Re-Carnated

Now that they had the femur, they decided to return to the chest in the altar room. 

Entering the room, they moved back to the chest. 

The chest was the same as it was before. The cold, heavy metal taunted them with it's impenetrable interior. They reexamined the chest. It had nothing on it except for the seam on the chest that split it down the middle. 

They took the sharpened femur in their hand, the flat, sharp side facing forward. 

Sticking the sharp end into the seam, the started to try to pry it open. 

Krrr... Krrr...

The chest wouldn't budge, at least not easily. 

Deciding to use more of their strength to force it open, they clenched their jaw, and used their strength to try to open it.

The sharp edge of the femur was wedged deep into the chest in the crack between the lid and the chest. The lid felt like it was moving slightly, giving them encouragement in regards to this method of opening the chest.

But it wasn't enough yet. 

They now doubled down, using almost all of the strength they had in their body to open it. They leveraged their body weight against the chest, to try to get it open more.

Even keeping the gap that they had open was taking all of their strength. They slowly felt their strength leave as they used too much effort.

The chest almost mocked them. The tiny gap that they had created was not enough to get substantial progress on opening it.

They then fell backwards in exhaustion, the femur in their hand. They were weary from all the effort that they had expended opening the chest.

Temporarily giving up on the chest, they rested for a while, laying near the chest. Exhaustion took over them, and they slept for the first time since they had woken up.

(sleep)

[through rest, body and it's senses slightly replenished]

They woke up laying on the cold floor, still stuck in the horrible situation. Hoping to spend their next night somewhere else, they got back to work trying to find a way out, or at least find some kind of development in the dungeon.

The first thing they did was take a complete inventory of all of the tools they had at their disposal. Gathering everything in a pile in the alter room, they took complete stock

-Rough rock

-Sharpened femur

-Robe

-Rope used as belt for robe

-Metal key

-Small portable light source

-Pile of bones

- leftovers from digested body of beast

-dead body of robe guy

Taking stock of everything, they were left with disappointment, especially regarding the amount of their items that had to do with death and corpses.

Looking around the dungeon, they looked for anything else they could use. 

They remembered the torches. Returning to the room with the tablet, they noticed the torches on the wall.

"If this dungeon is so old, and hasn't been well kept, how have the torches, and my portable light been keeping lit? It definitely wasn't the beast keeping them lit." They pondered.

The torches were wooden, with an orange glow coming out of the top. The glow wasn't as strong as fire. They were bolted to the wall with metal brackets holding them in place.

They took the rough stone out, deciding to knock one of the torches out. 

They took the stone in their hand, smashing the parts of the bracket that were attached to the wall.

[torch obtained]

[Wall bracket obtained]

They analyzed the torches. They started by hovering their hand over the torch, to sense if it gave off much heat. 

It was definitely warm, but it wasn't hot. They touched the orange glow directly, it didn't hurt.

They brought both the bracket and the torch back to their pile of goods.

Being satisfied with their current assortment of goods, they decided to re-analyze the objects present in the rooms, namely the altar and the tablet.

They started with the altar. Earlier, they saw that there were engravings in it, but they didn't think much of it. They previously thought it was just ornamental.

Looking back at it, they noticed that the engravings on the altar were similar to the characters written on the tablet. 

They were different in some ways though. While the characters on the tablet were circular and simple, the characters on the altar were more elaborate, having many lines and complex shapes. 

This further solidified their idea that the altar had something to do with magic or sacrifice, and that it would be important later.

They now went back to the tablet, the large tan one in the third room.

They reanalyzed the tablet. Still being unable to read, the written portion of the tablet offered no help. But, the engravings gave them something.

The picture they remember seeing was the one of the hooded figure being praised by the poor looking people, but now, they noticed some more developed engravings.

Looking at the one they saw before, they noticed something new, faint wings around the hooded figure. The obvious thing to do with wings was the winged statue in the same room. 

Looking at the figure, sure enough, the wings were the same as in the picture.

"Maybe it's some kind of host thing, where the winged thing occupies the body of someone. Maybe it's occupying me?"

The thought crossed their mind. 

"If so, then why am I so weak? Being a flesh thing now, who can't open a chest, i'm not really feeling some kind of divine power..."

Shrugging, they moved on back to their analysis of the figures.

They turned their attention to another picture on the tablet, albeit a more faded one. 

This picture, surprisingly contained a picture of the beast that they killed. In the picture, the hooded figure was holding some kind of strange weapon. It looked like a spear, but the tip was strange, the end looked like a syringe, in fact they were sure it was. 

On the other side of the engraving, there was the beast he killed earlier, seemingly laying down in submission to the hooded figure. 

It seemed like whatever the beast was, it was subservient to the cult.