Burnt Offerings

The party heads back to the staircase leading to the main floor and tackles the blocked door there. After some effort Yola and Gerund manage to force the door open and tumble into the room beyond.

A large wooden table had been overturned and jammed up against the door, the scrolls, books and stone tablets that had been on it are now scattered across the floor, along with fragments of carvings that appear to have been chipped off statues or bas-reliefs. To the north, a floor to ceiling set of wooden shelves sag with picks, shovels, brushes, lanterns and other equipment one might expect to see at an archaeological dig site.

To the east a door has been hastily thrown open, beyond is narrow descending staircase. While Yola and Gerund keep watch over the stairs, Seoni and Sasha quickly search through the scrolls and books. All are covered with the same dense spiky runes seen elsewhere on this level and in the catacombs back in Sandpoint, but none seem valuable or magical.

After spiraling downward the staircase opens onto a large hallway, the ceiling supported by two pillars. In many places the stone walls, floor and ceiling are caked with ancient grime and soot. Alcoves in the north and south wall contained partially damages statues of a man in robes clutching a book and a glaive. The entire room is canted towards the west, and whatever ancient upheaval caused the complex to tilt knocked the statues from their bases so that they now lean against the southern walls of their alcoves. There is a single door at the opposite end of the hall.

With a sense of foreboding the party picks their way through the rubble to the other end of the hall and opens the door. The short hallway beyond rises in a slope to the east. Five feet from the door, the floor is polished and shiny, unlike the dusty floors elsewhere. A pair of stone statues depicting stern men wielding glaives stand in alcoves north and south of this section of the hallway. At the eastern end stand two stone doors, their faces carved with more of the strange spiky runes. Between the doors is a third alcove in which a partially collapsed statue sits. The top half of the statue is missing, leaving behind a ragged stump of a torso.

The southern door is ajar, and you can hear faint voices from beyond it.