"But it was a pretty mirror."
Vernal looks slightly put out, but follows Kevaras.
The paladin turns his head, hoping to provide reassurance.
"Don't worry, I'm sure there'll be mirrors up ahead to smash."
He makes chopping motions with his sword enthusiastically, if not a bit psychotically.
After taking a moment to catch thier breath, the group continues north and soon reaches a chamber.
The chamber is pretty big and there are more vaulting hallways to the left and right. Down the right hallway you can see some collapsed rubble. Down the left hallway, you can see a dias, though no details can be seen from here. Along the north wall is a massive archway and it's filled with glowing, green, spider webs.
"Nice little place they've got here. Wonder if they've got any more surprises..." Ovid grins and creeps down the hallway.
Kevaras follows Ovid's lead while tackling the koan of whether a surprise ceases to be one or not if one expects it...
The green glow from the web sends light all over the area, a sickly light. Nothing emerges from the darkness, though, and the only sounds are the ones your group is making.
Vernal wanders along, his attempts to mask his footsteps hampered by his own self-absorption.
Santander stays at the back of the group preferring to let the stealthy drow stumble into any traps.
Corpus will stay back with Santander.
No threats emerge at all. The web keeps glowing, lighting the area. Which side will the investigators check out - the dias area to the left, or the hall and rubble to the right?
Kevaras decides to turn right.
Vernal stays away from the rubble on the general grounds that clearing it would be work and he's highly allergic to that. Instead, he looks at the dais.
Kevaras sees nothing interesting at first glance, just the hall and the rubble. He could move closer to search it, if he desired to.
Vernal heads towards the Dias. When he gets closer, he can see that it's positioned in the center of a fresco. The fresco covers the walls to the north, south, and west of the dias.
The fresco itself is strange. The painting shows seven shadowy figures - some normal humanoids, some a strange mix of creature and person, and one just a mass of tendrils. Each is stretching out a blade towards the dias, hilt first, as if offering the blades to someone on the dias, that individual not show, clearly, in the fresco.
The swords are the only thing with true color in the fresco, the background is grey, the figures black, but each blade is colored in one of the colors of the rainbow.
"Kevaras - do take a look. This is so much more up your street than mine."
"What're you looking for, Kev?" Ovid steps out of the shadows behind Kevaras and peers over his shoulder at the rubble.
"Nothing in particular… just felt a strange compulsion to search every barrel, crate and pile of rubble in the area."
"Rubble, it's just rubble, what's so fascinating?"
Vernal drifts across the join the stone-searchers.
Kevaras finds a backpack. Within it are long spoiled foods and a ceremonial shortsword. The weapon clearly is not intended for combat and it's blade is a deep blue color.
In another part of the rubble filled area, Vernal finds an armband of the sort worn by Drow Priestesses. It's old, and has a web and spider motif, as one would expect. It would fetch around 100 gold in a drow community, and likely less from other races.
In the center area, the webs glow brighter, then lash out to wrap around Malize. Before anyone can react, the webs - and Malize - vanish and a horde of spiders appear before skittering off. A clear sign of the Will of Lolth being involved.
The area is darker now, but there is a hall revealed beyond where the barrier had been.
"!"
The sudden intensity of the glowing webs causes Kevaras to turn around, just in time to see Malize disappear. He hastily returns the backpack to its original spot.
"Don't worry, I don't think it was the backpack ..." Vernal looks as concerned as anyone has ever seen him.
Ovid simply stares at the opening once blocked by webbing.
"Well, no reason to dwell on the dead. Let's see what's back there."