Reconsidering the options again, you close the side lids of the lantern except for the frontal one and move the light beam across the gigantic ancient gateway. The islet of light floats across the obsidian surface of the gate's unknown material, hugging its ornate central locking mechanism, and then dips into the worse-for-wear battered and eroded with time gateway frame. It stops on the gap in the said frame: by the looks, the breach was made from within the space of the vault, most likely caused by the cavern's structural damage from an unknown tectonic event. The cone of light then slowly recedes to the hill of debris below the gap, calling for associations with a lonely, battered siege tower breaching the otherwise impenetrable barrier. The hole above the pile of obsidian-ish rock and dirt looks wide enough for Davon to squeeze in.
Noticing where the spotlight stopped, your friendly walking fortress jerks backward a little, probably interpreting your intentions and showing little enthusiasm about what you are considering subjecting him to. He might be a mute entity forever trapped in steel and the soul stones, but it does not mean he could not express himself. This particular example of his "body" language was known to you all well since the day when you and Isidor decided to test-run him after a retrofit in the early springtime countryside, which resulted in him butting into slush and you with your sibling chaotically pestering half the nearby unamused Eastwich villagers to lend a few draft horses to get him out. Silly times.
"Come on, Dave," you say while encouragingly tapping the hood of your living fortress's chassis top, "It might be the best route for as long as you don't slide down, as tampering with the structure might result in nothing at best, or a cave-in at worst."
The possessed steel chariot jerks again, but this time weakly, almost pitifully. "Aw, come on! I'll even scale it first for the sake of your confidence~" you reply, and after a short pause, Davon begins his march toward the place of interest. Although, judging from his velocity, you get the idea of him hesitantly agreeing to fancy your request out of the sense of subordination and ineluctability rather than faith in your plan. One would not expect a soul stuck in metal for centuries to be this temperamental, but this is your buddy, and you are pretty happy about him still being this animated.
Within the next couple of minutes, you got yourself dismounted and was now scaling up the debris mound with the trusty lantern in hand as promised. The angle of the embankment surface was, luckily, low enough to brave it on foot and offered enough gaps and texture to push against, so perhaps, Davon won't have much issue climbing it either. But as you mentally thank yourself for remembering to get the sturdy high boots for travel instead of absent-mindedly taking the vogue Rosanrican shoes on the very last day before the departure, one of your feet almost slips, causing you to emit a short but high-pitch shriek. Thankfully, you did not lose balance, and the worst that happens is Davon rising upright at the alert, returning to his "rest" poise shortly.
You catch a breath and look under your feet to ascertain the cause of the ruckus and find it a muddy yellowish blot of clearly organic origins and recent freshness. Oh, blast it, says your inner voice as you conclude that you nearly tumbled down because of the pile of some beast's excrement. This realization sours your mood: if there was something you hoped for - aside from the place being the vault that you hypothesized from the records and artifacts - it was the site's lack of inhabitants or infestations. You garnered a faint hope the beasts would not venture deeper inside the derelict itself, but alas, you'd have to consider this group of risks when pushing deeper.
But despite the reconfirmed circumstances, you push forward and approach the edge of the fallen stone chunk, peeking into the vast darkness behind the gates. Breaching the ancient grounds where no sentient being treaded for millenniums always had this unique feeling of awe and mystery, stemming from the realization of the unknown in front of you being anything but empty. Heeding this sensation, you crouch and aim your lantern's focused light into the virgin sea of darkness behind the gates.
And as you do so... you find yourself somewhat disappointed, for you are greeted not with majestic architecture of the civilizations long gone but with what looks like a badly damaged by time, half-collapsed mine. As the beam reaches up, you notice some cavernous vegetation sprawling on the cave's ceiling - the giveaway sign that there might be more unaccounted-for natural caverns leading to this hollow, allowing for access, humidity, and perhaps even some sunlight. As you shift the beam to the body of the cavity, the rundown supporting columns and a few landslide-caused mounds (some reaching to the ceiling) reveal themselves. By your rough estimation, the cave appears to be one-fifth to one-third collapsed, with most of the rockfalls taking place closer to the gates. On the floor, your lantern picks dirt, occasional clearings of mosaic flooring, and the vast, murky puddles filled with stagnant water - the evidence of multiple cracks in the ceiling, through which rainfalls reach down here. You also find a convenient slope from the stone slab you stand at.
