The Futility of Interrogating Animata

The West exit led to a square room with a sunken circle in the center. The room was much smaller than the room we had come through. The circle was about a foot deep.

Carlagnios peered down into the circle. "Something is carved here," he called out.

Kale quickly joined him and examined the markings. "These look like magical runes. Some of these are used for teleportation. Some look like the rituals we used to summon animata. Curious."

"I wonder what this is for?" pondered Firinne.

"Well, let's find out," said Bran.

"Wait," Firinne interrupted. "Maybe we should -- "

Bran jumped into the circle and began to kick at the runes. Firinne rolled her eyes.

"Get out of there!" warned Kale. "It's dangerous! Will you stop that??!"

Bran looked sorely disappointed as he climbed back out of the circle.

Kale shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Clearly, this is getting us nowhere. Let's go back and investigate the North exit."

We went back to the circular room and peered through the North exit. There were stairs leading down to a lower chamber.

"Should we try the East exit first?"

The East exit led to a hub with doors to the North, East, and South.

"I say we go downstairs," announced Bran. He dashed to the North exit and headed down the stairs.

We scrambled to follow him. Kale muttered something about breadth first versus depth first and accompanied us.

At the bottom of the stairs was a large circular room, lined with doors. There were 100 doors.

Carlagnios approached one of the doors and tried to open it. The door didn't budge. Carlagnios growled impatiently.

Suddenly, an animata appeared beside him.

"Welcome, My Lord. What are you doing?" the animata asked.

Carlagnios was taken aback. "You can talk? Tell me -- what are these doors for?"

"They lead to the old prison, My Lord. That is where you -- and the rest of the 100 -- meet. Any of these doors will lead you there."

"Really?" said Carlagnios. "Why won't they open?"

"You need a quorum."

Carlagnios seemed puzzled by this. He turned to Kale. "Mage, what is a -- kwoh-ruhm?"

Kale sighed. "He means that we need 51 of the 100 in order to enter the old prison."

Carlagnios looked irritated and turned his attention back to the animata. "What else can you tell us. Can you tell us what Gamerat is? That thing that looks like an angel?"

"I do not know who Gamerat is."

"Well, then tell me what you do know. Tell me everything that you know." Carlagnios was snarling and smoke was billowing from his nostrils. "Tell me or I will kill you with this great, jagged axe!"

The animata did not seem to notice Carlagnios' rage. "If killing me will help, My Lord, I will be happy to be killed by you. I only live to serve."

"Stupid animata," muttered Carlagnios.

Garg had an idea. "Why don't you ask it if anyone else has been here?"

Carlagnios nodded. He decided to change his tactics and spoke in a polite voice. "Hello, Animata. How are you doing? Have you seen anyone else here?"

"I only appear for the 100. I have not seen them since the Centenarch moved."

"When did it move? And where did it move?"

"We moved it 10,000 years ago. It used to be in the world, and now it is here."

Carlagnios gave up. He was not going to get any useful information from this animata.

We bade farewell to it and made our way back up the stairs. The only unexplored area left to us was the East exit.