Frantino peers through the doorway looking for threats and, if it looks clear, gives Nasir the OK to cautiously enter. He'll follow close on Nasir's heels, Fury at the ready. If Nasir needs light in the room, we'll request some from one of the others, since they all have light prepared.
Frantino finds no threats, at least that he can see. Nasir walks carefully through the narrow hallway, seeing a flickering light ahead of him, up a set of stairs.
At the top of the stairs is an oddly shaped chamber lit by a flickering globe of light that hovers at the peak of the domed ceiling twenty feet above. Bookshelves are built into the walls, and several dust covered tomes rest upon them.
Frantino will cast detect magic and scan the room for magical books or other items in here, assuming that the others are doing the same, then peruse book titles to see what is interesting and/or valuable. By your description, the bookshelves are not full of books, just "several?" How many are we looking at? Any more secret doors or compartments?
This may be a good room to use one of his two daily uses of ruin reading.
Frantino will cast detect magic and scan the room for magical books or other items in here, assuming that the others are doing the same, then peruse book titles to see what is interesting and/or valuable. By your description, the bookshelves are not full of books, just "several?" How many are we looking at? Any more secret doors or compartments?
[dice=Perception]1d20 + 16
This may be a good room to use one of his two daily uses of ruin reading.
Frantino finds no new secret or hidden doors, but his detect magic reveals the (rather obvious) globe of glass in the ceiling illuminating the room with a flickering flame.
Most of the books here seem to have collapsed to dust. Two remain whole, though, and glow with magic. One radiates a moderate transmutation aura. The other radiates a moderate aura, but mixed conjuration, transmutation and more.
A small collection of non magical books survive as well. The collection of 10 books details the complexities of magical research. These 10 books are worth 2,500 gp as a set, and they grant a +5 bonus on Knowledge (arcana) checks if they are referenced.
Frantino calls Ezranadir's attention to the two magical books. "Let's independently analyze their auras then compare notes to see if we came to the same conclusions."
The first book is a Blessed Book and the second is a Clay Golem Manual.
Frantino lets everyone know what we found. "Ezranadir, clearly the Blessed Book should go to you, and well earned. I am of the opinion that we should sell the Golem Manual, I'm pretty sure we don't need a clay golem following us around and the manual is consumed to animate the golem so it's not like we can sell it later if we were to use it."
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"I wish I could have had this earlier so I did not have to spend all of my gold transcribing spells into my book. Oh well, let us see what new spells I can discover." He opens the book to search what new spells it may hold. "Let us take these additional 10 Arcana books as well. A clay golem following us around would be pretty cool though. If I am correct, I believe it would take more along the lines of a clerical spellcaster to utilize the book."
"Thank you, Doc. Now let us see what this thing was guarding behind the secret door. Ayita, you want to continue opening the door?"
He will examine every inch of the clockwork automation to see how it functions and see how he can repair it if it can be.
It's charging mechanism is damaged and the secret to creating a new one is beyond your knowledge. Also, the thing is OLD. An expert in Thassilonian engineering might have an idea how to build a new automaton. This one might serve as a template, if you found a way to transport it out of here.
You have heard that there is learned man currently running experiments in Absalom, creating something called "batteries". His name: Professor E. Musk. But you've heard he's rather racist against elves and refuses to allow them in his workshop.
For all of its available pages, it is somewhat empty. And it focuses on transmutation, which is the opposite of Alaznist’s favored school.
Level 1: Animate Rope – Burning Hands – Ear-Piercing Scream – Endure Elements – Enlarge Person – Erase – Expeditious Retreat – Feather Fall – Floating Disk – Mage Armor – Magic Weapon – Obscuring Mist – Polypurpose Panacea – Ray of Sickening – Shocking Grasp – Snapdragon Fireworks – Vocal Alteration
Level 2: Alter Self – Bear's Endurance – Cat's Grace – Darkvision – Disfiguring Touch – Fox's Cunning – Knock – Levitate – Pyrotechnics – Sculpt Simulacrum
Level 3: Dispel Magic – Eruptive Pustules – Gaseous Form – Heroism – Keen Edge – Lightning Bolt – Monstrous Physique I – Protection from Energy – Slow – Tongues – Undead Anatomy I
Ezranadir would cast Read Magic to decipher every spell in the Blessed Book.
"Shall we continue exploring this complex?"
Frantino agrees with Ezranadir. "Let's continue checking out this area. I vote for going up the corridor right next to here, then searching the rest of the large library to the west. Ayita, can you please take the lead to make sure the hall isn't trapped?"
Frantino will fall into third position, assuming that Nasir will be covering Ayita.
Nasir falls in behind Ayita.
Ezranadir will follow Frantino but continues to read the new Blessed Book as they proceed. He sucks at spotting anything anyways.
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It is not possible to walk and study the book at the same time. Not that this matters much, since you can spend your study time before memorizing your spells tomorrow. So, study-walk (again, not possible) or sit down and study later in the day/evening/morning, either way you'll be able to memorize spells from the Blessed Book tomorrow.
Seeing that Ayita is busy feeding Yazhi a dried salmon treat, Nasir takes the lead, walking down the corridor carefully.
He finds nothing dangerous, other than the uneven paving stones. If he wasn't paying attention, he probably would've tripped or stumbled.
