The passageway carved inside of the cliff was incredibly wide, making one wonders if it had been built by giants but clearly, the carvings suggested that the tools used where sized for human sized beings, who most likely had hands or appendages similar to humans as well.
Theli kept this to himself and just the let the less observant delude themselves about enormous beings, he and Rolanh by extension, somewhat lagged behind the group.
"I am sure you'll have the occasion to analyse all of this on the way back, separating from the group is never a good idea even if only by a little" spoke Rolanh as he looked up at the very faint murals, barely noticeable, the whole hallway was superbly conserved, except for the carvings.
"Huh..."
"You noticed it didn't you? They were deliberately damaged, look at this, the strikes left its integrity compromised and it most likely degraded more after the initial attempt at destruction but clearly, someone punched this hardened rock with their bare fist, there is even some bloody spot left, although it isn't immediately visible" explained the mage as he placed his palm against the ravaged murals.
Rolanh looked back the group that was getting further without paying much attention to them, they were looking behind their backs but weren't bothering to wait for them.
When he looked back at Theli, the mage was still up to his silent magical hijinks, nothing that Rolanh had a good grasp off, he swung a spear and occasionally a sword without any mana, not even to augment himself, nothing but greasy, muscle sweat and system stats, just as it was intended.
"Heh" Theli let out a chuckle before carrying on walking forward.
Rolanh knew that particular chuckle, the magical bastard was up to something and it was never a good sign.
"Hum, Theli? What did you find out to start laughing like one of those villains in children's stories?" asked the spearman concerningly, the least worst thing this laugh had preceded was making everyone present at the time jump into a lake of acid because, 'it will only attack the outermost layer of your skin and nothing else'.
Thus, Rolanh would prefer at least being in on it before it occured, it wasn't like trying to stop Theli wasn't a viable option.
"Hey Rolanh, you said that separating was never a good idea right?"
"Huh, yes but that is not quite the subject-" Theli cut him off and started explaining why he was wrong.
"How many times has separating saved us? Like, imagine this situation, there is a big, bad monster, what is the best outcome..." the mage ignored his party member's plea to stop his lecture and carried on.
Theli put his arm in front of Rolanh to stop him as the group before them entered a wide room, so large in fact, that the end of it was obscured by a fog.
"That one person tries to go and kill it while the others run or that everyone go try and kill it together?" he asked.
"They would have more chances in succeeding if they all went-"
"That's not how you should think Rolanh!"
"If the sole person fails, they fail and meanwhile the other can go away, if they succeed, then everything is good but if everyone goes and fails, no one is escaping anything! It is simply stupid to go for such a risky fight when you could just try and run while a brave heart goes and confront the beast" explained Theli and Rolanh just tilted his head to the side.
"You are advocating for the least dangerous route? That's inconsistent..." he remarked correctly but the mage was fazed at all by his true statement, taking illogical risk appeared to be one of Theli's schtick.
"I don't need to be consistent Rolanh, I am a human, making sense and being a logical being is the antithesis of humanity" spoke the mage as he waved his hands in the spear man's face.
"I feel like I recall you saying that you were a very logical person-" to respond to that, Theli flicked the man's forehead and said:
"Did you not listen to what I just said? Anyways, let us carry on, things should get interesting soon enough"
"And here I thought you stopping me was supposed to illustrate your explanation on separating the group" muttered Rolanh, Theli was definitely unpredictable.
The worst kind of unpredictable, where you are certain there is a clear logic, but there really isn't even any obscure pattern, just a thousand of insane people making decisions for a single person, that was how associating with Theli on a regular basis felt.
The boar man at the head of the group crouched down to take a better look at a skeleton on the ground, the skeleton was definitely similar to that of a human except for some subtle differences in proportions and shapes.
It was covered in thick cobwebs but no spiders were to be seen anywhere, it was stuck in a very clear position, the person had been crawling or perhaps swimming, since its right arm was quite a bit high in the air.
Maybe they were just reaching for something, either way, the skeleton's lower half was crushed by a rectangular debris, which clearly didn't fall from the ceiling as it was intact, seemed more like it had been thrown at them.
One aspect of this skeleton and the many other littering the gigantic room was the fact that the center of their foreheads seemed to all have been pierced or broken through.
There were some variations but judging from most of their positions and the injury itself, it seemed like something or someone was responsible for this.
In the very center of the room, a large tower connecting the ground to the ceiling, the thing was absolutely mundane, it was covered in symbols but it was clear for Theli that the symbols held no power and never had, they must have been believed to hold some significance for the former residents however.
That could probably be changed with some testing but for now, the interior of the tower was going to be entered and Theli needed to get a good look before everything was compromised by the other adventurers and such.
The inside was... Empty, completely empty except for a single thing in the center and two skeletons.
One of the skeletons seemed to have been backing off while the other was standing over them and plunging their hands right through their forehead, having seemingly caught grasp of something.
The one having their skull broken into was pulling on a very unassuming looking lever, next to that lever, an expertly carved, grey and dull mineral.
Taking a better look at the skeleton committing murder, its forehead was intact and on it, was implanted another, smaller, carved mineral of the same color as the larger one.
Clearly, this while ruin they were all in wasn't a living space, there wasn't anything to accomodate anyone, it was specifically built for this lever and crystal, no one here seemed to have been carrying weapons at all and if considering that the killer in the act was the same as the other skeletons, then it might have simply been because these people fought barehanded.
Clearly, the attacker and everyone else had suddenly died, they were all stuck in position that shouldn't be possible for skeleton to be in, they should have collapse into seperate bones or at least fallen over.
It was like they weren't quite dead while definitely not being alive.
Theli squinted his eyes at the lever and smirked as an idea of what might have happened appeared in his mind and also an idea of what would happen were someone to push the lever back into its original position.