ORIGIN

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The majority of the chests held nothing that remained. Dust, scraps.

One, however, pinged magic: and beneath those dusty scraps, and a puff what looked like ancient, cream-colored fur (that dissolved to powder at a touch), lay a large, golden-hued pearl. The strength of the magic felt like Master-level; alive, if not enchanted.

@The Piano

"Ah! You are back!" The Piano greeted Archimedes enthusiastically. "Just these crates. And I believe the weapon is enchanted with some kind of fire magic. Hmm... perhaps we can test it here before moving on. It will only take a second or two."

The Piano quickly rifled through the first box that pinged magic, retrieving—to its delight—a large golden pearl. Even if it had not been magic (and it took The Piano some thinking to figure out that it was alive and not enchanted, some waving it through the air and waiting for something to happen only for nothing to occur), it would have made a fine jewelry piece for a buyer with the inclination, but the fact that it was only added to its value. "This is a living gemstone," it informed its rat companion, before carefully stowing this away inside its box.

It did not gloss over the other boxes either, and searched through them one by one just in case there was something worth taking that wasn't alive or enchanted. Alas, its search yielded nothing but crumbling scraps. Its strings felt thick with dust by the time it was finished, and its keys clacked with discomfort at the texture. It waited for Archimedes to finish packing his torch, and then it gripped the glaive in its strings.

"Stand back," it warned, and swung it at one of the crates.

@Archimedes

Archimedes left The Piano to it, choosing to bound off for one of the two doorways. He picked the dark one, first, lifting his tiny torch forward; if there was nothing immediately dangerous he'd scamper for the dimly lit one next.

"Making sure we are not about to be ambushed," he called back dryly. He didn't mention the stone; they were busy, he was businesslike, and The Piano could do with it what it liked.

He was most curious about the light source, of course, but it made him cautious, too: anything that was still glowing down here either meant someone lived here and was active, or that it was old magic. And neither boded well for them.

The Piano's swing came with a flash of flame from the glaive's head. This flame quickly engulfed the crate on contact. It was fairly clear that a single strike would likely cause some burns against an enemy--but when dealing with old wood, reduced nearly to powder? It almost exploded, a loud WHOOMPH and flash quickly sending it all up in flame. It would be wise to back away.

Archimedes would find no immediate danger. Whether that meant it was safe, or rather that he hadn't spotted the danger, was unclear; but it was a sad truth that his tiny torch illuminated only a few feet of the dark room ahead.

The lighted one featured three glowing crystals, perhaps enchanted with light. Two still hung from the ceiling, the third lying on the floor, fallen but intact. Another three or four lay dark and shattered on the ground, their chains having long since eroded into dust. A dias at the room's center held another ancient chest, and several plinths around the room held smaller objects, too high up for the rat to see.

@The Piano

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Game Master Dark

The Piano

Archimedes

Game Master Dark