Empirical Gnollage: Installment 54 [https://squirrel.dogphilosophy.net/Installment054.png]

"It looks like a mold-eaten wooden box in the corner, but why would that just be sitting there? It's obviously..." she said, shifting BiteySue to her left hand and lifting a piece of rubble in her right. "...a mimic!" she announced, throwing the bit of stone across the gap of broken ceiling at something at Al's end of the room above. It struck something with a dull thud, and some agitated flapping started up from above. A puff of pale greenish dust rolled out of the hole in the ceiling opposite where Wikwocket stood on the stairs.

"...Or maybe not, get away from there, over here, quick!" Wikwocket shouted, not bothering to go back down the steps but instead jumping down to the floor directly. Gruntle did the same, following her lead. Al and Bote decided to take her advice and find out what it was about afterwards. Wikwocket was already straining to push the doors to the next chamber open while the two of them dodged rubble across the room. Gruntle had helped her get it open and she'd stepped into the next chamber by the time they arrived.

"Okay, so it was just a mold-eaten wooden box. I think the whole box was made of mold, the whole thing collapsed into a cloud of spores when I hit it with the rock. No idea if it's dangerous but I doubt it'd be good to breathe any of it," Wikwocket explained. Al looked back to see a light cloud of dust wafting down from the hole in the ceiling. A bat flapped erratically out of the upper chamber, struggling to remain aloft, and finally flopped to the floor, twitching. After a few moments, the twitching stopped.

"Definitely not good to breathe, no," Al agreed, moving through the doors to join Wikwocket and Gruntle and leave the settling cloud of fungal danger behind, with Bote following quickly. "I hope that stuff settles out of the air, we're probably going to have to come back this way later," Al worried, watching the cloud of spores settle downward.

The floor beyond the door was a flat stone space perhaps ten paces square, forming the start of a 10-foot-deep artificial valley down the middle of what was obviously a much larger chamber above them. Beyond where they stood, the floor continued up a stone ramp most of the way across the chamber to the level of the floor of the upper chamber. The backs of four massive stone statues stood on either side of the valley, two on each side, facing away from the ramp. The area above was, to Al's surprise, very well illuminated by what appeared to be large flickering fires somewhere beyond the statues. At the end of the ramp was a large stone altar, with perfectly preserved elvish script along the top edge and carvings depicting pairs of presumably Elvish figures on either side of a smaller recumbent figure in the middle. Its condition was a remarkable contrast to everything else they'd seen so far, still looking so new. Just a couple of paces behind this altar, the wall was similarly well-preserved, with a mural depicting a pair of toga-clad elves in front of shelves of scrolls. One seemed to be sitting at a small table writing on a new scroll, while the other was either taking a scroll from a shelf or putting it back. The figures' poses were somewhat stylized but the rendering was otherwise very lifelike.

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Gruntle sniffed the air.

"What is it?" Al asked him.

"No smoke," Gruntle replied, suspicious. He and Wikwocket exchanged glances, and Wikwocket started up the long ramp quietly with Gruntle following about twenty paces behind. As she got near the top of the ramp, she threw another piece of stone at the altar and shifted her rapier to defend herself when it revealed itself to be a mimic and attacked...and was disappointed once again when that didn't happen. In fact, the stone she threw seemed to have literally no effect on the altar. It passed through as though the altar wasn't even there, disappearing with a sound a moment later of it bouncing a few times against a hard surface. She huffed with annoyance, and crept the rest of the way up the ramp to look around. She turned to check the end of the chamber they'd just come up from for anything that might be lurking in wait for victims, then turned her attention to the altar when she didn't see anything matching that description, either.

"Come on up, it looks safe enough. Watch your step though," she announced, leaning forward to prod at the stone altar with the spider-marked blade. It went right through the surface without meeting any resistance. She prodded the floor in front of her gently, and discovered that the space just in front of the altar was also illusory. "Don't get near the altar, you'll probably fall. I wonder if there's anything down there? Maybe this is where they keep the restless dead waiting to devour the souls of the living who trespass!"

Gruntle crouched and approached the altar carefully, walking his hands along the floor and stopping when he felt the real floor end. He sniffed at the disguised opening.

Al and Bote followed up the ramp as well. Al saw that the lighting was coming from four large braziers, each against the far walls opposite the four statues. The air was cool and damp, and as Gruntle had mentioned, there was no hint of smoke. Al concluded that the flames were products of magic rather than combustion.

Bote looked to the statues. They were all clearly elven judging by their angular facial features, long ears, togas, and smoothly polished accessories, and better preserved than the rest of the tomb that they'd seen so far. They stood at double life-sized, at least by mortal standards. There were two feminine figures and two masculine ones, to the extent that Bote could guess of elven physiques. Avoiding the area near the altar, Bote walked around to point out the individuals the statues represented.

"Though I am not familiar with Elvish customs, I do know this represents Cultro, god of tools and construction, this is Praelectia, goddess of the writing and literacy, this is Mercator, god of money and commerce, and this is Respublica, goddess of civic order and government," they explained.

While the others paid attention to Bote's impromptu religious lesson, Gruntle stared at the base of the illusionary altar. His ears twitched and he growled softly as he shifted his shield off of his shoulder and down to his hand, quietly lifting the flail from his belt with the other hand. Alerted, Al lifted his mace and looked around for whatever had gotten Gruntle agitated.

"What is it?" Al asked quietly.

"Something...," Gruntle began to say, before he was interrupted by the snakelike skull as big as his chest that lunged silently out of the illusory stone of the altar at him, its flesh gone but fangs undulled by time.