Entrance to Stalto City
This long chamber has a sloping ceiling that rises to the north to accommodate the massive doors that offer entrance to the city (with a pair of much more modestly-sized doors set within them presumably for more modest traffic), and two giant statues of rat-men that flank the doors to the northeast and northwest. To the south are three long channels cut into the stone floor, running east and west and disappearing down dark tunnels. Walkways along the tunnels are strewn with rubble and debris, though a couple more doorways can be made out in the gloom. There are no light sources evident here: visitors have to rely upon their own lanterns and torches to show the way. The massive doors are covered with glyphs and symbols and abstract depictions of rat-men of great and small statures, in grand positions – kings giving orders, and lessers carrying them out in the construction of great architecture and the slaying of monsters.

The carriages bearing the travelers here have rolled away, and the walkways that rose to cross the channels have since slid and ground their way back out of sight. Dust is thick on the ground, though it is disturbed by numerous tracks and occasional bits of stool – most dry, but some still pungent and damp. Near the great doors to the north, up a short set of steps, there is a noticeable blackened area, with some charred bone fragments of some unidentifiable species visible in the middle.

The tinker mouse pulls out a shuttered lantern from her backpack, and sets about lighting it with her flint. "I guess we ran out of those green glowing globes, Whonkahonk. Do the Hookas live down here?" she asks.

Whonkahonk shakes his head from side to side. "Unkerkrownk Hooka Kown, Hooka karriak rikes kack ank fork."

After lighting her own lamp, Envoy shines it on the scorched area near the doors. Aside from trying to identify the remains, she tries to determine how old the marks might be.

This much dialogue from Whonkahonk succeeds in getting his little blue gem cluster he's carrying around as an unreliable light source to flare up more brightly for the moment.

The marks beside the doors look as if they may actually be caused by multiple incidents. Some of it looks much more fresh than older deposits. There are also a number of protuberances coming from the doors here, and the ashes are more or less centered on the seam between the doors in the middle. Each of the protuberances has some writing on it, and there are a lot of sigils that strongly suggest the appearance of a rodent skull and a stylized flame.

"The door is booby-trapped," the Aeolun tells the others, and shines her light on the markings and knobs. "Can either of you make any sense of these markings?" she asks the others.

Whonkahonk bobs up to the door, and starts snuffling around the protuberances.

The mouse shines her lantern on the glyphs on the wall, looking at them for a minute, before she turns to follow the path of the Aeolun's light. She inhales sharply at the sight, then coughs, regretting doing so immediately. "I'm not sure… " She frowns, squinting at the protuberances from a distance, then gasps as the Hooka approaches them. "Be careful!" she squeaks in warning.

"Please don't touch anything, Whonkahonk," Envoy asks from outside the scorched area. "I don't think Hookas are fireproof."

The Hooka was just on the verge of poking one of the protuberances, when he leaps back at Kia's warning. It's a good thing, too. Kia can make out the signs all right – "Do not push this, or you will die."

Kia breathes quickly, and hastily translates the warning on the device the Hooka was approaching. She continues, "There's more – "Do not touch this, for this is a trap against stupid monsters who cannot read. Only the city guard may unlock the city gates." I don't suppose there are any of the "city guard" left around, huh?"

Whonkahonk staggers away from the door, apparently appreciating the weight of the situation now that Kia has provided a translation.

"Not likely," Envoy admits. "But if these… knobs… are all traps, where is the real lock?"

The mouse says, "That's the question, isn't it?" She studies the remaining writing on the door, checking to see if any areas or protuberances look worn through repeated use, or if there are any signs saying "Turn this knob if you're a good rat who can read."

Envoy goes about her own investigation, searching not for hidden mechanisms but for any lingering magic that might point to them.

Sure enough, Kia does find an area that is suspiciously more worn than the rest of the wall – There are, after all, a number of gouges and scrapes that appear to have been violently applied, but there is an area where, hidden within the deep indentation of the eye of a rodent's head in stylized profile, it appears to be that there is some sort of keyhole. And about the time she finds this … Envoy is right next to her, as her own magical searching led her to much the same place. (There is a disadvantage to using too much magic, after all, for clever secret mechanisms, as it tends to leave "marks.")

