When Lazhira spoke about her background and her relationship with the temple, Narkissa didn’t really buy it, and she was sure her fellow worldly companions from earth didn’t, either. She felt that Lazhira clearly had reasons to hide her ability to fight, or her ability to safely navigate the region around the temple. Whether or not that meant she had ulterior motives that were harmful to her guests remained to be seen, but Narkissa was of the option that a young girl this cute and innocent surely couldn’t be harmful, especially after housing and feeding her and her group for a night, and now, aiding Leannah with an injury.

Whatever it was, though, she was very knowledgeable about… the god of knowledge, and Narkissa was able to easily absorb the details and scenes in the temple after her explanation. She did find it strange that he could revoke the knowledge of papermaking from people. After all, if paper still existed, it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out what it was made of and reconstitute a method after trial and error. If she didn’t know better about the strange laws and beings that governed this world, she would have immediately discarded those words as exaggerated legend… but she wasn’t quite so sure. 

Was it simply a case of knowledge lost over time due to societal collapse, or perhaps a far more violent end to a relationship with a vengeful god? Did the curse that Lazhira mentioned have to do with it? And how recent was that event, if it were true? Considering that many of the things in the temple would have deteriorated after a few mere years without care, Narkissa couldn’t help but to feel a faint form of dread building up in the back of her head that something might have gone terribly wrong in this temple… and more recently than what things would immediately suggest, if her hypothesis proved correct. 

Like Novak, she pondered over the meaning of the murals, and then at the idol, the Illuminator, the Kyrinth… the fact that the answers cascaded into more questions was unnerving, and Narkissa couldn’t shake the ominous feeling that was pervading through her body. 

On the other hand, she was absolutely giddy over one of the books she found. She immediately recognized the tome as a book on maritime architecture based on the diagrams and sketches within the book—cross sections of hulls, planking, and various other ship-related material. While Narkissa did know some actual methods of timber shipbuilding –she’d been involved in that experimental archaeology effort in launching the replica of that Revolutionary War-era French frigate a few years back—actually having a book like this on hand would be fascinating to decipher and see how the natives here built their wooden oceangoing vessels compared to how people on earth did, and what sort of differences there were. 

She had to try very, very hard to not sit down right there in the temple and engross herself in the book. Instead, after flipping a few more pages, she reluctantly closed it and glanced at what her companions were doing, keeping the tome very close to her chest all the while. 

And well, she looked up just in time to see them engaging in some very reckless and dangerous acts. 

[b]“My god, are you sure you two know what you’re doing?”[/b] Between trying to force that orb into the slot and potentially activating whatever dangerous or strange function there was to this temple, and Leannah jumping about the failing masonry, she really didn’t want to be standing in the wrong place. 

Deciding that wherever Lazhira was standing was probably the safer place, she made it her business to be near her.

[b]“So, Lazhira. How long has this temple been abandoned for, anyway?”[/b]