Beauty & The Beast

[Brian]

N'dovu grunts, and thinks about this cautiously.  "Right," he mumbles, turning to the opening to the right of his own entrance, and heading through it at a quick jog.

[Carthrat]

The room to the right is not very large, but it does contain a stairwell that leads to the ceiling. It doesn't actually go anywhere, however.  It's a square room.

There are also some pots and amphoras to one side; inspection reveals that they're full of cool water, untouched for apparently some time. There are also two unlit torches to the side of the room.

[Brian]

N'dovu hesitates.  Water might indicate that this is the wrong room.

Then again, it could be a riddle.  Grumbling, N'dovu looks for a way to light the torches.  Bringing fire down here would at least give him access to some aspect of the spirit he was looking for.

[Carthrat]

N'Dovu notes that his staff is actually getting a little hot, as opposed to just shedding light. There's no obvious source of fire around; the whole place is made of marble and stone.

[Brian]

Thoughtfully, N'dovu tries touching the staff to the torches, to see if the spirits will ignite them.

[Carthrat]

The spirits do not wish to comply with N'Dovu's actions; the torches remain unlit and unwilling.

[Brian]

N'dovu scowls, but takes that as a sign; this isn't the way.  He turns about, and rushes towards the opposite chamber.

[Carthrat]

The opposite chamber is quite similar to the other room, with a notable exception; the stairwell to the roof is gone, replaced with flat, segemented stone. It looks similar enough that it's not a great leap of logic to deduce that there's another floor underneath this one, and that thing is a presently-nonfunctional staircase to it.

[Brian]

N'dovu tests the stone for looseness to see if it can be pried up, or moved aside.

[Carthrat]

There are slight slits between the stones, but they seems to be pretty solid and unpryable.

[Brian]

N'dovu frowns, and then takes the one entrance he hasn't tried, glancing up at the ceiling.

[Carthrat]

The digging has stopped, and there are some very muffled voices from above. It's too hard to make out what they're saying, however.

Inside this next room is a strange sight. The room has a great stone table in the centre, and stone chairs go all around. A great hearth lies at the centre of the wall in the opposite end, and as N'Dovu enters the room, it springs to life, a great fire illuminating the entire chamber.

Murals are all over the walls; to the left side, images of birth and growth; a great bird wreathed in fire, and the sun, hovering above fields of vibrant crops and animals.

To the right, however, the sun hangs over no farm or haven, but over billowing clouds of fire that consume sticklike figures of men and animals. Great towers are toppling and cities are burning; to one side, prone depictions of burnt-out people and creaturs lie.

The glow from N'Dovu's staff and the fire at the end of the room seems to waver over the images, giving them an illusion of movement and a surreal appearance.

And when N'Dovu looks around the room a second time, he sees at the end of each pattern an unlit torch, that he could've sworn was not there a moment ago..

[Brian]

N'dovu watches for a few seconds, watching the light play across the patterns, and seeing the colors seem to shift about.  After a heartbeat, though, he shakes his head, and eyes the torches.  The staff hadn't worked last time, but this room seemed more promising anyway.

Pulling a lighter from one pocket, N'dovu attempts to light the torches.

[Carthrat]

Upon lighting the torch on the left side, N'dovu can hear a creaking sound, and the churn of stone against stone coming from back in the other rooms.

When he looks for the other torch, it seems to have vanished. Odd, that. Slowly, the fiery hearth begins to die down.

[Brian]

N'dovu thinks about this for a minute, and then nods.  In one of the rooms, a door must have opened.  Now to find it, and quickly.  N'dovu checks the room that had once had two torches in it first, and if no new entrance is visible, he runs to the room with the not-quite-loose-enough floor-stones.