"looks like the warlocks runes, added to these doors after the fact" Torrin's copper eye zips to the halfling "you're a student of the arcane correct?? could you take a look and see if you can determine anything else about it?" Torrin adjusts his armor and keeps throwing quick glances to the statue at the end of the hall.

((nvm lol))

The halfling moved forward, clearly suspicious of the statue at the end of the corridor.

But he managed to pull his eyes away to examine the side doors. After moment, he pulled out a book from his robes, and looked back and forth, consulting the runes inscribed compared to something in his book (Arcana: 20).

 "I think our holy friend here is correct. This does seem to be related to the warlock's runes. Their book said something about warding different doors, including the one to Torizo, which I would assume one of these is, though I can't read Abyssal without taking the time to cast a spell... As to the nature of the gates themselves. They appear similar to the portal we just came through, but not as powerful. Maybe they don't require as much of a sacrifice? I'm afraid it's not like anything I've seen before, but I could tell more, perhaps with longer study," he turned back to the Dragonborn and shrugged. "It depends how risky you'd like to be."

"Look, I read Abyssal." Sylzet sighs as she checks over each door, and will openly read aloud as much of the text as she can. (which leaves it kinda up to you, Bene.)

As she reads though, her smouldering armor smoke flickers about. Is she doing that on purpose?

(OOC: Sorry for the late reply, I was waiting to see if Xanktus was going to join us. Looks like I'll be npc'ing the wizard until/unless Bounces returns or he dies).

After a few moments of coordinating with Zanver about the meaning of certain words, it appears clear that while the individual words in Abyssal are easy to read, there's no sentence structure or seeming logic in their placement. Aside from the name Torizo in the center of the one door, there appears to be no clear pattern or rhyme and reason to the words or their placement, except perhaps aesthetically. The wizard also cannot seem to find any arcane rhyme or reason to the placement of the words, though he does attempt to copy them as best he can in his journal.

"Great, so unless individual combinations are some sort of Abyssal magic, this is useless. Who knew demons had a sense of aesthetic..." She would mutter after reading off the last word on each door. "...Either I break a door down, or we look at the statue."

The halfling shrugs. "Well, I---" then he pauses, "I was going to say, I don't think it could hurt to look at the statue, but, in point of fact, it almost does. That being said, I agree that we should inspect the statue. As to the doors... if these are the warlock's runes, then I would presume that we could pass those doors with the knucklebones the Archmage gave us."

"I sense nothing good coming from that statue" Torrin says as he gives it a quick glance. His copper eye once again grows spindly copper legs and crawls out of his eye socket, and the dragonborn removes the knuckle bone. "The warlock's journal said he had put Torizo to sleep to guard his personal wares. These could be a great boon to us, plus I'm itching for a fight" he strolls over to the door with Torizo written on it and looks to the others "shall we??" he holds his knuckle bone out, ready to press it to the door if no one objects.

"We need to kill him anyway to break the seals for us to get access to the Demon Queen." Sylzet points out, before readying into a combat stance and holding up her glowing greatsword.

The halfling pauses in his steps towards the statue. 

"Sure." The halfling draws a piece of cured leather, cut to resemble a rhino, from one of the many pouches at his belt. He draws an arcane symbol in the air with it, while speaking a few sing-song words of power. A faint outline of a breastplate draws itself over him, before fading into invisibility. "I'm ready when you two are, though I worry about what has happened to our other friend," he says as he replaces the piece of leather in its pouch.

((ooc oh did Xanktus not follow us in?? idk how you want to handle that, but I could take him over for a while if you don't want to DMPC him))

Torrin gives a shrug "looks like he's going to miss out on some glorious cleansing" his eye seems to light up at the thought. He presses the knuckle bone to the door, bringing his blade up to his shoulder in his other hand.

(OOC: I'll just let him afk. If he rejoins later, there's better ways to bring him back, I think.)

As Torrin presses the knucklebone to the door, the intent to pass clear in his mind, the door begins to lash out with the same fire as the first door, it's pulled back before touching the dragonborn and is pulled instead into the glowing green warlock's rune. The rune then seems to expand and creates a circular portal that all three heroes recognize as a dimension door effect. 

"Ahh," says the halfling, "it appears the rune uses the door's own power to generate its own portal. Clever... I wonder if the big door might have been too powerful for the warlock. Or maybe he didn't want to draw attention there, or.... well, who knows the minds of warlocks."

"...Well, it's better than feeding more blood." Sylzet would say, and carefully duck into the door, sword at the ready.

Torrin follows suit after tucking the knucklebone and his copper spider back into his empty eye socket, bringing his shield and sword to bear

The heroes step through the portal, and immediately appear in a new room. Behind them, a reverse of the same door they were just standing before. Presumably then, the dimension door spell merely teleported them to the other side of the door.

The room they find themselves in is odd and off-putting. Off-putting both due to both the strange visual, and the pervasive smell of sulfur and fungus.

Visually, it seems like if a hexagonal room was expanded with multiple polygonal rooms attached at random. While the rooms appear to be stonework, with layers of brick on the walls, and marble on the floor, there's a crystalline quality to their structure. The floor is flat but has three different levels, each about 5 feet different, and small stairs between them. Through the center of the rooms, in straight lines, run slow-moving streams of magma in crafted channels. They pool in triangular channels pointing towards the points of the rooms, from which they must drain out an unseen exit.

The door stands at one of the junctions between hexagons on the lowest level. Just barely visible due to the difference in levels, is the very top of a stone statue with some kind of vulture-like features seemingly staring in rapt attention to a ball of fire it holds in its outstretched stone hands.

"...Well, if this doesn't scream an arena, I don't know what does." Sylzet says drily as she looks up at the statue. "...Think we extinguish that flame to start the fight?" She doesn't yet move though, preferring to leave it to Torrin to find out if there's anything the group is missing.

"I don't think we need to extinguish the flame. I believe that's one of the balls the warlock mentioned as a "stash spot" of sorts. there may be something of use in it." Torrin shifts his weight, bringing his shield up and lowering his head to touch it as he says a small prayer in draconic, his eye glowing platinum when he raises his head back up. ((using his divine sense to see if there's any thing amiss. also I'm having a smidge of difficulty picturing this room, like how big it is)) If nothing pings off his divine sense Torring begins slowly walking towards the stairs, scanning the room as he does.

Sylzet will wander over towards the statue then, carefully stepping over the lava channels, and reaching a hand up towards the flame. Not *into* the flame, just towards it. To see if that flame is still hot.

Torrin will follow suit, and stand at her back scanning for any trouble ((also I take it nothing pinged on my divine sense??))