The flickering illumination of a torch adds to the light in the room already provided by the dim glow of the magic archway.  Unsurprisingly, Imriel's detect magic spell finds evidence of conjuration magic radiating from the wall. Wether this indicates the portal is still open one way or not, is impossible for her to know. But it's been ten minutes and there has been no change to the steady glow coming from the archway. 

Taking the advice of the others, she gets ready to let her owl fly, but first, with the flickering orange torch lighting their way, the group skulks forward into the ancient office. 

There is a door on the left side of the office. A quick look out and you see an ante-chamber, with a decrepit desk of it's own, and then a hallway leading away.  The walls are carved from stone, though it seems as if every bit of the rock is decorated by cracks. How this place remains intact is a mystery. The other door out of the office goes to the left.  There, you see a short hallway, with a doorway on the left, and it appears to open up into another room with more doors and a hallway away.  

(Survival check from one person please!) 

Survival Check: 11

Guidance (if applicable): 4

As the group investigates both directions, Llwyd naturally pays attention to the ground beneath their feet...looking for signs of passage. 

First of all, these halls are fairly well travelled, but not cleaned often. Dust and grime has built up everywhere and along the edges and sides of the halls and anywhere that's not a direct path between these two directions and the chapel style room they came in from. Furthermore, he spots signs of blood....dried...and a couple days old, but splotches along the hall that are clearly somewhat fresh.  The lead through the office, out the antechamber in front of it, and down the hallway.  Smudges of blood on foot prints shows pursuit by ...what looks like barefoot humans. 

Sistri wanders over to the dilapidated desk in the office.  She pokes around through the broken-down pieces to see if anything is there. (Perception: 23) "What do you suppose we will find here? I'd thought we would just find more information in this location. But what exactly is this place?" 

"I wish I know," with genuine regret answered Irmiel. "Maybe when we look at this place from outside it will be more clear? In any way, the shadovar know what they are after and we have the luxury of simply following them and those who are after them too. They are two days ahead of us, we better hurry."

With Osrik ahead on the lookout, she was ready to follow the designated tracker.

(Sistri, doing a search of a room or what not is Investigation, so I've used your roll of 18 as an investigation check instead.) 

Sistri searches through the remnants of the desk. She finds ancient scraps of paper covered in Draconic characters. Unfortunately, not understanding Draconic, she can't really make out what it says.  Irmiel though makes a comically high pitched "ooooohhh" sound at Sistri's mention and hurries over.  The characters are indeed Draconic, but the languages is not. Whatever languages it is, Irmiel doesn't know it.  

(one person can make a History check)

Having a trail to follow, Irmiel sends the small own fluttering down the hallway ahead of them. At some point they find a natural style cave heading off to the right, but the trail continues along the engineered tunnel. You continue to follow it and come upon...what sorta of seems like an exit...but it exits into a natural style cave. Sandwiched between the smooth stone floor and jagged, irregular cave ceiling, are buildings. Looking upon it, you feel as you're standing on a stone street...of a city, but.....as if a mountain had crashed down upon the city. The upper floors of buildings are pulverized, rubble is everywhere, and sticking up and out of everything you see fragments of ancient bones. Laying here you find four more dead jackals. Their bodies ruined from weapons. Laying about them you find discarded pants, belts, shirts, a crossbow and a couple of scimitars in poor repair.  You also find the hulking dead form of a four legged beast. It has a spike covered tail, and the head of a lion....huge drooping bat wings, it's mane black and crusted with blood.  It has a strangely human looking face.  A manticore.

The trail seems to lead from here, out into the ruins of the pancaked city. 

Irmiel History: 17

"Can you give me ten minutes? Please? Pretty please?!" Maybe the language was unknown to her but it did not mean she would not try to read it!

Comprehend Languages as a ritual if others don't mind but if everyone insists on immediate leaving then as a spell.

Sistri collects whatever scraps she might find, handing them to Irmiel. "Of course, I think we can spare a few minutes. Perhaps this will turn up an important clue," she says optimistically. 

"Do you think the city was inhabited when it was... destroyed?" Kris asks, looking awe-struck.  "Imagine how many... died!  How terrible.  I wonder if they realized what was happened.  I wonder what actually happened?"

(Back in the office).  The group decides 10 minutes here couldn't hurt and settle into the spot to wait for Irmiel.  She takes the time carefully going through ritualistic steps until she completes her spell.  "bags of raw corn flour" is what the fragment reads.  She manages to find a few more fragments. The all appear to contain likewise rather boring inventory type bits of writing.  Irmiel meanwhile recalls that there have been a few other civilizations in the past that have had languages that used the draconic ruins as their alphabet. The largest, and most prominent is certainly the ancient, mystical, Netheril empire. In fact, in their research file from Cormyr, which she'd studied in detail, there had been some examples of how Netheril wrote Draconic and she would make a sizable bet that these scraps of writing are Netheril in nature.

(Back "out" in the city).  Stallock prowls about like a cat as he examines the bodies.  21  He pokes about the area as well. 

He points between a couple of buildings, "The trail leads this way."

"An ancient ruined city, the Netheresian writing - I think we found one of the lost Netheresian city that dropped here when they all did." She sent a mental signal to Belaern who ought to be as excited as she was right now. "Do you know which city is it?"

Regardless of drow's willingness to talk, the path before the group was clear. "Guess we continue to follow shadovar?" Irmiel packed up a few scrolls (useless they can be but Candlekeep could appreciate the relic of such a distant past) and was ready to follow Stallock (with Osrik still on the look out for ambushes and other surprises).

