As Xemnez moves into the bright, music filled room and begins striding through the "illusion"....one of the courtiers on the side steps forward, making eye contact, he speaks to you, but unfortunately his language is unknown to you.  He seems to be clearly asking a question.  While he awaits the answer, he snaps his fingers and a servant bearing a silver tray full of crackers topped with little cubes of meat, and pulls one and begins eating. He motions for you to take one yourself.  He then babbles on a bit longer, and seems to be awaiting a response.

At the same time another approaches Danvoleye, this one a woman wearing a strange shawl like adornment with far too much jewelry.  She speaks to him with an outlandish accent obvious even though her words aren't understood. Danvoleye doesn't even look at her, and simply walks to follow Xemnez.

Glancing down the hallway, he sees it immediately branches left and right and it looks like there are several doors on the far wall. When/if he eventually gets there, he finds there are in fact 3 doors on the opposite wall of the hallway from the one he entered on.  

Simaal still has his shield on his hand, but out of politeness, puts away his javelin upon seeing the party. He stays within the group but off to the side a bit. He does his best to pay attention to the surroundings avoiding folks as politely as possible.

"I do and I follow." Thyrius states telepathically while looking back at his brother, his words laced with the respect one would show their chosen leader. Noticing that the dragon man is also following Xem as the golden lion begins to explore the first path to the left, Thyrius is sure to let Danvoleye be flanked by the Leonins. There is no reason for them both to expose their back to this backstab-in-waiting of a person.

Seeing the path diverge into three others, Thyrius mentally nudges his brother: "Left again?"

"If the book is on the top floor, we are not there yet, though," noted Mirica. "I do not see any stairs up, but there is a lot of tower above us, with the windows, no less. Let's hope the staircase is behind those doors."

The group ignores the illusions, not able to understand their ancient language anyway, and Thyrius guides them to the first door.  You push it open. Inside is a trashed office, quite large. Furniture is overturned, shelves have been upended...detritus litters the floor. The ice has kept everything well preserved. Simaal begins glancing at papers. Though written in the ancient Netherese, he seems to be able to understand the writing.  This office belonged to that of a bureaucrat in this city. It seemed this person and their assistant must have dealt with licensing and transportation. There are reams of paper with license for being a seller, for bringing things into the city, and for owning property. Then there are also reams about licenses to operate air carriages, "Magus" run carts in the city, and portal creation in and around the city. 

On the desk itself, scattered to one side, is a book labeled Ostoria Discovery's....and a quick scan shows artifacts discovered by the city. The last one is of particular interest, and the writing is extensively about something called "The Spindle".  The rune-carved stone spindle is described as twice the height of a man, and having an unknown purpose. The writer notes that it has been moved to the citadel’s stasis chamber for further study which is scheduled for the following day, but there are no more entries. 

The other two doors also lead to similar bureaucratic offices.  It would take several hours to go through everything here, but it's all administrative in purpose and clearly not the type of books that Thyrius is looking for unless he's looking for logs stating the amount of fresh produce imported in the last twelve months. You do learn that wonders from across the world of Toril were sold at the enclave’s Bazaar of the Bizarre, and by law, every mage was taught the prestidigitation cantrip and was obliged to use it to keep the city clean. Truly fascinating. 

"The Spindle..." Thyrius repeats telepathically. "Sounds like something Toc might be interested in, don't you think so, Tic?"  Again, he has no intention of speaking using his voice lest he gives Danvoleye some more free information. The group had done plenty of that already and, who knows, maybe this Spindle is the reason the dragon is following them to begin with.

Thyrius is disappointed by the mundane nature of what these first few rooms have to offer, but not surprised. It must have been a bureaucratic nightmare to run a city this magically advance in a coherent form. The black cat hopes the Leonin's home never becomes this procedural. Nonetheless, Thyrius hopes these bureaucrats had something more fascinating to share. This Spindle was a good start, but perhaps they also kept something hidden? A secret cabinet? A fake drawer bottom? It was worth a check since they were already here and fresh produce was hardly exciting.

-> Investigation check: 18 

The idea immediately sprung an image in Mirica's mind of Toc posing as Sleeping Beauty with a prickled finger and spindle in his lifeless hands. She hoped it did not translate to everyone. "Still does not look like a library to me. I say we still need to find the way up. Can it be covered with illusion?"

Simaal looks around, and does a reasonable job of looking at various items, but less so writing material (at least not in an obvious fashion). He seems more interested in the wood of the desk and the like. "Ensure to look magically for those that can" he says mentally along with whatever he reads.
Outloud he says, "Fascinating that everything should last for so long, even the wood, could everything be magically protected?

Thyrius does a thorough job looking for any secret drawers or what not, but sadly comes up empty handed. The books, papers, and wooden furniture seems well preserved thanks to the layers of frost and ice that coat them. To get a good look at anything you've got to spend a few moments clearing it from the clutching grasp of winter. 

Danvoleye says nothing in response to Simaals out loud speaking, the only speaking to really be done between long quiet moments occasionally adorned with meaningful glances. 

