For a brief moment, the interior is crackling with chaos energy until Sithka, the Githzerai Anarch, waves her hand and transforms the energy into rooms and corridors. She welcomes the Drow’s Bane in and escorts them to a sanctuary room filled with peace and tranquility. She watches as her new guests carry a dead human with them into the room; the half orc with black eyes holding a strange wand, also catches her attention.
Sithka and a few other githzerai begin chatting with the party. She wants to understand what happened to her attack squad, the layout of the mindflayer fortress and what is left of the Elder Brain. During the conversation, a few githzerai bring food and drink in for the party – the food tastes sweet and savory and the drink goes down easily. In no time, the conversation ceases as Mordrock and Naismith fall fast asleep; even Nong, who no longer needs food or liquids to sustain himself, passes out too.
Nong falls into a deep slumber and begins to dream. His mind recalls the feelings he experienced when joining with the wand of Orcus: power, fearlessness and a thirst for destruction. His mind next recalls the feeling of elation that coursed through his body when he delivered the death blow to the Elder Brain! However, the feeling of disappointment came next. Even though the wand was satiated with the kill, it still cursed at Nong, disappointed that Nong did not raise the brain as his undead servant.
The long rest continues for several more hours.
Nong enters into another dream state; this time he sees his mind’s familiar infinite plane of darkness except no eye stares back at him. Instead, he watches the horizon as a small light walks towards him. He waits until he sees the figure a hundred feet out; it’s a small humanoid holding a light in its hands. Fifty feet out Nong recognizes the small humanoid is a child holding a candle; it’s a half orc child crying as it walks toward Nong.
In the room on the floor, Nong feels his heartbeat speed up. He takes a deep breadth, turns over and calms his breathing. After five minutes, he sinks back into the dream.
Nong looks out across the plane again and sees the child standing directly in front of him; the candle in its hands barely stays lit. The child looks up at Nong and says, “Your light source is fading and I cannot keep it lit in the darkness for much longer. If you don’t find a way to destroy it first, it will destroy your light forever.” The child turns around and begins to walk away. Over the child’s shoulder he cries out, “You don’t have much time. It has awakened.” The familiar eye begins to open on the plane of darkness and looks at the child. The eye’s looming size dwarfs the crying child who slowly walks away. The eye grows bigger and stares at the child in anger.
Suddenly, Nong awakens in the dark room. He inhales and steadies his breadth as he here’s his comrades deep in sleep. He pauses, sniffs the air and frowns; then lies back down and closes his eyes. Ten feet away, a figure stands at the doorway quietly observing the sleeping party. She stares at Nong, moves her eyes down his body and stops at the strange wand in his hand. She studies it but from this distance she cannot see much. She catches a scent in the air and immediately looks towards the human corpse; their fallen comrade. The body has decomposed in record time and gives off a rotting scent; she also detects the smell of rotting food too. “That’s impossible, especially in here,” she thinks to herself. Her eyes dart back to Nong’s gaunt sleeping face.
After a few quiet breadths, she scowls, shakes her head and silently steps away.