Blimm's greatest triumph, according to Clagg, was the creation of a large mystic gemstone, infused with arcane energy. The stone was called the Golem's Eye, and apparently was lost along with Blimm's knowledge and the location of the asura's tomb.
Until now. Clagg had uncovered that knowledge, and rounded up a krewe in the asura fashion: talents gathered together with a specific goal. For this goal, that meant spellcaster, muscle, trapspringer, and leadership, the leadership supposedly provided by Clagg and unquestioned by the rest, entered the crypts in search of the Golem's Eye.
"Why have we stopped?" Clagg shouted from the back of the marching order.
"We're stuck," said Dougal, trying to keep the relief out of his voice.
He was faced with a simple thing, a door bound in bands of iron. Clagg piloted his golem forward and shook his head at the human's reluctance.
"Open it," said Clagg.
"Can't," said Dougal. "It's not locked, it's stuck. Swollen in the frame. The lock doesn't matter. It might as well be a wall."
"I know how to handle walls," said Clagg. "Gyda?"
The norn stepped up and motioned for the human and asura to step aside. Dougal pulled back, half hoping for some trap he hadn't seen to suddenly reveal itself.
Gyda stood in front of the door, staring at it, and for a moment Dougal thought the norn was trying to wither the door with her glare. Then she growled a deep, feline growl. White fur began to sprout from her exposed flesh, and for a moment it was as if her armored form were overlaid with another, ghostly image of a great beast. Then the image solidified, and Gyda was transformed into a hulking two-legged feline, her pelt snow white with black spots, her armor and weapons subsumed into the new creation.
Gyda had summoned her totem, the snow leopard. She sprang forward, her heavy paws slamming into the door.
The door held, but the hinges did not, and the entire door flew off its frame and back into the room. Even Dougal was impressed with the norn's strength and prowess, and he started to say, "That was very…"
His praise died in his throat as Gyda snorted and said, "That is why your people are dying out and better races are taking your place."
Dougal reddened with anger but just pressed past Gyda, holding his torch high, into another passage with more bones lining the wall. Dougal was convinced that Divinity's Reach, the shining human city, was built on a mountain of bones.
"One thing I never understood about Blimm…" Dougal called back over his shoulder to Clagg.
Clagg cackled. "I would guess a bookah like you could fill Blimm's tomb with the things you don't understand," he said.
Dougal ignored the crack. "Bookah" was an asuran term for humans, and not a very complimentary one. "I always heard that asura traditionally burn their dead. But not Blimm. Why did he build a tomb in the first place?"
"At the end of his life, he didn't believe in the Eternal Alchemy: that we are all part of a greater equation," said Clagg. "Blimm considered himself a function apart. That's likely why he made so much progress with necromantic constructs, using bone and dead flesh in his golemtric creations. He was willing to test ideas no lesser asura would consider."
"And since he didn't fit in with other asura, he didn't want any of them to enjoy the results of his research," said Dougal.
"Close, but that's not quite all of it," said Clagg. "He kept strange company in his later years. Humans. Necromancers. No offense, sapling," he added over his shoulder. Killeen responded with a grunted moan.
"Sounds full of himself," said Gyda. The norn's interjection surprised Dougal, who had guessed she wouldn't bother listening to Clagg and him blather on. "But then, what asura isn't?"
Clagg barked a cold laugh at that. "Many of my fellows have outsized egos, I agree, but Blimm was a raving paranoiac on top of that. They say that some of the best minds were the most disturbed. And Blimm was definitely disturbed."
The passage beyond opened into a wide hall lit by unnatural light. At the far end, a staircase made of polished green stone banded in bronze led up to a great brazen door flanked by great bowls of blue-green flame that flickered from unnatural sources. The gilded frame of the door was carved with the swooping rays and tangents of the asuran alphabet, which danced in the unearthly radiance. Dougal, despite himself, was speechless.
"Gentlefolk," said Clagg smugly, tucking away his glowing map, "we have arrived. Welcome to Blimm's tomb."
They climbed the steps three abreast, Dougal flanked and overshadowed by the larger norn and asura-piloted golem. The stairs themselves were wide and flat, almost a ramp up to great double doors.
Dougal shot a glance at Killeen, slung to the golem's back like a child in a cradleboard. She managed a weak smile and tried to raise an arm. Perhaps Clagg's potion was having some effect, or the sylvari's own recuperative powers were kicking in.
They reached the top. Dougal feeling like a supplicant in the great temple. A large steel bas-relief image, as tall as Dougal himself, hung to one side, as if emerging from the wall itself. It portrayed the image of a golem of the ancient style staring back at all who approached. A bright red gem sat affixed in the carving's stubby head. Gyda gasped at the sight of it.
The norn reached out and pried the gem from the door. She considered it for a moment, then squeezed it in her bare hand as if it were an overripe nut. It crunched between her fingers, and a moment later she opened her fist to let a handful of pink dust cascade from it.
"A fake," she said with a dismissive sigh. "To have found such a grand treasure so easily would have shown a real lack of imagination on the part of your Blimm."
Clagg scoffed. "You really think that an asura like Blimm would be foolish enough to leave the Golem's Eye mounted on the outside of the door?"
Dougal barely stifled a laugh at the scorn dripping from Clagg's lips. It was good to see someone else at the end of Clagg's verbal lash.
"I have seen things far more foolish in my own lands," Gyda said.
"Or in any mirror you passed," Dougal muttered as he stepped forward to examine the writing scrawled over the door and frame.
"Hold! What did you-"
Dougal cut the norn off with a wave of his hand. "Shush. Reading."
"You can read this?" said Clagg, with mild surprise.
"You did bring me here for my mind," said Dougal, a little sharper than he had intended.
He stared for a moment at the words carved into the surface of the door. They were written in asuran script but used an archaic dialect popular before the subterranean asura had been forced to the surface more than 250 years earlier. It was a half-mathematical, half-structured sentence, and the syntax would make a human scribe take to the bottle. Many asura could no longer even read it. According to Dougal's research, Blimm's paranoia had driven him to write his notes in this script for that exact reason.
Dougal ran his fingers along the text as if he could peel the meaning from it with his fingernails. "It's very old, but I think I can make it out." He cleared his throat and began to read aloud: " 'Here lies Blimm, the greatest of the golemancers, favored counselor of Livia, apprentice to Oola, whose brilliance he has surpassed, the finest mind to grace Tyria in his or any other generation-' "
"Yes, yes, yes," Clagg said impatiently. "Blah, blah, blah. Get on to the promises of curses on any who would disturb his rest. There may be something useful there."
Dougal shrugged and skipped over the next several words. "Here we go: 'Let those who would dare to disturb his rest be cursed for eternity by the bones that line these tombs. Let the earth rise up against them and their remains serve as a testament of his greatness. Let their remains join those that surround him.' It goes on like that for a while."
"How absolutely human of Blimm. He must have spent far too much time in the sun," said Clagg. "Sounds like standard-issue warnings, though. All those tomb-door epitaphs read the same. 'Look on me and know fear,' 'Leave me be lest I haunt your nights,' and so on and so on. Toothless. "