The Sword is Mightier than the Quill!

Rifkin hadn’t actually seen the unrelenting and seemingly unkillable slime creature, but he’d heard the panicked screams from the men below. Screams of true fear drawn from tested men; men of action. They'd all escaped, but somehow he just knows that the abhorrent creature is still silently searching for them, slowly oozing up the stone steps behind and below them.

Fortu, seeing Arowe, Liga Bur and Barbella examining the glass cabinet, moves straight over to the ornate metal door in the opposite corner of the spacious room.

It's large, heavy and definitely cast out of the same cold-iron that the outer doors and spears were made of. It also has a full-sized embossed image of an eyepatch wearing, crowned and bearded man, his stockinged legs planted wide with his right hand, palm out and fingers splayed. Fortu recognises the features but, beyond the eyepatch, can see some differences. The figure strongly resembles Sir Briefadel and is of a similar age, but is markedly stockier. His Father; Lord Urdurel perhaps? Something's wrong though, as the iron is weirdly discoloured and warped. It's as if the door had been super-heated and, while soft and pliant, forcibly pushed out of the way, before being wedged back into place. 

As Fortu gets to within touching distance, the iron moulding speaks... Or attempts to at least. It sounds like words but muffled and distorted through partially melted lips. The Gladiator scowls though and activates the magic mouth for a second time. Listening harder this time, he can just make it out, for as garbled as it is, it's still in the common tongue.

"Halt, whether you be friend or fiend. If you know the answer to this question, through you may go... What was my beloved Daughter's secret middle name?"

From behind the broad-shouldered Pit-Fighter, Rifkin's slightly arched, elven-ish eyebrows shoot up. After quickly rifling through his overstuffed knapsack, he starts to furiously flick through the tattered remains of the Gnome; Grimcrack’s diary. Despite the Bard not being able to actually read the Gnomish script, Arowe had underlined certain words and passages in the loose scraps that seemed, potentially important. Finally, finding the page he’d been searching for, Rifkin looks up to see the smiling Fortu cutting horizontally through the metal figure’s knees. The armoured Fighter's already more than halfway through slicing a large rectangular block out of the thick cold-iron door with his astonishing new sword. Sighing softly, and knowing it's too late to make any difference, the Bard doesn’t have the heart to announce what he’d found…

Instead, Rifkin just whispers the answer into the cool, still air around him…

“Lamenta Angela Urderal.”

‘Angela’. Clever. A secret name no witch, fiend or demon would even dare think, let alone say aloud.