Xandir exhibited a careless shrug. "Very little that I don't know about," he said with an unsettling grin. He too listened to the sounds of the fray. It was near impossible to judge the distance, for echoes carried far.

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Slashing one last time behind his back, Kendath dove into the alcove and stood aside to let Merrin and Semri access. Giant arachnids mobbed the opening. Dodging a few more bites and trusting his companions to keep them checked, he regarded the alcove's overhang, selecting a weak spot two feet up from the bottom. He picked up a rock. He would have to be very precise.

Drawing his arm back, he launched his impromptu missile. It struck the overhang at his exact intention. The entire alcove shuddered before a shower of rock and debris tumbled down. Instinctively dragging Merrin down with him, Kendath threw himself into a corner and tucked himself in.

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Merrin felt herself pulled down as she threw her arms over her head to shield herself from the crumbling debris, and the noise seemed to last for ages - rocks upon rocks raining down on top of them. After what seemed an agonizing wait, she cautiously opened her eyes and was confronted with utter blackness. No sounds of skittering, though.

Merrin realized suddenly that she had a death grip on someone's hand, and after a second discovered it belonged to Kendath. Hastily releasing said appendage, she reached out and found that the alcove had given them a little shelter, and there was room enough under the debris to sit up. Merrin did gladly, pressed uncomfortably against Kendath as she was, and her voice sounded pale and strained in the sudden silence. "Is...is everyone all right?"

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"No" snarled Semri though gritted teeth as she dug a smiders fang out of her leg. "The bludy brute got me as i dived in...he should be somewhere under those rocks." She cheaked the poison sack. "Damn..." It wasn't empty, but it wasn't full either.

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Made by Lembas

For the second time Kendath regarded Semri strangely. Something about her reminded him of Evlyn...

Deciding his mind was in enough turmoil as it was, he let his head fall against the rock wall behind him. He closed his eyes and tried to calm his breathing. Perspiration beaded on his brow as he once again felt the effects of the poison seeping in. He dug around in his belt for any potions that could counter it.

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Merrin could hear both of them breathing, the rocks smothering any sound and making it seemed oppressively hot in the cramped, dark space. "Are - are the spiders very poisonous?" she queried, voice rather shrill with worry.

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"We'll find out when I fall to the ground dead, won't we?" Kendath snapped, still looking for that potion. Just his luck... he could have sworn he always carried an anti-poison vial somewhere on him. And just when he needed it the most...

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"Not much ground to fall on..." muttered Merrin, subdued, and timidly reached up to shift some of the debris off them. Surprisingly, after a small rain of gravel a ray of dim light poked in, illuminating her face, which was rather dirty.

"Oh - look!" Brightening, she moved forward cautiously to shift a little more, hoping that there no boulder teetering on some unseen edge to come crashing down on her. The light meant that their torch hadn't gone out, at least.

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Kendath extracted the vial with no small amount of relief. The dim light illuminated a few drops of blue liquid at the bottom - not nearly enough to fully counter the poison. He meticulously tilted it and allowed two drops to trickle into his mouth. The potion slid with refreshing cool down his throat. As its effects seeped into him, he felt the numbness recede.

He handed the vial containing two more drops to Semri.

He peered over Merrin's shoulder at the hole she'd poked in the debris. "See any ambushes?"

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"Ambushes?" asked Merrin, turning briefly to frown at him. She pushed through some more of the debris, blinking as dirt and gravel showered down, and stopped to anxiously listen. After nothing except silence ensued - "I think the spiders have gone, if that's what you mean."

It was difficult to move in the cramped space, but Merrin nonetheless shifted position until she could carefully wriggle her head and shoulders out of the hole. She coughed, squinting through the haze of rock dust that now hung in the air.

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Gradually as to not provoke a cave-in, Kendath helped Merrin shift through the rubble until she could squirm her entire body out. Once she was out, he vaulted through the aperture to land next to her.