Eight heavy oak doors line this narrow corridor, four of them shut, four ajar. Light shines from a small globe fixed in the ceiling halfway down the hall, illuminating floating motes of dust. A large carving of a human face looms from the wall at the western end of the hall. The dust on the floor here has been disturbed recently, and splashes of blood mar the floors and walls. Three shattered human skeletons lie on the hall’s floor.
[dice=Ayita looking up for perception check for a minute after giving several salmon treats to Yazhi and Ter, if GM Derek doesn't mind.]1d20+17+2. Add 1 for traps, = 35
Ayita is absolutely certain that there are no traps in the hallway.
She does notice that the face on the western wall. It depicts a man, his visage adorned with a drooping blindfold covering only one eye, his jaw hanging open in bewilderment. The exposed eye is an empty socket, and the stone around the edge is chipped, suggesting something was pried out of it.
She's pretty certain it is a secret door of some kind.
Frantino will glance into the partially open rooms and listen at the shut doors to make sure nothing threatening is waiting.
Then he'll examine the secret door with Ayita and point out a few things to try to help her, maybe lend a helping hand if requested, but he'll leave the device manipulation to her more nimble fingers. He'll try not to shut his eyes but his paranoia of another acid spraying trap might get the better of him...
Frantino will glance into the partially open rooms and listen at the shut doors to make sure nothing threatening is waiting.
[dice=Perception]1d20 + 16
Then he'll examine the secret door with Ayita and point out a few things to try to help her, maybe lend a helping hand if requested, but he'll leave the device manipulation to her more nimble fingers. He'll try not to shut his eyes but his paranoia of another acid spraying trap might get the better of him...
Each of the doors opens into a small reading room. Each room has a stool and a desk. The stools are decrepit and collapse at the simplest of touches. The reading desks are made of thick oak and are thus, barely, still standing. One of the desks' legs breaks when Nasir touches it. It collapses into a heap of decaying wood.
As far as he can tell, Frantino thinks each of the eight rooms are mundane reading rooms, slowly succumbing to the eons.
Ayita casts "guidance" to help her effort at the face. She asks Yazhi and Ter to wait with Ezranadir.
[dice=Disable Device]1d20+15+1
The wall cracks open, revealing a hallway leading to a secret reading room. A desk of lacquered wood sits against the north wall of this cubical chamber. A flame flickers in a lamp on the desk, casting dancing shadows on the wall, while several books and an ancient-looking but still intact leather pouch sit on the desk.
The ancient-looking pouch, when you reach into it, seems to immediately deliver a handful moonstones. Repeatedly reaching into it results in a total of 600 gp worth of moonstones being served up into your hand. When you reach again inside the pouch, a sheathed dagger is immediately put into your hand. Nothing further is in the interesting bag.
The books on the desk crumble to dust if touched, save for one. This book, upon closer examination, is revealed to be not a book at all but rather a sculpture made from iron and ivory. The sides of the book, where pages would be, are a set of complex gears.
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Once deemed safe, Ezranadir comes forward to inspect what was discovered and casts Detect Magic.
"It appears this book is some sort of clockwork key. I would assume for the closckwork automation we discovered. Guess we will not be able to see for what it was intended. The pouch is an ancient Handy Haversack and the dagger is a Dagger of Venom."
Doc, do you think these were undead skeletal guardians of some sort?"
Doc, do you think these were undead skeletal guardians of some sort?""Aw, shucks! I'm a healer, not an anthropologist. But I'll take a looksee."
Hatfield casts guidance on himself and then examines the remains.
[dice=kn.religion]1d20+11+1
Doc thinks they were skeletal champions, an advanced form of undead often used as guardians. Their weapons are chipped and damaged, ancient beyond belief. They have no armor.
Frantino will cast detect magic and check each of the rooms again on his way back to the large room.
If there is rubble/detritus around, Hatfield will gather a handful of pebbles. (four?)
Not much, but yes, Doc gathers up four pebbles.
Ayita searches around in the large room carefully for anything else of interest. Guidances self.
[dice=perception]1d20+17+2+1
OMG a 20!!! first in years here. ;-)
Does she find an ancient Thassalonian Twinkie?
No Twinkies, but Ayita notices something... the four doors that are/were ajar seem to have been opened recently. The other four, still closed (or were closed, if you opened them searching) were sealed perfectly, their latches down. Two of the closed doors, once you open them, have difficulty re-latching. An effort is required to correctly, perfectly re-latch them.
From this, Ayita surmises first that the Peacock Cultists came through here and opened the doors. Second, whomever latched the doors in ancient times (?) took care to make sure that each reading room was shut properly, with care.
In addition, the broken bones of the skeletal guardians were broken by a small-headed blunt weapon. Ayita thinks Hira Doss' lucerne hammer matches the bone damage.
Frantino will cast detect magic and check each of the rooms again on his way back to the large room.
[dice=Perception]1d20 + 16
The only magic Frantino detects is the continual flame spells lighting the glass globes in the hallway.
Once everyone has finished in the hallway with the empty rooms (except for the loot that Ezranadir collected) and gathered in the extremely large library that the metal librarian was overseeing, Frantino will point out the footprints on the floor leading to and from the stairway to the west and move cautiously in that direction with the party. At the far end he'll point out the two closed doors around the corner to the south, and how the absence of footprints in the dust indicates Hira and Viralane never went down there, either.
"Stairway up just to see where it emerges, or doors first? I'm thinking doors, myself."