Sapher has a brief moment of panic when Ez's hand disappears, but gets it before she embarrasses herself. "Did you know about that?" she asks her well held on to prisoner.
Drask walks up to the wall and puts a hand through it. "Huh. Neat." He moves through to see what's on the other side.
Caroliss hurries over to Veltariel's side. "Oh my gosh, these guys are soooooo cute!" Caroliss seems enamored with the donkey rats that Veltariel has befriended. "I've heard of them before, they're also called capybaras, right?" She starts feeding them nibbles of food. "Look at this one--he has such a cute nose." Caroliss starts to pet him quite aggressively.
She then looks up at Veltariel with doe eyes. "Can I keep him? Please, please?"
When Sapher asks the woman if she knew about the wall she just shakes her head no. Checking out the little closet, there is not anything of interest.
Mokashi detects magic and concentrates on the apparent spell, eventually realizing it is a illusory wall spell. Unless the tower girls have a powerful arcane caster among them, you would imagine this was cast by someone from Thassilon.
Seeing Caroliss’ eager and shared interest in the care and well being of these animals made Veltariel smile. ”હું નથી જોતો કેમ કે પ્રાણીની સંભાળ સરળ નથી. પરંતુ જો તમને ગમશે તો હું તમને શીખવી શકું છું.”
Caroliss peeks over at Esrisi, suspecting that she might be mad at her. But Caroliss really, really wants the cute donkey rat. She looks back at Vel. "તે ખરેખર અદ્ભુત લાગે છે! જો તમે મને બતાવો તો હું ચોક્કસપણે તેની સારી કાળજી લઈશ."
She takes the donkey rat and starts snuggling him some more. Then looks at Vel again with gratitude. "આભાર"
Veltariel winces a bit as Caroliss cuddles one. ”તેઓ ... કદાચ પહેલા સ્નાન કરવાની જરૂર છે. ફ્લીસ ...”
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Finished with the illusory door, Esrisi starts to head back towards the way that they came when she sees Caroliss snuggling the rat. Her eyes go wide with fear and she tries to swipe it out of her hands and knock it to the ground. "Caroliss! The diseases those things probably carry! Do you want to be laid up in bed with filth fever tomorrow?! We've got a job to do down here and we need your full attention on getting this shard. Put that rodent down and let's get back to work."
Eventually the group makes their way down the last passage out the main room. About thirty feet along it opens into a large room. Two tables of planks and trestles have been set up in here, and a large alcove holds the ashes and soot stains of many recent fires, along with a stone statue of a beautiful woman wielding a ranseur, that looks like the woman from the fresco in the previous room. A hooded lantern burns atop one of the tables.
Back in the hallway, following it further south it eventually turns to the east and leads to a set of stairs descending down.
Veltariel makes her way to Drask and Sapher, doing everything in her power to not pummel Esrisi...again...for her unprovoked mistreatment of the capybara. ”So...down then? Perhaps we can finish this?”
"Yup. I moonlight as a painter." Drask says deadpan.
"Um... I drew something once in the temple, but they asked me to never do so again." Sapher admits.
Finished with the illusory door, Esrisi starts to head back towards the way that they came when she sees Caroliss snuggling the rat. Her eyes go wide with fear and she tries to swipe it out of her hands and knock it to the ground. "Caroliss! The diseases those things probably carry! Do you want to be laid up in bed with filth fever tomorrow?! We've got a job to do down here and we need your full attention on getting this shard. Put that rodent down and let's get back to work."
Caroliss instinctively turns to protect the donkey rat from Esrisi's swats. "Shoo, shoo! You should be ashamed of yourself, attacking poor Billy here." Esrisi's unprovoked attack only makes Caroliss more prone to snuggle the little rat, and apparently give him a name. "You're gonna stay right here with me where it's safe, Billy. I'll take you home and take good care of you, protect little Billy from any bullies." She glares at her friend accusatorially. "He's totally healthy, nothing to be afraid of."
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"Billy?!" she asks, her voice cracking. "You've already named it? It's been in your arms less than a minute!"
