"Welcome. Feel free to get rid of that golem for us."

They approach the building leading into the dungeon.

"'Las Zand' draconic for '81'," Deekin mentions once they're out of duergar earshot. "Deekin not sure how relevant, but maybe good to know."

"Eighty-one? Yeah, no idea. Don't speak a lick of Toril Draconic so if it says anything else I guess tell us what."

Deekin nods in the affirmative.

As the duergar mentioned, the first floor has been cleared and picked clean, but the vibration of golem footsteps reverberates from the floor below.

"Loud, aren't they. Hey, I didn't actually think golems could talk, we could try shouting at this one around the corner? Or is it normal for them to talk a little on this planet."

"Not normal, but if golem only says one thing then not that weird? Deekin could make rock that says 'Las Zand' over and over with Ghost Sound, if Deekin knew crafting. Same deal with golem probably. Can shout at golem anyway, though!"

"Let's give it a shot, can't hurt. Well, it can cost us a couple seconds of having our buffs run down, but."

"No significant cost," Deekin agrees. "We checking out weird box? Belmarniss not seem to like idea of checking out weird box."

"I assume we have to check out the weird box but I admit I am suspicious as fuck of the weird box."

"Theoretically we could just kill the golem and go downstairs. No box required. But I'm inclined to check it out."

"It just sounds like one of those dungeon folderols you aren't supposed to skip."

"Even if we're not supposed to skip the box, let's check the golem first," Jojo suggests. "We may be able to figure out a way to get around it entirely."

"Agreed."

In they go.

The golem is very large and made of iron. It turns to look at them, but from their current angle they can't see the door it's guarding.

"Las Zand," it says resonantly.

"Eighty-one of what?" she asks, mostly to Deekin so he can translate.

Deekin repeats the question in Draconic.

"Las Zand," the golem says again, in exactly the same tone.

"Did there use to be eighty more of it?"

"Maybe?"

There's clanking footsteps from the floor below, and the faint sound of voices. They can't make out the words, but they rise and fall like humanoid speech.

"- d'you hear that?"

Garrus nods. "Should we call out and see if they're friendly?" he wonders quietly.

"Sure, why not."

Garrus leans down and yells at the floor, "Hey! We're here to make friends! Are you sentient?"

The clanking ceases. A tinny voice filters up through the stone after a few seconds: "We are not certain if we are sentient. It is a hotly debated philosophical question among us."

"If you have hotly debated philosophical questions, I think that makes you sentient," Garrus comments.

"Is the iron golem blocking the path down sentient to a similar degree as yourselves?" Jojo asks.

"No. It is a simple automaton - would you like help bypassing it, so that we may speak face-to-face?"

Jojo nods, then remembers they're talking through a floor. "Yes, please!"

"Go to the terminal in the center of the first floor and enter the following code." The golem(?) lists off a string of numbers, which Deekin writes down faithfully.

It's not "eighty-one", is it?

It's not! It is twenty digits long.

They head over to the terminal, which is in a room covered in Draconic script. Deekin squints as he approaches the terminal. "...Deekin kind of want to see if Deekin can figure out how the heck golem creator use '81' as hint for twenty-digit passcode."

"Be my guest."