wym its not about the loot? theyre dead broke with virtually no artifacts, this whole mission was 100% about the loot.

* Didn’t attempt to wake up Ylvon through a quicker method than ‘just wait’

They know about the insanity spell and know “just waiting” is the correct option

* Didn’t fall back to heal up and resupply

They don’t have the money to and if they did this tunnel would be discovered and they would have given up on the loot

* Didn’t check for traps

There’s clearly something magical about the staff, what they did is out of character for both of them and I trust the author enough to not make a mistake when they pointed out how weird it was that they both ran in

* Didn’t attempt to truthfully tell the apparition that they were not aware that it was the Warmage’s apartments and to disengage – might have failed, but they didn’t even attempt this.

Telling it the truth “we are here to rob the place, but he’s probably dead so it’s cool” has even less of a chance of working, any gamble either works or it doesn’t and the one they picked failed

The goop on the walls covering the insanity runes was starting the flake off. If they started moving a bunch of stuff around, there would be a good chance of uncovering more, and get stuck in another insanity loop. Ceria’s magic mud was also not a long-term solution, as it was from conjured water and dirt, so it would likely dissipate in time, uncovering that rune.

It’s also possible the staff itself had some enchantment on it that made anyone viewing it (similar to the door trap) want to try and steal it, or lowered their inhibitions enough to not think straight. Then anyone rushing into the room would activate the defenses. Ksmvr can’t see magic directly like Pisces and Ceria, so he wouldn’t have been affected.

“I am Ylawes Byres, [Swordsman] and heir to the Byres name.”
Ylawes is a [Knight]. Unless he was a [Swordsman] and his class got changed to [Knight] and this is just a younger Ylawes.