“You left me here alone to fend for myself!!” cries Talina when she sees the Drow’s Bane emerge from the crimson portal.
“I suddenly woke up and didn’t see anyone around. How scary is that given what we just endured. What happened to you?”
Royce approaches the triton and explains to her what happened, minus the deal offer, “If that didn’t happen Talina, we would be dead or worse, we might have risen as swarms and killed you.”
Talina listens to Royce but is upset no one invited her to the party.
The Drow’s Bane notice they fill rested, as if they completed an hour’s rest. They ponder what is going on when Naismith says, “I bet you it was the wine.” The others nod in agreement as they look at each other realizing not only did Glasya save their lives, she gave them rest too. Royce, Mordrock and Nong open their hands, take the crimson ring, and slide it onto their fingers; Naismith watches but places his ring in his pocket. He notices when the others place the ring on, they look a little more protected. He says to himself, “I bet the ring is magical.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls it out, and puts it on; he now feels more protected too.
Mordrock heals Talina before the party heads back toward the staircase and down to the first floor. On the first floor eastern staircase, they move toward the black mass near the stairway and wait; the black mass wiggles and retracts revealing a similar corridor with prison cells and skeletons in them. They move quickly west through the corridor and return to the entrance chamber. They decide to move to the black mass in the south wall next; they watch it wiggle and retract. They are not surprised to see another corridor with prison cells and skeletons. They move quickly through it and cross into a southern library, similar to the northern one they previously encountered. They look around and notice, besides bookcases with tomes, there is also a very large opened book on a pedestal.
The party inspects the western bookcases and finds large tomes made of metal and stone, each with two symbols on the spines; the first symbol is an item like a weapon or piece of armor next to a school of magic symbol. They choose a tome, slowly pull it out given its weight, and open it; even though they cannot read the language, Talina can tell the content is not spell based, but more like notes. On the eastern bookcases, each shelf’s tomes are dedicated to a school of magic with the last tome stamped with a diamond symbol. “I bet you that diamond symbol represents the school of chronomancy,” says Naismith. Talina opens up the tome and sees the same foreign language across the pages unable to discern more about Naismith’s suggestion.
The party moves to the pedestal to examine the very large tome; the cover is made of brass and silver metal, the pages are made of stone with reinforced metal, probably due to their large size. The left page details a portrait of a middle aged man in full military dress wearing ornate mithril armor. On the right page, is a detailed schematic of a barbed greatsword covered with necromancy, enchantment, and abjuration sigils; another sigil is scratched off and the diamond symbol is pressed into the corner of the page. Mordrock’s eyes pause on the greatsword; the sword looks familiar to him as though he has seen it before, but he is unable to recall from memory, where. His hands turn the heavy pages to see more portraits on the left with schematics on the right; he recognizes nothing else in the tome.
The party chooses to walk from the library, down the western corridor which turns ninety degrees north. They follow the northern corridor which leads them to a small room with an ascending stairway, identical to the same location on the opposite side of the pyramid. They decide to ascend the stairway and notice with every step, the heartbeat gets louder. After spending almost and hour climbing stairs they arrive onto a platform whose floor, walls and ceiling resemble the night sky on a clear night. Nong tests the floor before walking on it, so as to not to fall into oblivion. He sees two large stone doors on the opposite side of the platform, that vibrate in harmony with the loud heartbeat. Naismith moves to the double doors and listens; besides the heartbeat he thinks is originating from behind the doors, he also picks up chanting.
“The heartbeat sounds like it’s coming from behind these doors. But I also hear chanting, which is never a good sound.”
The party organizes into a defensive stance as Nong opens the doors. He gives them a push and the stone doors easily open up. A humongous dim lit room lies beyond; the floor of the room is covered with worms that undulate in time with the heartbeat. One hundred feet or more into the room, a dozen swarms of Kyuss and a cambion kneel before a huge crystal pillar. The pillar shakes as if something is trying to get out; the impact agitating the pillar is what is generating the heartbeat sound. The cambion is the first to look back and see the party; it scowls and points to several swarm, who rise up and turn toward the party. These swarm vomit familiar rot grubs, as they move quickly over the undulating floor, in pursuit of the Drow’s Bane.