"I beg your pardon," he says, a bit surprised. "I was not trying to be insulting. I was actually trying help you, if you needed it, which I guess it's pretty obvious you don't. My apologies, Lady. This place is- strange. As near as I can tell, it has been abandoned, for years, yet still has protectors and caretakers. It is not something I can reason out easily, and would like to know- but first, we must see to the children Estigon said were here. Thank you."

"Shall we?" he asks D'aden. "Which one will it be?"

"Hey, pick the door on the left," Olven Wolf says helpfully.  He eyes the woman and her companions.  Not a bad looker, not at all, especially for whatever kind of magical thing she must be.

"Kind of you to offer us one of these doors," he tells her.  "If you need us for anything, don't hesitate to ask."

Something nags at Olven, though, something the king had told him, Nana, and Handar.  Don't repeat our mistake.  "Wait, no!" he says.  "Not the left!  I don't know which one to take, but the king warned us not to take the door on the left!"
This message was last edited by the player at 15:01, Wed 23 Feb 2011.

"Apology accepted," the translucent female said. "This is a magical place after all."

"How kind of you to offer your help mister wolf."

"That's just the kind of guy I am, my lady," he says, bowing his head.  "A man would do many things to see a smile on your face, if you'll forgive my impudence."  Offering to do favors for spectral strangers is probably not a smart thing to do, at least unbidden, but the spirit or whoever she may be is quite the looker.

"Well, if I were to choose, I would choose to turn around. The children would not be past here, presuming the Lady performed her job equally on all, and presuming that Estigon views the Daconians as invaders and would not have introduced himself.

"So our goal is down the other passage in the room we met Estigon. If the left door is bad, it is also possible the rest are, as well, a test of greed. If you all should decide to open one, then I will choose the right-hand door. My vote, however, is none of them.

"What say you?"

(OOC: Sorry, guess I just got to be difficult. :P )

"We don't actually know which way these children are, do we?" Olven Wolf says.  He remains calm, but the caretaker's remark about the fun of exploration bothers him in some way.  He can't shake the feeling that they're all being played.  "So let's go through the door on the right.  For all we know, these kids could be down that hall.  I mean, this is a magical place, right?  So we could go up to go down, or head east to reach the west."

"I'm afraid your prejudice is showing, Owain. The dracs may be unpleasant, but there is no reason to assume they would have been stopped by Estigon, and no reason to believe they would have been unwilling to open a door."
"Plus, you seem to be assuming the children in question were being carried by the dracs, they might have come here on their own, and used the correct name, opened a door, and passed on."
"In any case, it could be that it doesn't matter which door is opened as long as only one is opened."

"Fine," he says, exasperated, and opens the right hand door as he readies his shield (sword is out already).

The heroes opened the door and entered the room. Before them was a cushion with literaly hundreds of platinum coins, a handful of gems, and a hand mirror.

[OOC: The Game Map is updated, but I was unable to upload the updated larger map to Village Photos.]
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:21, Sat 26 Feb 2011.

D'aden looks at the treasure, and remarks, "I was rather hoping for a map."

"Well, it's what we were asked to retrieve," he comments. "The mirror might be magical. I call the pillow..."

"Very interesting," Olven Wolf says, looking around the room.  "That platinum will come in very handy in the rebuilding effort.  A lot of weight to carry around with us, though.  Should we take it back to the wagon, then?"

He grins at Owain's joke.  "No time for napping yet, eh?  Let's get this loot carted out of here."

Jarl nodded and beginning filling his pouch with the platinum coins.  "We should each take about 70 coins and a gem... If no one minds I will carry the mirror instead of a gem."

"That's good with me, Jarl. But, Olven, if we split it up, it's trivial. Less than 10 pounds each. I believe we can take that without a problem and continue on, yes?"

Olven shrugs.  "Every hundredth of a pound matters," he says.  "I've heard stories of adventurers' lives cut short because they had too much to carry and couldn't escape a particularly nasty trap.  And I'm not even talking about gold and gems, but food and water.  I like to travel with as little extra weight as possible.  But we're here after all to bring this treasure back to the king.  I'd just like to be free of its weight as soon as I can."  Olven loads up his pack with platinum, offering to carry some of the weight for the others if necessary.

"Understood. We may decide to do as you suggested when we find more, but even with all this armor, that little has not slowed me down. In fact, it's even lighter than I thought it would be."

"Well, I'll carry my share. But I feel nervous accepting a gift from some sort of spectral inquisitor, especially if they only question is the name of someone I met just previously."
D'aden will put his portion in his pack.

The heroes divided the money, the gems, and the mirror among them, even taking the cushion with them.

"So- let us go the other way." He looks at the spectral lady. "Thank you very much. I don't suppose you'd tell us if you saw some youngsters here? Or whether you allowed Draconians to pass?"

If she does not, he will head back to the huge blue statue room, and take the other passage. If she does, depending on the answer, that might be the path also.

"I guard these doors," the spectral female said indicating the three doors. "If they want to open a door and pass my test, they may do so. Other than that I don't care."

The heroes moved back and around and walked out through the double doors, just to face another set of metal double doors right in front of them in a corridor that went both left and right.

To the left they could see a door as the corridor turned a corner and back to the right it seemed to lead to where they had talked to the spectral female and her companions.

[http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2011-2/1364172/2151688 for the Lyceum_Overview image and Game Map for the local view.]
This message was last edited by the GM at 12:14, Wed 09 Mar 2011.

D'aden puts away his bow, and rests his hand on the hilt of the sword he borrowed. In order to determine the possibility of finding tracks within the halls he takes note of the tracks (if any) they left as they came this way. "It's times like this that a person could use a song to lift their spirits and help them on their way, of course, it's also times like this that a song could alert an enemy and allow them to ambush you."

"so what is your test this time?"

(OOC: I think she was just answering my question, not giving us another test, Jarl. Without being able to see the map from work, it sounds like the coridor turns as it continues past a door. We will head that way, look down the corridor, and check the door.)

"Anyone have any special luck hearing noises or checking if a door is trapped?"

"I'm fairly perceptive, if that's what you mean," Olven says with a grin.  "But no, I'm no good at traps.  Sarah's pretty handy, though."  He pauses to listen down the corridor, trying to catch an audial clue of where they should go next.

D'aden grins, "I'm afraid I spend most of my time out of doors, so I'm not much good at going through them."