@mrz84
Zataka, you check your pack for a lantern, or at least you try to. It seems you misplaced it in the room with the first machine when you were rescuing the engineer! You resort to enchanting your blade with flames, filling the chamber with a gentle orange light.
You catch a glimmer from the corner of your eye, but as you approach it is consumed by the light of your blade. Sancireph tells you to quiet your blade, and when you do so the walls of the passage reveal blue runes, faintly glowing in the dark.
You cannot discern their purpose. Still, you follow them until you come upon a screen door, blocking off a study. Papers and books are scattered across the desk and floor and there is an ominous circle of these runes in the center of the room.
You presume that the chieftain of the ogres is not--in the traditional sense--a beast. You also realize that you have reached a dead end. Is there another way out of this place?
What do you do?
=====
@Tamamo
Rossaria, your dinner guest begins to speak:
"I'm a surveyor, actually." He talks with his mouth full. Uncivilized.
"The baron sent me out here to assess the value of this property so it could be relisted. So you can understand my trepidation when the two of you were here. I was led to believe this place was abandoned."
You ask why he would bother knocking then.
"Well, you know how it goes with old buildings like this. Sometimes they get used by squatters, and I didn't really want to come in if there were any vagrants living inside. Not without some soldiers, at least."
You ask if he considers you to be one of these 'vagrants'.
"Oh, no, of course not. Two lovely ladies offering a veritable feast? That doesn't say transient to me."
He yawns. The herb are beginning to take effect.
"Dear, I'm terribly sorry. I should get going, I have a long ride back and I need to inform the baron that his records are-"
He slumps over into his meal. Red approaches.
"Well then, they're trying to repossess my manor, are they? This city has gone too long without feeling the sting of my power. I hate to waste a perfectly good dinner, but he might make a useful spy. How should we proceed, my dear?"
She places her hands on her hips, waiting for a response.
What do you do?
=====
@TheDarkOne
Sancireph, as you cling to the darkness you notice the ominous glow of blue runes on the walls of the passageway. Zataka's blade ignites and scares these symbols away with the touch of light, so you ask him to quench the flames so you can examine the symbols. They are blatantly magic, but not of a manner with which you are familiar. You can feel power radiating off of them, though; they are more than directions or secret messages. The passageway lined with runes leads to a screen door, which conceals a study. Looking inside, you see a ring of these runes on the floor and various research papers scattered on a desk and floor. It looks as if they have been knocked away forcefully by an unfamiliar party: this place was recently ransacked.
You recognize this as the den of some manner of wizard. Initially you assume Telivar is working more dark magic, but upon examining the notes you ascertain that it is not his handwriting, or even his purview of magic. The text is written in code but you are easily able to break it; the writer has swapped vowels with vowels and consonants with consonants.
Most of these seem to be orders addressed to the ogres. Which means that their leader probably isn't just some other ogre. If the dwarves of Audamar have this person prisoner... are they aware of just how threatening a wizard like this might be?
This spot is a dead end. You can go back and look for another passage, but you feel you might fare better with a little light. The cave is cold, after all, and your infrared sight is only barely differentiating walls from walkways.
What do you do?