At least Isidor isn't here to state his room being tidy and ordered compared to this, you think and crack a faint grin while looking back at the familiar ghostly-green lights behind you - the glow and haze emanating from Davon's soul stone engine and shimmering through the hull exhausts. As you walk back to it, you state (not without some theatric confidence): "See? Absolutely manageable. The stone pillar ends steeply behind the gate, so be wary of the debris slope to the right."
But even though you voice this encouragement, you prefer not to get into the cockpit of your golem, illuminating the passage from the distance (and cheering for him not to fall off) instead. And to be fair, his less-than-graceful mechanical gait does give you a couple of jumpy moments during his climb. Fortunately, the plated ebony hull strapped with the supplies bags on its rear ends up at the hill's peak without rolling down right at you, prompting you to catch up and find that cozy safety of its cockpit.
And you do precisely this: once the hulking mass of armored steel descends to the floor of what seems like a gigantic atrium, you climb Davon, recline the seat, clutch to the levers, and assume direct control of him. Chariot-knight golems, as they are called, were invented back in the Rosanrican crown's golden age to fill in the similar-ish niche of Landers' heavy cavalry knight lances with the ability to double as portative siege weaponry and defense installations. Bound to bloodlines via now-forbidden spirit magic rituals and sustained by the soul echoes of the lineages' surviving members, these ghost-animated engines of war were built to act as independent bodyguards and dub as exceptionally-impenetrable suits of armor. Considering the actual combat purposes for which Davon's shell was manufactured, your piloting skill was lacking, but it was more than enough to navigate.
Feeling sufficiently safe behind Davon's thick armor to dull out the anxiety of an entourage-less expedition, you stomp around the ancient grounds in search of hints that would let you deduce the purpose of the complex. Shortly, one such object emerged in the spotlight of the searchlight-lidded & strapped to Davon's hull lantern: it was an effigy. A tall - about thrice your height - statue stemming from a massive pedestal around the center of the hall, forming an incomplete half-circle with the fragments of other pedestals, some of them still containing other idols in varying states of preservation. As you tilt Davon's torso to flush the statue with the lantern's light, you recognize it: the T-shaped central shape, reminiscent of a stylized dragon head, enclosed in a vertical ribbon-like circle that is divided by six spheres at even intervals is the symbol of Uragoth - the presumed central deity of the precursor Reisorian kin and their race's sign.
Next to it, you find a fragment of another statue sticking out of the pile of rubble that likely fell from the ceiling: it looks like the top half of the Almafey race symbol - a heavily-stylized swan-like shape with a flower protruding from its back. And to the opposite side of the best-preserved sculpture, you find another intact body that looks like the sun image but has a hollowed center and nine curved beams spreading out to contain the outer circle. Unlike the first two visages, you can't confirm ever seeing this one, so you produce your journal, climb out of the cockpit to unlid the lantern, and make a hasty sketch of the unknown artifact.
While putting the rough outlines onto the paper, you ponder about these statues and the hall: you expected this complex to be primarily almafeyish, as you referenced and deduced its location from their artifacts, yet the presence of not just their but four other races symbolics (three other of which you struggle to recognize) suggest the high ceremonial and/or administrative value of this place. This notion gives you mixed feelings, as it is not something you imagined the athenaeum vault to be, but it may still contain what you search for in its depths.
