Having deftly evaded the blast, San is feeling pretty confident. He only slightly disappointed when Morga reminds them that caution is still the wise move. Instead of pouting, he instead looks to the items the thing dropped. Starting with the axe, he reaches out his senses to see what he can find out. He'll also check out the unholy symbol just in case.
Once Morga's finished with her wounds, she inspects the unholy symbol. She doesn't notice her lip curling in disgust as she does so.
“We should so keep that,” Autumn remarks when San reveals that the axe is indeed magical, and hence valuable. With nothing else of note, she wanders back, avoiding the trapped room and stopping near a door they haven’t tried yet. “Did you want to check that door first?”
Returning to your exploration, Autumn leads the way back to the remaining unexplored door in this small complex. She and San examine the door but can see no traps or hazards, so you open it up.
In this small square chamber a wooden desk sits near a tipped-over chair lying on the ground. Layers of dust cover the desk and several scrolls and ledgers atop it. A large map is displayed on the wall opposite it; while the colors are faded, it’s still mostly legible. Doors sit in the north and south walls. The southern one opens to a small storeroom which proves to be almost entirely bare. The sole remaining item in the room is a keyring on the wall that holds two iron keys. As for the map in the room with the desk, it takes up much of the eastern wall and features what looks like a large landmass and coastline with notes in Thassilonian all over the surface.
Vildran immediately focuses on the map, trying the map Thassilonian words to places he might know from the current world. In particular he checks to see if the map is dated.
“Is this an office?” Autumn wonders in disbelief that they would find such a room here. She wrinkles her nose at the dust, stifling a sneeze, then rights the fallen chair. She leaves the dusty scrolls and ledgers on top of the desk for others to examine—her interest lies in the potential for more valuable objects within. Taking the keyring from the storeroom, she quickly examines the drawers before opening and searching them.
"Looks like it!" San geeks out at the maps and documents with Vildran. He discusses what on that map looks familiar before sifting through the scrolls on the desk. Finally remembering himself, he takes a closer look around the room, the desk, and storeroom for any signs of secret compartments or anything like that.
"Yeah, weird. It's such a mundane function in this place with...all that other stuff. Doesn't seem to fit." Morga muses.
While the boys pour over the map, Morga glances at the scrolls and ledgers, then gives the room a good, solid look-over.
-
While the map isn't dated, you're still able to glean quite a bit. Knowledge of ancient Thassilonian proves critical with the map, as many of the locations are labeled in still barely legible text. With those cues you're able to piece together that the unfamiliar coastline shown on the map is in fact the pre-Earthfall coastline of what is now Varisia. You orient yourselves and recognize that the modern-day coastline is marked in as a ridge known as "The Rasp". The location which you recognize as the modern-day site of Sandpoint is marked as "HF Compound". Over at the spot where modern-day Thistletop stands, you see "Karzoug's Watcher". Several other locations are marked with red crosses, though they don't correspond to anything obvious in the modern day and aren't given names. One of those is also circled and a scrawled note states "Spies divulged sizable Shalast cohort stationed here, led by someone named Liralarue - must secure authorization from Mistress for a rad."
Autumn finds the drawers filled with ancient and fragile sheaves of paper, their contents faded too far to be legible. The first one she picks up crumbles in her fingers. Handling the rest more carefully she uncovers one page that has held up better and seems to be a magic scroll .
San and Morga checks the scrolls and ledgers on the desk and find them to be a similarly fragile state. A few of these that were pressed under ledgers are a little more legible, describing the day-to-day activities of some kind of large scale military operation. Reports from spies and other informants make up the majority of materials, highlighting some kind of struggle between Runelords, but their references are so obscure that you're not able to correlate them to anything in the modern day. Only the names of the Runelords involved stand out: Karzoug and Alaznist. Many of the documents are addressed to the commander of those particular complex, a man by the name of "Jhasker".
Perhaps most interesting, you find among the notes a listed method for navigating something known as the Three Steps, along with a list of three names of insubordinate soldiers who were planned to be given faulty instructions. The method described here mentions that for safe passage, those traversing the chambers must set garnet beads into the little metal baskets on the door handles, going from least valuable to most valuable, south to north, and culminating in the placement of the 7th, most valuable garnet bead in the upturned palm of the statue of Alaznist in the final room.
