"Oh such a waste," Sessativa starts. "We could have found out so much history and research. Perhaps, with time and effort, me or someone else could restore some of this."
"Keep me well away," Durgan responds bluntly. "Last time I touched a book it flung me across the room."
Sessativa giggles, "And I thank you for triggering the trap so that I could swoop in and take the knowledge for myself."
"You know I burnt our first healing wand on that. Was it worth it?"
"Oh, definitely," she replies. "I learned so much and I got you up here, didn't I?"
Durgan stops complaining and joins the search while Sessativa casually browses the book titles for anything readable that catches her interest.
Durgan stands in the middle, curing wand in one hand and mace in the other just to look intimidating, and Sessativa at the rear hands free.
"You sure you don't want to try this helm?" Durgan asks Zork.
You open the door to a room that has stairs going up. The room is sparse but it looks like it was a bed room at one time. The bed is no longer there nor is the wardrobe or desk. You can see what remains of them as the wood slowly deteriorated. The sheets and other woven items are decayed and falls apart at the touch.
Specific Action: Zork isn't taking anything lightly, he does his own search of the room anyway while sending his dog up the stairs to sniff.
In Character: "My goodness, how many rooms has this place? The old wizard must have died from climbing all those stairs rather than age." Zork tries some dry humor.
The dog sniffs up the stairs but comes right back down without smelling anything out of sorts. If you look up the stairs you will see the stairs end at a trap door in the ceiling.
Out of Character: map is updated.