The tinker looks up at Envoy, pointing to the small hole. "See it?"

"Hoot!" honks Whonkahonk, peering over Kia's shoulder.

"I don't suppose you have some sort of universal key?" Envoy asks once the keyhole is pointed out.

Kia answers, "I don't know that I'd trust a skeleton key to work, anyway. I'm half afraid there'd be another booby trap on it, though I guess the city's founders were pretty obvious about the other traps on the door." She shines her lantern on the key hole, squinting into it to see what kind of lock it looks like – that is, a typical mechanical lock, or something stranger in nature.

Inside, it looks like a fairly simple mechanical lock, the workings of which Kia can make out even with this awkward point of view. Even a novice rogue could probably manage this lock – provided, of course, there aren't some especially devious traps involved that Kia cannot detect.

"I suppose it depends on whether the monsters were bright enough to use a key they found on a fallen City Guard," Envoy reasons. "Or perhaps on how many keys needed to be made."

"And they may have been worried about smart monsters who could read." The mouse wrinkles her nose as she squints into the lock. "It's sturdy but a simple design. I'm no locksmith but I've seen a lot of the simple locks people put on trunks and jewelry chests. Even I might be able to pick this… if there's nothing more to it." She glances at Envoy. "Is there anything – you know – magical on it?"

"There's magic of a sort," Envoy says, examining the keyhole in her own way. "Nothing I can identify as being an actual spell though. It's more like the magic in the moving staircase we came down on; part of the mechanism. I can't say that it means the key needs to have a matching magical component though."

Kia wrinkles her nose. "Mph. Let's look around a little more, then, before we try just anything on it. Perhaps there's something else here that can help." She doesn't look around again just yet, however – instead, she squints at the keyhole, trying to see if she can discern, by the amount of dust about, how long it's been since anyone used it.

"Have you ever seen or heard of any key-shaped artifacts with glowing crystals or similar, Whonkahonk?" Envoy asks the Hooka as she goes to inspect one of the smaller doors set into the main one.

Whonkahonk tilts his bottle-like head to one side a bit, then the other, then shakes it vigorously. "No," he says, quite distinctly.

The smaller doors are inset into the larger ones, split along the same central seam. Each door occupies a small corner of its larger "sibling".

The little mouse shakes her head after inspecting the hole, then turns about, examining the glyphs on the wall, to see if there are any representations of the doors depicted, that might give a clue on what the "city guard" used to open them.

After a moment of thought, Envoy turns to the Hooka and asks, "Can I examine your collection of crystals for a moment, Whonkahonk?"

Whonkahonk nods, and pops open another orb. Inside are various crystals of different shades, some of them looking like pieces of Sifran crystal, but none of them, at the moment, actually glowing.

Envoy carefully studies each piece for traces of magic and for reactions from her crown.

None of the pieces radiates any sort of magical aura that Envoy can sense. A couple of the pieces of Sifran crystal, however, react to Envoy's crown – not the other way around – by glowing faintly or flickering irregularly.

Kia looks between the keyhole and the pieces of crystal for a moment, then she goes hunting about the cavern. She inspects the debris and rubbish lying about – mostly hoping to find a long stick, but looking for anything that might be useful or seems out of place, more than just trash.

After returning the crystals to Whonkahonk, Envoy puts her crown back on and shines her light up at the western Skreek-like statue, checking for any scorch marks on it.

The tinker sorts through some splinters of old bone, a bit squeamishly, until she finds one about the size to fit into the keyhole. She stops in front of one of the statues of rat-men, staring up at it or a moment. "Is there anything magical about these, Yovne?"

Envoy checks the statues for magic, after noting the blackened areas around their mouths.

Kia stares into the mouth of one statue, following the line between it and the doors. "They must be where the fire comes from." She looks back at the blackened areas on the floor, then glances around the room to see if there are any other "burnt" spots which just haven't had the repeated exposure that the area right in front of the doors have had.

Narrowing her eyes, Envoy says, "Yes, there's some sort of fire and earth magic inside the statues." She shines her beam at the neck of the nearer statue, looking for a seam.