While most of the papers here are too fragile to be safely moved, Autumn's keen (and gold-attuned) eye recognizes that the map on the wall could probably be rolled up and might fetch a decent price with a collector.
"Well, now we know what to do in that one room. Once we find the garnet beads, that is. Let's leave the map here for now, since we're going to the fire monster area to rescue that goblin. It's probably worth quite a lot to historians, and it'd be a pity for it to last all these centuries only to get burned to ash now." Morga tromps out of the cramped office and stations herself near the atrium that probably leads to the goblin and the fire monster.
Autumn nods in agreement with Morga’s wisdom, leaving the similarly fragile magic scroll behind for now, with an admonition to Vildran to be careful if he insists on copying it into his spellbook. Either that, or pay her its worth in gold if he accidentally destroys it. She follows the dwarf but stays a safe distance away from the atrium, just in case the trap is triggered.
Vildran continues to marvel at the map for some time, taking in its details. Ultimately though he agrees with Morga.
Yes, I think it can stay safely here for now. Garnets. I wonder if there are even any left in this place.
He chuckles at Autumn's ultimatum about the scroll.
Sure, I want to preserve it too. I can make more scrolls of many spells though if it's the gold that worries you.
Marveling at the details the map has provided, San finally moves away. "Well that was fun exercise. Yes, lets come back for it later."
Vildran examines the runes in the eastern atrium and recognizes the prominent one on the door as the rune of Abraxas, demon lord of forbidden lore and magic. The runes on the walls are prayers, written in Thassilonian, to this demon lord. Interestingly Vildran also senses a potent magic from the door.
San notices the runes are arrayed in a rather deliberate pattern and deduces that this door is protected in some fashion from unauthorized entry. Most likely touching it would trigger the trap. It might be possible to deface the nearby runes to try to Disable it. Or otherwise ward against the powers of this unholy place. Of course, given that this complex had been filled with people long ago, there may be a simpler and more reliable way to bypass the protections.
Arriving at the presumed fire monster door, San gives it another look over to make sure they didn't miss anything last time before tinkering with the runes to disable the trap. "To bad the office area didn't have any way to bypass this area as well..."
Vildran glances at the door and frowns.
Is everybody really ready? I suppose we could take some time to clear our minds before opening it...
"Hm? Oh, yeah, sure. I bet San wants to give it another thorough look-over before doing anything anyway." Morga feels bad for letting the goblin linger for so long, but if it hasn't died already it's likely to survive another ten or fifteen minutes.
Then he sits down to refocus .
Morga holds the wand of Heal at the ready in case it's needed. Hopefully not, but who knows? She casts Guidance on San just as he starts.
Confident in his abilities, San pushes the door to open it. Having a last minute thought, "Hopefully this wasn't actually a mechanism to cast a protective ward..."
"... Welp. Too late now. Let's go try not to get crispy. Let me go first." She hefts her shield up and strides forward to take the first blows of whatever's in there.
Autumn edges forward a step, but no farther, taking cover behind the corner in case San crossed out the wrong rune.
As soon as the door is opened Vildran gesticulates and forms a ring of glyphs that expands to shield his allies.
A fire burns within a seven-pointed star carved in the ceiling of the next chamber, casting light that fills the area with a flickering radiance. A wooden door lies at the south side of the room, while to the east, a low stone altar made of marble sits before a crack in the wall. The top of the altar holds a silver bowl with a slender-bladed knife balanced atop the bowl’s rim, its point aimed toward the west. Most notable however is the tall figure - goat headed and cloven hooved with glowing red eyes. It turns its head toward you and shrieks hoarsely in Cthonian "Unless you have been sent by Lord Abraxas himself, bearing the Flume's Secret, you will leave me alone! My patience wears thin."
Morga freezes, her mind racing. What the... That ain't good. She suddenly regrets opening this door when her healing font wasn't full.
When nothing goes boom or kablooie, Autumn edges forward to peek into the newly opened room. Glancing around, she wonders what ritual is in progress—nobody balances a knife like that for fun.
After San translates for them, she steps forward and flashes a bold, insolent smile at the goat-headed creature, as if he were nothing more than a lazy and pretentious servant. “Actually, we have been sent by Lord Abraxas. And he is so not pleased.” She pauses, letting the implication of such disfavor hang in the air before continuing. “He demands that you give a full report at once.” With arms akimbo she taps her foot impatiently.