Sly enters and looks around carefully, her voice muffled though the perfumed handkerchief she is still holding.

"I'd much prefer if we abscond afore we evoke the ire of even more loathsome creations. Mayhaps to the east?"

The wizard looks like she would like to be anywhere but here.

Xarkris readies his Battleaxe and shield and heads down the eastern corridor (when the rest of the group is ready). He will use his PASSIVE PERCEPTION of 22 to look for danger, treasure, and secret doors

Xarkris enters the eastern room, weapons prepared, and almost immediately comes face to face with Solshere, the lich of the dungeon. Or at least his body, encased in a large, crystalline amber structure. The ghastly corpse, dressed in midnight blue robes and with his back turned to the party, has its skeletal head turned to look over his right hand shoulder, with the signature pinprick lights that typically dwell in a lich's eye sockets extinguished. Its skin is pulled taught over its bones, and its hands show significant signs of wear and tear; visible stitches are noticeable around its knuckles, leading you to wonder if those are Solshere's original fingers, or if they were grimly replaced after time caught up the joints. If the glistening orange prison and lack of unholy light in the corpses eyes isn't enough to reassure Xarkris that the lich is truly dead, the enormous jet black bolt striking straight through its spine and out its ribcage is enough to put his doubts to rest. Clearly whoever defeated the lich caught him off guard whilst he was turned away brooding, and then struck him with an all out attack where he stood. The subject of the lich's likely pondering? The Shadow Weave portal for this dungeon, an undulating curtain of darkness inhabiting the frame of a tall, gothic mirror just a few feet away from the lich. The room is clear of traps (and treasure, unfortunately) to Xarkris, but tensions are still running incredibly high. The last room of a dungeon so foul that it feels like the party has been in its clutches for months rather than the hour and a half they really have spent there, and all they are left with is the exit, and the corpse of a villain they never truly knew. Anticlimactic? Perhaps. Lucky? Almost certainly.

Nice. 
((There is a corridor Southwest of here heading south into an unexplored area. In your humble opinion, would it be worth it for us to take a look, for time’s sake?))

[Without spoiling much, there's a lot going on there. As the DM I'd of course love to show off more of the Dungeon and what's in it, and had you looked to find the key, you'd have explored most of that area already, but at current progression I can easily see it tagging another month onto the playtime. I'll let you decide as a party whether or not you want to just keep going or go back and look, but I have absolutely no qualms if you just want to push on seeing as we've been here a long time, it's up to you guys.]

As for me, I have always wanted to clear out a level before proceeding to the next, but I defer to the group.

[The player would like to deposit Techi, since I don't like DMPCs, and Sly would like to get out of the dungeon as fast as possible. Leaving now and letting the sorcerer complete his mission alone would serve both ends, so my vote is for leaving.]

[Sorry, yeah I fully agree, my intention was always to have Techi‘s story end here, since I planned for that if you guys leave, he’ll stay behind to look for Kalthrat’s body, and if you explore with him, he’ll be dropped soon enough through…other means. I apologise if he became a bit of a DMPC, I never intended for him to have as much as an influence as he did, and I’ll make sure in future that the party doesn’t get any other significant tag alongs that hang around as long as he did!]

{{Bilyur's vote is to leave now. While he wants to put other creatures to rest, his ultimate goal is the Archivist.}}

Xarkris is OK with getting out of this dungeon, but would like a LONG REST before we move on

Eggo Lass feels her inner lootgoblin,saying "But... But... Money?" But she'll acquiesce. That said if a,long rest happened,she would search the dungeon,a,few,times,over with owls/bats/spiders from Flock of Familiars. 

{{Bilyur couldn't care less about money. He looks annoyed when Eggo mentions it.}}

[Okay, so, it seems to be a majority vote to leave, although in terms of sticking around for a long rest (and hopefully this isn't too much metagaming) but the first room of the next dungeon will be just as secure as this one if you want to rest, and in terms of in-character motivations I know that Sly would like to move on asap and others in the party may be inclined to just progress on further and stop later if they find a better spot. If the majority of the party does want a rest right here then that's absolutely fine though, I'll leave it up to you! 

Also searching about with flock of familiars for the remainder of this dungeon might not yield too many results based on the amount of doors in the way of progression!]

Quote from Shiverquill >>

Also searching about with flock of familiars for the remainder of this dungeon might not yield too many results based on the amount of doors in the way of progression!]

[[ How big would a spider be compared to keyholes/cracks under the doors? ]]

Quote from VitusW >>

Quote from Shiverquill >>

Also searching about with flock of familiars for the remainder of this dungeon might not yield too many results based on the amount of doors in the way of progression!]

[[ How big would a spider be compared to keyholes/cracks under the doors? ]]

 [Oh actually yeah a spider could likely do the job just fine, so if you want to take a long rest and thoroughly search the place from a safe spot with them, go ahead!]

{{Do we get a long rest? And what does Eggo find with her little spider friends?}}

[Sorry, I expected more deliberation over the decision! Sorting it all now!]

In anticipation of what might be ahead, the party sets up for a long rest, positioning your bedrolls away from the beady sockets of the nearby lich corpse. Whilst most of you spend it sleeping, though poorly as the nearby Shadow Weave exerts a constant whispering force on your nightmares, Eggo stays up to send out a swarm of spiders to sweep the rest of the dungeon and see if the party missed anything. Techi watches by her as she goes into her trance to peer through the spider's eyes, and this is what she sees. 

