On A Knife Edge

Chapter 18: Return to Riven

As the party descended into the darkness the air grew colder; the whispers turned into screams, and phantoms of their deepest fears materialized in the shadows.

"What they hell?" Rory asked.

"It appears The Eye is twisting our minds." Kainith said. "We have to focus ahead or we will fail."

"The moonwater must not be working." Rance said. "This is awful."

"Do you remember the man in The Rusty Flagon? This must be what he saw everywhere he went. As long as this doesn't leave the cave with us I think it's going to be a win." Lucian said.

Kainith muttered a few magic words while strumming his golden stringed lute and a large, almost blinding, light shot from the neck of the lute and hovered backwards and stayed behind the group.

"There this should at least help banish the visual oddities." Kainith said with a flourish. "We need to continue and push on."

The party descended down a chipped limestone staircase that was being strangled by plantlife and veins. The further from the entrance they got the narrower the staircase got as if it was trying to strangle them.

Finally, they reached the heart of the cave, where a single black diamond with what seemed to be a red translucent floating circle, pulsating with an unnatural darkness, lay nestled on a bed of ancient moss.

"This must be the Eye of Thanatos. How is the red circle moving?" Lucian questioned.

As they approached, the whispers reached a fever pitch, threatening to overwhelm their senses.

"Arrghh." Rory gasped as he fell to one knee.

"What the hell is happening?" Rance said as he grasped his head with both hands.

Kainith silently gasped and staggered backwards. "Lucian use the Tears! Gahh. Now!"

Lucian grabbed the gem around his neck and said some magic words. With an explosion of blue-green light, erupting from his chest around the gem, the Eye of Thanatos fell silent and the red circle faded. The wave of horror that was trying to knock the group over and push them over the cliff of insanity was now suddenly gone. The orb that had erupted from The Tears and Lucian now coalesced around the black diamond on the pedestal. Right as it seemed over the Eye erupted a black wave into the orb as the red eye became visible again. It seemed the orb Lucian had casted struggled against the stunning power that was erupting from the eye. After a tense few moments the orb from Lucian seemed to overcome the power of the Eye. The orb stabilized just off of the edges of the diamond.

"What did you do to Lucian? Is it still active? I don't feel the same as I did when I came down here." Rory questioned, astonished.

"I just used a protective sphere spell imbued with the power of the Tears. I wasn't sure if it would work but I knew there was no way I could disenchant it. So I guessed it would work so I went for it." Lucian said.

"You guessed?" Rance asked, annoyed. "You just guessed?

"Any other suggestions? We had no idea what we were dealing with." Lucian reminded him.

"I guess you're right. No point in arguing about it. It seemed to work." Rance said.

"Let's get out of here and get this gem back and out of these woods." Kainith cautioned.

As the group worked their way up the stairs they noticed that the whispers were gone and the shadows were their own now. Kainith now dismissed the orb that was following them because as they approached the entrance the party noticed that there was sunlight that they hadn't seen since they got to the woods shining in from the sky. The party left the tree from the entrance they had entered; they noticed the whispers had completely faded, replaced by the rustling of leaves and the chirping of birds.