... Okay, maybe she doesn't hate the little familiar that just embarrassed the Red Wizard, that was admittedly pretty cute.

"I suppose just teleporting out now that you've found me isn't an option for some reason, is it," she observes, between spell preparations.

“No, the barrow is warded against teleportation,” she says. “That’s why I had to walk in. I’ve prepared a teleport for when we get out, though, so we won’t have to trek all the way from here to Mulsantir.”

Ciaveth nods. "Pity. Do you have a light weapon of some kind on you, shortsword or something?"

"As it happens I do," she says, pulling a sheathed rapier from her bag. It's well-made and enchanted, and it shines with a cold blue light, but it's not a patch on the Sword of Gith.

It's really, really not. She will find her weird broken sword that was partially embedded in her chest, and she will get it back. It is her sword, it exploded and nearly killed her and she painstakingly put it sort of back together with magic, anyone that disagrees can go get bent.

"You or Lienna have very good information," she says, taking it.

"Lienna certainly does. I'm nearly as much in the dark about this situation as you are, in case that makes you feel any better... which I can't imagine it does."

"Nope! But I appreciate the disjunction, the healing potion, and the rapier anyway," she says, in a bright tone of voice that might give someone pause, considering the circumstances and how she's kind of clearly still furious. "I'm Ciaveth, by the way."

“And I’m Safiya, and in turn I appreciate the trust you’re putting in me. I’m sure you aren’t thrilled to be putting so much faith in a strange red-robed wizardess, but I promise - for what it’s worth - that I won’t make you regret it.”

She has a snappy retort along the lines of, 'Oh, I wouldn't be the one that regrets it,' that she swallows instead of says. That would be petty and unfriendly, and if there's anything she's learned from being the only adult surrounded by bickering children shaped like adults, it's that sometimes, you do not say the snappy retort just because you want to. Sometimes you shut your mouth and nod and act like you were taught literally any manners.

"If you mean that, thank you," she says, instead. "It's appreciated." Her spell preparation completed in the margins of all of the talking, she shuts her spellbook and pockets it.

"So, I'm in front because, uh." She motions to Safiya. "Wizard." It's meant to be phrased like a confirmation, but really, it's just kind of obvious that she's going in front, because really. Wizard. Ciaveth's a wizard too, but she's other things besides, including in (light, enchanted) armor, and as such she's significantly less delicate than Safiya presumably is.

"I certainly won't argue with that," Safiya says. "Here, let me-"

She casts Persistent Haste on both of them.

She smiles, just a little, at that. Haste is, and has always been, one of her very best friends.

Then she casts one of her other friends on herself, Extended Stoneskin. Also Extended Protection From Arrows. Oh, and Extended Greater Magic Weapon on the rapier. There, those are the ones that will last all day.

"Thanks. Let's hope we can just quietly sneak out of here." Somehow, she doubts it. Thus, the protection spells.

Safiya casts Premonition. Her skin shimmers with deflective energy.

"Let's hope," she agrees, not sounding very hopeful.

They hardly make it three steps out of the ring of pillars before the ground rumbles beneath their feet. "So much for escaping unnoticed. The earth spirits wake; ready yourself!"

Ciaveth sighs heavily.

"Yaaaaaaay."

There are several more buffing spells she could do, but she's not going to use them just yet. She only has so many of those, and they're short enough that she wants to save them for when she's fighting whatever is inevitably in charge of this place. Instead, she will make do with just stabbing with her (doubly) enchanted weapon, haste, and various protection spells.

(She misses her sword. The rapier's good, but it's still no Sword of Gith.)

These spirits seem to be groggy, or something; they swing their clublike appendages sluggishly, and none of them can seem to get in a solid hit. On the other hand, that might be that she's wearing enchanted armor and hasted and stoneskinned.

They each go down to a few choice stabs of her rapier, and a few Magic Missiles from Safiya's staff. "Hmm. Perhaps the tales of the great fury of Rashemi spirits were exaggerated," Safiya suggests.

"Well now that you've said that out loud, we're going to immediately come across something much, much worse," says Ciaveth in a deadpan. The quip reminds her of Shandra, which still hurts, even after so long after her death, but this is not the sort of problem one solves by not saying the cute quip that reminds her of her dead friend. Comparatively, it's an old pain. She's used to it.

