Beyond the door lies a short corridor that ends in another door. Not hearing or seeing anything alarming, Konstiantina proceeds to open it, revealing a room slightly smaller than the one she had just left. This seems to have been set up as a social space, with a wooden counter occupying the corner across from the door and to the left. Open cabinets of dusty liquor bottles stand behind the bar, while several tall stools are arranged on the other side of it. Three tables with accompanying chairs fill much of the room. Portraits of posing nobles and historical scenes decorate the walls, although they have all faded with age. Another door sits to the right, closed.
Mirann has been quiet and tense so far, tightly gripping her stolen magic dagger, but upon entering the new room, she relaxes. "I think," she says quietly, "this is a panic room. Beds, food storage, a bar. Question is, are we alone in here?"
"How apropos, I'm feeling a bit panicked myself," Marius rises to his feel, unbinding the peace-knot and loosening his falcata in its sheathe. "It seems unlikely that ours are the only Senate badges to have a contingency, which means that anyone else could be down here in their own panic room as well. And if Rose is correct about the age of this facility, there could be any number of other things making their home here. Lead on, Lady Mokei, we will follow."
"How many other badges would there realistically be, though...? No one seemed to have been in our room in a very long time, but I suppose that wouldn't exclude similar 'panic rooms' elsewhere," Rose muses, walking behind Konstiantina and Marius.
When the bar comes into view, , she carefully approaches it and looks to see if it contained anything useful or noteworthy either on the shelves or behind it, on the tender's side.
Lifting a hinged section of the bar, Rose moves behind it and begins to inspect the space. While many of the liquors here have either soured or evaporated away, two bottles had been sealed in wax and their contents are presumably intact. In a drawer under the bar she finds a wand and an ornate silver spoon that still looks pristine, despite the passage of time. Framed by open shelves filled with rows of bottles, a closed cabinet of dark, thick wood remains tightly sealed with a visible lock.
Just as she is about to share the findings, everyone hears Martella's voice in their minds, sounding hoarse and a little out of breath. "Where did you go?! I just saw you and several others in the senate vanish into thin air!"
"Oh good, that part of the enchantment isn't being blocked by anything." Lotti's eyes crinkle as she cups her hands and answers, "We're in what looks like a panic room that hasn't been touched in centuries. Possibly underneath the Senate. We're safe - you? Princess? Who else vanished?"
"So there are others down here after all...we should be cautious, there's nothing to guarantee they'll be friendly. On the other hand, I've no wish to abandon someone who might be even more frightened and confused than we are."
"That would be prudent... Maybe Pythareus and Stavian figured some of the Senators would try to escape by similar means and had assassins primed to follow them... somehow? Which would lead them to us, even here?"
She shrugs in a helpless gesture and looks at Lotti. "Is such a thing possible? I'm afraid my knowledge on these matters is woefully inadequate, as it appears."
Placing the wand from behind the bar on the counter, and pocketing the table spoon, she continues. "And this would be another exhibit. Any idea what this one does? Oh, Mirann, if you have a moment, there's a locked cabinet here. Could you perhaps open it? Something tells no one will miss the contents any time soon..."
Konstiantina moves to the next door, face set in a frown. To some degree this constant revelation of innocuous chambers is grating on her more than discovering fiends or foes - she can sense, or perhaps more accurately, believes that there is imminent danger, and some part of her yearns to be done with the waiting and to deal with their peril head on.
Putting her ear to the door once more, she listens as Rose murmurs to the rest of the group, drowning out the noise as she focuses on what lies beyond.
Turning to glance at the others over her shoulder, she watches them gather, waits for them to be ready, and then cracks open the door once more.
Another short corridor leads to a third room, this one a richly-appointed bedroom of a size very similar to the social room. Heavy wooden bookshelves line the walls, filled with leather-bound tomes of obvious good quality. A plush, comfortable-looking armchair sits in a corner next to a small circular table, while a massive bed occupies a considerable area of the chamber, with an adjoining side table to its left. In the corner to the right of the door there is another bathroom, this one with a larger bathtub and more ornate fittings. A hand mirror and a brush rest on the side of the sink.
Among the notable items in the room are an ornate gold key that lies on top of the circular table, and a scroll case hanging from the railing of the bathtub. A circular, coin-sized niche is visible on the wall to the right of the entrance door.
