Chapter Four: The Manifest of the Harikan Squall

No traps spring as Mordred opens the door.

In the center of the shrine is a statue of Culsu wearing only a calf-length skirt and holding a pair of scissors in her right hand. Her upraised left hand is broken off, but probably would have held a torch. A simple horned altar stands before the statue, bare of offerings. A few old tallow candles are clustered around its base. A bench, a stool, and a few rolled-up rugs are set aside near the entrance.

There are two tiers of painted reliefs on the circular wall of the shrine interior. The lower tier depicts eleven doorways, each with a scene or symbol on top of it: a fortress wall, a tangle of vines, a pair of wrestlers...a hippocampus.

The upper tier depicts five open arches, with a landscape painted inside each: a river running through a forest, a mountain range, a city on a hill, a sprawling palace, a desert and a jungle incongruously side-by-side.

A silver spiral pattern is painted on the ceiling dome.

Make an Insight check, Mordred or anyone who follows him in.

Something clicks in Zangua's head: the doorways on the lower tier represent the other twelve city-states of Hazard (with Sood and Malch sharing one doorway), and the ones on top represent the nations of Engol, Jerma, Mez, Parz, and Hafer.

Sorry, I just kind of assumed you shared your insight with the group via the magic of the DM speaking. If not, I'm sorry for the assumption. Still want to have a closer look at that hippocampus though; here is the literal sea-horse on Cuslu's door.

Clockwise from the entrance: Dule (a stone cairn), Darcra (a boar spear over a hide shield), Felboc (tangled vines), Sood and Malch (a pair of wrestlers), Bohul (a fortress wall), Orsen (a scale), Sthombo (a hippocampus), Gurmar (the moon and its watery reflection), Gaad (a knotted club), Utwar (a trireme), Banwod (a branch with mistletoe).

Nothing weird and no, no other exits.

Anybody have anything else they want to do at the shrine? Also, not to ask leading questions, but is anyone keeping watch outside?

While the others are examining the shrine, Zangua notices the return of the man in the brown cloak who had been following them. He approaches the guards near Erat's temple, and they appear to have a brief conversation, and the guards hurry off down a westbound street.

The man in the brown cloak faces in Zangua's direction for a long moment, then starts walking toward him at a relaxed pace. He is, perhaps, 200' away at the start of his approach.

The painted doorways are suggestive, but Domarc cannot think of a precedent for such a method of magical transportation. Even the archmages of Banwod are not known to make use of permanent dimensional gateways.