The mouse notes the faint line of ash fallen on the ground between the mouths and the center of the doors. "It looks like the statues only target that spot in front of the doors. We should be sure not to stand there while we're poking at the keyhole." Having said this, she turns back around, looking at the nearest statue to make sure there's no apparent way for its head or body to rotate, and target another part of the room.

"I don't see a seam, so the heads probably can't move to target other areas, unless they can be magically animated," the Aeolun says. "It might be possible to block the nozzles or change their aim though."

In the distance, somewhere down the eastern tunnel, perhaps, there is a loud, throaty bellow, followed by several gulping almost belch-like noises, forming a ghastly alien call from some creature neither Envoy nor Kia has heard before.

"That's what I was thinking, maybe we should block – " Kia is interrupted by the noise, and her eyes widen in alarm. "Oh dear – that's not another train or something, is it, Whonkahonk?"

Whonkahonk's head swivels around, and he makes a plaintive-sounding honk. "Gork!"

Envoy doesn't care for the Hooka's response. "I'm going to try and change the aim of the statues to fire down the tunnels. How long do you think it will take to pick that lock, Kia?"

There's a foul, sulfurous smell that can be faintly scented on the air now that most certainly wasn't there before.

"I don't know," Kia squeaks. "I'm a tinker, not a burglar. Can I borrow your staff?" She hurries over to the Aeolun.

After handing over the staff, Envoy clips her lamp to her belt and flies up to the head of the eastern-facing statue – making sure to keep out if its line of fire though, just in case.

The staff is of sturdy construction, with a metal joint in the middle that allows it to be screwed apart and stowed away as two separate pieces.

Using a bit of remaining caulk from her kit, Kia secures the splinter of bone to the tip of the staff. She walks back to the doors, and reaches out with the staff extended, to see if she can poke at the keyhole without being in the "line of fire". She knows she can't pick it like this, but if there's a booby trap attached to the hole, she hopes to set it off without being in immediate danger.

Somewhere down the eastern tunnel, there are more of those throaty, unpleasant belch-roars, though not quite as loud or impressive as the first. Some of them sound muffled, actually. Then, there is a sound of stone scraping against stone, and bits of bone or grit popping and grinding with the movement, and the muffled "roars" suddenly become more distinct, joining with the original sounds.

Once she reaches the head of the statue, Envoy wedges herself between the side of the muzzle and the alcove wall. Once she has her feet firmly against the muzzle, she begins casting a minor mold spell on the neck of the statue.

Meanwhile, Kia finds that she's able to position herself out of the apparent "blast radius" in front of the door, thanks to the staff, and still can reach the keyhole.

Envoy's minor spell takes hold on the statue with surprising quickness – since she is able to cast a spell in the time most mages would require for a mere cantrip, and because the stone seems especially pliable to magic, perhaps as a side-effect of whatever lingering enchantment is present within it.

Once she feels the effects of the spell take hole, Envoy pushes against the muzzle with her legs, trying to twist it so it faces the eastern tunnel entrance.

The mouse shouts, "I'm going to poke the keyhole! Stay clear of the mouths for a moment, Yovne!" She looks over her shoulder, watching until the Aeolun is clear, then tries to stick the bone splinter into the keyhole.

The splinter goes into the keyhole, and Kia can feel it bump against the tumblers, though she hasn't the dexterity with the odd leverage to seriously attempt to work the lock.

But, be that as it may … Kia finds she's still able to poke the tumblers anyway … and the door surprisingly resounds with a loud thoom … and then the doors swing open … right about the time that several big creatures that look something like crosses between Jingai with apes, with really floppy folds of flesh under their necks, and pale almost luminescent eyes come barreling down the tunnel from the east.

"GORRRRRRRK!" Whonkahonk wails in a siren call.

From her position near the head of the western statue, Envoy dives for the open doorway. "Run inside and hit one of the trap triggers!" she calls, hoping the muzzle moved enough to cover the tunnel.

"But what about the other head!" Kia squeaks. She's still recovering from the surprise of successfully opening the doors with a bit of bone, but she draws the staff back to her chest and darts in through the open doors – carefully avoiding any protrusions or other things marked "Don't be an idiot and hit this!"

