Silissa 1

The next portal leads to an entrance area, and then a narrow tunnel with spikes lining the ceiling. Malachite has to take off his armor in order to fit in without impaling himself. It takes almost ten minutes for the group to crawl through the narrow tunnel. As they do so, they pass through a half dozen areas of dispel magic and anti-magic. "Can you imagine what would happen if the dragon got in here, polymorphed or reduced?" Agar comments. "One antimagic field, and Squish!"

Crawling next to one another, Nolin and Malachite discuss the fate of Olum Shiverstone as they scramble along. "We should free him and take him with us," comments Nolin. "He knows the area, knows ghouls, and knows how the White Kingdom operated in the past. His knowledge may be the difference between success and failure."

Malachite looks back over his shoulder in disapproval. "Surely you're joking. He's untrustworthy and undead."

"Yes, but that doesn't stop him from being a valuable resource."

"I see. I'll remind you, Nolin, that you have a history of dealing with questionable moral sources to gain information." Malachite voice is icy; he doesn't mention the specifics of Nolin's disastrous attempt to train with the lich Hagiok, but the unspoken memory hangs heavily between them. "It would be a foolish mistake. We should kill him or leave him, but asking him to accompany us would be folly."

"Just because he doesn't meet your high moral standards doesn't mean he's not a decent source of information! He may mean the difference between success and failure for us. You'd risk that for nothing more than your hatred of undead?"

"Some prices are not worth paying. That's a lesson you still haven't learned."

Their conversation continues as they push their way slowly forward. Finally, Glibstone pushes through another portal, and the explorers tumble forward.

The room is shaped like all the others. To the right, display cases hold the finest gems that Mrid has ever produced, as well as barrels of lesser gems and sacks of gem dust. To the left, dozens of magical items hang in special display cases, all labeled and catalogued. Light sparkles across the room like sun on a bubbling stream, reflecting rainbow shadows on the walls as it glints off of gems and jewelry.

Someone suppresses a sob of pure joy.

"Later!" says Velendo as he moves across the space towards a single stone door on the far side. "We'll deal with it later. Let's get to the last room first, then come back for the gems and magic."

Malachite looks at the elderly cleric, surveying him with a critical eye. "Have you gotten it all out of your system?"

Velendo looks back at him. "Gotten what out of my system?"

Nolin smiles. "Oh, good."

Tao smiles too, but it isn't entirely good-natured. "Oh, you mean the part where you were being an idiot and you stuck your arm into a sphere of annihilation saying, 'Oh no, I'm not enchanted at all, oh no, not one little bit, hey, where's my arm?' That part?"

"Ha ha. Very funny. Make fun of the old man. Can we continue, now, if you don't mind?"

"Sure." Nolin looks around nervously. "What guards this room?"

Glibstone shrugs. "I have no idea," he says in a humble voice far different from his normal stentorious rumble. "Nothing?"

Nolin snorts. "I find that hard to believe."

Glibstone pauses in front of the simple door. "There's no puzzle," he says with concern. "Only a worn place on the door." After examining it closely, he places his hand on it – and disappears.

"Ready, everyone!" snaps Mara. Lightbinder is drawn, and the other Defenders follow suit, looking back and forth for signs of danger. Then Glibstone reappears as abruptly as he vanished, and a hidden lock on the door clunks open. Priggle and Agar advance forward as Glibstone looks about.

"Where did all of you go?" he asks in confusion. "I was in the same room, but no one was here. I saw a flowstone puzzle on the door in front of me, and answered it seconds before you all reappeared." He smiles to himself mysteriously. "That puzzle was a total joke."

Agar considers the door, fascinated. "Amazing magics!" he muses. "I think they're temporal based, and keyed to the door. It might have flung him back in time – a day, maybe? – then returned him here. There are lots of adjacent dweomers, too, looking pretty nasty." Next to him, Priggle nods dourly in agreement.

"Makes sense," says the svirfneblin scout. "This lock looks counterweighted, taking hours between when it's unlocked and when it opens. Probably if he hadn't tried to open the door correctly, we'd all have been killed." He sighs. "Not that that isn't going to happen, anyways."