Belaern, either because he is awe struck by the discovery, or because he has decided to be somewhat useful to you at the present replies quietly, "Indeed I do. The portal was told to lead to the ruins of the Enclave of Hlaungadath. Though, do not disregard that portal as a simple doorway. I was told it can lead to other places as well.  A .... network.  Remember foolish girl, do not die and let my soul ring fall into a crack for an eternity. You carry precious cargo." 

"This is amazing," Sistri says as she looks around at the ruined city. She takes a moment to look through the discarded clothes and equipment. (Investigation: 5) "What am I missing here? Why dead jackals and then discarded clothing?"  

"Oh... Of course... "Hlaungadath gate network"..." Irmiel was too busy thinking to offer a snarky remark to Belaern's last statement. Instead, she reacted with "You really knew a lot about Netheril", while out loud she elaborated about the city. "No idea why our shadovar friends decided to change their clothes after killing those jakals. But I think I know where we are. Or where we can be. Anauria, Asram, and Hlaungadath did not crash but had time to descend somewhat safely. Well can be, that the ceiling of these caves is the bottom part of Hlaungadath, when it landed on top of the city in front of us. Of course, it can be anything else, say, Hlaungadath landed upside down and we are somehow upside down too - don't ask me how, just throwing theories here. Or," she raised her finger, "we are someplace else - still netheresian - because of the "gate network". But sadly, wherever we are, we are still in Faerun."

"You know, there are too many possibilities. Let's get into the city. Somewhere in some of the buildings, there has to be an indication of the city name."

"And probably some ancient and powerful magical artifacts!" Kris adds hopefully.

“I would say that being in Faerûn is excellent. Means we can get back by foot, provided we deal with the enemies.” All without having to worry about being pinced by parties of drow.  “May question is if we should advance stealthy or not. The battle happened some two days ago, but this doesn’t mean the Shadovar are necessarily two days ahead of us. Some of them may have ended to hurt to advance. Stayed behind with some help or stayed behind and healed by now. There is also the possibility that they strategically left some of their own guarding their trail. After all they were attacked and hurt.” Llwyd then looked at the buildings. Old as they were they still made for an easy to defend position. A shelter. “Maybe there are ambushes waiting for you. Enemies on those buildings. With that said, moving discretely would cost us time.”

Time they could not have to spare. There could be only one reason for the Shadovar to visit a Netherese ruin. Somewhere in the city a Mythallar waited. It was a race against shadowy figures, and they were already two whole days behind.

“What you think?” The druid asked the party. “Should we advance at full speed or go slow and careful?”

"A gate network?" Sistri says with surprise. "That could be quite a find! Paths to many cities!"  She then nods at Llwyd's words. "I would not rush too quickly ahead. I'd say we keep a normal pace and be on alert.  I don't think we can stay too concealed as a group anyway." 

She once again looks about at the buildings. "I know our primary path is to follow the Shadovar, but might there be other areas worth looking at?  Like a library or armory or something?  I'm not sure how we'd recognize such a thing though.  Everything looks partly demolished!" 

"Ohhh, the library would be a pure blessing!" Irmiel nodded a few times very energetically. "We should find it no matter what, before or after we meet shadovar. Though... "after" might prove to be a problem." She agreed on normal walking too - not everyone could sneak expertly. On the way, the oud loud train of thoughts continued (she tried to be quiet, though). "Netheresian cities were the cities of wizards. The library had to be the most important building of them all! Or close to it. I bet it's in the center! Though... For some reason wizards love towers. Never understood it, maybe the idea was to exercise more. But anyway, if we see something resembling a tower, that could be a good choice too for every mage is ought to have a library too!"

Sistri looks at the dead jackals and discarded clothes but can't put her finger on whatever it is she's decided she's missing. Deciding exploring is important, and stealth is not a huge priority, the group presses onwards, and heads into the first building they come across.  This 'city' looks thoroughly damaged, and it's clear in the end, many died, but you could see how many could also have survived.  The survivors though, if Irmiel's history is accurate, survived and went on to live as a nation. They must have picked clean their homes before leaving because this place looks particularly vacant. Some ancient ruined furniture smashed in the crash. Tatters of old rugs or other decorations remain. But shelves are empty, treasures are gone, and disappointingly much of what you were hoping to find has already been taken. But, there is an entire city before you.  Large portions of the buildings are totally crushed under rock, but there are warrens and paths through to open pockets of partially smashed buildings.  

You do notice however that there are definite signs of excavation. Some are newer than others, while some appear quite old, but people have been here, have dug through to other areas, have searched this place. As you press forward cautiously, you hear the sounds of digging, along with voices somewhere ahead. Unasked for, Stallock creeps forward ahead of the group to a corner and looks around it, then sneaks back and reports.  "There's a group of about eight men. Wearing rags, pants and shirts, though they are armed with scimitars. Look like the type of clothes discarded at the last two battle sites. Furthermore, there is a woman, in a nice dress, lounging in a fancy looking chair. Next to her is a Shadovar. They're watching the eight guys dig into the side of a building. Looks like they've been at it for a while." 

Stallock stealth : 25

Sistri keeps her voice low as she speaks. "As much as I'd like to know what they're doing, I don't think I want to take on so many. Well, and the single shadovar to boot.  Do you think these are the group we were following?  It just doesn't seem like it. Although the workers' clothes match what we saw. Can we move past or around them without being seen?"  This last question seems more directed at Stallock.