Whonkahonk, still screaming a siren call, barrels through the door, though he's a bit tall for it. In his haste, he knocks his own head off, though his body keeps barreling on through, and his head rolls along the floor, letting out a less voluminous "whooot!" as it wobbles and lands in a puddle of water in a depression in the stone on the other side.

Envoy pulls in her wings as she reaches the top of the stairs, and tries to land running.

The area Kia and Envoy have just run into is a long corridor, as wide and tall as the massive doors, and lined by several statues much like those in the entrance … though minus any tell-tale scorches or blackened marks about their mouths or on the floor. At the end, there is light, and a hint of some larger area beyond. Back in the "station," the apish monsters clamber into the room, and one of them looks toward the fleeing travelers and bellows out a call – but then he's clobbered on the head by a broken stalactite carried by one of his "fellows." A brawl breaks out, though it's spreading out in general chaos, and no telling whether some of the creatures might pursue the fleeing explorers.

Rather than trying anything fancy with the dangerous knobs, Kia opts simply to close the doors once the Aeolun is safely inside. She listens for the sound of the doors latching, then looks at the instructions written on the controls inside, to see if anything is marked "Push Here to Lock Doors."

Ah! There, underneath that sigil that looks something like a stylized key. That looks like it might say "Lock."

Whonkahonk's head hoots plaintively up to Kia, where it wobbles in a puddle just inside the door.

Kia unconsciously grits her teeth, and prods at the control marked with a key, listening for the sounds of a bolt or similar device clicking in the door.

Once she's cleared the doorway, Envoy brakes and spins around to see what's happening and to bring Knick and Knack up into a striking position should any of the creatures get past Kia.

KLUNK The small door reverberates, but seems to hold closed. Whonkahonk's body lists toward the left as it continues to charge down the corridor, running into a wall, falling over, and then just lying there, pushing itself around in a circle as its legs keep moving in running motions, though the movements seem to be "winding down". On the other side of the door, there are several pounds, and then Kia hears a crackling, wooshing noise…

Envoy relaxes slightly as the door holds, and finally goes to retrieve Whonkahonk's head from the puddle.

The mouse scuttles back from the door as soon as the lock takes effect. The absence of scorch marks inside the door reassures her to some degree, but the bits of burnt flesh and bones on the other side left a disturbing impression on her.

There is a more impressive roar on the other side, then horrible wailing shrieks from the creatures on the other side. The sound stops, save for shrieks and bellows and sounds of the monsters galloping away, but the odor that seeps through the doors is unbearable.

Kia coughs a few times, covering her nose with one hand. "Ugh. At least now I know what creatures were stupid enough to ignore the scorched bodies and bang on the door anyway," she mumbles. She walks over to Whonkahonk, helping him to his feet.

Picking up the Hooka's head, Envoy tries to clear the air a bit by flapping her wings. "Whew! Probably sulfur-based creatures from the smell," she says, and brings the head over to the body Kia is righting.

Kia manages to heft up Whonkahonk's body, but there's a problem – his legs still keep going. The little Skeek is whisked off her feet, as the centauroid gallops along, with her still hanging onto it!

Whonkahonk's head, meanwhile, let's out a wail at the sight of his body galloping along without him, down the tunnel. "Whoooooot?"

"Hey, wait for us!" Envoy calls out, and starts chasing after the headless centaur and Kia, Whonkahonk's head held in her arms.

"Squeak!" The mouse hauls at Whonkahonk's torso, slipping down along his side and trying to get her feet to touch the ground so she can get some leverage to at least swing his body about with. "Whonkahonk!" She looks back towards Envoy and the Hooka's head.

The resistance proves fairly effective, though the turn ratio is a bit wide. (But then, this is a very wide corridor, easily wide enough to allow two carriages to roll down it without danger of the Dromodons stumbling into each other) – that, and Whonkahonk's body is intent, it seems, on simply running, without any particular care for which way. It veers back around, so that it is now rushing back more or less in the direction of Envoy.

