Remembering Usgar's luck with a loose brick, Karshe pries at it with his knife.
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"I'll look." Karsh'e walks to the end of the rising passage and looks for signs of a doorway.
"Down it is." And we descend.
"Onward."
Let's try another key position
"We can come back for them. We should finish searching first. "
"Hosts?" Karsh'e frowns for an instant then smiles and turns to Alpha. "Can we take this?"
"Should we take it?"
Karsh'e takes the book from the shelf and flips through it looking for pictures. Then he hands it to Lia. "It's magic. Maybe it has the schema?"
"Does anyone see a metal plate?"
"Is this helpful?" Karsh'e gives the schema crafting book to Lia.
"So many books. It could hidden in here." Karsh'e scans the room with detect magic before stepping inside to start looking at the shelves.
"Through the thin curtain then." Karsh'e draws the veil aside and opens the door.
"I thought this was a factory, not religious."
"A crowbar is a good and useful tool."
"Why the thin cloth?"
Karsh'e stares at Lia with a little awe. He avoids touching the ghouls. Foul unclean creatures, they should be burned. "Let's see what's here." He steps past the ghouls to examine the room beyond.
Karsh'e continues his chant.
Behind the front row, Karsh'e holds his heavy blade ready and starts a chant ....
"I see it. It is not natural. " Karsh'e stands with his falchion balanced across his shoulder. The weight of the heavy blade keeps the hand on its pommel effortlessly elevated. A single shrug of his shoulder and lowering of his hand will drop the falchion into guard position. He's ready , but doesn't step forward immediately. He knows Escher and Ayla will dispatch the creature more quickly than he could. He can help in other ways.
"We can agree to that. We won't tell anyone about you."
"Most everyone was dead? Who else survived? Have you lived here since the war?"
Karsh'e looks on curiously. "How long have you been living here? Are you somehow members or servants of House Cannith?"
"The first schema we found was ah adamantine plate like a seven-pointed star. I imagine the next one will look similar." Karsh'e shrugs. Then he follows Usgar down the newly opened corridor.
"Abracadabra? Or maybe he'll learn it if he puts the ring on? OR maybe the word is on the inside of the band?" Karsh'e turns to his oldest friend among those present. "I know you'll be on the front line if there's ever any trouble. If this can help keep you safe, take it."
"That was lucky, Usgar."
"Seems like some of these lights were dispelled somehow. Maybe it was another living spell."
Karsh'e has a look down the hall with his inner eye and his normal eyes.
IF things look safe, he'll advance down the hall.
Karsh'e goes with Lia to show the spell the way out. When they come back, he's ready to try the new key.
"A new key!"
Desks mean writing. Karsh'e settles for looking around the combusted furniture.
"Can you guide us there?"
Karsh'e watches the exchange, trying to divine what the spell is trying to say.
"You are both very brave. I can help you, I think. Usgar, this sword is magic. It might be better than your claws in damaging a living spell. And I know a story that might inspire you. Uthred the Grower faced a terrible fire-dragon in the mountains east of the Shadowlands. For years Uhtred's people had knwon of the dragon, but it seldom came to their lands. Then in the summer after the Great Wave submerged Oystertown, the dragon began raiding the villages in Uthred's valley..."
"What do you all say? Do we fight this fire creature?"
"How do you hurt a living creature made of fire? Weapons will pass right through it. Do we need water? "
"Fire that moves. If we need to look for the schema in there, how will we fight something like that?"
"Usgar, hurry!" Karsh'e jumps to the key desk and gets ready to turn the key to close off the passage once Usgar gets through the door.
"Do any of the patents have anything to do with the schema?"
"Around campfires in the long nights, we're told that in the Shadow Marches that almost everything in Cyre died on the Day of Mourning. A great magic twisted and blasted the land out of all balance. You can see it in the sky and dead land. Fiz killed some kind of undead vulture. We found a dead tree whose leaves return when you pluck them...." Karsh'e moves to help Lady Lia, and looks around.
"Around campfires in the long nights, we're told that in the Shadow Marches that almost everything in Cyre died on the Day of Mourning. A great magic twisted and blasted the land out of all balance. You can see it in the sky and dead land. Fiz killed some kind of undead vulture. We found a dead tree whose leaves return when you pluck them...." The half-orc moves to help Lady Lia.
Karsh'e returns to the round key room and waits for everyone else to return before trying the center blue slot.
"Hmm. Interesting." Karsh'e thinks of laundry day back at home. Then he accepts the key from Usgar. "How could I be better? It seems like you just put the key in the hole?"
"It's a big world, Usgar. There can't be money and enemies everywhere, thank the dragon above." A smile widens around his protruding canine. "But I'm sure there'll be enemies enough somewhere." After glancing at the linens, Karsh'e spins on his heel. "Shall we see if Usgar's blue key fits the other slots?"
Karsh'e watches the discussion over the blue key, and subsequent opening of the door. "We were lucky you found that key, Usgar."
The half-orc still doesn't have a proper cloak, but he still has a wide, conical straw hat and rough homespun clothes that hang from his limbs. His plain leather vest looks stout enough. Could it be a piece of hide turned inside out? A knife rests in a horizontal sheath across his belly; it's supported by his rope belt is knotted at his left hip. TThe longsword at his waist and the falchion on his back are new. Missing is Karsh'e's giant pack. The half-orc's features are almost mild enough to pass for human, and his long, lush hair supports the inference, but a prominent lower left canine that just slips out from under his upper lip, and a faint greenish tinge to his skin, barely discernible in the gloom of the tunnel, proclaim a different ancestry.
Usgar! My traveling companion. It's good to have you back.
"No magic here. What makes the elevator go?"
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