The first door off the corridor going downwards comes into a large spherical room, with a high domed glass ceiling. It has a large, empty and open floor, and then about 10 feet into the room, pillars ascend 15 feet upwards to hold up a stone ring that sort of serves as a lip over the room. There seems to be no access up to the lip, so Eggo assumes it is almost definitely  empty. The night sky above is tinted with what could be the first beams of sunrise, or the last dregs of sunset (the performance of your internal clocks are beginning to sag), and the glass of the dome is sheened with the glossy black, almost mirror-like dullness that the Shadow Weave inflicts upon any windows within the dungeons, like you saw in Dungeons 2 and 8, as if you're staring through a thin layer of shadow at a world so close to you but still hopeless obscured and unreachable. 

The lower room is even more curious. It looks like it could have been a sitting room, due to the armchairs and empty bookshelves around, with a floor then above it, but that second floor has long since caved in, and now the room is absolutely littered with ancient corpses. You can gather that they may have been stored in the upper room, but fell down on top of the sitting room when the floor/ceiling collapsed. You dread to think whether it was from deliberate destruction, or an accident caused by the sheer weight of the corpses. The most striking thing of the room however, is the large inanimate gargoyle in the centre. It is stood over a stone basin, wings at its side, and when Eggo mentally commands the spider to look inside the basin, she finds the key for the door you broke down sat neatly at the bottom. 

The final rooms at the top left corner of the map descend downwards, however midway up they are flooded, and the spiders can go no further. When Eggo comes out of her trance and relays this information to Techi, along with the rest of her findings, he grimaces and says 'Well, if the circular room is seemingly empty, and none of the corpses in the study can be mistaken for him, then Kalthrat must have explored those sunken rooms and either drowned, or had something get the better of him....he never was a good swimmer...' He reflects on this quietly before saying to Eggo 'Well, once the rest of your party has awoken, I'll assume you'll be moving on. Since recovering the relic and confirming where Kalthrat's body is were my only tasks, and I have no real interest in moving on much further than this, that will likely be where we part ways. I'll probably stay here a while, seeing as together we've bested all the threats, see if I can dredge up Kalthrat's body and give him a proper funeral without getting myself killed, and then move forward only when the next Archelogy Department Patrol comes through...thanks for accompanying me, I hope I wasn't too much of a burden...'

Sly uses the rest to note down what little she thinks is notable about this dungeon. The wizard still has great difficulty with the general ambience and is a lot more terse with her replies than usual. After bombarding her sleeping spot with cleaning spells, she eventually lies down and falls into an uneven slumber.

After waking, she consults her spell book and goes over the magicks that would likely be of use. She is groggy and in a bad mood still, but at least she felt more rested now, able to defend herself if the worst came to worst.

When Techi addresses the group, she says "Your arcane talents were a boon to our efforts. Thank you. May the weave guide you back to your department."

The wizard then looks to the others.

"I think we should be off. The next dungeon beckons."

Bilyur agrees with Sly. Unless anyone has any objections, he will enter the shadow weave first. 

As you make your preparations to head onwards, Techi gives you one final parting gift before he leaves you; his lone sending stone. He informs you that 'It's worthless at the moment, however as soon as I get the matching one off Kalthrat's body, I'll contact you to let you know how I'm getting on. Safe travels, I hope with all my heart that you will be the ones to finally bring the tyrant at the end of all this to their demise. Farewell!' He then heads off towards the western part of the dungeon, leaving you alone. 

Bilyur is the first to step through the Shadow Weave, followed closely by the rest of the party, however what you find is incredibly unusual. You are not met with the fleeting, dreamlike state of before, or the typical chorus of whispered tidings about the next dungeon from an uncountable number of spirits just beyond your sight, but rather pure darkness, and straight ahead of you, formed of the meanest strings of shadow and illusion, melded with the obscurity yet still shimmering distinctly like the patterns that appear when one presses down on their closed eyelids, is a single spirit, distinct enough from his lacking form as the soul of Solshere. You can distinguish twisting and warping details in his figure; he's humanoid, but his height and facial expressions ebb and flow like ink in water, and when his voice speaks to you, it is one that rattles with the pain of a thousand others. 

'More adventurers...well, do not expect me to tell you of what is ahead...just a sole decade of my existence in this void was enough to give up all cares for that pointless ramble, seeing as you will only become fuel for my continued existence later down the line...' There is a wheezing, cough-like laugh and the barely visible soul mutters 'You know nothing of this Weave's true potency. I am a being built for longevity. What's five hundred more years of waiting and absorption to a lich, when he knows at the end that he'll eventually accrue enough souls to break free? You will be but a single brick in the construction of my new form...just you wait! I will be...I will be born again...all I need is more souls and I can...I can...gah, there is no point leaving you suspended any longer in the abyss of my eternal reformation. The fruits of my labour await, and you cannot be an ingredient whilst you are here. Begone from my sight, puny mortals. Fall.'

Suddenly, you're sent plummeting away from the shred of undeath that is what remains of the lich, down and down into the darkness of it all, the shadows thickening and twisting around you whilst still being more intangible than the very void of space itself, until without warning, you're out of it. You all awake from whatever horrible nightmare that journey was to find yourselves lying face down on a hard, cold and extremely uneven floor. You get up and look around to find that you are in what appears to be a cave, the walls and floor coated in a quartz-like crystal, almost as if you're in an enormous geode. A small craggy tunnel leads out from the room, though you have no idea where you are, or what could await you.