"Throw me his head!" Kia squeaks to Envoy. "I think we need to get it back on him before he can tell his body to stop!"

Coming to a stop, Envoy waits for the centaur body to bring Kia closer, then tosses the Hooka's head to the Skeek.

Whonkahonk's head lets out a warbling, "WhoOoOoOoOoOo!" as it flips through the air … and Kia manages to grab it by the snout.

Kia wastes no time in plunking the head back onto whatever limb was serving as his neck when he and his body were last united.

Whonkahonk's body starts flailing about, and it somewhat less-than-ceremoniously manages to skid to a stop slowly enough that Kia isn't sent reeling by the shift. Whonkahonk weaves his head back and forth a few times, then turns about to look at Kia and Envoy. "Kanku!"

"You're welcome, Whonkahonk," Envoy says, and retrieves her staff, leaving the bit of bone in place for now. Unhooking her lantern from her belt, she shines it around the chamber to get a better idea of the layout.

The mouse squeaks again as she's set down, then breathes out a sigh of relief. "Phew!" She brushes off her clothing and checks her pack to make sure it's still closed, and that no bits of her have come loose recently. Fortunately, the pack is still intact, with no tools or bits lost.

As for the current location, Kia and Envoy and Whonkahonk are in a long and wide corridor, lined by statues of Skreeks, though the styling on the statues seems to vary somewhat, and they may be meant to represent specific individuals, though the stylization makes it hard to be sure how they could be recognized. Toward the end of the corridor, there are a great many empty alcoves not yet filled by statues, and then … the corridor seems to end at an open street with buildings about it, with a Procession-glow shining down from the night sky above.

The mouse squints at the end of the corridor. "Is it just me, or does that look like the night sky?" She sniffs at the air in the tunnel, advancing cautiously down the tunnel, looking from side to side at the statues as she goes.

"Maybe it's just the inside of a large dome made up to look like it's outside," Envoy suggests while walking alongside Kia.

There's a very dank smell to the air … like that of standing water that's been left standing too long … and a great amount of dust, too. Whonkahonk's little "escapade" has kicked up quite a bit of dust, but where he and Envoy and Kia have not yet been, the dust lies in thick layers on the floor, apparently undisturbed for quite some time.

As they advance to the end of the tunnel, they can see that Envoy's interpretation appears to be correct. The tunnel opens into the wide interior of the clustered growth they saw from outside. There isn't a real "representation" of the night sky, per se, but the ceiling and high reaching walls are lined with patches of phosphorescent mosses, and glittering crystals, in some places suggesting, with some imagination, a sprinkling of stars above.

"I wonder what this chamber was for?" Envoy comments. "It's certainly pretty."

Contained within this vast chamber is a city carved out of massive stalagmites – or else sedimentary deposits have simply covered a number of buildings to give them the appearance of such. In any case, the place is obviously a ruin: in the distance, there are some aqueducts reaching toward the heart of the city, under-lit by a fiery glow.

One of the aqueducts is collapsed, and cascades of water shower down from the broken span, disappearing amongst some of the buildings. There are indications of the result of this breakdown, as here and there are many puddles, and little trickles of water running along the gutters of the east-west street that runs alongside the southern wall.

The street continues further northward, going under a bridge, and into a tunnel again, sloping slightly downward … but it appears that the street soon is submerged in water that has collected down there, and it would take someone with remarkable lung capacity, certainly, to explore it all the way to the other side.

The streets stretching east and west similarly disappear into tunnels eventually, though just to the northeast and the northwest of the intersection, there are large glistening mounts of mineral deposits carved into architectural forms here and there. The one on the right has several rising columns that suggest the pipes of a Chronotopian organ, while the one on the left is more austere and simple in its construction, stalagmites forming into carved columns, and rising to a distinct dome at the top.

Dwarfed by these two structures are numerous lesser buildings lining the east-west street, and along the way, there are bits of debris littering the street – a statue of a stone Dromodon that has been upended lying near the entrance, for instance, and some little stone pedestals with glassed tops, containing small scenes within.

