[center][h1][color=gold]Leannah[/color][/h1][/center]

[hr]

In hindsight she should have seen that one coming from a mile away. Well, seen that a trap was very much possible given the nature of this capricious deity and their pushing of people to see what they'd do for knowledge. Especially when such a being was the one whom designed this place (probably). What was this place, designed to trap her or dump her down a deep dank hole the whole way through?! She wanted to learn about that ancient past, about this deity, and frankly get enough skills and knowledge to go kill some elder beast to please the goddess she'd managed to contact. Hopefully none of the others had made such a stupidly rash decision to contact a new deity in the heat of the moment. She had a holy quest to go on, then again said goddess had admittedly good taste in catgirls as well. Hard to argue that. 

Then again, perhaps Leannah herself was simply too curious about all of this and was digging her claws too deep into things. As the old saying back home went, "curiosity killed the ca-"...n-never mind. She had walked right into that one as well, pun intended, but speaking of traps she seemed to be simply trapped in the room itself. Indeed, if this deity was a puzzle-loving trap-making sort then there might be a solution to this! Or at least that was her assumptions about all of this. Either way, looking for the clues was something she needed to do...and as she observed the room she took note of the following: 

[quote=The GM to me over Discord due to time constraints]Notably, upon first inspection
- There's a statue of what seems to be a woman in a flowing robe. She is holding a vase in her hands, and is sitting upon some sort of pillar. Water flows from the vase into a cistern below. The statue smirks knowingly. Its centered at the back of the room against the wall. Bookshelves flank either side of it.

- A robed statue is kneeling at the other end. Their face is covered by a hood, arms outstretched towards a carving in the wall. The carving is of a crescent moon, a star situated in the empty part of it. Tears seem to flow down its face into a basin below, where the water collects and flows away under the front wall. Upon their neck is a carved necklace that seems to detach from the statue.

- Another statue is tucked away on the wall opposite to the door you had walked in. A rather macabre thing this one is. A two faced bust statue that seems somewhat to resemble a pair of theater masks, split down the middle of an old man angrily shouting and a woman laughing manically. Atop the head, some sort of claw is reaching up, many tentacles and appendages reaching for the ceiling as though its trying to grab something.

-A final statue, this time on the same wall as the one you walked in on. Rather than a person, it seems to be some sort of carving. Of a tower. You might vaguely recall the same tower you saw off in the distance in the prison you woke up in. Seems as though it might be hollow.[/quote] 

Ok, other than the whole "can't read the books and such still" thing, these were what stood out the most in the room. A hollow carving, a detach-able necklace, a statue that wanted to hold something, and water flowing into a cistern. That was a good start. Since this was a god's temple, these statues and things were were likely tied to something about the lore and myths behind the god. At least that was her natural assumption. Lazhira had almost mentioned some things earlier, maybe yesterday? Yeah! She'd heard some things today and yesterday. 

First there was the wall that had closed behind her, with the hollow-seeming carving on it that resembled that damned tower back in the "magic prison we can't go back to anymore" (not that she wanted to anyways). Last she remembered was Lazhira mentioning that...ah...

[quote=Lazhira]“Like I’m sure you guys know the pretty basic stuff about the Delpithi, the Goddess of the Moon. How her Oceans birthed all life right after humans left the tower?” Lazhira shifted on her feet uncomfortably. “A lot of things say something about the ocean, the goddess tears and sealing a path.”[/quote]

Yes! Humans left the tower and the tears of a goddess sealing the path. So naturally this led her to another statue: The Hooded Figure.

The hooded figure matched this type of role well enough. Crescent moon, the moon being tied to the ocean literally and symbolically, and water or 'tears' flowing down its face and into a basin below and collecting there before flowing away underneath the front wall, aka the tears of a goddess and potentially the whole 'sealing a path' part. So this was likely the 'path' that was sealed, literally speaking potentially her way out of here that had to be opened up. That was what she supposed at this point in time anyways. It was worth a 'first educated guess' at the very least.

So...what then about the other two? That would be its down deduction and a half to try to make. 

The macabre, two-faced bust statue was easily a depiction of the God of Knowledge himself based on what Lazhira had told them about him. It reminded her of the picture book, even, which was a potential source to turn to for more information in this peculiar room. It was reaching for something, however, something that it could not grasp. Knowledge? Maybe. The Sun Crown? Not sure if that legend applied here, actually. Hmm. Maybe that necklace on The Hooded Figure?

Wait. Wait wait wait. Maybe she was onto something here. 

