"It would also give me the chance to pray for the command spell."
Lorien moves up to Gren and casts cure light wounds on him.
"Thank Sarenrae for your healing ability Lorien. It has certainly come in handy today. I say we head back to where we stopped for a snack earlier today - it seemed safe enough over there. I also had a thought that it is possible the final glyph that we've found could be more skeletons or another flame trap. Either way, I can't say that I'm ready to tackle it yet. Maybe next time one of you would be so kind as to lend a hand. Kesh - I know you wanted to explore around the lake a bit but I'm not sure the rest of us are up to it just now."
Quietly pulling out his thieves' tools, Kesh warily approaches the building. "I guess it'd be good practice," he mutters. "Zatinya, could you point out the blasty rune things? I'll give it a whirl."
Keshokkar carefully approaches the rune - there's an art to this sort of thing. When he's close enough, he makes some small changes, and the magical energies fizzle out.
It should be safe to enter the building now.
This temple mirrors the other one, except for the statue, which is of a woman, clad in armor and holding a heart-shaped shield. She's standing tall, a sword raised towards the broken cieling. Her head has broken off, and lies at the feet of the statue.
The whole statue is covered in smears, scribbles and runes, and sure enough three of the runes radiate magic. One on her shield, one on the base of the statue, and one on her broken off head.
"I dunno, but I want him in front now." Rhiannon answered. She was pretty tough in general, but magic could blow through her defenses like they weren't even there. This time, too, she was staying well back. "But seriously, let me know if you want me to call up a wall to help block any blasts that might get set off." she volunteered.
"Wouldn't we need him and Zatinya in the front since she can see the blasted things?"
Right where you'd expect the celestial text to be, there's been smeared some of the brownish mess that also covers the walls. One of the glyphs of warding is also placed here.
"Wait, these things are on stone, right? Couldn't Rhiannon just mess up the glyph thingy?"
"And after this is done... I need some time to clean it. It hurts my eyes and soul. It is not a temple of my god, but this... desecration pains my soul."
Unable to see the glyphs himself, Kesh eyes the statue doubtfully. "If wyvarans could sweat like you softskins I'd be drenched right now, I think the first one was kind of a fluke...Still, if Gren and Zat want to help out I'll give it another try..."
Kesh starts to lean his glaive against the wall, then scowls at the filth smeared everywhere and asks Zatinya to hold it instead. Slowly approaching the glyph supposedly at the base of the statue, the wyvaran's look of concentration might be comical in less dangerous circumstances.
"Kesh...I'm truly impressed. I didn't know...Anyway of course I will give you a hand with the next one. You've also reminded me that I brought some thieves tools as well..."
Gren rustles around in his pack and pulls out a small case made of rough, stiff fabric.
As he does this, Gren tries to make out any bits of language he sees.
The pair manages to clear the runes off of the statue. It should be safe now.
Gren cleans off some of the muck on the base of the statue, and finds this inscription, in celestial:
“Speak, O warrior stouthearted and true, the triune virtues of our Valorous Lady.”
"Can someone tell me what those words mean? It's like I'm reading a different language," Arianna says after reading the phrase carved into the base of the statue. "All I can tell is that a warrior needs to speak and something about virtues and a lady."
Lorien ponders for a moment.
Does she remember anything about Muir to help here?
"You probably didn't know this but the word 'triune' refers to a combination of three things. I don't know much about Muir but this may refer to 'Truth, Honor and Courage.' These were the things Muir valued above all else. Now what do we do with this knowledge?"
Just to be sure, Gren repeats the three virtues in Celestial. He then searches for signs of an opening beneath the statue.
"Also, wasn't the lake here supposed to be crystal clear? Arianna, would you mind taking a look? You are probably best suited to figuring out why it looks so...unnatural."
The statue of Muir slides backwards, revealing a set of marble stairs, 10 feet wide, leading downwards into the darkness.
"Uh, I can look, but I wasn't the one that was good with that sort of stuff," Arianna says before going to see what's going on with the lake.
===
After the Staircase opens up, Arianna carefully takes a look to see if she can spot any sign of her sister, or the passage of her captors.
There's little sign of passage on the stairs. The ever-present malign runes and desecration of the temples aboveground isn't present down here. Her darkvision allows her to see that the stairs don't go that deep - they emerge into a fairly large, square room, with tapestries on the walls.
She sees no traps on the staircase. Entering the room below should be safe, at least.
As for the lake, clear waters going dark is usually either because there's a lot more nutrition for plants to grow, or because a lake transitions from a swift current to still waters.
Since the river still flows swiftly in and out of the lake, it pretty much has to be the nutrition thing. That fits with the reeds near the shore too.
As for how a lake would become a better environment for reeds and algae, well, there's probably been a rather large, continous influx of dead animal or plant matter, or animal droppings.
In short, a very large animal, or several smaller ones are either crapping in the water, or tossing in carcasses.
"If it's alright with you, I'd like to take a look at it myself. After that mess with the glyph's we can't be too careful, it'll only get nastier from here I suspect.
"
"Agreed," Arianna says, her ears droop and her voice is sad.
"Well, that depends..." Rhiannon mused. "It's possible they never set traps beyond this point because they actually had to live there and such, and I think we'd know if the people who messed these buildings up got in... but I like living, too." Honestly, she had no objection at all to being careful as they headed down to examine the place beneath the temple.