Each of the scene-pedestals stands just slightly shorter than Kia, putting the windows at about her eye level. They have very solid base construction, suggesting that they aren't made to be moved in the least, though the glass is so stained with filth and dust and mold that it's hard to make out at a distance just what might be inside each of them.

Taking a moment to smile at the "starscape", Kia pauses before she walks out onto the city street. "How do you like those glowing crystals, Whonkahonk?" she asks. Looking deeper into the city, she points excitedly to the glow on the underside of some of the aqueducts. "More lava! I wonder if we're near your lake of fire yet."

Whonkahonk's bottle-nose swivels around, looking up more than anywhere else. He makes a happy-sounding warbling noise.

Envoy looks towards the odd buildings to the northeast and northwest, then says, "I hope we are. Let's go take a closer look at those little window-boxes."

"All right." Kia peers at the stone Dromodon nearest them first, however. She takes a quick glance at its mouth, just to be sure it doesn't have any scorch marks on it.

No, it doesn't, but Kia's cursory inspection leads her to believe that there's more to the statue than one might first notice, under all the dust and bits of debris. For one thing, there are a number of distinct seams around its body, most noticeably along the limbs and neck, and it has big crystal insets – bigger than the actual eyes of a Dromodon – for the eyes. While at first it seems to be made of stone, it actually seems more like the same resin-like material that the staircases back in the Olympian station were made of, though inset here and there with differently-colored stones forming decorative patterns (though many of the pieces are evidently missing).

"Oh my!" Kia squeaks, noting the joints and seams. "Yovne, is this statue magic, too?" She starts to approach it, then stops herself, shaking her head. She inspects the area visible around it for signs, instead.

As Kia investigates, she finds the most probable reason the Dromodon "statue" is on its side – Its front left leg is detached from the body, and lying amongst some rubble – a great amount of which probably fell from a much higher elevation. There are various other cracks to be seen on the statue as well.

"I wonder if this is like Azul?" The tinker muses, looking over the amputated leg. "Though with the fire-breathing statues on the outside, it'd probably be just as well if the ones on the inside aren't working."

The amputated leg shows signs of complex machinery inside, also constructed of a resin-like material … which must make repairs very difficult, since resin can't be hammered out or welded, and it looks like a great many of the pieces are solidly cased-in, without much opportunity to open up the casing and do maintenance as need be.

Envoy approaches the statue and checks it for magic, taking special notice of the eye-crystals.

There is evidence of some sort of hydraulic system, though the fluids have long since leaked out, and quite possibly some sort of steamwork involved as well.

"No magic in this," Envoy finally declares, then asks, "What is Azul?"

"A… well, a sort of enchanted machine that one of the College mages gave to me, all broken up and in a box, and missing some pieces. I put him back together and wound him up… he's an automaton that does odd jobs and housework. I never did understand why exactly the mages took him apart and then threw him away," the mouse answers. She pokes tentatively at the detached leg.

Whonkahonk pokes around at the rubble pile at the northwest corner of the intersection, next to the domed building. He has rearranged some of his limbs and has employed some broken stone pieces, apparently trying to improvise some sort of lever to move some of the larger stones.

The detached leg is very solid and heavy, even larger than an actual Dromodon leg would be, and certainly more dense. Without some wheels and a cart, it would probably be a real challenge to take home as a souvenir, though it might make an interesting novelty end table if up-ended and given a proper base…

Frowning, Envoy says, "They don't like artificial life. But this machine seems more like Abaddonian technology. Which is a good sign, I think. I need parts for an Abaddonian machine after all."

Kia squeaks a giggle at the ideas that pop into her head, of uses for the leg – then she turns to look at the Hooka. "What are you trying to do there, Whonkahonk? Oh! Are you trying to get to the ceiling?" She twitches her tail nervously.

Envoy looks over at the Hooka, and then goes to offer him the use of her staff as a lever.

Whonkahonk turns toward Kia, and nods, then goes over a relatively undisturbed area of the dust, and starts sketching…

The mouse scurries over to examine the drawing, and see what his idea is.

