are plain and unadorned.
Amigail scans the dwarfcophagus for the next item on the list: some sort of signs.
Merelda moves into the tomb of the dwarf muttering to herself and looking around.
"Second sign...second sign...silver...second sign..."
Innis makes an incredulous noise at Kirzon's admiration for the statue but makes no comment towards the old dwarf. "Merelda. What do your elf eyes see?"
Kirzon and the rest of you move into the room and look at the sarcophagus. You notice there are a series of runes carved into the
top of the sarcophagus. The inscription reads in dwarven:
“Here lies Khundren, son of Khadar, blood of Khelharzen, a true friend and companion. He was loyalty and honor personified.”
Upon reading the name Kirzon recalls some more about Khundren.
"I remember some. He was Saint Naratha's first mate and squire. Da coffin be empty though. Khundren's ashes were spread 'bout the water when he passed."
Lililinda pulls out a coin. "I've got the silver, where's this sign?"
"It's right there--on top of the sarcophagus," Amigail tells the gnome. When it becomes clear that Lililinda can't see the glowing rune, Amigail walks to the stone coffin and points at the spot where she sees the glowing sigil.
"Seriously--no one else can see that?"
Everyone shakes their heads with confused looks as Amigail points to the sarcophagus.
Merelda looks at Amigail.
"OK. So go ahead and touch it with silver then if you can see it."
Amigail digs a silver piece out of her belt pouch and presses it to the glowing rune.
Everyone watches on as Amigail presses the coin to the sarcophagus but nothing seems to happen.
"It's not working," Ami reports with a frown. "Wasn't there some mention of a second sign?"
"If we need to touch silver to the second sign...maybe that's the one to the right of or below the one that only I can see?"
Ami kneels before the sarcophagus, looking to see if the squire has a sign of his own that'll appear to her.
Merelda will cast Detect magic to help see if she can figure out what we missing.
Merelda detects some sort of magic on the sarcophagus but cannot determine what type of magic nor the strength.
Ami's frown deepens as she stands up again. "I haven't a clue as to how to proceed!"
It also glows with a brilliant silver-white light, equal in radiance to a light spell. You are certain noone else can see it.
"You guys really don't see that glowing rune? I mean, it's pretty much lighting this entire chamber! Its light almost has a silvery quality to it, but...I don't get how...what's the 'second sign'?"
"Has anyone found an object made from silver that might function as a sort of key here?" the frustrated fighter asks.
Kirzon heads outside as Amigail stands over the 'invisible' rune clearly lost on what needs to be done next.
Kirzon reenters nodding that he also sees a rune on the sarcophagus lighting up the room just as Amigail has described it. It is as Kirzon moves towards the sarcophagus that suddenly Amigail looks about frantically touching the top of the sarcophagus.
It also glows with a brilliant silver-white light, equal in radiance to a light spell. You are certain noone else can see it.
Merelda speculates out loud.
"Maybe the silver has to be a TYPE of item. Similar to a key. Like a holy symbol or silver chalice. Did that witch...the sister...have something made of silver on her when we searched her?"
Merelda looks at the others and none remember seeing anything made of silver on the 'witch' after searching her.
Lililinda looks at the others trying to figure out the puzzle to this situation.
"Let's see. Spoke the guardian's name? Check. Bowed before the lady? Check. Seek the bearded guy. Check. Touch silver to the second sign to open the way. We must not be doing something here. Hmmm?"
Amigail suddenly blinks almost comically and then closely examines the sarcophagus's lid for any scrape marks to indicate if perhaps it's been removed recently.
Mereleda snaps her fingers again.
"Wait! Are there any marking on the coffin that SAY 'silver'? Maybe in dwarven? Or some other language? Some symbol that means silver? Is there something made of silver on the coffin...or should be? Aren't older dwarves called Silverbeards?"
Amigail looks for any markings even as Merelda searches for runes that would spell out 'Silver'. Other than the inscription the sarcophagus has no markings top, bottom, sides. No where.
Lililinda taps her finger against her chin meticulously thinking this over.
"No we're over thinking this I think.The passage we were given was the same written on the note the cult priest had and then given to Ferista. Maybe it's in that line. It's a simple line but why is it not working?"
Innis takes a wild guess "Uhh what if we mark the word 'silver' on the dwarf or use the lights you see to create a silhouette of the word silver?"
"I hear Merelda has a silver tongue should we get her to lick something?"
"I hear Merelda has a silver tongue should we get her to lick something?"
With a smirk, Mereleda sticks her very flexible tongue out suggestively in Innis' direction and then replies to her sister.
"That's very crude sister....even if it is true."
A smile suddenly occurs to her, as if the gods touched her with thier heavenly might.
"Second SIGN. Is there a 'sign' in here anyplace? Other than the dwarven runes on the coffin? A placard, or engraving maybe? Anything like that? I'm guessing the tomb itself is the entrance if the old dwarf was never buried here..."
"Silver! Silver!" Kirzon repeatedly tries saying silver in common and dwarven while touching things, and tracing out the word for silver in common and dwarven. If there's any part of the symbol he sees that looks silver, Kirzon tries touching it or tracing it out.
He'll also touch the dwarf's full plate armor in case that's "silver."
A flash of an idea comes to Kirzon. Grabbing the coin he taps and touches all over the sarcophagus and then just as he is about he traces the coin along the what you can only take must be the shape of the rune. Doing so causes the grating of stone against stone when a secret door opens up in the east wall of this chamber.
Merelda, sighs heavily and coughs.
"Finally! My brain is hurting."
As they explored Cassandra found herself far more focused on keeping herself going and watching for trouble than she did solving puzzles. The whole thing was flying by like a blur and she was having trouble keeping track of what all was happening. She was just relieved that she could manage to keep up physically if not mentally.