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Sophie would like it on the record that, when she accepted the job, she didn't know that the Librarian had to do so much bloody politics. She could be out healing the sick, like Natan in his day. She would love to be out healing the sick. Instead, she's in one of the innumerable studies of Hush House, searching for a book for Hokobald, even though she wishes dearly that she could toss him out on his shiny arse. She doesn't mind helping out Yvette, or Arun, or really most of the others. It's just Hokobald in particular who should really go fuck himself. But it is her duty to remain strictly neutral, and she takes that duty seriously. So she'll find his damned book, and watch like a hawk while he reads it. And should he happen to violate that neutrality himself, well, she might have a few things in her pockets to introduce him to. (Swaddled Thunder isn't casual to make, nor the Rubywise Ruin in case of violence. But she's made them enough to feel they're replaceable, at least.)
Luto scans the room methodically - "nothing obvious, taking a closer look" - and starts investigating the edges.
Ridaya's eyes glow with magic, and she peers at the door.
"...huh," she says, a moment later.
Sophie will also examine the room, in her own way: checking for carvings, off-color panels, hidden things. She has committed enough archaeology, and been subjected to enough of the company of Corso Reverte, to be fairly confident in her step.
"Something interesting?" she asks.
"Yeah. I think..." she pokes the door, and an invisible barrier ripples, stopping her finger. "Yeah. Sealed. I suspect the locking mechanism is back the way we came, further in. There's some kind of linked divination reaching out that way, it's neat."
Sophie leans in.
She can't see magic, in the most literal sense. But if she closes her eyes and opens her ears – she can, a little bit, hear it. She listens to the door, and it does sound like a pretty comprehensive ward, not the kind of thing she could tease out easily with the tools she has.
...also, there's a very faint song coming from her ring finger. She holds her hand up to her ear, and hears the tinny echoes of something rich and deep.
"May I listen to your ring?" she asks Ridaya. "Sorry, I've gotten myself distracted, but it might be relevant."
It's practically silent, bar the faint hum of having any magic at all.
"Thank you. I don't think my ring is actually the same as yours, and might want to investigate it later."
"...Huh." She thinks for a moment, frowning consideringly. "Uh. The only thing I could know that to mean is extraordinarily unlikely, but if it is the case would make that ring extraordinarily useful, once awoken."
"Hmm. Perhaps I'll think on how I'd awaken something extraordinary, then. We could use it."
Ridaya nods. (She'd say there's no way, but after the dragon adventure and aftermath, she really isn't sure.) "I don't have any ideas how to awaken it, if it's the thing I'm thinking of. It would be... something air-themed, if that helps on your end."
She glances back the way they came. "Shall we?"
"By all means."
She's got ideas. It'll be a project, of course. She'll do it in stages. And she'll need some wood. (Without even getting to make pears out of it. Her sacrifices are boundless.)
Luto comes up empty-handed, and then they can all head out back through the room they started and through the other door.
This door opens into a long hall, maybe eighty feet across, with a row of sandstone pillars flaking the central passageway. The walls are painted with faded scenes from a funeral procession - mourners, priests conducting rites, offerings placed before a gold figure on a throne.
The central passageways' floor is a channel of sand. fragments of bone and pieces of bronze weapons are visible sticking out of it, further down.
She sighs. "I mean. Yeah, okay, it's probably skeleton ambush, probably past that point in the middle? There isn't much I can do before they jump us, so just - stay together, get ready to step back?"
Overland Flight. She hovers above the two of them, rotating until she's upside down and her head is next do theirs, her hair falling down towards them. (This is actually quite difficult! She's showing off.)
"Luto, take point?"
Luto pokes the top of Ridaya's head, then moves her brain into Fighting Mode, drawing her scimitar, ready to advance forward once Sophie is.
Sophie will move with her. (Her heartbeat is quick. For all the danger of being the Librarian, it's not a position with as much live combat.)
And then, halfway through the corridor, hands of bone begin to reach out of the ground in front of them, grasping upwards. It's skeletons.
Thirty-two skeletons, pulling themselves a careful phalanx in rows of four, each clad in identical bronze plate and wielding long, curved blades. Their eyes glow red.