The diagram appears to depict Whonkahonk setting up a large "teeter-totter", then knocking a large boulder (that happens to be sitting precariously on the edge of the dome building right now) to land on one side of the teeter-totter, launching part of Whonkahonk's body on the other side up into the air, whereupon he (or part of him) grabs one of the crystal clusters, then plummets back down and lands in a big puddle of water nearby (with little scribbles to illustrate the splash).

"Maybe I could just fly up and get you some instead, Whonkahonk," Envoy suggests after figuring out the drawing.

Whonkahonk looks at Envoy, then at the wings on her back … then hoots happily, bouncing on all four legs.

Relieved, Kia nods enthusiastically at the Aeolun's much simpler plan.

Looking up at all the various kinds of glowing crystal, Envoy says, "I'd have to carry your head up with me to let me know which ones you want though. Are you in a hurry, Whonkahonk? There might be crystals inside some of these buildings after all."

Whonkahonk pantomimes "scratching" at his head, then shakes his head and bobs his head. "No hooree."

Envoy grins, and says, "Let's look around some more first then. These two buildings look special, and there are those little windows too."

Kia nods again. "I still want to see what's inside the pedestals, too." She walks over to the closest one, west and south of the rubble Whonkahonk was fiddling with, and peers through the dirty glass.

Inside, though the glass could probably do with some more cleaning to make the view clearer, it looks like a "cutaway" view of some elaborate tunnels, with little figures that are positioned on grooves, as if they are meant to move. There is a slot on the front of the pedestal, and an inscription that Kia is only able to translate as "Insert One Krozmid," and an inlaid plate that says, "Driving Out the Monsters."

Envoy peers into a window as well. "They look like shekelodeons."

The mouse's eyes widen and she squeaks. "I wonder if it still works! I wish I had a krozmid. Or knew what a krozmid was." She scuffs around the base of the pedestal, looking to see if any fallen coins are around, or if the box where the coins would have gone in is open.

Inside Envoy's "window", she's able to see … well … a lot of moisture fogging up the inside of the window. She can feel a faint sensation of warm and humid air seeping out of a seam along the framework at the corners of the stone and resin box.

"I think this one was steam-powered," Envoy says of the one she examines. "They probably all were, since I don't see any hand cranks."

As Kia searches the pedestal for seams, her finger brushes across one … and then a lid pops open at the base, revealing a box large enough to hold … well … it's uncertain just how many krozmids, not knowing exactly what they are, but judging by the size of the slot, probably a great many. The trouble is, the box is presently empty, and it looks like the locking mechanism was opened up by brute force, being smashed with a heavy implement.

Her initial pleasure at getting it open is dimmed by the absence of krozmids. "You think so? It could be wound up from the inside, and then putting in a krozmid makes the spring unwind," she hypothesizes. "Of course, in that case, you'd have to be able to get to the winding mechanism from somewhere… " She looks inside the smashed-open box, then around the rest of the pedestal for other seams. And for any krozmids that might have been overlooked when the box was broken into…

"I wonder what caused the city to be abandoned," Envoy says as she walks back towards the base of the domed structure to examine the material. "Or for that matter, why they built it underground in the first place."

"I mean, aside from having access to free steam without having to worry about exploding boilers," the Aeolun adds.

"A lot of Skreeks like tunnels," Kia says, absently as she inspects the krozmideon. "They feel comfortable – not so exposed like you are aboveground."

The contraption is surprisingly devoid of seams, except for where the resin-like frame has to hold in place the panes of glass to allow a view of the interior. How exactly one was supposed to maintain a machine such as this – or even how exactly it was built – is left somewhat in question.

"Even when they're full of monsters?" Envoy asks as she feels the texture of one of the columns, and tries to identify the minerals that compose it.

"It's not as if the land above ground in Kroz is monster-free, either," the mouse points out. She abandons that pedestal to take a look at some of the others.

Envoy blinks as she realizes the nature of the column material… as well as that of the mechanical Dromodon. "No wonder the statue responded so quickly. Almost everything here must have been shaped with Earth Magic. Or the ancient version of it, at least. The thaumaturgical climate might have been different back then."

The tinker stops in the middle of what she's doing at the Aeolun's announcement. "Oh!" she squeaks. "That's why there aren't any seams in the pedestals! But there's no magic powering them… just steam, maybe?"

