On Preparedness And Curiousity

Fearing for the safety of the dig site, The Group™, or mostly Saramago, decided to build a palisade and bulwark around the entire area, including the few buildings of Bryce's Field. Shifting the work force from the dig to the acquisition of materials and building, it took only five days to erect the basic structure. And quite in the nick of time as the dig was attacked by a small band of goblins on that day.


The group showed their martial prowess by slaying most of the raiding party outright. The ranger-in-attendance flexed his bow string as well, shooting down the two fleeing survivors with ease. How will the goblin commanders react to this? Only time will tell.


Wanting to delve further into the unexplored portions of the ruins, The Group™ decided to send the cleric into Arunum to hire a small mercenary group to watch and defend the dig site. He returned four days later with a force of 10 men, hired at two gold per week each.


Free to descend the inviting blackness of the hidden stairway, The Group™ did just that. Only after minutes of walking into the depths and finding a large stone door flanked by magical pillars did Saramago realize they should have been on the lookout for hidden doors along the stair well. And so they ascended the stairs again, this time under the power of spells to ferret out such things. They were rewarded with a colossal waste of time.


Back at the stone door at the bottom of the stairs, the wizard and cleric pondered over the meanings of the sigils carved into the otherwise mirror-smooth surface of the stone door. A battery of spells and attempts to decipher the markings gave them no clue as to their meaning. Only when the cleric ran his hands over the sigils and saw them light up did the wizard realize the same four symbols from the doors in the gallery above were hidden in the sixteen different markings on this door.

After applying the same order of activation to the new door, it slid silently upward into the ceiling, revealing a room beyond. In the dim light of the much discussed wizard's light spell, The Group™ could make out a small raised dais and four stone figures in plate armor holding long flag-adorned spears at attention. Across the oddly shaped room was another door quite like the one they had just come through.

As they attempted to cross the room, they were halted by an invisible wall. Finding no way around, they decided to examine the two statues situated on their side of the wall. The wizard and cleric only found that carved stone can be sharp while the keen-eyed ranger spotted a fine seem at the wrist of one statue. Further examination of the other revealed a matching seem. In a rare moment of deductive reasoning, they attempted to twist the spear hand of each figure simultaneously and thusly the invisible wall was no more.


Making their way across the room, they found the opposite door to be devoid of any sigils, while the pillars on either side radiated strong transmutation magic exactly as the entry pillars had. Nothing adorned the door save a small horizontal indentation.


How will The Group™ defeat this new puzzle? Is there truth to the rumors of howling coming from the bowels of the broken temple at night? And what might be going on above ground while they explore? These questions and more may be answered in our next episode of The Group™ Stumbles Blindly On.