Ok, so The Hooded Figure could probably be representative of Delphiti (who may or may not be the one that pulled them over here). She had a detachable necklace. The two-faced bust statue was wanting to reach something, as if to grab it. So those two things made sense together on first glance. But what did it mean? If Delphiti was basically the "goddess who created life" due to the whole "life was birthed from the oceans" thing, then maybe the necklace symbolized her power or some [i]knowledge[/i] she possessed or something? In such a case, if that bust of the God of Knowledge was reaching for something Delphiti had but he didn't...but what could a God of Knowledge desire that he-...oh. Did he desire the knowledge of [b]how to create life[/b]? The one thing Delphiti was known best for doing, her oceans creating life after humans left the tower. It was a damn crazy theory, but her mind was racing and the analogues were coming to mind. It was a possible interpretation, though, if naught else. Yes. Such a thirst for knowledge, like a thirst for water, one that could only be had by a deity that wanted to maybe acquire the knowledge of [i]the one thing he didn't have knowledge of[/i]. It read like an old book of ancient Egyptian legends, or a divine twist of the tales about the Book of Thoth.   

In such a case, she could imagine a goddess who was sad the people she'd made back at her 'tower' had left. Like a loving creator depicted weeping that their creation left them alone or went astray or abandoned their original home. Like if Adam and Eve had abandoned the Garden of Eden and God had wept over it. Likewise if the God of Knowledge desired the knowledge to create life, maybe the one thing out of their reach, maybe the weeping Delphiti sealed the path to said tower, sealed the path to that-...to the prison. [b]The damn prison[/b]. She and the others had awoken in an odd tube type of thing, they all had. It was like waking up in some alien test tube or pod on a scifi show, or a clone waking up in some scifi lab with odd goo or liquid having been used as something to grow the body in. Hell it was like she'd been drowning in the ocean before she woke up in that tube, and symbolically it could be said she was 'born from the sea' ala Aphrodite in some vague manner of speaking. The goddess that sent herself and the others here had even literally [b]made[/b] them bodies to be reincarnated into this world, basically. Hell even that guardian thing-... 

Ok, she needed to organize her thoughts. 

Whoever, Delphiti or not, had brought them to this world using what remained of that old magic, that ancient technology that had been used to create people by Delphiti. However, she did not control the Guardian, she could not promise them safety beyond their initial arrival. So she [b]didn't[/b] own nor control the place, which had frankly fallen into some kind of immense ruin and looked like people had been looting the place [b]on their way out[/b]. It all made sense. Maybe. Yet she knew of it, she had access to it.  

This led into the catgirl's newest working theory, that the Stone Guardian Magic Golem Thing was a jailer made perhaps by Delphiti to keep humans [b]in[/b] the tower so they wouldn't leave her. But humans, trying to loot and leave with what they could from that place, escaped anyways. That was why it was like a prison, as it was made to try to contain the goddess' beloved humans who left. Albeit they didn't take their full haul of gear and such things with them as perhaps they were being confronted mid-escape, as evidenced by the weapons and such all over the floor of the building she'd awoken in, but that was beside the point. But why keep others from going back to the place? Wouldn't some want to go there if they found life in the world hard? 

That was where the God of Knowledge came into the picture. Desiring the secrets of creating life that Delphiti had, or perhaps specifically humans or sentient beings like them in general for all she knew, and the grieving Delphiti sealed off the path to her lab (now made an abandoned magic prison) to keep that knowledge from The Illuminator. She hid her secrets like the darkest depths of the ocean hide from all light. 

That much made the most sense so far. But what of the goddess that brought them there then? How was she tied to this? On one hand, she could be the spurned or 'broken' goddess Delphiti that watched as the world moved on and grew and then stagnated...then got bored and/or worried and snagged some souls from another world entirely to stick in custom bodies to go save it? Hell of a stretch, but maybe. On the other hand, the white-eyed child from the picture book was suspicious and yet didn't match the blue eyes and black hair of the 'goddess' during her first meeting with her after dying back on Earth. Of course being changed by ocean magic or something was possible, or for all she knew the white-eyed child was Lazhira or the God of Knowledge himself. Maybe a kid he had with Delphiti? Ok, too much theorizing beyond the focus of her working theory. Focus. She had to [b]focus[/b].

Regardless, her new current theory of a God of Knowledge wanting something 'precious' from the goddess who created life meant that guessing he wanted the 'knowledge of how to create life' was something. Whether it was right or not it was fascinating to think of, and perhaps gave her clues to get out of this room. 

Leannah would first walk over to the carving of the tower, tapping on it and trying to see if she could break it to get inside. If she could she'd see if anything was inside, praying she didn't release some ancient death curse on herself in the process, and if anything was inside she'd grab it up. After these efforts ,she'd go over to the statue of the Hooded Figure, and would try to get the necklace off of her neck. If she could get it off intact, she would take it (and if she found anything inside of the hollow tower carving) and walk over to the Two-Faced Bust statue with the hand reaching up. 

From there her plan would diverge depending on what the Tower carving yielded. If she managed to get INTO and also FIND anything inside that hollow tower carving, she'd put it on the reaching hand. If that did not work, she'd try to put the necklace on the hand. 

It was a peculiar first attempt at something, but she had all the time in the world at the moment...not that she really wanted to given the others could or could not be in danger and so forth when it came to this blasted temple.