Chapter 4

Exploring the Crypt (continued)

July 7

During the night, Ra hears some noise from outside, so he wakes up the entire group. The group prepares to open the door, and when Agnarr opens it, they see that there are some birds making noise outside. The group continues sleeping and the morning comes without any further disturbances.

At ten in the morning, Ertak restores Neiia’s strength. After that, he rests for few hours to regain his powers. Then the group sets off.

They come to a door that they haven’t yet explored. Kieron examines the door and notices that there is some mechanism inside the door. Ra notices a rod in the ceiling and warns the flying Neiia about the rod. The group concludes that it was probably that rod that moved when we pulled those levers in the previous room. The group disperses to observe the surroundings while Agnarr goes to pull the lever. The both levers are too heavy, so Agnarr’s hands slip off. Agnarr notices that the lever is a bit greasy. Next, Agnarr goes to pull the first lever again and gets it to move. Jaysek notices that the rod in the ceiling is rotating. Next, Agnarr rests while Ra and Ertak go to pull the second lever. They manage to pull the lever, and this time Neiia holds the rod with her hand and manages to wedge her fingers between the rod and the ceiling.

The group rests, and next, Ertak and Ra pull one lever, and Agnarr pulls the other. They get the levers pulled, and the door opens. Kieron throws a coin with light spell on it inside, but it falls into a pit in the middle of the room. Kieron looks into the room but doesn’t go inside. Kieron sees that it’s a round room with two doors leading forward, and in the middle of the room is some kind of hole.

Next, they decide to try to wedge the door open while also wedging the handles up. Neiia moves the beetle to the door with levitation as per Kieron’s idea, and the others try to use pieces of wood to wedge the handles up. They get the door open once, and Neiia gets the beetle between the door, but not very well. Ertak and Ra try to wedge the other handle up, but the wooden piece placed by Ra flies away when the handle goes down. Fortunately, this happens because Ertak manages to leave his fingers between the handle and the wooden piece. Agnarr tries the same but doesn’t succeed.

The beetle gets crushed between the wall and the door, rises up, and parts of it are scraped off to the inside of the door, and the shell remains on this side of the door. They try again several times, but this time they can’t pull the levers simultaneously, so the door doesn’t open. They also can’t wedge the handles. The group rests again, and meanwhile, Kieron notices that something is bothering him about the surroundings, and when he examines the place more carefully, he finds a similar recess in the wall as where the two levers are. He goes to one of the levers and notices that the lever can be pulled out, and he moves it to the new location. He goes to tell the others about it.

The group starts thinking about how to pull those levers, but since they only have two levers, pulling the levers simultaneously is quite difficult. Kieron states that a crowbar could be wedged in there, so he carves wooden pieces to wedge the crowbar in place, though it’s quite close to the floor and somewhat unstable. The group arranges to pull the levers so that Jaysek and Ertak take one lever, Kieron and Ra take the other, and Agnarr takes the crowbar. On the first attempt, Kieron and Ra fail to pull the lever, as does Agnarr. Agnarr complains that the crowbar is awkwardly placed, and Kieron claims it’s just fine. They try once more, and this time everyone succeeds except Agnarr, who still complains that the crowbar is too poorly placed. Kieron gets frustrated with the complaint and says well then place it better, but the others don’t know how, and additionally, the crowbar is stuck in place. Kieron gets annoyed and leaves.

The others stay to think and rest. At some point, Ertak suggests that the wood could be burned away with a fireball. Neiia states that it is a good idea and she does try that. The crowbar heats up very strongly but doesn’t melt. Due to the heating and tension, the crowbar straightens out.

At some point, Neiia gets frustrated with inaction and goes to examine the last unexplored door. Behind the door is a room with a water basin and above it a dragon’s head, from which water flows in. When they step into the room, there is a magically created sound that says “Magic is the key.” The group notices that the water basin is 10 meters deep and about two meters by three meters in size, and when Jaysek creates light at the bottom, they notice that there are many keys at the bottom.

Neiia notices that one key at the bottom of the basin is magical, and also those two doors in the room are magical. Agnarr decides that he can try to levitate down underwater and try to take the key up from the water. He gets to a depth of a couple of meters before failing badly and floundering for a moment before losing consciousness. Neiia tries to levitate Agnarr up but finds that it doesn’t work. At this point, Ertak starts taking off his armor and Kieron goes to get Neiia’s rope. Neiia states that levitation is not goint to work, so she jumps into the water and swims to Agnarr and after a couple of attempts, gets a hold of him and manages to pull him up. The group helps Agnarr out of the water, and Ertak gives him first aid.