The goblin tries to hide behind one of the statues. Seeing noone else call out to him, he meekly responds:

"What are you doing here? I've lost count of the years here in peace and quiet, studying the scrolls. You come in, and trip every the defense magic, to the point that I had to leave my study."

The crystal is not by itself dangerous, but tiny magical threads seem to connect it to many objects in the room, as well as to the room behind you.

Shun leans to Gruntor and says “next time we knock first” and turns back to listen to the goblin. “We look for… what we look for again? Strong things. To help us fight. I think?”

"We are here by with permission of the owners of this place. You are the one that activated the golems in the prior room? While my companion isn't wrong, the answer lacked in precision. Firebolg, please explain."

Leesha then gestures for the firebolg to explain, with hopefully more eloquence than Gruntor, what they are looking for.

The goblin looks surprised

"The fortress sent you? It shouldn't be time for next archive to be left here. Did some emergency occur?"

"As for the defence magics, even the commander of the fortress has only a vague idea of how it works. I could not possibly activate it. You did. The most I can do is to pacify it somewhat."

"The humans are coming. Soon. We're here to try and find a solution to dissuade them, by command of the Fortress. So anything to help us in that would be beneficial to all involved."

"Humans have gods. Gods make humans powerful. Humans want to kill monsters. Monsters don't have gods. Need to get gods, or kill human gods so monsters stronger than humans and can kill humans. Want to help kill humans? Help then.", the firebolg says, as if it's obvious.

((And if he doesn't need to make a check to be able to vocalize that.))

"Gods? Gods sound scary. Books here don't talk much about gods, as no god responded to the prayers of this citadel. At least no records on this level, which go to over 200 years.

There's older books on the lower level. But it's scary the, the magic there are much more dangerous, and last time i barely ran away for my life."

"Older's what we need. Any records going back five hundred to the War?", the firebolg asks.

"Downs farther we goes....for bigger books.  Yous will shows us the ways" Grunter nods gestures towards the Goblin.

Shun listens to the talk of gods. He cuts in. “Shun is strong. Shun strong with god or with no god. Him-Self not scare me. If you want to be strong, I could talk to him. Save some time.”

Leesha rubs her forehead as the others 'explain' things.

"Who are you, goblin? Why are you here."

The firebolg leans over to Gruntor.

"Who does Bugbear-Shun talk about?"

Gruntor leans back and and says to the fire-bolg,  "Shun is smratter.  He talks to one god and can do magiks.  Maybe he can ask his god what to do."

The goblin responds to Leesha, and then to the others

"I'm a soldier of the citadel. During the last time that the archives were open, I volunteered to stay here. The books here are half-forgotten and there are some really interesting gems hidden among the mundane records. Commanders were happy to have to have someone watch the place, so they assigned me to a previously non-existant rank of "archivist".

I can take  you to the lower floor entrance. "

"Hm. A pleasure to meet you archivist. Gems? Like?"

All this talk of gods and books… Isaac tries to maintain an air of not being interested in such things in the slightest. He swaggers in a lopsided way around, and in and out of the party, as they discuss these things… pretending to clean his nails with the point of his dagger. While all the time secretly listening, eagerly: the pursuit of knowledge perhaps a hidden passion of his, even if he tries to maintain the appearance of being too cool for all of that nonsense…

”H’yar!… To the ‘dangerous’, ‘lower’ levels then is it?!…. Rahar! R’hight you are then, all ye scurvy scallions! Point me towards danger… or locked doors… Or ‘dangerous’ locked doors!… Yar, avast!!”. He plants his feet in an overly-wide stance and points his dagger off into the distance, in the direction that ‘onward’ may or may not be.

Quote from Rodgeir >>

"Hm. A pleasure to meet you archivist. Gems? Like?"

"Oh, some stories. Did you know that according to old stories, the different races of the north were bound by by unbreakable rules? The legion supposedly wasn't a just a military organisation. It was supposedly an instrument of the gods, unable to stop war even if it wanted to. And the gnolls were apprarently no more than savage vermin, consumed by a desire to kill. And so on...

Normally I would dismiss these stories as human propaganda, but I found a few references in some of our own books in the archives. The author of one of the oldest books took these claims as surprisingly seriously. Unfortunately even this book is too recent. Perhaps there are older books on the topic in the lower levels."

Shun says to Sweet-Ums in a voice he imagines to be loud but which is clearly audible, “What will he say when he finds out we broke the door to the old room? Do not fret Sweet-Ums. Shun will keep you safe.” He gives the little bug-eyed bird’s head a gentle scritch with large fingers.

He looks up, unsure what to make of the stories from long ago. He furrows thick eyebrows at the idea of an old military as instrument of the gods that also could not stop war. 

"Interesting stories indeed, but were need to see if there something more actionable. Take us down to the oldest of the archives, and along the way, explain the functions of that crystal you're grasping."

"Ahem. Please.", the firebolg supplies politely on Leesha's behalf.