Tic responds, "Ok".  To also responds, "Ok".  

It took you more than a couple minutes to clear the room and Tic mentions he's "on his way".  21 vs DC 12. 

Tic eventually arrives as you are about finished searching the rooms.  He glances and Danvoleye and then the offices that have been pretty thoroughly turned over and then says mentally, "If you want me to look for magic I'll have to spend 10 minutes casting a spell." 

'It would have to be a significantly powerful illusion to fool even my brother's eyes at the moment' Xemnez comments on from his post by a wall. For after having entered the room and taken a token look around, the Leonin grumbled and uttered something along the lines of keeping watch for any odd visitors. Then as if almost an afterthought, he looks over to the dragon and says,"Though I doubt as much, mind a few questions while these others peruse? Namely is there something in city you hope find?"

Danvoleye glances at Xemnez, “I seek nothing in particular. However the Netheril empire was the most powerful nation ever to exist. It is likely this tower contains information that may prove most useful for our mutual endeavours.”

If you’re not waiting for Tic to ritually cast a spell to detect magic, then where to next?

Thyrius is a bit surprised the dragon man is so willing to share more than three words all of the sudden. So far, it had been mostly silence and snarky remarks. That said, the black cat does not respond directly to Danvoleye. Instead, he makes a suggestion for the group: "I say we waste no more time in these clerical rooms. We may yet need Tic to perform his ritual, but I suggest we save it for more interesting chamber and keep looking for a way up for now. We haven't been thorough in our exploration so far, so why change now? We have a goal, so let us keep moving. Agreed?"

If the group agrees, Thyrius sneaks up across the illusion hall to reach the door on the lower left of Y19b. He is scouting ahead a bit so he can backtrack and report back to the group. He checks to see if the door is trapped in any way and looks beyond the door if it isn't. All communications are done mentally, as previously established.

-> Stealth check: 18

-> Investigation check: 14

Since Thyrius is the only one (well, dragon, obviously, too but he does not count) who could see through illusion and had at least some ideas of what the group was looking for, Mirica was just following the black cat. At some point, she sent a question to Simaal "Is the warming up your doing?" but other than that was generally quiet, hoping, others understand the urgency. If the glacier comes down crashing on top of the city even Netheresian ruins might finally get destroyed.

Thyrius slips back across the "party". A couple of the fake illusion people seem to notice him slipping around crowd but no one attempts to interact with him.

He reaches the far door, pulling it open to see any icy hallway. It winds about, ending at a couple doors, but it also does wind back on itself and at the end of a long passage you see a blue skinned man standing, looking out a window. Ahhh, this was the same blue skinned man attempting to stop you from coming in.  He ignores Thyrius in the hallway, and just stares out the window in silence. It occurs to Thyrius he has been doing so for.....hundreds of years. There is a small closet at the near end of this hallway, but its doors have fallen off and lay frozen to the floor. The closet appears to be full of basic jackets that are all old rotted and frozen stiff.  A quick search reveals nothing of interest in the old ratty clothes or their pockets.

Where to next?

Outloud while looking at Toc "I think it's worthwhile to do the ritual of detecting magic while we're looking around in detail since we're doing it in parallel." Mentally while looking at a fine corner in the furniture he responds to Mirica spoiler not spoiler "Yup"..

"A coat check for a fancy party." It makes sense, in a way, after Thyrius convinces himself that such unfamiliar customs may be desired, though he does not understand just yet why would anyone hold such grandiose celebrations in such a building. Leonins do such under the cover of the wise skies, with only tents over their heads when the situation calls for it.

Back to the task at hand, the black cat leads the group, still scouting ahead a bit such that any unpleasant surprise may claim only his life and not those of the others. "More doors," he thinks. He picks the one leading north in the hallway Y19d, as opposed to the one leading further east.

(OOC: If possible, he'll continue to investigate as he goes as per previous post.)

Mirica did not insist on any kind of explanation, just commented "Not sure burying us under uncountable tons of ice is a good idea but let's hope for the best," and continued following the all-seeing lion.

(Btw, do we all see the doors or are some of them hidden by illusion or are illusions?)

Tic mentally acknowledges Simaal,, and sits down in the corner at the party on a nice chair and begins ritually casting Detect Magic.  The others find themselves amidst the party goers. It seems, aside from this main room, where decorations, people, music and light are illusions, nothing else in this tower is concealed in the same way and everyone can see all the doors, hallways, and everything as it is in the rest of the rooms. 

Thryius slips to the north most door in the hallway and pushes it open, revealing a most interesting room. Shifting green, purple, and blue light spill into the room through a single window. Bolted-down tables hold an array of equipment: beakers of alchemical fluid, alembics, cut crystal needles, surgical tools, coiled leather tubes, and more. Behind the tables stands an ornate suit of armor. Where the head should be is a swollen human brain floating inside a canister of translucent fluid.

The brain shifts slightly in the jar and the body turns to face the open door. 

There are no other exits from this room.