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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 7416340" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 158When the huge stone doors began to shake, the hidden mechanisms working for several moments before the giant slabs began to split apart, Glori could not help but be impressed.  The doors opened slowly, ponderously, as if resisting yielding up what they protected.It had been two full days after their meeting with the Circle before the wizards had summoned them again.  It had occurred to Glori that they might have been trying to put them off, and she’d worried that Bredan might react poorly to the delay.  But her friend seemed calmer now, as though the wizards’ revelations had taken something out of him.  She’d offered to talk it out with him, but he hadn’t been interested.She’d spent the added free time training.  With Bredan apparently interested only in solitude she’d sought out a martial instructor she’d met earlier during their stay, a veteran swordsman who offered private lessons primarily to the extra children of the local nobility.  He was able to fit in several sessions that were enough of a strain to allow Glori to forget all that was looming over them, at least for a little while.  The instructor, Garrett, offered praise for her speed and skill, but she couldn’t help but think back on all that they had faced and what dangers might lie ahead.The doors were still leisurely grinding open.  Glori could see now that they were very thick.  She glanced over at Bredan, who even now remained a few steps apart from the rest of them, subtly separated from the group.  He’d taken advantage of the delay to buy a new suit of chain mail and have it fitted.  Glori had to admit that he looked more like himself in it, even though both she had Quellan had left their armor behind along with their weapons.  Maybe to him this little expedition was no different from the many dangerous situations that they’d faced together.  Glori herself felt a bit naked without her lyre, but Konstantin had been very explicit about what they would be allowed to bring with them into the underground complex where the Vault was situated.Perhaps sensing her attention, Bredan briefly looked over at her.  Glori tried to give him a reassuring smile, but no doubt he could sense the concern in her eyes.  For a moment he looked uncertain, but then his jaw tightened and he turned his attention back to the slowly-widening gap in front of them.Konstantin didn’t wait until the doors were fully open before he led them forward.  The wizard carried a traditional oil-based lantern, a contrast to the magical lights commonly used throughout the Apernium, and a reminder that the place they were visiting was not typical.  The wizard had warned them against trying to cast spells in this place, noting that the wards crafted by the elves centuries ago could react strongly to such attempts.Glori was not interested in casting spells.  She was worried about Bredan, and what he might find in this dark and alien place.After the guards they had passed to get here, the various barriers that had culminated in the vast stone doors still grinding open behind them, the outer chamber of the Vault seemed less than impressive, even mundane.  It was fairly spacious, and Glori could still make out faint marks where additional furniture had likely once stood.  That was consistent with the wizards’ tale of pulling out all the inner security after the rebellion by the Silver Gauntlet, those trusted to keep vigil over this place.  The thought of spending long periods of time in this room made her shudder.She went over to Bredan, who was staring at the inner wall of the Vault.  It didn’t look like much, just another wall made up of the same huge slabs of stone that constituted the rest of the complex.  If there was another door or hatch or something she couldn’t see it.  There was a low platform just off to the side.  Konstantin had headed over in that direction, obscuring her view of what was there.“What is it?” Glori asked, her voice little more than a whisper.  Somehow in this place it didn’t seem right to disturb the quiet.  Even Kosk seemed uncharacteristically pensive.  “Do you sense something?”“No,” Bredan said.  “I sense… nothing.  It’s a bit… eerie.”“That word seems apt here,” Xeeta said.  She had left her rod and her amulet behind, but her left hand kept drifting to her throat seemingly of its own accord, as if expecting to find the latter there.  After seeing her for so long in her altered form it was a little jarring to see her natural features, Glori thought.“Over here,” Konstantin said, calling them over to the platform.As she approached Glori could see more of it.  The platform itself was made of wood, the slabs thick but otherwise unremarkable.  