Erika guessed it was the lest poetic of the two options, it always tended to be those after all. Gesturing her thrall’s forwards Erika ordered them to grab… grab the… there wasn't anything to grab onto?! Ok sure it’s a hidden door but surely it still needed a handle?
Erika bent down and glared at the keyhole, the key had sunken away like a boulder dropped in a swamp and was now entirely invisible but maybe it was supposed to shoot back out so it could be used as a grip?
Erika ordered her thralls to charge the wall, which they did with uncoordinated but indefatigable zeal, slamming their bulks into it and then subsequently falling onto the floor. Erika watched closely and she saw the edge, where the door had briefly dipped inwards, but was that enough? No probably not… ok then time for violence.
Erika stepped back and threw a lance of acid at the wall, as the scouts around her jumped backwards and cursed Erika threw two more spears of burning bile into the wall all three directly at the hairline crack of the doorframe she had seen, as the stone sagged and ran Erika saw a glint of shining steel behind it in elegant loops and complex intertwined gears.
“Anybody know machinery?” Erika sked receiving nothing but blank looks and shaken heads in reply… oh no wait. Erika saw Reidar push his way to the front waving a hand in the air, the saga kin grinned at her and gestured at the thunderarms that he wore on his bandolier. “When you use weapons like these lady vitki you learn about machinery or you die.”
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Great! See if you can… I don’t know figure out what all this stuff does and make it open the door.”
Reidar ostentatiously rolled his shoulders and grinned at the gathered delvers, then he took a pair of thin metal… sticks? From his belt and began to tap and prod and twist the mechanisms.
Kara was also staringly closely at the exposed metal, occasionally reaching her full arm in and groping for something, when Erika asked her what she was looking for Kara simply replied. “Traps.”
That seemed to snap Reidar’s confidence a bit and, a few minutes of rummaging in his pack later, he continued his efforts a full cubit away from the wall using much longer metal sticks and an array of mirrors and pipes.
Whilst all this was going on Erika noticed Laudon had started doing leader stuff again, a row of the heavier delvers had been formed in front of the door holding shields, a back line of scouts was watching the distant door into the hall, two men with spears were lurking near the other entrance and someone had started passing out cups of watered mead. Erika wasn't sure if she was supposed to approve of giving out alcohol but again, she was only the leader because the vitki had to be the leader not because she wanted to be or was any good at it whereas Laudon had been handpicked by Sigrun to look after her and make the scouting run easy on her so he probably knew what he was doing.