As Kia checks the pedestal on the north side of the eastern branch of the street, she finds that it has fared a little better in terms of her being able to see the interior, though it too also seems to focus mostly on a cutaway view of subterranean scenes – this one being some elaborate hall or palace or temple, with tracks that betray just where figures are going to move along or pop up. There's another krozmid box at the base … but it, too, has been vandalized. The plate reads, "Driving Off the Demons of the North."

"It looks like magic was only used to create them, not power them," Envoy agrees. "Except for a few critical components, like in the main gate."

"'Driving off the demons from the north,'" Kia reads, giggling as she moves to the last one on the east side. "I sense a them here."

The last krozmideon seems slightly different from the others, in that the inscription on the inlaid plaque seems a little less well chiseled, and the structures inside are less detailed, more abstract, more quickly constructed perhaps. "Battling Kroz and the Traitors of the East."

Envoy catches up to Kia, and looks over the Skeek's shoulder. "Can you tell what they're supposed to show?" she asks.

Kia's tail droops at the look of the last one, brushing her fingers over the insignia. "Those poor people. They're battle scenes, Yovne," she answers. "Fighting of monsters, demons, and here, I guess, Kroz and some turncoats. I don't think they won this last fight, though I doubt that's how the scene would show it. But I don't really know for sure."

"So it was war that drove them out to the surface?" Envoy wonders. "Bosch might have been the cause."

There's a crackle of some settling stones somewhere in the distance, followed by a brief chatter of strange noises. "Snicsnicsnicsnic… " But they quickly die away.

The tinker brushes at one eye. "To leave all this… " She looks around at the grand, carved stalagmites on either side of the street, and the great statue of a Dromodon. "I – what was that?"

"Whonkahonk?" Envoy calls to the Hooka. "What makes that sort of noise?"

Whonkahonk has abandoned his rubble pile and is now standing very close to Envoy and Kia. "Khosks," he whoots.

"Dangerous?" the Aeolun asks.

The Hooka nods vigorously.

"Maybe now would be a good time to investigate that pipe-cluster looking building," Envoy suggests. "Especially if it has a door we can close from the inside."

"I wonder if those are the demons, or the monsters," the mouse says, twitching her tail. "Now I really wish I had a krozmid. Say, Whonkahonk," she says, following Yovne over to the pipes, "do Khosks look like any of the little people depicted inside the pedestals?"

Envoy pauses to examine the coin slot for krozmids, to see if it might accept shekels as well.

Whonkahonk nods to Kia.

As for Envoy's investigation, it looks like krozmids are more compact coins than a shekel. Given some sort of model, and some material to work with, Envoy might be able to fashion a slug, but the slot doesn't exactly give a hint as to how exactly the machine tells a real krozmid from a fake.

"Which one?" Kia asks the Hooka, pausing.

Whonkahonk just looks at Kia and makes a sound like, "Wha?" He then looks around and pokes his nose at one of the krozmideons. The only figures immediately available are little Skreeks. (Exactly what the demons or Easterners or Kroz or monsters look like, apparently they only make an appearance if one deposits a Krozmid.)

"Are they easy to kill or frighten off, Whonkahonk?" Envoy asks the Hooka, and in a bit of Titanian inspiration gives the krozmideon a whack with her staff.

CRACK hisssss

"Khosks look like – Skreeks?" Kia blinks at Whonkahonk, then squeaks in surprise and jumps back from the krozmideon as it starts to hiss.

Whonkahonk, oblivious to the noises emitting from the krozmideon, just nods vigorously to Kia.

Envoy dashes toward the "pipe-organ building", while several more cracks appear on the krozmideon … and hot steam shoots out in several directions, and the glass on top shatters … and then the device breaks violently apart. Whonkahonk lets out an alarmed hoot, even as he gets hit by a few chunks of broken resin, and his body parts pop off, bouncing and rolling. A jet of hot steam geysers upward … then dies off quickly to a low escaping steam vent from the broken remnants of the resin machine.

"Sorry!" Envoy calls once she stops running. "It always works for Titanians," she says, and heads back to put Whonkahonk back together.