There's treasure in them thar rubble...
OOC: It sounds like everyone is happy taking Artemis's 1/2 hour, so half an hour it is! Get ready for...information overload.
Exploring the rubble heap that leads up to the far door yields some interesting results -- it appears that this is where the two spelleaters had their nest. The entrance is wide enough to reach into, and within is a comfortable little hollow not much bigger than the two spelleaters would be together.
Treasure
What takes up the extra room are several items:
- A pair of supple leather books, stained a dark walnut color, with small pyramidal brass studs running down each side.
- A pair of bracers made of red leather straps interwoven with steel plates, with spirals and whorls etched into the metal.
- A stout cylinder of iron, barely a foot long, capped with two onyx spheres, with braided gold wire wound around it as a handgrip.
- Another runekey arm, but different from the one already in your possession -- this one is brassy in color, with narrower bands and smaller runes, and it is still attached to part of a metal shoulder. It is also deeply marred in places, as if damaged by fire or blows of some sort.
Within the hollow, these items have been made into a little nest. Although they are undamaged, the boots and the bracers look slightly chewed on.
None of these items fall under bardic knowledge, unfortunately.
The Spelleaters
The spelleaters seems resigned to whatever happens, and make no attempt to stop you from removing the items from their nest. This is helped along by Cupric's continued soothing conversation, as well as Tuggle's speak with animals.
While the spelleaters are not burrowers per se, weasels are somewhere in their family tree. It's kind of like speaking to someone in a common language, but they use a weird dialect and have a nearly indecipherable accent. Still, it's enough to put the spelleaters more at ease.
As Cupric conveys to the others, they're not necessarily evil creatures -- just greedy, unprincipled, self-centered and wholly devoted to consuming magic. In other words, they're pretty much like most adventurers...
They are also not usually spellcasters, oddly enough. These two seem to have gained their arcane talents over time, perhaps due to exposure to the tower's potent magic. As Tuggle discovers during their talk, they are both what you would call sorcerers -- they don't really know the term -- unlike the rest of their kind.
The spelleaters are indeed a mated pair: their names are Griffilhalz and Erminaraiast (female and male, respectively). They have no young, and wouldn't want to share the siphon with them if they did.
It's clear that the siphon is in the room beyond the next door-panel, which the spelleaters say is safe -- they have explored it many times. Over the course of this long conversation, they are convinced (largely by burrow-speak) that the Follies want nothing to do with their food source, the siphon.
The eaters acquired their nest-horde from unlucky souls who wandered their way over the past decade or so. They drained what they wanted to completely, and kept some items as long-term snacks. The useless stuff -- bodies, mundane gear, etc. -- got fed to the cube.
The only other thing they mention of note is this: they didn't acquire the arm that way -- it was wedged deep in the chasm that divides the room. It took them ages to get out, but once they had done so they found that it could open the door-panel to the siphon room.
They explain which runes to touch to accomplish this, and now seem totally resigned to their fate.
More Treasure
Tal's detect magic reveals the following details about the items from their nest: all four items (counting the pairs as one apiece) are magical. The boots radiate faint transmutation; the bracers, moderate conjuration; the rod, strong magic of no school (this is unusual); the arm, strong conjuration and moderate divination.
The years-long nibbling of the spelleaters may have reduced the effectiveness of these items, whatever they are, but there's no way to know for sure.
Exhaustive searching in the goop the cube left behind -- done carefully, so as to avoid injury by the weakening acid -- turns up the following:
- 35 platinum pieces from Amn.
- A masterwork dagger with a falcon motif on its handle.
- A rusted iron scroll case, which, when opened, contains two perfectly preserved scrolls of arcane writing (clearly spells).
The Rest of the Room
Apart from what's already been described, the only features of interest are the large broken archway and the smaller portal arches -- it's clear from the architecture that that's what they are. None of them radiate magic, which could mean they're inactive, or it could mean that they no longer work.
According to Griffilhalz and Erminaraiast, they all no longer work because the two spelleaters drained their magic completely years ago.
If it did work, the large arch would be more than capable of transporting a large squad of soldiers all at once -- much like the scene in the painting back in the mosaic room, only on a smaller scale (that one was a much larger portal).
And deep in the chasm -- perhaps forty feet down, where it is only a few inches wide -- is a glint of metal: dark bronze with a hint of oxidized green (copper?). The spelleaters confirm this, saying that they couldn't reach it and couldn't drain it -- but whatever it is radiates magic. It's wedged in and obscured by the twists of rock above it, but it's just barely possible to make out that it might be another piece of runegolem.
The Far Door-Panel
As Artemis discovers, the far door panel is not trapped, and has no functioning mechanism. It can only be raised using the runekey arm, and the spelleaters even mention that mage hand (which they call "unzzzeen paw") doesn't work. They have explored the area the Follies came from using mage hand, which is how they know.
OOC: After all of this, the spelleaters lapse into slightly sullen silence -- they'd clearly prefer to be left alone, and they answer questions listlessly and without interest.
Xen, Tal can accurately learn everyone's condition and react accordingly.
What would you all like to do?