Done for now, you put away the journal and return to the cockpit proper, navigating the hull around the atrium and searching for pathways to the deeper levels. While doing so, you notice a series of stone steps on the floor, adding some verticality to the layout. Soon, you figure that the atrium was built multi-layered, with the pathway leading from the main gateway to the statues-adorned central platform elevated relative to the now-flooded recesses; perhaps, those were ponds with fountains in this place's better days. Following this mental scheme of the site that oddly reminds you of Lund's royal library's atrium, you navigate the mech to the sides from the effigy's crescent formation.
The left pathway ends up in a part of the hall buried under the landslide, clearing out which would be a bit too much even with the portative siege weapon you possess. Against it, the right pathway is clear of geodesic damage, leading to an arch and a tunnel, which you soon find to be sealed off by the same mechanic lid, the two bigger of which the main gates were composed of. Disappointed by yet another impassable route, you stare at peculiar large metallic geodes scattered nearby the sealed-off tunnel. They are tremendous - about time and a half Davon's height - and it takes you over a minute with slight backpedaling to realize: they feature internal lines and shapes too straight to be natural!
But as your golem steps in reverse, his massive feet crush against the stone flooring what sounded like a bone, immediately provoking a choral of menacing hisses to your left. Startled, you raise Davon's hood plate, fully encapsulating yourself under the armor. Now looking through the visor slits of your golem's "helmet," you frantically point the beam of light in the direction of the sounds: it reveals nothing even though the noises persist and only aggravate as if irritated by the spotlight's proximity.
Caught in this standoff, you take the chance to illuminate the side of the disturbance further, registering the noises originating from the wall alcoves placed along a wide half-circle stairway leading down to an archway entrance to the lower levels. The path down is littered with rocks, bones, piles of dung, and a humongous relief fresco fragment that collapsed from the wall and cut the closest stairway from its twin sibling on the other side. As you suspect that both pathways might be leading to the same exit, you notice a suspicious pair of lights peeking from behind the path-dividing chunk of decorated stone. After a heartbeat of hesitation, you train Davon's chassis in a way that sheds the lantern's light on the peculiar spot, causing the flickers to immediately disappear and witnessing something seizable and dark-furred (?) scatter behind the barrier.
As you stand still, concealed within the chariot golem, you feel your heartbeat rising as opposed to the intensity of the smaller creatures' hisses. You are a little scared but understand there is no other way than to take either of the pathways down, risking a confrontation with the wildlife. Unfortunately for you, natural sciences are not your faculty, so you have absolutely zero ideas what these species are, what they fear, or what danger they present; all you can surmise is the other stairway arm is inhabited by a relatively large and likely solitary beast, while the one in front of your golem possibly infested with scores of smaller predators.
With bated breath, you pry open the "helm's" plate just wide enough to smuggle your backpack into the cockpit before resealing the defenses and glancing through your belongings; you have three runic blaze wands, two smoke bombs, and one flash bomb. Perhaps, using any of these expendables would prevent a fight or at least ease it up, but you don't know how handy any of them would be or even how threatening these entities are, for that matter.
______________________________
Take the path (select challenge):
[] The closest one infested by hissers (skirmish chance: high? (3/5))
[] The further one inhabited by a large beast (skirmish chance: ???)
Use of supplies (might decrease the chance of a fight if picked correctly):
[] Fire wand (3 remaining)
[] Smoke bomb (2 remaining)
[] Flashbang (1 remaining)
[] None (save the expendables for later)
Contingency fight plan (if the fight triggers):
[] Leave it to Davon (Davon's melee combat roll, Davon's defense roll, Davon's luck roll)
[] Pilot Davon (1/2 Katherine's mounted combat roll + 1/2 Davon's melee combat roll, 1/2 Katherine's mounted combat roll + 1/2 Davon's defense roll, Katherine's luck roll, Davon's luck roll)
[] Leave fighting to Davon while lobbing expendables from the cockpit (1/2 Katherine's object usage roll + 2/3 Davon's melee combat roll, Davon's defense roll, Katherine's luck roll, Davon's luck roll)
-[] Fire wand (3 remaining)
-[] Smoke bomb (2 remaining)
-[] Flashbang (1 remaining)