Time to get back to trying to get out of here before she gets some new pains! What's the much worse thing that Safiya absolutely summoned with her words, she's excited to meet it and probably stab it.

She doesn't seem to have oh look it's a giant transparent bear spirit.

"Damnation," Safiya mutters, and hurls a Scorching Ray. "This is entirely coincidental."

"You keep telling yourself that, and we will keep on meeting bear spirits at entirely coincidental times that just so happen to coincide perfectly with proving you wrong."

Stab? Stab.

The bear spirit also goes down pretty easily. It's a bit more of a workout than the barrow guardian elementals were, but not much.

Safiya examines a nearby... campsite? "Who was camping down here? It's hardly the most hospitable location."

Ciaveth is just as confused.

“... it’s very old,” she observes. “See how rusted the cooking pot is? And there’s no sign of packing up the camp...” She looks back towards the place that was once her prison. “Perhaps whoever made that? I can’t imagine it took a single afternoon. But then why did they leave their camping supplies here once they were done...?”

Safiya finds a hefty tome entitled "The City of Judgement", which is heavily foxed and near crumbling. "They brought some light reading, as well."

(The book looks... somehow familiar.)

Ciaveth leans down to inspect it and try to remember where she’s seen this book before. It’s... not clear, it’s not any of the genres of book she took enough interest in to pester her foster father to get for her. And she hasn’t had much time for recreational reading, after, just spell books and magical theory and ancient Illefarn texts about one specific Shadow King related topic in particular.

“... Strange. I suppose that means the prison was never for me, and whoever dumped me in there was just taking advantage of what was already long there.” She looks at the prison again, squinting. She hadn't noticed, before, because she was very busy recovering from impromptu chest surgery and being very angry about her circumstances, but it contains a skeleton. She frowns.

"And the previous occupant died in it. Which I suppose says good things for its ability to hold a prisoner, but. This is... such a strange place to go out of one's way to dump a person. An ancient, forgotten prison in a spirit barrow? I wonder why here, in particular. This seems very deliberate."

"I noticed the skeleton as well. It bears no signs of violence, and - did you notice how it's positioned? Cross-legged, like someone just sat down and waited for death? And you're right - you'd think anyone with the wherewithal to get you into that prison without breaking the wards would be able to set up their own cage." Safiya shakes her head. "Questions, questions... let's get out of here so we can get some answers."

Ciaveth nods. "Yes, let's. Though I think I'll try to take the book before we go, see if it has anything telling."

Does the book crumble immediately upon being touched, even if she is being very gentle?

It's not quite that bad. The barrow isn't exactly a library, but it's protected the book from the worst of the elements.

Bound in blackened leather, the pages of the tome are brittle and cracked. The text is barely legible, faded and written in a spidery hand:

In my dream I saw a city, gray and forbidding, beneath an empty sky. Before its gates came a hideous procession - all the dead of the world, of a hundred worlds, awaiting the judgement of the gods.

And around the gray city loomed the Wall. Its bricks were souls, mortared by a foul green mold. These souls were the Faithless, who had denied the gods in life, or had never truly believed.

I drew nearer the Wall, and at once I heard the screams of those Faithless souls. "Cursed are we," they cried, "who denied the jealous gods, and now are forsaken." And other voices answered them, saying "Remember the Betrayer's Crusade. Remember the Betrayer, who swore to bring down the Wall. Have patience, for the Betrayer may yet return..."

After this, the original text has faded so badly that it is illegible. But someone has scribbled feverishly in the margin: Another reference to the Betrayer's Crusade... though Myrkul's priests deny its existence. The truth is in their vaults... in the whispering scrolls... the Lamentations of the Dead...

Safiya glances over her shoulder. "Myrkul? I suppose that makes sense, with how old the book is. It's still odd to see references to a dead god..."

"Odd, indeed. Hm. Maybe it's not involved after all. I don't see why someone would specifically want to read about... the... afterlife..." She stops, then looks back towards the skeleton. A question forms on her lips, and her expression changes to one of puzzlement.

"..... do you suppose," says Ciaveth slowly, "that the previous occupant was the one who made it? For... themselves? To die in?"