The Witch and the Lich; Doors and Interviews

Credits; Rea, Krell,

The first protection any vault had was a very well concealed entrance.  Rea was pushing against every inch of the cavern, which they had already managed to pin down as the entrance based on thorough scans of the area, while Krell hovered in middair, plying every detection spell in his arsenal towards locating the hidden entrance.  To the unobservant, or at least to those who lacked adventuring experience, it would have looked as though Krell was simply meditating, sitting crosslegged and tranquil a good two feet off the ground.  The same folks would have assumed Rea was frantic, searching desperately as she ran her hands across the rocks.  Both assumptions were wrong; Krell was more determined and swift in his checks than Rea was bothering to be.  Both knew, though not by experience, that their energy would be more of use once within than it would be here. 
Finally Krell spun towards a spot on the rock and as he looked at it he saw Rea push her hand through the very spot his search had revealed. 
"Found it!  Anything I should know about?"
"Yes, the rock will become solid if anything is pushed into it."
Rea tugged lightly and found her hand now lodged in solid stone.  She didn't panic, but she didn't make a real effort to pull it out either. 
"I knew that.  Anything else I should know?"
"Yeah, there's a half dozen canisters of presurized liquid nitrogen rigged to fill the room if the stones break."
She turned towards him as best she could with her hand planted in the wall and held up the pendant he'd given her for Junsrew.  He'd made it thinking she'd have to fight Arcania, so it was enchanted to counteract even the strongest freezing affects.  He drew a ward around the door and set his hand to it.  When the canisters broke, instead of freezing him they would freeze the stone of the door.  They'd be able to break it open and continue from there as soon as Rea broke herself free.  She set her free hand against the stone and pulled her other out, causing long cracks to spread across the rock.  The canisters broke and he saw the whole wall gain the sheen of something that has been truely frozen.  Rea shook off the cold and punched the ice, sending shards of it across the small lobby.  A pair of turrets dropped out of the ceiling, but Krell snapped twice before they were able to fire, rending them from within with a flame of devestation. 
Rea flipped over the receptionist's desk and sat in a long vacant chair in the middle of the small chamber. 
"Let's see; boring, boring, boring, map, boring, boring, ooh!  I'd forgotten about that."  She held up a dusty copy of Business Feature.  On its cover he saw her, holding up a copy of the magazine with the same cover. 
"How did you get into Business Feature?"
"When would have been a better question, but ok.  I own majority share of Carrionelle Cosmetics.  Have since..."  She stopped and checked the date on the magazine, then turned the pages a few times before looking back up.  "About since 1278 AD, I'd been at a convention when Carrie was just getting started and I liked her product so much I bought stock.  Every year I'd go to the meetings and I'd come away feeling like it would be a good idea to buy a little more, so I did.  Then one year they were having a vote and the guy they were voting on had been belittling me so i voted against him.  Much to my surprise I found that I had a 70% share of the company.  I've been keeping track of it since and I still go to the meetings.  I did this interview right around then when a very clever reporter managed to actually track me down.  I gave him the interview and had my picture taken.  It was a lot of fun, but I'm sure you've been interviewed before."
He had, but fun was hardly the way he'd have described them.  The press had tried to throw him under the grindwheel when he'd been made an admiral.  A lot of folks had considered it to be favoritism by Kvald and he'd had to work very hard to convince them otherwise.  And then there was his actions in dealing with the cult; more than a few people had wanted to know why he'd taken the course of action he did, and he'd taken a lot of fire over it.  Still, the idea that Rea fundamentally owned the largest and oldest cosmetics producer in the empire was quite a doozy to try and wrap the mind around.  But the magazine had granted one useful piece of information. 
"This place has been around since before the Shade Invasion."
"Yes, nicely done.  We should keep that in mind while we move through here; it might come in handy knowing when the last time the vault's defenses were upgraded."