"Entire apartments weren't at all what I expected...had you asked, I'd have supposed there to be armories, laboratories, perhaps an oubliette or two. Do you suppose this area was a panic room, or a sort of...high-class prison? For wealthy political prisoners or rival claimants too closely related by blood for the executioner's block?"
Lotti sighs in disappointment as Martella's response doesn't come. Perhaps she's suddenly busy fending off a gaggle of assassin, she consoles herself. Or back to back with Eutropia fending off the Strategos's "overly-aggressive requests". She closes her eyes and hums softly to herself, lost for a moment in a daydream where she's not trapped in a vault that hasn't been touched for centuries and very likely doesn't have an exit anymore.
"Entire apartments weren't at all what I expected...had you asked, I'd have supposed there to be armories, laboratories, perhaps an oubliette or two. Do you suppose this area was a panic room, or a sort of...high-class prison? For wealthy political prisoners or rival claimants too closely related by blood for the executioner's block?"
"I had similar thoughts when we got here... at first glance it feels like a prison, just too luxurious. But whoever made these badges probably thought otherwise. What point is there to temporarily save your underlings if they will die trapped somewhere anyway? And it seems unlikely they he would be able to pursuade enemies to wear them..." Rose replies, still looking at the locked cabinet in front of her.
'I just hope I'm right.'
Marius picks up the key resting on the table. "Well hello there, what do you do?" Looking around, the nobleman tries it on the wall niche, and if that doesn't work the cabinet.
"You might also try that key on the cabinet Rose can't tear her eyes from," Lotti suggests innocently. "After you've tried it on the wall, of course."
The key does not fit in either the niche on the wall nor in the cabinet in the previous room.
"You might also try that key on the cabinet Rose can't tear her eyes from," Lotti suggests innocently. "After you've tried it on the wall, of course."
"Haha, well, chide me as you like, but I believe we could use pretty much anything at this point. We're not exactly well-equipped, and unlike you I don't have any magic to fall back on," Rose counters pleasantly, leaving the cabinet while Mirann worked on it.
Stepping into the bathroom, she approaches Marius at the coin identation, then chuckles as the soldier tries pressing the key into the obvious coin shape and is met with the dull ring of metal on wall. "Oh, sorry Marius, very creative! But... how about we simply try an actual coin first? I just hope it's for something more useful than merely paying to use the facilities..."
Rose places various coins in the niche, with no effect. The senate badge is too large to fit in the slot.
Mirann spends some time trying to trick the lock on the cabinet open, but after some time gives up in defeat.
As the various aspects of the panic rooms are being investigated, another message from Martella comes through. "Good you're safe. Gloriana Morilla's allies from the Society secured us a way out of the senate building. This is an organized force!"
"Oh, thanks the gods! Do you mean *everyone* still alive got out? Has the fighting stopped? Did the princess escape? What about Stavian and Pythareus?"
Quickly counting in her mind, that was twenty-five words exactly, right...?
Lotti breathes another sigh of relief as Martella replies, then turns her attention to the scroll case. "Might be a bit much to ask, but perhaps there's something still inside that," she says, pointing up at the hanging object. "But whatever might be inside is likely not in much better condition than those clothes Rose found earlier - I need someone with steady hands to bring that down and gently remove any contents." The gnome herself pulls out a bottle from one of her pockets and tries to recall the curator's instructions on proper application. Not too much at once...
Fortunately, the contents of the scroll case seem to have already been alchemically treated, for the strip of parchment inside is in much better shape than the books and other items encountered so far. The text on it is in an older form of Taldane, but still legible.
"Fourth bed from the north. comforter. Backup key."
Poking around in the various rooms also reveals a palm-sized panel of brass and green glass on the wall of each room, which radiate faint magic. Lotti is able to identify these as a potential source of light.
Konstiantina has been watching her companions work the various nooks and possibilities with a mild frown, though her relief at Martella's update is palpable.
"Fourth bed from the north? Let's take a look." She marches back toward the first room, where she quickly searches the comforter for a key.
If she finds one, she examines it carefully, and after passing it to Lotti to see if it's magical, tries it on the slot.
After careful prodding, Konstiantina does find a small, hard object sewn into the mattress of one of the beds - although north is a little difficult to determine in this closed environment, but fortunately the arrangement of the beds only give two possible options. The key is mundane, and does nothing when inserted into the wall slot, but it does fit the lock of the cabinet in the other room.
