Once you’re out of the well, you find on inspection that it looks as though one end of this thing will slide off.
Melon assumes it’s some sort of scroll case and slides off the end, pointing it away from the group just in case it’s some sort of dangerous magical device.
“Nice work guys. Hopefully we can use it to open that door. Hey, Pasta, you want to climb down again and see if there is anything else down there?”
Nothing untoward happens when you uncork the case. Peering inside, you find something about two handspans long and as thick as your finger. It seems to be made of some hard white ivory-like material, filigreed with fine gold wire and some tiny red gems. One end is perceptibly thicker than the other.
“Hey, that could sell for quite a lot in town! What if we just dump the urn somewhere, tell the dude it’s all taken care of, sell this thing, split the value, and then go on to the next town? By the time they realize they’ve been had, we’ll be long gone.”
“Anyway, mind if I take a look at it and more carefully assess its value?”
“Now now, Auto. We’ve already given him our word.” - If anyone responds with “Hey, -I- didn’t give anyone my word!” Melon responds with “Symbolically.”
Melon lets Auto take the item. “Frankly, I’m thinking we should put it back in the well before we leave. If it helps us, great, but I don’t know if I can condone what amounts to grave-robbing.”
“Grave-robbing? Since when do graves have warehouses and wells in them? No, this stopped being a mere crypt a long time ago.”
Auto carefully examines the truncheon-thingy, taking especial note of its retail value.
//Wait, did you take the truncheon or the expensive-looking object that was inside of it? I was under the impression that you took the latter.
“Anyone want to try waving it at the door? Either that, and my personal favorite, we go back to town and have a beer or I start chopping down the door so we can get this urn thingy wrapped up and figure out what that map is all about.”
I don’t suppose our Pastafarian had enough foresight to take “Detect Magic” today, did he?
Can I in my Wizarding glory try to see if that thing seems like something I could use, and would want to keep rather than letting our greedy thief get his grubby hands on it to sell it away?
How silly of me, I thought they were one and the same. I took the shiny thing with gems of course.
@ToeJam, I’m already holding onto it, but I’ll let you examine it while I continue to hold onto it. If it turns out its something you can use, at that point we can discuss our options.
This thing fits the approximate description of a wand of some sort, many of which will work only in the hands of a wizard and then only when a command word or phrase is uttered. OTOH you have no hard evidence yet that it’s even magical…
“Auto give it up, let one of the magicky types wave it and scream some random words”
“Fine, but only if you give it back after you fail.”
Hands over to whoever
I’ll take the wand and try to wave it around next to the door, drawing the seven-pointed star that we saw earlier.
It doesn’t seem to be a wand of Open In The Name Of The Prophet.
“umm, it’s not that then…, perhaps some magical word?..”
“mellon?”
“Edhro!?”
“Mellon? I didn’t know you were Hispanic.”
what?