The trail disappeared in this room, although the Company found a small room with an unusual diagram on one wall: There were five rows, one atop another, each with a square of gold, bronze, silver, iron, marble and wood; each row, however, had the six elements in a different order.
Helpless without the tracking skill of their absent companion Orongorg, the Company returned to the secret passageway opened by the statue. The passage led to an ascending stairwell that leveled off in a platform that overlooked a wide chasm. Si�lara took the form of an eagle and took flight to do reconnaissance. On the far end of the chasm, Si�lara located a landing with ascending stairs. She was nearly attacked by brutish-looking creatures with dull grey skin and brooding foreheads. As she returned to warn the Company, the creatures started climbing around the chasm toward the Company, with remarkable agility. Uso and Jeremi unleashed arcane magicks on the creatures, as Sebastian and Avi let fly volley after volley of arrows. Within minutes, the creatures were slain, but not before one of them attacked Si�lara and left her skin seemingly unharmed but for a dull grey, lifeless color. It took Jeremi�s prayers to �ton to restore the accursed flesh to normal. The Company rested for the night.
The 27th of Darkel
The following morning, after Jeremi prayed to �ton, and Uso and Silara meditated, the Company crossed the chasm and ascended the stairs at the far end. They came upon another ledge on the edge of another chasm. As Avi stepped off the stairs and onto the ledge, however, he dropped to his knees and grabbed his head in pain. Minutes later, he looked up at the Company with guilty eyes. �Against my own will,� he said in a pained tone, �the Order of the Blue Eclipse has used me to betray you.� Avi went on to explain that the Order planned to seized the Sword of Lies because the Order feared that it is a powerful tool against spellcasters that the �tonist church would exploit. Avi said that he was programmed to stop anyone � including the Company � from retrieving the Sword. Avi himself felt betrayed because the Blue Eclipse programmed him with these instructions, then used powerful magicks to hide their mental manipulation.
It was at that time that the Company realized that their other magical items and powers had stopped working while in this area. Cirend surmised that Avi would forget his revelations once he left this area and the spells resumed. Cirend tried to subvert that by having Avi write a note to himself in his own handwriting, which he could read once outside the magic-dampening area, but the magic was still too powerful for this clever idea.
The Company turned to its next challenging � crossing the chasm without the aid of magic. The Company was forced to cross by using climbing ropes, a skill the Company sorely lacked, as nearly everyone but Cirend fell from the ropes at least once. Eventually, however, the Company reached the far end of this second chasm, and their magicks returned
The platform at the far end narrowed into a long hallway, which emptied into a small room filled with bones and trash. In the next room, the Company came upon a large, overturned vat and torn burlap bags, lying in tattered shambles. Behind one of the doors in this room were five bronze humanoids who looked vaguely like Geriasimos, the intelligent automoton the Company had found days before and taken for repair in the City above.
Beyond this room, however, the Company found an enormous cavern, carved with stairs leading up and down. The Company was set upon by a dozen of the brutish creatures, but quickly dispatched them. At the bottom of the stairs was a pool of purplish, bubbling liquid. The Company then ascended the stairs, finding one flight leading to another as they climbed up out of the bowels of the Banevault. The Company began to wonder whether their ascension to higher ground was a good omen or merely a path to the darkest evil at the heart of the Vaults.
