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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 3048911" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #358] The Scroll Room and Beyond[/PLAIN]Unsurprisingly, next to the chill larder and across the corridor from the grisly dining room they'd discovered earlier, they found a hellishly hot kitchen. The floor was crusty with dried blood and rusty hooks and gore-soaked butcher blocks predominated and none of them was eager to discover what was cooking in the mammoth oven that loomed over the place from a shadowy recess in the far wall."Should I go check it out?" Lela asked hesitantly."No," Morier replied. "I'm pretty confident that they wouldn't hide the keys in the kitchen." As they turned around and headed back down the hall, Huzair snorted derisively and shook his head."Tell me again why we're looking in all these rooms and not actually searching them," he muttered but nobody heard him or cared to answer.The next place they discovered reminded Shamalin of the Holy Writing room back in Floxen. Except that it felt anything but holy. It was dark and had a rather unusual smell. Racks upon racks of scrolls reached from floor to ceiling lining three full walls. In the center of the room one scroll was displayed, framed tight and apparently in the final stages of completion. It's creamy surface glowed pink with an inner light that illuminated the red lettering and made it appear almost wet. Shamalin felt an odd sense of awe as she circled the scroll slowly, studying it from various angles.As she studied it more closely she saw that the unfurled scroll wasn't finished; it was held in the frame not for display but to keep the prepared skin from shrinking. Shamalin knew little about the making of parchment, but she did know that it started with a piece of hide not unlike this one. And what she'd taken for writing was actually red stitching that seemed to zig-zag haphazardly across the skin. But there was something... strange...Karak harrumphed, tearing her attention away. "What language be this?" he grumbled loudly. "Nothing I can read, to be sure." He shoved a scroll back into its place and looked around the room critically."I cannot read it either," Ayremac admitted, looking expectantly at Shamalin. But she was studying the framed scroll once more."Wait. There's something..." Her voice trailed off, uncertain.Morier stepped closer to the scroll, his hand resting on Ravager's hilt. "What is it?""This stitching..." Shamalin whispered, "I think it's moving!""What?" Lela asked. She landed on Karak's shoulder as the dwarf crowded close to the piece of hide. "I don't see anything.""Nor do I," Karak muttered and started to step away."No. She's right," Morier said. "It's different now than when I first looked at it. But now it's..." He squinted critically at the stitching."Look away," Ayremac instructed. "Then look back." They all did it and several surprised gasps issued from the group. "It only changes when you're not looking.""Nice!" Huzair hissed appreciatively. "But what's it mean?"No one had an answer to that one."I can pray tomorrow for the ability to Comprehend Languages," Shamalin offered. "Then we can come back and take a look at these scrolls again."It wasn't a very satisfying solution to the mystery, but it was the only one they had.The final unexplored room on that level was a treasure chamber or trophy room of sorts. An open chest overflowing with large golden coins of a mint that none of them recognized was on the left of the door and three stone pedestals - each surrounded by an inlaid ring of silvery runes - were evenly spaced along the long wall. Atop each of the three pedestals was a silver box and the Order moved eagerly forward, triggering all three Explosive Runes traps nearly simultaneously.</blockquote>

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