Placing her hands on her hips she scolds her friend. "We are the Pathfinder Society, not the Pathfinders for the Ethical Treatment of Animals! Caroliss Kaddren, put that thing down this instant. It's going to slow us down, we have to focus! How can you focus if you are trying to hold a rat in your hands."
Caroliss nods at Esrisi. "You're right of course. I can't just keep holding Billy in my hands." She holds up the donkey rat in the air, admiring him for a few more moments. "You are such a cutie!" she says again. Opening up a pouch in her backpack, she drops the donkey rat inside. "You can be safe right in there," she says, comfortingly. She then continues on, clearly delighted in her new find.
Mok tries his hand at making a copy of the drawing. It isn't the best, but it is still pretty good. At the least, it is better than nothing.
Once everyone is ready, the group heads down the stairs. The stairs descend until you reach a lit hallway that terminates in an opened door. You can see light in the room on the other side of the door.
Once you head into the larger room you see a massive pair of double doors dominates the western end of this spearhead-shaped chamber. These doors are made of a silvery metal decorated with images of burning eyes that look inward toward two sets of runes carved onto the face of each door. The walls bear the remains of complex mosaics that once covered much of them, but which has crumbled and collapsed in heaps of colored tiles and debris around the edges of the room. Two torches are lit on the eastern end of the room where you see two doors, one leading north east and the other south east. There is a small alcove to the north with another open door that seems to terminate in collapsed rubble.
She wants to agree with Ez on the rats. Her family was well off, so no rat pets. Plus they did look exceedingly filthy.
But Bolka should frown at her if she did. Love is Love(not THAT kind of love of course but still...)
So Sapher keeps her thoughts to herself on this one. Though she did grimace, deeply, making them clear enough without words.
As they moved, Sapher is thinking it best to pay attention to the body language and any other tells the woman she is in charge of might give off. Not paying the amount of attention she'd like to where she is stepping or what might be popping out from around a corner.
Instead she asks the now proud mother of four, no three. "Veltariel, there is light up ahead, would be okay with scouting ahead?"
Veltariel turns to the capybaras and tells them to stay, before moving on into the next chamber. There is a lot of light and little cover, making the task difficult, but she tries her best...
Sneaking into the room, Vel doesn't notice any immediate threats. As the others move in behind her, once she has given the all clear, Mokashi turns his attention to the large double doors.
The tiles on the doors bear Thassilonian runes in a pattern that he recognize's, they resemble the paradox box’s tiles. Much like the paradox box, what is obviously a doorway, there are no obvious seems or means of opening the 'doors' instead, as it stands, it appears to just be a solid silvery sheet of metal.
There are two different sets of runes on each door. The left set spells “LISTEN” while the right spells “THE EYES.”
As with the paradox box from before, Mokashi detects a moderate aura of abjuration magic.
"Another puzzle! This is so wonderful--I feel like today is going so well!" Caroliss is seemingly in good spirits after her find.
"Well, I have a guess as to an anagram of the first word, but I have no idea what to do with the second." If someone asks her, she whispers to them her guess.
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Esrisi looks at the runes on the door. Caroliss and her worked on this last time, so she quickly asks her friend what she thinks. When she mentions SILENT for the "Listen" door, Ez nods. "That makes perfect sense to me. If you are listening, you are silent."
Turning towards "The Eyes" she points out. "What do eyes do? You can make SEE with those letters and then you are left with THEY."
Having had so much trouble with the last one, she asks Caroliss "Could it be that simple?" before turning to the group at large "Anyone have other ideas?"
Drask shrugs, as it seems all his guesses were already discovered by the other party members.
"Yes, that must be it!" agrees Caroliss. "Let's see if anything happens when we touch the runes in order."
Caroliss looks around for anything that seems like a trap.
Unless anything concerns her, she starts to touch the runes to spell "LISTEN" and "THEY SEE." And she will look and listen for any response.