When opened, the cabinet reveals a wall-mounted crystal orb that has very faint traces of divination magic, and it seems to be missing a section on the top.
Aware that too many cooks would spoil the proverbial broth, Marius leans against the wall so that he isn't in the ladies' way. When Martella's next message comes through the nobleman's brow furrows as he his mind whirls through the possibilities.
"Morilla and the Pathfinders serving as an escort? Glad to hear those grave-robbers are good for something. If Stavian and Pythareus were hoping to capture or kill all their enemies in one swoop it seems they failed--it only remains to be seen how badly." Marius sighs heavily and tries to relax his shoulders, with little success. "Thank the gods that my parents couldn't make the gala, I'd be mad with fear for them."
He turns a concerned look to Mirann. "You sister, will she...?" He doesn't quite finish the question.
Rose watches Mirann carefully. "Your sister was with the senate guard and on duty tonight. Do you think she knew about this in advance, and that that was the real reason she tried helping us conceal our weapons?"
'And that would leave the question... can she really be trusted? Not that I'm one to talk, I suppose. My own father was there and I didn't warn him either. But... if he died and the primogeniture isn't removed as per the vote...'
With a touch from Lotti, one of the wall panels comes alive, and activates magical lights in the ceiling. It seems like the long-dead senator who had this built had really spared no expense.
Now armed with a reliable source of illumination, the team splits up to thoroughly search the three rooms uncovered so far. It takes three hours to go through every book in the master bedroom, but finally one of them turns out to be hollow and hiding the missing piece from the crystal ball - a small section of rectangular, curved glass.
As they are searching, another few messages come through from Martella:
"Out of the senate room. Stavian's soldiers pursuing. There's fighting throughout the senate building. Wherever you are, keep your heads down!"
"Not all military is with Stavian. Assassins seem to be a collection of foreign agents. City guard in chaos. Lion Blades and Eutropia's allies fighting back in the senate."
"Stavian's forces retreating, military is divided. Pythareus seen moving with impunity through Stavian's assassins. Status of Eutropia and the Grand Prince unknown."
"Well that's not worrisome at all." Lotti tries to keep a cheerful face as she carefully slides the curved glass back into the crystal ball. "Now, how do we turn you on..."
As Lotti clicks the missing piece into place, the crystal ball begins to emit a barely audible hum, then darkens to an inky blackness.
”Oh crystal ball, reveal to me the future!” Lotti intones dramatically. If it’s a scrying device, let’s start nearby with Wobblekins. Slowly the old gnome stares into the orb.
"At least we ate well before the assassinations and teleportation happened," Marius grouses in an attempt at humor as the search enters it's third hour. He glances with interest over Lotti's shoulder as the gnome slots the shard of crystal back into place.
The orb remains dark for a few moments, then fades back to its crystalline, transparent form.
”Let’s not take that as an omen that there isn’t a future to look forward to, shall we?” Lotti’s voice is humorous as well as she slowly hoists herself back upright from her seat on the floor with the orb. ”It might need a pass phrase or some other means of activation.” Almost as an afterthought she gently taps her badge on the crystal. ”Or perhaps it’s a means of establishing visual connection with a matching orb which is still inactive,” she muses. ”I don’t suppose anyone as found such a thing? Or a way out of here perhaps...”
"At least we ate well before the assassinations and teleportation happened," Marius grouses in an attempt at humor as the search enters its third hour.
"That we did! How courteous of our would-be killers to allow us such a grand last meal. Can't fault their manners, I suppose!" Rose quibs, now searching the more exotic hiding spots in the room, such as inside some of the room's furniture.
'I wonder if the kitchen staff is all right, though, and if Martella got the senator's families out there safely... I hope none of them had to see what happened to their parents."
”Or perhaps it’s a means of establishing visual connection with a matching orb which is still inactive,” she muses. ”I don’t suppose anyone has found such a thing? Or a way out of here perhaps...”
"There was another one hidden in the ceiling above the bathtub for inscrutable purposes, but we decided not to share. After all, surely a fortune teller such as yourself would not need mundane advice on how to operate her own equipment?" Rose jokes, putting aside the darker thoughts and prolonging the attempts to lighten the mood.
