Herod, in turn, takes the opportunity to try to knock off one of the unbalanced zombies' weapons. His halo is up too.

Ruby and Erandur both cast spells that just look like bolts of light, but wherever they hit the draugr they cause deep wounds.

It's not very hard at all to defeat the zombies. They seem to mostly have hitpoints, in that they keep going and going until they're sufficiently damaged, at which point they just crumble and stop moving altogether.

The two angels fight with trained efficiency, aside from the part where Gav does take the opportunity to rip off a zombie's arm.

Herod is sure giving mixed signals when he stabs a zombie while emanating scholarliness about it.

Are the weapons any good? Or do they crumble as well?

The weapons are steel, and they're reasonably sharp for all that they've been buried for five thousand years.

Cool, they can divide the weapons among them if the others want to? Either way, it would be nice to use sharp objects to hit.

Gav is already testing the axe's balance.

Erandur and Ruby don't particularly want weapons; Erandur has magic, and Ruby has magic and a Dremora.

Cool. Each angel gets a sword. Herod keeps the dagger. Gav keeps his new axe. Onwards?

Onwards!

The ruins have sufficiently deteriorated over the years that most distinguishing features of different rooms and hallways are no longer there, which turns the place into a veritable maze. They continue to run into draugr, and the fights continue to not be extremely challenging.

And then they get to a larger room that has four alcoves in it. Each of the alcoves has a metal three-sided pyramid of sorts, on a metal base, and each side has a depiction of an animal in bas-relief: a fish, an eagle, and a snake. Above and behind each of the pyramids, engraved into the wall, are the same depictions again, one per alcove: bird, snake, fish, snake.

Herod takes a closer look. "Are those...? I don't know, family crests or something?"

Can you move the pyramids? Gav wants to see if he can match pyramids with the wall symbol.

They can be rotated! Takes some doing, the hinges are kind of rusted, but it doesn't even require super strength.

"Not as far as I know. They're puzzles, extremely easy ones that are nevertheless impossible for draugr to solve. Lots of old Nord tombs have these, to make sure draugr can't get to some areas."

"Oh, cool. It's nice to know I am smarter than a walking corpse."

"I think that there is probably an easier way to keep draugr out, but the thing is still working after all this time."

Ruby walks over to the metal gate across the room from where they walked in and takes note of a hand-sized metal ring hanging from a chain that goes into the ceiling. Once he's made sure that the four pyramids are reflecting the correct animals he pulls on the chain, and that does indeed open the gate. "I think ancient Nords also liked the aesthetic."

And that's when four people walk into the room from the same place they did, all of them also naked. The one in the lead is the kind of old you'd associate with being a wizard, a medium length beard hanging from his chin. The other three look younger, though they are not all human so it's not obvious: one of them is a human man, one is an elf woman, and one is... a... cat man? His face is that of a feline of some kind, his feet are digitigrade and his hands have claws, and that very much is a sheathed cat dick.

"Ah, Ruby, there you are. And... did you summon these?"

"Nope! They're visitors from beyond the Void who got here by accident, my best guess is because of Sanguine. They're Herod and Gav though now that I'm introducing them I realise I don't actually know which of them is which."

"...visitors from beyond the Void," repeats the young man. "Why does this kind of thing keep happening to you?"

"My guess is as good as yours."

"Herod. Gavriel, or just Gav." He says pointing.

He makes an effort to only look the elf woman in the face, whilel trying to not be too obvious about it.

"Hello." He says, mostly in the direction of Onmund, but he does spare a glance at the cat man.

...why does Onmund feel like Gavriel just undressed him with his eyes, even though he's already naked.

The elf woman herself does not seem to give a damn.

"I'm Brelyna Maryon."

"This one is called J'zargo."