Chapter 9: The Labyrinth

"Sinag. Light the way for us." Mai'ngor holds the sword aloft.

"Anyone have a torch?" Elayna asks. "You know, for a second light source?"

Melpomene pulls a small stone from her pouch and sings a series of three rising notes. The stone begins to glow with a bright light, and she passes it to Elayna with a smile.

Elayna graciously accepts the stone, and commits to memory the notes that Melpomene used. Such an ability would come in useful if she could master its practice.

"Look out!" cries Elayna, her voice taking on a semi-harmonic modulated tone, as though two voices speak at once. She instinctively pushes out as though warding an inevitable attack, and a necrotic cloud blasts forth in the shape of a slender mimic of her own hand.

Mai'ngor stalks toward the demon, Sinag held warily before him.

Elayna cannot help but ask, "What happened here?"

"Nothing good. Let us move on."

"But if something killed these things," Elayna begins, "maybe they could help us?" However curious she might be, Elayna seems unwilling to approach the demon bodies for an investigation.

"A good point, though they might just as soon kill us." Despite his words, Mai'ngor does approach to investigate.

"Do you remember the demons we fought in Silverymoon? One of them had claws. Hunter..." Mai'ngor's voice stumbles when he mentions his slain friend, "Hunter called it a glabrezu. But why would demons be killing their own kind?"

Elayna does not remember Silverymoon, having come into existence in Gravenhollow, but she understands that the question was meant for the party in general and listens carefully.

"Invasion from the Abyss...these are not normal times. Perhaps the old rules no longer apply."

"Different... rules? I don’t like the sound of that.