Erebus pulled the cold crystal out of his pocket and eyed the mold. The cardinal's test was apparently designed for significantly lesser minds.
He threw the crystal at the mold.
The mold dissipates with a hiss and another inscription is revealed on the door underneath: "Thou hast made thy own path."
The passage curves around to yet another door with yet another inscription: "Know your enemy. Shatter all that blinds you then burn thy adversary to ashes." You open the door to utter blackness. Any light from the hallway meets an abrupt end at the threshold of this room.
<--
To your knowledge it is some form of magical darkness. You cannot deduce the source of the effect.
Erebus had seen darkness effects before, in other lives. They tended to be spheres. If this puzzle was as simplistic as the others, the emanating point would be in the center of the chamber. So far all the chambers had been the same size. It was enough to work from.
He moved blindly forward, guessing at where the center of the room would be.
Sure enough, at the center of the room is some kind of pedestal. As you fumble around, your hand comes to rest on a smooth (glass?) globe resting unattached on top of the pedestal.
Shortly after you touch the globe, pain shoots through back of your neck. It feels as if your blood is trying to escape through your pores.
Otherworldly whispers echo from behind you. A mere mortal might find them frightening, but you recognize the horrid sounds for what they are - Aklo, the language of monsters. "Blood taste strange," says the speaker.
Aklo wasn't just Erebus' native tongue. As far as he knew, he was the first being to speak the language, ever. It had been something of a gift he'd crafted for a race of three-eyed aquatics who had great minds but, at the time, no voice.
"You can stop that now." Erebus replied in the horrid language, his tongue splitting down the middle to get the otherworldly inflections perfectly.
<--
He brought his clenched fist down on the globe, hoping that would be enough to end the darkness.
You feel the globe begin to crack but it does not shatter - it's clearly a little tougher than ordinary glass.
The thing howls as it flies around the room. "NOOOO! YOU NOT BREAK DARKNESSSS!" It's incredibly fast, to the point that the voice seems to come from multiple directions at once. Having lost track of its position, you continue to bleed.
"Very well."
Erebus picked up the sphere, walked back to the door, and rolled it down the hall and out of the room.
The sphere rolls down the hall and bounces around the corner, taking the darkness with it. The room is still unlit, but even in the gloom you can see that the floor is covered in small holes about one inch in diameter at even intervals. From one of these holes arises a thick, clearly defined blob of what looks like mist. "FOOL. You suffer." The mist flies past you and off into the area of magical darkness.
In the room are two more doors, leading to the north and east.
Erebus shifted his form slightly and closed his wounds, walking back towards the edge of the darkness.
"No, I do not think I will. You seem an enterprising sort of monster. I can appreciate that. Perhaps you'd like to have a discussion that doesn't end in your destruction?"
<--
<--
The creature in question is a vampiric mist, an amorphous aberration capable of draining blood from its victims. You understand its intelligence to be somewhere between the average human and an animal, motivated chiefly by the desire to feed.
Somehow, even without a mouth, it can talk in a strange hissing voice. "Master make me guard room, guard darkness. Master say to kill warmbloods. Not all warmbloods. Not kill warmblood to north. Maybe not kill you, strange warmblood. Still hungry."
"You feed on blood. Does it have to be living, or would freshly dead suffice?" Erebus asked.
"All warmbloods food. Live blood best," it hisses.
"Very well. Wait here. I will return." Erebus did not feel much in the way of kinship with anything, but he had a sort spot for hungry monsters.
He went back into the formerly dark room and headed to the north door.
<--
No traps, just passage to another room and another inscription: "Cruelty is a tool not a pastime. Be ruthless to thy enemy but reward those who serve thee well."
Other than a lamp, there is only one thing in this room – a torturer’s rack. The cruel implement is functional and ready for use but currently empty.
Erebus had no need for such primitive tools. He went to the next door.
<--
The other door leads to a room with the inscription: "The chosen are revealed by their might. The weak deserve no sympathy."
Upon opening the door, you immediately notice that the room beyond contains two extremely intricate statues - made of overlapping, silvery metal plates - fashioned to look like cobras poised to strike.
Erebus was fairly certain those statures were going to animate.
<--
The "statues" are indeed recognizable as contructs, likely equipped with a small reservoir of poison within their fangs. Their instructions obviously do not include attacking on sight, as they do not move while you stand outside the doorway.