"It is also noteworthy that the original writing was in Celestial while the...desecration was in Infernal and inside does not look touched... at least from here. "
With that, Gren lights a torch and slowly descends.
"Um, d-do you think we should be going deeper," Arianna asks, "I'm still a little sore, but Gren and Zatinya nearly died."
"I think I've got another fight or two in me. We've still got healing, still got spells? Then let's press on, no sense in letting whatever bastards did this," he gestures at the filthy desecrations all around, "set up any extra nasty surprises. A fast assault is always good when the enemy doesn't know you're there yet!"
Gren pauses on the top step of the stairs, a look of yearning in his eyes as he considers the mysteries below.
"Lorien, how are your healing reserves? Do we need to regroup now? We've been kicking that idea around so long now it feels like its been days."
Taking a deep breath Lorien feels into her heart and faith and then speaks up.
"I am able to call for a burst of radiance twice more today. But I still have a few spells to cast."
And so the group presses on, at least for a little while yet.
You follow the stairs down into an empty room, almost big enough to be a hallway, if the cieling wasn't so low, hanging only a feet or two above your heads.
The light from Gren's torch floods the room, shadows dancing over the four tapestries that line the walls.
One depicts Muir with her sword raised over her head, much as the ruined statue in the temple above.
The second depicts Muir and Thyr, standing with a vast shadow against a horde of undead and demons.
The third depicts Karith the paladin, slaying a a dragon with his holy sword.
The fourth and final one depicts a vast group of fifty-one Justicars (a holy order of warriors devoted to Muir, elite beyond even paladins) entering the gates of a foreboding fortress.
The chamber is otherwise empty.
Warily glancing around the room, Keshokkar sniffs the air and cocks his head to the side, listening. "Yeah, yeah, I heard you. Somebody check for magic, I'm gonna look around..."
Some of the decorations along the border of the tapestries form words, in celestial. Keshokkar obviously can't decipher it, but if he shows it to someone who can, they read:
“Invoke the divine favor of our goddess and speak the name of the virtue that is her shield,” on the southern wall.
“Call upon the power of our goddess to make your weapon as hers and speak the name of the virtue that is her sword,” on the western wall.
And “Pray to our goddess that through your self-sacrifice you may protect others and speak the name of the virtue that is her armor,” on the northern wall.
Gren walks around the tapestries reading the Celestial as Kesh points it out."It can't be coincidence that Muir honored three things and there are these three inscriptions on the tapestries...Well I suppose technically it could be coincidence...
He stops at the image of Karith trying to recall pertinent facts on his fight with the dragon.
"Invoke divine favor... make your weapon as hers... sounds like holy magic to me." Rhiannon said, musing over the inscriptions from a safe distance. "Probably specific spells, something most of her followers would be able to cast. Think it'll work if a priest of anybody else does the same thing?" It was possible only a true cleric of Muir could bypass these the normal way - although if they were lucky, it would at least be open to anyone who followed one of the heavenly deities.
"But it says 'speak the virtue.' So what happens if we just say honor or courage or truth?"
Lorien thinks for a long moment before replying.
"Divine favor is a spell I can cast, well could, after my prayers.
Shield others is a spell I will be able to cast, if my faith gets stronger. Also the spell align weapon. I can only cast it once the faith is stronger in me."
The tapestry depicting Muir with her sword raised is on the wall behind you, the eastern wall, which has no inscription.
From there it goes 2/south, 3/west and 4/north.
Gren recalls that Karith is a paladin of millennia past. While he lived, he was known as the Warden of the North, and spent his time keeping the area north of Stoneheart Valley safe, killing dragnos and uprooting cults. Interestingly, he lived in the grand Temple City of Tsar, then known as St. Harul's Hold. His death marked the beginning of the end, the Hold falling into the hands of Orcus shortly after.
Gren paces around the room inspecting the tapestries closely, lifting them away from the wall, looking to see if they could be removed, estimating their weight and judging the quality of their construction.
"It seems we are stumped again until Lorien has a chance to spend some time to herself. We've talked about resting. Shall we find a place? Could we rest in this room? It seems safe enough if we can close off the statue above." Even as he says this, Gren realizes how naive it sounds to think this place is safe.
"Works for me as long as we can get out again." Rhiannon said cheerfully. She didn't need to rest for as long as other people did - and a full night's rest ought to bring her pretty much back to full health. (That, and any holy energy bursts anyone might choose to provide to the group...)
"W-w-we're sleeping here?!" Arianna pales, turning almost as white as her hair at that suggestion.
"We certainly don't have to. Would you rather we move to that camp site we made down the path?"
Gren is fairly certain that he could sell these for a 1000gp each. How he'd get them to town is more of a puzzler - they weigh around a hundred pounds each, and even rolled up, they'd be pretty unwieldy.
Besides, if this place still counts as an active temple, stealing relics is just the sort of thing that'd get you hit with a curse.
More interestingly, the secret doors that the hidden messages in the tapestries hint at are very visible when he messes with them a bit - there are outlines of doors behind each tapestry that has a message in it. They're still made of stone, but a determined person could probably break it down if he wanted to.
Zatinya does indeed pick up a magical aura - : the entire chamber is covered in a Consecrate effect.
Zatinya also notes that the statue has moved back into place, barring your way to the temple above. There's a lever in a niche on the wall that you missed on the way down, though.