At the end of the group's meticulous search, and trusting in Martella, Morilla and their unknown allies to have done all the potential rescuing in their stead, Rose leans against a nearby wall for a bit of rest. "Maybe we should check that other door in the bedroom. I can't think of anything else hidden in here and the orb unfortunately doesn't seem to offer us anything now, regardless of what it is or why."
When the orb's completion doesn't visibly improve their situation, Marius throws his hands in the air in an exasperated fashion. "How in the blazes do we get out of here?! That we haven't all suffocated suggests that there's some manner of exit--or is the air provided magically, and the long-dead paranoiac who built this place came and went via teleportation..."
Pushing herself from the wall, Rose walks back to the bedroom and approaches the unopened door. "I don't know. The intent was obviously to save whoever was teleported here. But whether the exit still exists... " She looks away. "...At least we can continue looking. If we don't find anything, we'll have to trust Martella to get us help. Someone who could cast magic powerful enough to reach us. Assuming we won't starve, yes, but we don't have a choice, do we?"
Not wanting to wait much longer, she looks at the locked door and gives it a brief glance for anything unusual, then attempts to open it.
Nothing seems to stir beyond the closed door, which is unlocked and opens with only a minimal effort. Behind it, the same setup of a short corridor and another room, as large as the first - by all appearances a storage room. Stacked wooden crates cover the southern wall, and more crates occupy the north-western corner. Wooden shelves fill much of the eastern half of the room, each tier filled with dust-coated bottles, crockery, and glass jars.
The crates contain changes of clothes, condiments, pickled vegetables, preserved delicacies, salted meats, and a well-stocked toolkit. While the foodstuffs have long since rotten, the toolkit is still in good shape.
Another door to the west opens to a short corridor that leads back into the room where the party has first arrived. It would seem that this complex is self-contained.
As Rose taps the lighting panel in the fourth room, Lotti can see the orb brightening. Looking in the crystal ball again shows the interior of a storage room; stacks of crates are placed against a stone wall, covering it almost in its entirety.
"Ooo - whatever you just did got a response out of this thing!" Lotti calls excitedly. "On a related note, what exactly did you do?" Peering into the orb, she tries to direct the viewing point or see if she can make any sort of change to the displayed image from her end of the connection.
The angle of the image does not change; the orb seems aimed purposefully at that particular wall.
Konstiantina, who has remained in the chamber with Lotti, peers over her shoulder.
"A random wall? Surely not. This must be a security measure, a means to watch a hidden door. What say you we go take a closer look?"
And moving with purpose and long strides, she moves to the storage room to scrutinize the suspect wall, telling the others what she and Lotti saw en route.
”That certainly makes sense,” Lotti agrees. ”Here, I’ll keep watch through the crystal while you lead the others. It’s possible it’ll refocus itself on something else.”
The wall is mostly hidden behind stack of crates. Shifting a few aside reveals a glimpse of a beautiful mural. It takes about half an hour to shift all the crates that block the view, but once that is done the entire fresco is revealed. A painted scroll at the bottom gives it its title: "Noble Galitian Maramaxus, hero of the Fourth Amry of Exploration, battling the Dwarves of the Five Kings Mountains".
As Lotti glances into the crystal orb again, the uncovered painting is in full view.
In the storage room, Marius notices an almost invisible crack in the mural, a line too straight to be an artefact of age. It is about 12 inches long and horizontal.
"Aha," Marius declares with some satisfaction when he notices the seam. He gently feels along the crack, trying to trace what it is or where it leads.
The line seems to indicate that a portion of the wall might detach or open. However, there is no obvious mechanism by which to trigger that.
"Hm... does it radiate magic?" she asks, joining Marius at the portrait. In the meantime, she seeks out the named general and presses her finger against his image, in case the scroll was a clue of some kind.
Lotti tries to will the secret door to open as well from her vantage point at the orb.
The image in the orb wobbles slightly when Rose presses the mural, but then reverts. Perhaps it was not the correct spot.
Lotti recalls that the room with the mural was in darkness the first time they activated the orb.
Konstiantina stands back, hands on hips, frowning at the mural.
"I suppose simply battering the wall down with the frame of a bed is out of the question?"
”Try turning out the light and press it again!” Lotti calls as loud as she can. ”Maybe they were serious about this being a secret door and didn’t want anybody to been seen using it.”
As the light is turned off with another touch of the brass panel, Lotti can clearly see several spots on the mural lighting up in sequence: Galitian's shield, a Taldan banner in the background, the helm of one of the dwarves.