[GROUP DECISION]Deke's Dilemma: To Treasure, or Not to Treasure

First I'm going to recap for Javan's sake as he wasn't here. Javan, please read carefully after the recap, as what we are currently deciding hinges on you and K/Zeiss.

Recap:
Our adventurers finished their rest without encountering anything. Regained spell slots and full hp have been awarded. They chose the door to the left on the south wall. Through that door was a Transmutation-enchanted hallway with two Dwarf corpses at the end. In order to reach either side of the hallway, one had to backpedal toward it. One Dwarf possessed a bow and appeared to have stuck an arrow in his throat, the other a greataxe and shot with arrows front and back. They must have not figured out the problem, and the bowman, seeing death as the only way out, shot the disagreeable axeman in the back and in his front as he charged him, then stuck himself on his own arrow, which definitely took some guts. Deke voices that he would have preferred the axe himself.

The following was found on the Dwarves: medium scale male, one greataxe, one bow, three enchanted arrows(couldn't figure them out), one enchanted cloak of Muffling(footsteps only), a journal written in Dwarvish, an adventure kit, and a helmet(maybe?). Keeping the arrows and journal, Deke gave the cloak to Semus, who definitely saw a use for it and put it on.

Through the door at the end of the hallway, the group came across some stairs. Between the two flights of stairs, Deke discovered a hammer behind glass set in a wall, with a glyph of warding around it. Semus managed to get past it with his thieve's tools and retrieved it. Through the door(a Titan doorway with a small "cat door" for small-sized creatures) was a T corridor, with the left and right paths curving toward the south(direction away from us). Going upward to the right, the group came across a hole with planks over it, easily crossed one at a time.

A voice called up from the hole, some 80 feet down as we found out when Evie threw a glowing rock down there. After a few efforts to question or assure the voice, it became clear that the voice was responding with the same lines in a consistent pattern, and just barely consistent in tone and pitch: "Help me please, I can't feel my legs!" "What are you waiting for, I'm dying down here!" "Wendy, I think you hurt me pretty bad!" "Hey, I think I see some treasure down here, we're gonna be rich!"

Deke could tell that the voice was clearly insincere in its claims. Semus outright suspected a trap. Chris sat on the fence. Evie did not believe the voice either. Deke met Chris halfway and decided to go down the other side of the corridor at the T intersection, the left of where they turned. The corridor ended at a door with a stone gargoyle perched in an alcove set in the hall near the door. The two of them realized its eyes were following them each as they got closer. Deke detected enchantments of every school of magic on it, and the two of them decided the venture was not worth it and returned to the group.

At this point the GM ruled that Detect magic is a 1st level spell(apparently a free 1st level spell) again. Using it would allow the caster to detect trap-related magic for 10 minutes. House rule still maintains that magic not related to traps is freely detectable by Mages as a free cantrip. Rolled to determine if Deke's 10 minutes up and they were, retconning a spell slot as "Detect Magic" and expending it.

As they continued, they came upon another T intersection, only this time the corridor to either side was straight. At the end to the left was a spike protruding from a wall. On either side was a hole in the ceiling, clearly part of the architectural design. Semus snuck out through the hallway to find stuff, and found a backpack that had clearly fallen from the hole in the ceiling in the corridor west of the group's position at the T. The only thing salvageable was a scroll. Holding onto that, he investigated further in the same corridor, finding a room which we'll get to in a bit. He returned the scroll to me(Third, I'm gonna need a reminder for what the scroll said or what language it was written in) and sneaked toward the spike to check it out, when we entered initiative.

Two 2x2 gelatinous masses, which we dubbed "slimes", came oozing ever-so-slowly by comparison to our PC creature speeds from either side of the hall(two total: one to the west, one to the east). We managed to defeat them, with K barely hanging on before Evie cast a cure on him. Spells spent: A 1st level Cleric spell, 2 first-level Mage spells. Deke and Chris are at almost-full HP.

End of recap.

Now, remember that room I talked about? Well, Semus noticed a swirly pattern over the whole floor. Not sure if "swirly is the correct word, but it was distinct. There is a big, shiny gem in this room, next to a Titan skeleton wearing armor clutching a sword and a shield in each hand. I think there might have been some other nondescript treasure in the room, I don't remember.

So, after the fignt, Deke decides to go look for himself near the entrance to the room. Using Detect Magic in "cantrip mode", he discovers that the spell permeates wherever he can see in a 12-square range as normal, except the magic noticeably stops, or is blocked, from the inside of the room. Excitedly, he returns to the group and informs them that, to his logic, something must be very important or of quality magical properties for the room to be protected from Detect Magic.

So he pitches his idea to the party, which I'm going to do now. I managed to get Semus interested by saying "Semus, there's a valuable shiny in that room."
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Deke says to the group(roleplay):
"Listen, I want go go into that room and find out what's in there, but I need a plan and I need the numbers to back me up. We've made it through that battle just fine[translation: we managed to recover HP quickly and use few spell slots in offense and healing afterward], so if we come up with a plan in case that Titan skeleton's not a rest, 4 of us should be able to deal with it just fine. Now, Elbren, I've seen you fight, and I'm impressed, and for this I gotta have you in on it. Chris, you've got armor and potions to protect yourself and spells to protect others, so I've got to have you too. Semus, you're good at what you do, and aside from being another number, having an element of surprise that's consistent will be most helpful. Cleric, if you're up for it you can take Chris' place, but you'll need his potions.