"Well, the door is open now," reminds Malachite. "Let's go." He pulls open the stone portal, revealing a swirling brown portal. .

"Here goes nothing!" says Agar optimistically, and leaps through. The dwarven troops are ordered to stay behind, but everyone else follows.

The group emerges in a dark cave filled with ancient air that smells of age and wet, damp earth. In front of them, the solid ground twists and softens and churns into a vast whirlpool of crushing rock and razor-sharp stone. The only light shines from magical items and the red flame of Nolin's flickering, burning hair.

Out of the stone whirlpool, a woman rises.

Well, half a woman. Her lower half is spiraling stone, connecting her to the churning floor by a rising column of elemental earth in constant movement. Her upper half, however, is utterly beautiful. Flawless brown skin, eyes like gleaming gemstones, muscles like sculpted marble, teeth as white as bone, poise and grace and perfection in her every movement. She turns towards the Defenders of Daybreak, and her eyes are as old as the earth itself.

"My lady!" gasps the ever-vigilant sword Karthos, and Nolin is the first to bend his knee to her. Splinder follows his example. Most of the others do likewise. The woman looks down at them, and her heavy gaze is solemn.

"Greetings. I am Silissa, child of Ogremoch, and a singer in fate's quarry. She flicks back her hair. "I see the endings of all things, from flesh to stone. Your own deaths dance before me, as does all death, and I see where all things finish.

"And now, in the time of the reaving, the time before the fall, you come as I have foreseen you to." She smiles now, and it is a smile of infinite patience and grace. "You are kerngrun, pivots. Prophecy dances around you. You seek to turn the plans of Gods. For this you have come to me, unknowing, and I can tell you truth." She pauses now, and eyes the group doubtfully.

Malachite looks up. "That is all we seek."

"Are you sure? Truth is a sharpened blade with no hilt, so that even those who wield it are sliced by its edge." He nods in acceptance, and she continues as she looks downwards.

She tilts her perfectly sculpted head straight ahead, staring at something unthinkably far away.

"I stand upon the present, and I hear the scratching of coffins hastily closed. You have been foolish and made assumptions. There is one amongst you who can lock the door with the gemstone key, but you have failed to do so – and there is those amongst your enemies who can call back the farthest of friends from that still-open door. As could one of your own, but they need not pass through Boros' gate, for their toll has been long since paid. Now, on the nights when you hid in your violated home, she began to call them back. One by one. They are seeking you now, all together where each they failed, and they will find you if you do not beware. You do not want them to find you. They anger that through you their greatest has burned, and vengeance is hotter than blood. Their allies are the rays of the air and the fish of the land, for these guard the entrance to Abriach. Velendo and Nolin blanch in horror as they grasp her meaning. She tilts her head upwards, voice inexorable and growing louder, echoing through the chamber.

"The future rises before me, chasms inexorable. Through your actions the world has changed; through you again it will change the more. You have tossed the pebble that started the landslide. Before it is over the undying dies and is consumed by its own icy flesh, just as the dying will fail to pass on. The ending gift will claim what the pilgrimage could not, with much the same result, and death will stalk your lands in every person you may meet. It may be burned away, but not in time for many. And for you? He may share with the parasite, or perhaps he may not, but the whole can not hold – and odd allies indeed are formed when such things occur. Greed conquers all, and the sun will dim if he finishes before you interrupt. Past and repast, future ahead – a new one may be born from the unborn, or the crawling death rekindled as it was in the days before the Gods themselves. Do not believe all that you are told, or your errors may be grave indeed."

Silence fills the room, other than the ragged churning of the raw earth beneath her.

"You wish more?" She smiles slowly as she studies them, seeing something that they can not. "There is always a price. You have already paid my price for your prophecies, unknowing or not, but now the scales are equal. My sister is captive in the Shrine of the Glass Pool, a place I see you passing nearby. If you wish a question answered, you will free her from her enslavement. Agree to this, and I shall answer one thing more." The group exchanges a glance, and as one silently agrees.