Dragon quickstep

[Corwin]

Seira cheers inside, and moves on to get the other gemstones here before returning to the frozen room. There, she tries to figure out just how many other doors there remain unexplored.

I'm in the A-N room, and I know there's a (frozen) door to the room with the high value soulgems I've just left and a door outside to the stairway. Are there more?

[Anastasia]

You mean in this room?

[Corwin]

In both the A-N room and the O-Z room, I believe you said there were other doors that were frozen over. I've gone through one of those frozen doors in the A-Z room. Are there others here, and if so, how many?

[Anastasia]

This room is a dead end on checking.

[Corwin]

I'll repeat this. I'm gathering the large soulgems in the side room and returning to the A-N room. There, I'm looking for other frozen doors. Are there none beyond the one I've currently used?

[Anastasia]

You do your checking and you were right - two more doors hidden behind the ice.

[Corwin]

Seira slips into the next one, same as before!

[Anastasia]

This door leads to a smaller room with a table, chair and a single thick book on that table.

[Corwin]

Seira first checks the room for other exits, before observing any prevailent magical auras and traps. You should never neglect the basics!

[Anastasia]

No other exits. The book is trapped with alarms, as well as a curse that if any by Imix read it, they will gain a weakness to fire and suffer a fireball that explodes on them several times a minute.

[Corwin]

Seira studies the alarms! First is to try and tell whether they are layered or inter-connected. In the former, she'll take the same prismatic counter approach, whereas for the latter case, she'll need to study their interactions to target that aspect instead.

[Anastasia]

Both. They're layered atop one another and interconnected, so that if one is disrupted, the others go off. They're also powerful and potent.

[Corwin]

Nasty! Then the book is probably really important. Seira acknowledges for the first time that she may not be able to reach the Gallery of Triumphs due to circumstances, unless she's already there and misunderstood how it is arrayed, of course, and that means gathering as many things valuable to Imix as she can for bait.

Thus, Seira studies each alarm in turn. What triggers it, aside from other alarms going off? Who does it report to, and how?

[Anastasia]

The book being touched, moved or read.

[Corwin]

What about being copied? And what about the alarms, are they relayed via sound? Telepathy? Something else?