”I hate to interrupt, but those two who fled clearly didn’t go that way if the truck door is steal closed,” Veltariel says, keeping her eyes focused on the other direction.
"Good point." Sapher agrees with Vels, but adds, "What we are looking for is probably in there. If we can get it, we can leave without having to kill the others."
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”Agreed, but ponder for a moment if it is our duty to apprehended someone who has participated in kidnappings and attempted murders. We have evidence of both. As we have had success in disabling foes, those of us with an overdeveloped sense of justice may be inclined to check the rest of the place out.” Mokhasi says, watching Sapher, ”though I will admit, the thrill of exploration may be biasing me. The ruins are fascinating, as are the artifacts we found.”
”I’m more concerned with a knife in the back while we are moving through the ruins. Besides, we can’t go too much further anyway, what with all these captives we’ve already acquired.”
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Well isn't this a conundrum?
Esrisi knows the best decision to make at this point is to finish clearing the floor, but by no means does she want to say Veltariel is correct out loud.
Looking around at the other doors in the room she sighs and mutters half under her breath. "We should clear the floor first." before heading to the eastern doors.
"Okay, we can keep exploring, but we are definitely coming back!"
The woman shrugs, seemingly not as interested in helping you as she had been before "Why don't you go find out..."
Sapher agrees with the morality of Mok and tactics of Vels, plus the muttering of Ez. She still had hoped the door would open to the item Right there shining brightly for them to just take and leave, but that is rarely how these things go, she sighs heavily, and pushes her charge forward, a gentle but firm nudge.
"Are you trying to make someone here want to beat answers out of you?" Sapher grumbles to the tower girl, "Remember some of us would prefer not to kill the lot of you. So please keep from being a snarky and stupid ass"
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Esrisi turns her back to the woman and casts guidance on herself. She takes a deep breath to avoid from going full-Veltariel on the prisoner. Try to get this done the easy way.
She turns around with a smile on her face and walks slowly towards the woman. "Look. I'm sorry we are here in your home and we truly wish no one any harm. We simply looking for something that predates all of us. Once we have that, we'll leave peacefully. No one else needs to get hurt. Please help us accomplish this task without any further violence. I implore you to see the reasoning behind a peaceful resolution. Help us help you."
She holds her hands out wide while she waits for assists from others.
While Esrisi is busy trying to charm the prisoner before Veltariel pulls out her dagger again, Caroliss is seen petting the capybara again. She seems lost in thought.
Suddenly, she snaps her fingers. "I've got it. The woman wielding a ranseur in the fresco? That's Runelord Alaznist! I don't remember anything about her, but maybe we could look it up after and figure out what it all means."
She starts petting the creature once more. "See, having a pet is calming. Helps you think more clearly!"
With the mystery resolved, she goes up to the prisoner. "Seriously, she's right, you know. We don't have anything against the Tower Girls. We're explorers, and you just happened to have made your home in these historic burial grounds that we would really, really like to explore. There's been enough needless bloodshed already. Can you please consider our offer, and help us not only find our way, but negotiate a peaceful resolution?"
The woman rolls her eyes and shakes her head at Esrisi and the others "Whatever... that is Ayala's quarters. Good luck, after murdering so many of us, convincing her to go along peacefully..."
Drask, as if roused from a cloudy sleep, steps up and brandishes his weapon. He waits for the others to be prepared as he gets ready to kick the door down.
Looking at Drask's poised and ready foot, she asks Vels "Have you checked for traps yet?"
Veltariel briefly scans the doorway. ”I don’t see any. But if you all are truly wanting to try and spare their lives, and we know they are in there, why not try talking to them from here. If they make a move, I’ll put an arrow through their eye...”
The woman rolls her eyes and shakes her head at Esrisi and the others "Whatever... that is Ayala's quarters. Good luck, after murdering so many of us, convincing her to go along peacefully..."
"I think YOU could be the one to convince her to yield. Would you want to do that? Or do you want to let your leader fight us at the risk of her life?"
The woman shrugs to Caroliss "Sure, if you want to untie me I will go talk to Ayala."