Now that he had taken a step back, and scrutinized the almost other-worldly runes inscribed on the chair, he noticed that it looked awfully familiar.
~It's a massive circuit,~ he thought to himself, noting how each pattern of runes began and ended around one of the mana stones.
Sure, he was aware that it might've been a stretch for him to conclude that. However, it fell in line with what he had discovered earlier in his magic weapons research.
~Still, I can't just copy these runes. Their effects might be different from what I'm looking to achieve. And there's definitely something ominous about them... maybe even more than what I felt whilst standing in front of the necromancer,~ he thought to himself.
However, one thing was clear.
He was definitely going to take it back with him. He wasn't sure how yet, or if it would even be possible, but he was going to exhaust every means at his disposal to get it done.
Even if it meant making a bloodbath of this mansion.
"It seems even the workers were called to help," he whispered in realization, noticing that there were no more knocking and hammering sounds coming from outside.
~Should I try to make a run for it right now? Or go downstairs?~ he pondered.
He had already gotten a few seeds, herbs, the tunic, and the odd flower outside. Not to mention the chair in front of him.
However, he still felt that this was not enough.
~Besides, what's to say that those runes won't start glowing the second I touch it and do some weird magic thing,~ he realized.
At the very least, he would need to make sure that there was no one around to interfere with him whilst he was trying to get away.
And beyond that, he had a gut feeling that something interesting was going on down there.
However, after scouring the entire first floor, he couldn't see any potential entrances into the basement.
~But I can sense them down there,~ he thought to himself, spreading his earth sense out as far as it could reach.
The energy signals were now way lower than they had been before, in fact, he noticed that a few of the energy readings he was picking up earlier had disappeared.
~What could be a hidden door in this room?~ he pondered, inspecting everything that looked even the slightest bit suspicious.
Apart from the refined statues, and furniture, there were a few trophy heads on the walls. A little odd considering that these creatures were basically animals themselves, though he was self-aware enough to realize he still had some human bias.
Among the trophies were a few familiar heads. For instance, there was a Chame head and another of one of the owl creatures he had fought against before.
The others didn't look so humanoid and instead were full-on beasts. There were several midnight black hounds, with gnarly fangs, and gleaming red eyes. A massive fish abomination, with a wide open maw completely lined with razor-sharp teeth. Two feline-beast things, that he could only describe as cat demons. And a single venari head, the centrepiece of the collection.
Unlike all the other heads, this one didn't seem to have been chopped off of an actual creature and was instead fashioned together using hyper-realistic materials. It exuded a sort of pride and elegance, its facial expressions showing no signs of malice, fear, or abhorrence.
"It's you, isn't it," Lucius whispered to himself, before inspecting the trophy head.
He fiddled with it, attempting to find any hidden mechanisms it might have. However, that proved to be a fruitless endeavour.
"Am I missing something?" he whispered, now looking around the room to see if he had been mistaken.
Just then, his eyes landed on the runic chair once more, and an idea came to mind.
He quickly called out [kumulipo] before presenting it in front of the venari head.
Nothing.
Just as he was about to give up-
The entire row of trophy heads began emitting beams of light from their eyes, each of them falling towards a spot on the floor right at the centre of the room.
A moment later, a massive rune appeared on the floor, before a section wobbled off into oblivion, and a flight of stairs leading down into darkness revealed itself.
~Again, he's the councillor. I'm not surprised,~ Lucius told himself, though he had to admit, this was the most magical thing he had seen since coming to this planet. Even above all the 'raise the dead', and 'shoot literal light beams out of floating magical balls' stuff.
After making certain there were no presences in close vicinity, he began his descent.
Once he had made his way a little further down, the floor reappeared above him, closing off the light and covering him in darkness.
Though this was exactly what he wanted. He would still be able to feel his way downstairs and Earth Sense would be enough for him to tell if anyone was approaching. The same couldn't be said for whatever guards he might find on the way down.
*
After walking in darkness for a minute or two, he saw a light coming from further down the tunnel. However, he still could not sense any nearby presences.
~A crossroads,~ he thought to himself, once he reached the source of the light.
It was an orange gemstone, etched into the wall, with runes inscribed all around it. It emitted a constant orange light, that didn't exude even the faintest bit of heat.
Lucius studied it for a moment, before pulling out the tunic and using his claws to tattoo the runes onto its fabric. Unlike the runic chair, these ones were less complex and only consisted of ten different patterns. So there was little chance he would get them wrong.
After he was done with that, he used earth sense to try and get a feel for who was in each of the tunnels.
~Stronger readings coming from further down,~ he thought to himself.
With that, he decided to go further down.
Whatever he was looking for was definitely where all the strong people were.
