"Just bloody die again!" Harnst exclaimed as he stabbed at the creature again once more striking the leg.

After a flurry of blows the monster sinks onto its one remaining arm. With a grimace of loathing you crush it with thrown rocks as it slowly drags itself around the room after you. Finally the malignant light in tis eye-sockets dims and goes out.

Panting with breath you look around. The room is very bare, without even the geometric patterns engraved in the walls elsewhere that you have been so far. The only feature is the smashed pile of bones and its armour and weapons.

There is another door, time for another effort at listening.

Breathing heavily Harnst pulled the armour and sword of the creature then fell back into the room he had slain suckerface.  He checked the gear out in the flickering light of the lamp while keeping an eye out on the other door.

Then he took a little time to quickly search the room as well, checking in the fire place.

Starting at the the south-west room you carefully check each room.

In the first room after the entrance atrium there were many jars and amphorae probably dating from the shrine's original use. In the second where boxes, sacks and baskets. There seems to be enough food here to last a season at least and the type of food is widely varied. Unlike the ancient shrine the supplies all seem recent.

The last room, the mutant's camp, just had a filthy paillasse and the fireplace. Thankfully there wasn't any kitten bones in the fireplace, it doesn't look like it's been used for a few days.

The mutants had a foul padded tunic, a rope belt and a hefty oaken cudgel. The mutant also had a broad-bladed spear with a cornel-wood haft and it also had a bull's-hide targe. Hanging from its belt was a cheap sacking pouch in which you find an object wrapped up in some faded red velvet, it is a crystal. It is yellow in colour and shaped like a tear drop as big as your thumb.

Harnst took the gathered loot and left it in the room with the foodstuff. He kept the crystal and the spear and then headed back to check out the other side of the building.

(Front right side room)

Opening the door you see another room as you expected but here the carvings are lines of words in some strange language. There is another door in the north wall, but it's what is in the corners of the room that draws your eye.

There are four stone statues of winged creatures, each has a horrible, bestial, leering face and is holding a javelin in each hand. Nothing moves.

Harnst stopped at the doorway his eyes drawn to the 'stone statues' he looked at each in turn then muttered "Nope, nope,nope" and stepped back and closed the door shaking his head.

With a sigh he picked up the flickering lamp and returned to the room where the undead creature had been.  He sighed softly and tried to quiwtly open the door.

OOC:  The supplies where enough food for jow many people for a season?

Inside is another, square room. It seems the architects making this place were as stunningly unimaginative as you suspect. There are no other doors here but the room is gorgeous. Beautifully engraves frescoes cover the walls and depict Green Age earth deities. You realise that you are probably in a holy place of some sort, no one wastes this wondrous art on a closet or some-such.

There is a perfectly square block of warm brown stone in the centre of the room. Unfortunately someone or something has worked hard to desecrate it. Filth and blood are smeared all over it and disgusting runes were then scratched into the covering layers. Whatever religious power this room had is gone.

The room seems to have been used for little else. However there are, wait for it, two shadow kittens playing in a broken wooden box up against one wall. Seeing you they gambol over and start playing around your feet. They look identical.

Harnst looks between the two kittens and shakes his head in disbelief.  "Yinkin spare me" he utters then stoops down and catches up the two kittens and gives them a thorough examination before popping the pair in the pouch.

He then gives the room a thorough going over before heading south to the penultimate room.

They behave like normal shadow cat kittens (ie: fluffy but suddenly bitey). You hold the squirmy little cats up to the light but they are indeed identical.

Opening the door carefully you stand in amazement. Unbeknownst to you, you have entered the holy of holies of the shrine. Deep, intricate carvings cover the walls, floor and ceiling, all thrown into sharp relief by the flickering lamp. Statues are placed in niches in the walls, some familiar to you and some unknown. You suddenly feel uneasy.

The centre of the room features a perfectly square section of dirt, neither muddy nor dry. Your eyes are drawn to this square and you get a strange feeling come over you. You feel in the presence of something powerful and inhuman.

An overwhelming urge strikes you to simply take of your footwear and stand in the dirt, to feel it with your feet. This sensation is not pleasant.

The urge starts to become a compulsion. If you linger it will be unavoidable.

Harnst tore his gaze away from the room and threw himself away from the entrance and closed the door behind him.  He was breathing heavily from the effort and staggered away from the door.

Leaning against the wall to recover he took a minute or two before the realisation that he would have to transition through the room with the gargoyle statues if he wished to finish searching the building.

Cautiously he returned to the doorway of the gargoyle room with the lamp, placing the flickering light down he steeled himself for what was about to come.  With a sigh he entered the room.

The room is exactly as wit was before as far as you can tell. The flickering candle makes the statues appear to shift back and forth.