He immediately glanced back down the tunnel to listen for any advances from the Meiltha. He heard nothing, so he turned back towards the right fork of the tunnel with the words, "Let's go."

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((I was going to wait for Anduril...is she here? This is also a bump

EDIT: And whaddya know, it's a post too!))

Merrin retrieved her rapier from where it lay half-buried in rubble, and likewise threw a glance over her shoulder. Sheathing the slender blade, she snatched up their torch from where it lay, still burning. Merrin cast a briefly unimpressed look over herself, but refrained from commenting that a dirtier method of escape would have been difficult to find, and came to stand beside Kendath. "Hopefully we've seen the last of the spiders," she commented briefly - "I'd really rather not get buried in rubble twice in one day." And with a brief grin she started into the blackness, the torch casting a circle of light that still did not quite breach the shifting shadows surrounding the three.

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Kendath spotted a faint glimmer at the end of the tunnel and was inexorably reminded of a certain omen and its implications. Eager to get out of the oppressive darkness nonetheless, he increased his pace.

They emerged in what could have once been a grandiose courtyard. Miasma roiling above their heads cast a sickly light on crumbling walls that hinted at glittering azure. Dominating the center of the courtyard stood a towering open-air temple, decrepit and hardly living up to the former glory of the Skyseekers.

"Simply awe-inspiring," Kendath was forced to comment.

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Merrin cast him a perplexed look - to her the ancient crumbling walls held sadness, a regret for things long past that would not come again. For a moment the present scene faded and she saw it how it must have been years ago, the sun blazing down on the mountaintop temple and giving the stones a blinding sheen; a mystical tableau of long-forgotten power.

But it only lasted a brief moment and then the ruins lay before her once more. Merrin coughed - the air was bitter again. In the tunnel it had been cool, even with a slight chill; but now the shifting fog above them turned it musty, old like the temple before them.

Steps echoing a little in the ominous silence, she went across the courtyard to stand before the temple entrance. Once it had been supported by four thick pillars, only one of which still stood. Merrin traced the Sigil carved upon it and gazed with sudden apprehension through the door, which was dark.

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The interior of the temple was a single room, a hundred feet in diameter, open to the outside and thus tainted with tendrils of green mist. Crumbled pillars, only half of which were still standing, supported the domed ceiling. It was a wonder how the entire structure managed to remain standing. Glancing up now, Kendath caught shimmers of gems - amethyst and gold, perhaps - through the grime. The entire ceiling still retained a crystalline shimmer through the layers of filth, as if it were carved of glass.

Four marble walkways spanned from the four entrances facing each direction on the compass. The floor itself depressed five feet beneath the walkways themselves. Ornate water spouts on the walls - now dry - hinted at this curious phenomenon.

And sitting on a slender pedestal in the center of the temple, where the four walkways met in a high pyramid-shaped dais...

A chest. It too was covered in a layer of green-tinged grime, but underneath glinted a hint of diamond.

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Merrin felt as though her very heartbeat would disturb the curious silence that blanketed the temple, perhaps awaken some long-asleep - Guardian. A shiver coursed up her spine. But the chest was right there.

Tentatively, her breath coming in nervous spurts, she advanced along the slender stone walkway, awed by the silence and the beauty of what must have been a glorious structure in days gone by. When Merrin moved her hand to rest on the hilt of her rapier she discovered it was trembling, and stopped for a moment to take a long, shaky breath. She subconsciously expected some monster to emerge from the empty expanse of floor, once a miniature sea, that spread below her - but at the same time she hoped that one would not.

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Also caught in the magnitude of the moment, Kendath followed her with bated breath. Halfway across the temple he noticed her trembling. Almost subconsciously he squeezed her forearm to steady her.

After a few moments that might as well have been eons, they stood before the pedestal. A tiny keyhole was all that stood between them and the Cloud Crystal.

As they watched, a tiny green spider skittered over the keyhole.

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