Poison was something he was currently unprepared for. He was aware of his vulnerabilities. They were somewhat refreshing. They forced him to think.
He stepped out of sight and shifted his form to match the Cardinal. Then he stepped into the room.
<--
The moment you step through the doorway, the two cobras begin to stir. Your instinct tells you this is an attack, allowing you to act before they close in.
In a flurry of tendrils and unnaturally articulated limbs, Erebus went straight up the wall and held onto the ceiling. His head pivoted around so he was facing downward.
<--
The cobras charge forward, but alas, cannot climb. They attempt to slither up the walls again and again, falling back down to the floor before they can ever reach you.
Erebus lashed out with a pair of tendrils, hanging on with the others.
The cobras' speed makes them quite hard to hit and their metal bodies absorb some of the force of your blows. Still they never flee, never stop trying to climb the wall. They're stronger, faster, and tougher than their natural counterparts but without out any intelligence, all of that is useless under the circumstances.
Finally, there is nothing in the room but you and two glittering heaps of metal.
Erebus dropped down and idly sifted through the metal rubble with an extended pseudopod.
Even smashed up the metal looks fairly valuable - and there's around 20 pounds of it.
Erebus collected up the scraps into his pack, feeling a bit amused by the mundanity of the task. Then he went to the door.
<--
The next inscription reads: "Suffer not the fool. Stupidity is our faith's cardinal sin."
In the center of the next chamber is a small podium upon which lies a pendant of silver - a dragon with sapphire eyes.
A staircase leads up and to the east.
It was nice that the Cardinal was so willing to warn people when a trap was coming.
He did a quick mental count. There were supposed to be nine rooms. The staircase was obviously a trap. The pendant probably was too. He ignored them both and looked for another hidden passage.
<--
The staircase is indeed trapped and although the pendant isn't, inspection reveals it to be a prop made of cheap metal and glass.
A hidden door exists on the west wall. The passage beyond continues in an L-shape, growing increasingly dark as you move away from the light of the last room. When you reach the next door, you can barely make out the inscription. "Secrecy is our greatest ally. Exposure brings death."
The first few steps of the staircase are pressure plates. By climbing past them, you discover that the staircase comes to a dead end with an inscription on the wall: "Only the foolish believe great deeds are so easy or so obvious." There is also a hatch in the ceiling, likely designed to release its contents when the steps are pressed.
Erebus ignored the trapped stairs for now, followed the hall to the secrecy door, checked it for hazards, then opened it.
<--
The next room is completely dark. Unlike the clearly delineated darkness from the black orb, the gradient of light suggests that the darkness in this room is natural.
Exposure brings death.
Erebus had to admit he was amused by the melodrama. He really was going to have to do something about this body's inability to see in the dark. It was unbecoming.
He stood at the precipice and tried to make out as much as he could.
You cannot sense anything.
His hand split and two tendrils touched the wall, gently feeling their way. His other hand did the same, but swept the floor and the air in front of him. He made his way through the dark, feeling out the perimeter.
You make your way around the perimeter without even, other than finding a door (untrapped) to the west and a hidden wall concealing a set of stairs leading up.
Erebus opened the door and slipped through.
Inscribed on the next door is: "Beware the fallen for they may rise once more to threaten you."
In addition to the usual oil lamp lighting, the chamber beyond houses eight battered wooden coffins that are encrusted with salt brine, barnacles and dried sea weed.
Undead. Erebus didn't like them. He didn't like anything that could not properly fear.
He stepped into the room quietly.
<--
Nothing happens as you step into the room.
Erebus silently crossed to the other side and checked the door.
You cannot find any traps on the door.
Erebus opened the door and left the coffins behind.
Behind this door is, unsurprisingly, a passage to another door.
The next door however, is different. Reinforced with iron bands, it is locked with a stout lock. It bears an inscription: "Serve thy master well and be rewarded." Hanging beside the door on a peg is a heavy iron key.
Finally, things were getting interesting.
Erebus took the key and unlocked the door.
Inside the room sits a man - fully armored, fully armed, and in excellent health. Around his neck he wears the holy symbol of Mitra, a sunburst - that happens to be wrought in silver and sapphire.
In an instant he is standing, his hands ready to draw sword and shield. "What in the name of the Shining Lord is going on here? Why am I being held?" he demands.
From the room behind you comes the sound of wood shattering. More specifically briny, barnacle-encrusted wood shattering.