"I'm willing to go ahead and take another break and recuperate spells to gain the highest advantage we can, but whether Chris or Evie decides this is worth it, I'm going to need you, Elbren. I know you've got what it takes to ruin that skeleton's day, and besides, we all stand a better chance of getting through these ruins alive if we don't split up. If the majority of the group agrees, we all go together. So, Elbren, Evie. Are you with me?"
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So that's what's happening. If enough of us agree to fight this skeleton or whatever's inside, we come up with a plan of action and we make it happen.
If too few people are willing to try(including me), we let it go. And if it would make it easier to decide, we'll take another long rest to recover those spell slots we used up to get our full kick in combat.

We've got 6 days to think this through. Give it some thought and post your decision/discussions here.

First, sorry for not being here yesterday. I was tired and decided to take a nap, but apparently I was way more tired than I thought, since my alarm went off and I simply ignored it until 2am my time, since I somehow slept with my earphones on.

Second, if you wish to fight a titan-sized armored skeleton, I'd say it looks like a possible boss and it might have friends, so a full rest is advised. That said, I'd do it.

Now, hopefully, we'll get out of that damn dungeon in a month's time or so.

I'm with you, but i'm less afraid of that skeleton than i am of the room itself. As i reckon, the titan seems to have died trying to reach for the gem, with no readily apparent cause of death. This, after we came across that adventurer that suddenly killed his partner and then himself (in a rather grizzly manner, at that), the help-me-trap and then the acid flubbers. I haven't forgotten the undead kobolds we had to deal with, but i can't shake the feeling that what we'll face in that room will far more asymmetrical that one undead titan. Really wishing i'd taken the hit from that sludge and saved my rewind for that room right now.

The scroll as a "Knock" spell.

Also, there's no cantrip for "detect magic" period. I just moved it back to the first level slot that it previously was at. I thought they had just weirdly put it at first level and moved it down, but it seems like they've hinged a lot of their stuff on not being able to have detect magic up all the time, so it got moved back up.

Spell scroll of Knock, thanks. Okay. What are we saying I did then? Should we say my "magic sense"?

K, you've got a point. We're gonna have to walk into that room to do anything in it, so going to sleep and recovering our spell slots is going to be essential, because we will want the Detect Magic spell. Javan, when the Dwarves died, they didn't come back from the dead, or they would have attacked us if we tried to search them. It's possible that the Titan, being a Titan and I would assume rarely seen around these parts(Kobold mine), died at least a hundred years ago. Still, it would probably be best to be ready for it just in case.

So as of right now the plan is taking a long rest to recover Detect Magic and avoiding the giant gem. I think that in order to be safe, we should all step inside the entrance before doing anything else, and if nothing happens, we can have Evie throw a glowing rock in there to see better.

So from Third's description of the room (what I remember) is this:
The armour is magical. The weapons are useless (degraded over time). The gem is probably trapped, if the floor leading up to it isn't.
The floor is covered in multiple coloured tiles, but there is no discernible pattern.

Just for the record, while the gem is probably priceless, Seamus has no real interest in it. It is too big to be useful to a kender. That said, he'll help you steal it, because he's good at things like that, but he's not keeping it.

Oh, Javan, one other thing I forgot to mention: among the dissipated slime of one of the jellies was an ornate key, with cracks etched into its design, and it clearly did not look like it belonged in these ruins or opened anything in them.

Semus recognized it as a key to a tomb, and Evala recognized it as one such key to locked interments/tombs, or a method of burial that can be securely locked, specifically the resting places of Fiendish creatures. We ruled that, since it was not part of the design of these ruins, that someone must have entered them with it in their possession, and lost it to these slimes as a result of being enveloped and consumed. So we have that, but we probably won't find anything in the ruins to unlock with it.

Deke's going to hold onto it for now. It feels warm to the touch to Deke and Semus, but Evie felt uncomfortable around it when she got close to look at it. The three of them were the only ones who inspected it.

Third, did you say that there was writing on it?

Let's inspect the room and battle that skeleton, sure.

There is no writing on it.

Change of plans. We can do a short rest instead, and have Deke and Chris roll a hit die each to recover hp. The short rest will allow me to activate my 1/day Arcane Recovery to get back some spell slots(I've actually only spent 3 1st level spells since our last rest, so I'll have all of my slots back), and prepare spells for them, one being Detect Magic. Zeiss won't get his one expended slot back, but that's marginal.

Is it possible to prepare slots with duplicates of one spell?

Yes, you can prepare duplicates of spells. You could have all of your level 1 spells be one type if you really want to.

Well, that certainly ended differently than I expected, but I'm glad. A boss fight would have been worse.

Third, I'm taking Draconic as my bonus language from the Int increase, so I'd like to put this into my character background.
Deke was learning Draconic from some people fluent in it while he was under Ofidia's subjugation, but he could never quite nail it. While escorting the Kobolds through the ruins, he'd been listening to them speak, and was starting to gain an ear for generic meanings associated with their body language and responses. When he comes back to the realm of the living, he'll "feel" smarter, and suddenly all that knowledge and teaching that went through him will come coherently flooding back from the stubborn recesses of his mind, and he'll be capable of understanding and speaking Draconic.

Also, my cat is currently sitting on my corpse. It's clawing at my face, nibbling ears and exposed fingers, and licking the wound on my forearm.

So I asked that gargoyle to tell me everything it knows(about magic), can I just add a few things?

What sort of building were the ruins before? castle, institute, etc? What was the name of the building? What role did the master's gargoyle(Damus) serve at this place of learning? Teacher, owner, inventor?

I suppose if you happen to be resurrected you could ask him those things.

Curse my(character's) hubris.