Joseph notices the dusty footprints of
Ogbar and
Aanbo as he enters. He looks around at the floor, to see what else has passed this way...there are
no other footprints. The dust is thick, smooth, and even...except for
a large, roughly circular patch in the center of the room. The tile there is bare and clean.
Joseph leaves footprints of his own as he edges around that suspiciously dust-free area of the floor to inspect the strange "shiny door." Getting away from the torch to look more closely at the door,
Joseph notices what
Ogbar just did: the strange, moving colors appear most brightly when he's looking at the doorway from the same direction as the light source. Looking at it from right next to the doorway, about 90 degrees from the light coming from the torch,
Joseph can see that there is no door in the square arch. Whatever is reacting to the torchlight in one direction is transparent or non-existent in another. From here,
Joseph can peer past the door into a large, dark space. But he also notices that inside of the stone arch is inscribed with a small glyph of a bird encircled by a snake.
Albertus suggests to
Theran that they join the others, and
Theran is amenable; he navigates the thorny brambles and ignores the pricking of the thorns with aplomb. He steps past
Xana and
Kragga as they are peering through the doorway. Without really trying, the elf notices the lack of dust in the center of the tiled floor. He calls up to
Ogbar and
Aanbo:
"What's happening upstairs?"[ +- ] Ground floor of the Forest Ruin
Aanbo scoots next to
Ogbar as they ascend the rest of the way up the stairs side-by-side. The chandelier, hung with several dangling, twinkling golden stars and suns, is suspended just a few paces out of reach to the south, suspended from the ceiling above the center of the first floor. The railing between them,
Ogbar watches as the figure with the glowing eyes turns away from him again. The barbarian sees a door in front of the figure, softly illuminated by its glowing eyes. Then there's the sound of a stiff latch being forced open, the door is pushed open, and the figure steps through.
"See what happens when you don't say you're sorry?" Aanbo quips, as he takes stock of what he can see of the second floor.
Aanbo's eyes have quickly adjusted to the darkness. He gets a quick glimpse of the figure with the glowing eyes just as it turns and opens a door. He sees that paths have been scuffed in the dust up here, though the dust remains thick on the railings. The dwarf sees that there are two doors and two passageways leading off of this mezzanine level. The first is the door that the figure just stepped through (its body, just inside the open door, is now blocking his view of the interior). To the left/west of that is the second: a short passage that heads north a few paces and ends in a stone wall with the symbol of Pae (solar eye with a snake surrounding it) carved in it. Third, to the left/west of that passage, still in the north wall, is a narrow door. Fourth, the pool of darkness
Ogbar saw in the west wall is visible to
Aanbo as a passage that runs several paces to the west. There are two doors on either side of that passage, and a fifth door at the far western end.