Having crossed the threshold and nothing having attacked him Harnst let out his breath which he didn't realise he had been holding.  Slowly he crossed the room trying to keep as quite as possible as he moves to the final door.

You open the door. The writing on the walls here is now interspersed with images of the gods they refer to. You can sort of understand them as earth gods you know of but they are depicted and dressed oddly, as if by a radically different peoples. They remind you a bit of some of the older sculptures in The Rubble.

This was a library. In between the sculptures are stone shelves set up to receive scrolls, there must have be room for over a hundred and you suspect that this repository was one of the main reasons for this shrine. None of the shelves now have any scrolls in them, perhaps they were taken when and if this place was abandoned.

There is only one piece of furniture. It is a massively reinforced brass cabinet about a metre high. It is engraved and chased with scenes of dragons flying over a huge city. There appears to be no lock though.

(Please roll Search at +20%, you still need to roll under the unmodified score to get an experience roll)

Looking at the inlay in the cabinet doors, you are struck by what seems to be reverse image of a sleeping dragon.

Harnst walked around the cabinet paying attention to the engravings and wondering what it may contain.  Noticing the sleeping dragon indentation he paused and took a closer look.  They he reached out a hand and tested the doors to see if they would open.

They seem sealed firmly, they don't even rattle. The whole thing might weigh thirty encumbrance. The impressive scenes crafted into the shining surface seem to show dragons and earth spirits interacting in a curious ritual fashion.

Harnst scratches at his chin as he looks at the cabinet "Now how do I open you?" he mutters as he takes a step back.  After a few moments he pushes at the image of the sleeping dragon to see if there is any give.

Pushing, turning, swearing and prodding achieves nothing. You even try praying to it and the bastard doors won't budge.

Frustrated Harnst drags the cabinet to the front room, he returns to each of the rooms and gathers the things of value and leaves them next to the cabinet.  Then he decides to give the complex one last look over just in case paying special attention to the room with the Jars.

Checking through the two rooms shows you that the various wine, water, ale, salt meat and fish, preserved vegetables and eggs and so on are all clean and sealed. Obviously the thing you killed has stolen these supplies but you can't think of where in this region it would have got them.

Something draws your eye on the wall. The flickering lamp shows an odd misalignment in one of the squares in the wall. You prise it out with your fingers and find behind it is a small cavity not much bigger than your fist. Sitting in this cavity is a small medallion shaped like a sleep dragon. You admire the exquisite workmanship of this obviously ancient pendant.

(Human Lore roll please.)

You pocket the medallion and consider your choices of what you can do. There is a door unopened in the far room and another in the entry-room.

Harnst took the medallion and pressed it against the sleeping dragon engraving on the cabinet.  He held his breath in anticipation of the treasure that could be within.... if it opens.

The doors slide open smoothly, witness to the cabinet's fine construction.

Inside are three rolled sheets of what you guess is paper, blank. They are of a very soft butter-paper of a quality you didn't know existed and you've only remotely heard of 'paper' at all as papyrus or vellum is far more common. They are probably extremely valuable as you suspect that paper like this is no longer made.

(Please roll Evaluate)
The cabinet has 30AP and can be fixed to the floor although it isn't at the moment. It would make for a very safe place to store things if you took it. You'd have to bring your horse up to the shrine to do so as it's probably too heavy to carry over the rough ground.

Finally satisfied he had gathered what he could Harnst returned to where he had left his horse, gathering his saddle he led the beast to the shrine.  Then he loaded it up with the cabinet, and as much other loot as possible he headed off on his way leading the horse.

He knew it would slow his journey but it seemed worth the risk, he may need to push later into the night than he would normally when travelling but you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs.

Having lost a bit of time but having gained a fair bit of loot you estimate that you'll have to spend another night on the road. Sartar is beginning to pall with its cold weather and you start to feel a bit homesick for Pavis. Anyway, another night camping won't be so bad now that you have two guard kittens, that is if they didn't immediately fall asleep whenever you do and stay asleep for sixteen hours.

The next morning you rise and are pleased to see that everything is at it should be. After a light breakfast, a bit of maintenance and some obligatory kitten-playing you turn to your heavily-laden horse and head off further into the mountains. You should crest the saddle of the pass with its fir and pine trees today and be down the other side in plenty of time for the ceremony. While exciting at first the trip is going to plan.

Until, that is, a huge wyrm circles overhead. The wyrm is easily ten metres long and has long, thin wings that catch the morning sunlight amid the gilded mountains. It seems to have taken an interest in you.
Arching its wings it stalls in mid-air and then settles down nearby on the light snow. You see now that a crested dragonewt is hanging onto its back for dear life. Your horse takes a marked dislike to this new set of arrivals and starts to play up.

(Animal Lore roll please)