But at its center there was an opening through which a pedestal of dark stone rose to slightly above waist height.  The top of the pedestal was beveled so that what it supported faced into the room.From the wizards’ briefing she’d expected a book, and at first glance the object somewhat resembled one.  But the heavy leather sheath that surrounded the Revelation Book was more of a cover in the traditional sense of the word, and it came away completely when Konstantin tugged gently at it.The interior of the book was a broad slab of pale stone as wide as her forearm, with a grainy texture that set it apart from the pedestal and the rest of the construction of the room.  Its outer frame was coated in a rime of bright silvery metal, as though the entire thing had been dipped into a molten font during its construction.  Perhaps it had, Glori thought.  The thing in front of her was hundreds of years old, but the metal shone brightly in the light from Konstantin’s lamp, as if had been forged yesterday.  But there was damage, and as she drew closer she could see a deep crack that extended across the face of the tablet.  A complex landscape of subsidiary cracks spread from that initial point of disruption.  It looked almost as though the thing would fall apart if disturbed.Bredan stepped forward, and for a moment it looked like he was going to finish the job of ruining the ancient artifact.  But he only reached out a hand, indicating a set of marks along the top of the tablet that Glori had missed at first.  She edged to stand beside him.  She leaned in to to read the writing, already knowing what it would say.Bredan Karras, Crosspath.The words were etched into the stone, the letters smoothly formed as if written by a quill on parchment instead of hacked by a chisel.  Bredan let his fingertips slide over them, his lips moving soundlessly to form the words.  Glori watched him, put a hand on his arm for support, but after a few moments he just turned away and stepped clear to let the others take a look.  Konstantin just stood there, holding up the lamp so they could see.“What about the keys?” Kosk asked the wizard.  “I don’t see any locks or other mechanisms here.  Or are they hidden?”“There is more machinery built into the walls, or so I understand from the ancient accounts,” Konstantin said.  “But the keys—or rather the key, as the three pieces all form part of a whole—operate more as a trigger than like a mundane object working a lock.  In essence, this entire place is the lock.”“And the book, this Libram, it’s on the other side of this wall?” Xeeta asked.“According to everything we know,” Konstantin said.“A hedging answer,” Kosk noted.“It’s there,” Bredan said.  The others all turned to look at him, but he was walking away, not even glancing at the interior wall.“Bredan?” Glori asked.“I can feel it,” Bredan said.  “It’s waiting for us.”Glori looked back at Konstantin, but if the wizard was alarmed by the warrior’s words he was keeping it well hidden.  “So, what do we do next?” she asked.“We’ve sent messages to the elven and dwarven courts,” the wizard said.“That could take a while,” Quellan said.  “They’re not exactly close to Severon.”“We have means of communication left over from the days of the alliance,” Konstantin said.  “The difficulty is not in sending messages.  Rather, it’s in getting them to respond.”“Did you tell them what’s been going on?” Glori asked.“They are not ignorant of the broader course of events,” Konstantin said.“Another wizard-answer,” Kosk said.“Have you told them about the spellcasters involved with Murgoth’s forces?” Quellan asked.  “The sources of power we found in the Silverpeak Valley, and elsewhere?”“They may already know some of it,” Glori said.  “Remember Starfinder, all the way back in Crosspath?  She was an elf.”Konstantin looked like he was about to say something, but he was interrupted by the distant sounds of the outer door opening, followed by the tread of someone approaching swiftly from the main corridor.The companions all turned as one toward the entry.  Glori noted that Bredan’s hands twitched, almost as if he was considering summoning his sword.  She wondered if his power would work here.Konstantin did not appear to be alarmed, though he too looked surprised at the interruption.  He stepped forward just as the woman wizard from the Circle, Javerin, appeared at the opening in the outer doors.  From her slightly disarrayed hair she’d been running, but she quickly regathered her usual gravitas.“What’s happened now?” Kosk asked.Javerin barely acknowledged the dwarf with a flick of her eyes before focusing her attention on Konstantin.  “We’ve had a response to our diplomatic queries,” she said.“The elves, or the dwarves?” Glori asked.“Both of them,” the wizard replied.</blockquote>

Verification