Iosif immediately and most awkwardly turned away and attempted to cover half of his face with his hands Definitely just to limit the level of present light and Most Assuredly Not to hide his expression or prevent people from making eye contact.
I hope someone in Gravesbane had the decency to own a bed before they died so I have the option to sleep on something with the potential of being soft.
The aide, a vaguely rotund man, stammers out, “N-no, your honor.” and looks away.
Aron smiles, somewhat forcibly, and reaches out to shake your hand.
“You accept my terms?” Callen asks.
“It’s a deal. Your kind seem to be pretty good at those.”
“Well, that’s mercenary work for you.” He says, shaking Aron’s hand, “We have an accord, and I expect you to not break this trust.”
“Likewise. Now, if you’d excuse me …” He turns and starts forcing his way to the front of the group without another word. He stumbles into Iosif, swears, and steps around him. “Have you opened the hell-blasted door yet, Castele?” He rolls his eyes upon taking in the obvious answer.
Callen smiles as he allows Aron to pass by and looks up at the door to see if he could recognize or discern anything about it.
The Verdant Paladin smiles subtly. Then he takes his axe and slams the hilt against the door as hard as possible. It shakes the room and the door cracks. Then he puts his axe away and takes out a small pouch. He takes a small object out of the pouch and starts chanting to the object in a soft whisper. After a moment the object in his palm starts glowing a vibrant green. He puts the object - which you can now see is some kind of seed - in the crack in the door. After a moment the green glow starts to get brighter, and then a plant starts rapidly growing in the crack. And then it stops. He frowns.
At this point Iosif is pressed up against the wall to avoid getting in anybody’s way, line of sight, train of thought, or the air they were breathing. How he preferred to be lodged up in some pigeon hole reading books by limited daylight to this endless nonsense of almost getting reprimanded repeatedly.
Hopefully the door will open soon and then everyone can go back to hating each other.
I wish I had my big axe with me The Verdant Paladin thinks to himself. He backs up and says “out of the way!” Then he charges at the door and slams his shoulder into the crack he’d made earlier at full speed.
The effect is the same as if you had charged the stone slab without the crack, which is roughly the size of a normal human’s thumb nail.
It doesn’t seem to effect the door at all.
He thinks for another moment, then he feels the walls for any weak points.
Callen begins to examine the pins on the door.
The wall is the same smooth stone. Where the wall and door meet, the door seems to recess into the wall, on both sides as well as the ceiling. The wall, oddly, seems to be in very good shape after three years.
Aron raises his eyebrows. “You ever seen anything like this?”
The pins are made of steel, with little friction between the pin and the hinge. The crosspieces are a different matter. They rotate in the small holes in the pins, but don’t move laterally. On close inspection, you notice notches on the sections of the pins that are visible.
Callen begins fiddling with these pins and crosses, trying to see if they could be the key to unlocking the panels.
“A couple times but haven’t quite figured out how to open them yet.” Callen says to Aron.
Kanei walked past Iosif, he considered saying something, but instead figured that maybe talking to him more might just get the kid in more trouble.
"So… I don’t believe we’ve been properly acquainted. “I’m Kanei. You?”
“Callen,” he says, “Nice to meet you.”
He resumes fiddling with the pins and crosses on the door.
You find that by twisting the crosspieces in one direction or another, you are able to cause them to partially come out. If you continue in this manner, you are able to remove the crosspieces entirely.
“So that’s how you work.” He says. He manages to get one crosspiece off then tries to carefully open the panel to see what was behind it.