Behind those doors was a large room, opulent carpets and tapestries their colours long since faded, three doors with large signs above them, two rows of pedestal with strange objects and little silver plaques beneath each. The blood splattered remains of an unlucky interloper presumed to be what is left of Nog mentioned in the journal scraps they found back in the troll cave. Sarin signalled for the party to wait, as she carefully went about checking for traps, but Durn pushed past aiming right for a pedestal with a large silver heart that seemed to beat as if alive. Unable to touch the heart or even the pedestal he finally noticed the small stone panel, with sixteen stone buttons marked with various elemental and mystical symbols, floating an inch away from the pedestal. The rest of the party took a more careful approach while Durn was failing to reach the silver heart. The door to the left had a sign which read “Teleporting Entryway”, and the door was neither locked nor trapped. The door to the right had a sign which read “Live Storage”, it was unlocked and trapped but someone had already disarmed it. The finally door straight ahead had a sign which read “Study” and trapped with what Sarin believed to be a very powerful magical trap.
The eight pedestals and their plaques:
A strange Horn broken from the head of some large creature. “Trophy of an enemy defeated”
A massive Diamond, bigger than any the party had seen or heard of. “My share of the Horde”
An empty pedestal the plaque reading “An interesting find, a Belt of Goblinkind”
An empty pedestal the plaque reading “The Keystone of Kracken’s Fall, entrusted to me by the Blackhand”
A portrait of a human wizard, his face covered in arcane tattoos. “Quite a good likeness”
A Silver heart that beats as if alive, Durn believes it to be linked to his missing hand, “The Heart of Vim”
A jagged and evil looking dagger with shadows swirling around and dripping darkness. “The Culling Blade”
A adamantine Arrow with runes etched upon it. “The left over Arrow of Dragon Slaying”
The party surmised that the only way to remove the invisible barriers from the pedestals was to press the correct symbols on the stone pad and all but Durn moved on to check out the room marked Teleporting Entryway, which was simply a large circular room with meticulous patterns carved into the stone, Sarin explains that it is how powerful mages know exactly where to teleport without error. Amon decided to take some time sketching it out for future reference while the rest moved on to the Live Storage room.
The Live Storage room was packed with massive glass tanks filled with murky water and vague shapes, none of which showed any signs of life, possible some sort of giant beetles or other bug like creature it was hard to tell. The focus now went back to the entry hall and the Heart of Vim, Durn felt drawn to it by an unseen force and started pressing symbols almost randomly yet trusting his feelings, the poisons gas that spewed forth when he pressed the wrong symbol was extremely painful but didn’t put off Durn. Waiting for everyone to move to a safe distance he decided to try again, this time succeeding, and almost as soon as the barrier was down then he pressed the Heart of Vim to his chest and absorbed it.
While the rest of the party waited to Durn to recover, since he screamed then passed out and now has a hole in his chest with a beating silver heart lying within, they tried to get into the Study. Sarin managed barely to disarm the trap and the room beyond was somewhat of a disappointment. Most of the walls had collapsed leaving only a few bookshelves standing, Sarin was still overjoyed to find a large number of Scrolls, history books and a Manual of Intelligence. Not knowing the codes to get the other items and wanting to push their luck the party felt it was time to finally go looking for some Orks to kill but not before Durn, having recovered but feeling as if he was permanently weakened by the Heart of Vim, had a look in Live Storage. Peering into the tanks he quickly recoiled clutching his head as if pained he walked away, Tam started begging someone to smash one open so she could see and Sur Albert assisted her. The creature parts that fell out reeked and were of an unknown creature.
Back up through the Troll Cave and into the chamber where the strange golem worked, now with a goblin apprentice cowering for his life at the sight of the party, and up back towards the entrance of the mine. Which is now caved in, something the party thought might have happened when they heard the large explosion the day before, following another passage they hadn’t yet explored the finally came across the Orks and their Goblin allies waiting for them. The largest Ork shouted out that Sur Albert had slain his father and now they must all die, while the goblin shaman winking at them with a somewhat fearful expression, the fight that followed was brief and the goblins stayed true to their word by missing painfully badly with their new boom sticks. Sarins use of the grease spell made Sur Albert’s duel with the Ork leader rather feeble. Claiming the Ork Warblade for himself Sur Albert told the goblins to flee and they obeyed with the speed that only a goblin could.
Since they had news of the Keystone the party headed east to Susan’s Safehouse and Sundries to tell Lady Elenna that they knew who had taken it and it was hoped that Susan might know of the history of the items they could not recover since he had adventured with Garak so long ago. A few tired days later they arrived to find yet more bodies strung up on the walls, more assassins had tried to take Lady Elenna and Susan Stormbringer would not tolerate such disrespect.
Time for some well earned drinking and relaxation.