First DEX save: 23

Rhayna is not restrained.

Second DEX save: 19

Pax glances up at Rhayna as the green ray blasts out. Disintegration.....could spell instant death. But Rhayna, nimble Rhayna, manages to dodge out of the way. 

Her breath held reflexively, Pax looks down at the creature beneath her and attacks...it must die. 

Pax leaps off of the creature, tumbling into a roll and, invisibly, coming up to her feet facing the thing, well away from the central eye.  She funnels crackling energy and blasts the thing three times.  (Eldritch Blast) 

Attack: 29 Damage: 9

Attack: 27 Damage: 10

Attack: 30 Damage: 19

Pax's blasts slam into the beholder. It remains aloft, held up by the hardened black goo, but its eye-stalks droop and hang flat, and despite the central eye remaining open and pointing upward, the magical tunnel reopens to reveal Kirin standing in the cave above.

A quick search of the cave reveals the beholder's treasure hoard: 5000 gp, 300 pp, ten assorted gems worth 500 gp each, a gem of seeing, a necklace of adaptation, a robe of eyes, and a flame tongue longsword.

The unenviable task of excising the beholder's central eye requires the participation of all present, after which the return to Vizeran's tower is accomplished flawlessly (with the aid of the books acquired from the wizard's library). Vizeran accepts the final component without wasting his breath on unnecessary praise for the accomplishment, and retires once more to his laboratory to complete the creation of the talisman.

As the group rest in the tower and await the wizard's final preparations, the drow 'apprentice' known as Grin wanders mutely among the group, watching them with his wet eyes. Suddenly, Kirin hears a voice in his head, a telepathy than can only have originated from Grin.

'Araj' is the name of this tower, if you didn't know, elf. 'Vengeance' in the elven tongue. For what reason do you suppose my master would so name his sanctum? Against whom do you suppose he seeks vengeance? 

"Why would I care about the name of a tower? if I were to guess with his isolated nature and his general demeanor of our interactions, something along the lines of other Drows who either isolated him or he isolated himself from them," Kirin replies in tone of annoyance and exhaustion, "Get out of my head, I've had enough things trying to get in,"

Pax looks at the group proudly as they stand near the dead beholder. She grins a bit girlishly and flips back her helm, clapping each of them on their shoulders.  To Rhayna she says, "Nice moves girl....those rays were out to get you."  She grins at Kirin, "I thought you were of a mind to electrocute me along with the thing, you know I was standing on top of it and wearing metal armor, right?"  She simply nods to Kaylyn, and then once more to Sekkar as a job well done. 

When they find the treasure she opens her eyes, impressed. She's even more impressed when the considerably power of the magic items are revealed.  She reaches down and picks up the gem. "I think this is particularly useful, if you folks don't mind. The robe is tempting, but I'd be worried about tearing it on my armor. Everyone ok if I nab this gem of seeing?" 

She takes her share of the treasure (1000 gold, 2 gems worth 500 each, and 60 platinum) and tucks them away...suddenly having more treasure than she's seen since leaving her family estate. 

She braces herself as they teleport back to the wizards cave but the trip goes without a painful side-trip.  Glancing around, her good mood seems to sour and she goes to sit down as the group passes the beholder eye to the wizard for his work. Grin and his master are distasteful, there's no escaping it. She braced herself as Kaylyn and Rhayna undoubtedly will run past to get back to the wizards books. She tries not to judge them for it and she begins taking her armor off so she can clean herself up. No matter how little she's in her armor, she immediately smells like oil and metallic tang, mixed with sweat. It was always good to take it off and clean everything well. 

3

Being rebuffed by Kirin, the wide-mouthed drow apprentice turns his attention instead to Rhayna, speaking into her mind telepathically...

Priestess of the Moon Goddess. Does your goddess love the surface-folk more than those who dwell below? Is the life of a dark elf lesser than that of a sun elf in her eyes?

There is no 'tone of voice' in telepathy, but the impression Rhayna gets is that there is a hint of mockery in the question. This is not unusual coming from a drow, although considering the nature of the question, the questioner does not seem particularly concerned about the welfare of the drow or any kind of elf for that matter. Still there is purpose in the question...  Is it a genuine inquiry? Is it a taunt? It is difficult to judge...

"Really? A gem to see things, not the shiny sword to poke them, that you wanted so much?" Sekkar was in a good mood and some teasing of Pax's magpie instincts felt fitting. But speaking of swords... The ranger activated Dawnbringer. The sword could see without activation just fine, activation was only a sign of respect. "I am sorry I had to do it without your direct help. Could not risk losing you to that monster, needed to feel you are still with me. But whether hitting the enemy or advising how to do it, your help is always needed." He patted the hilt and made a mental note of inventing some kind of sword knot, to be sure Dawnbringer truly never lost.

The treasure was surely interesting (the necklace even had some uses), but it mostly made Sekkar look into the pit and sight - the nice annoying gem was hopelessly gone. Well... maybe life will bring him to these parts one day again, who knows. He would be fine with his share whatever it was. Right now they had to prepare to the most difficult and mad part of the task - a visit to the nest of the second nastiest things of the Underdark - drow's capital.

In the tower, as part of the preparation, the sword knot took the most of his time: with the ordinary sword attaching a cord was not a big deal, but Danbringer demanded some creativity.

While removing the Beholder's central eye, Rhayna feels a slight excitement. Not that defeating a Beholder was enough already. "Uhhhh!!!" She says with eyes wide open. "Perhaps, I can run some experiments on this wonderful specimen..." However, before the Cleric is able to finish her line of though, she gets a resounding "NO!!" from the whole group. "Ohh fine..." Rhayna helps afterwards to identify the items in the cave.

Rhayna is glad to be back at the Vizeran's tower, and she first checks if Stool is doing well. When she hears the compliments from Pax. "Well, I was actually pretty surprised myself. To tell the truth."

When the group's presence is no longer needed by the Drow Mage, Rhayna finds herself visiting the library again. Being surrounded by books is where she is most comfortable with, and she is able to relax. She feels that after the fight with the Beholder, she, somehow, got a little "smarter". So, she pulls a couple more books from the shelf to test her theory.

As Rhayna is busy reading in the library, she hears a voice in her head. She holds a book open, and looks up, as if she was just presented with an impossible question. It takes her a few moments, but she replies telepathically back "Well... That... Is actually a very good question." She was concentrating on processing the question that missed any ulterior motive that Grin may have. "You know? I have no doubt that she loves all creatures." She closes the book she was holding, and says with firm conviction. "You might not be familiar, but the very first verse from the words of the Moonmaiden heself is: 'Let all on whom my light falls be welcome if they desire to be so.' Well... You guys are not really out there to bask on her moonlight, but you get the point." The Cleric of Selune goes on and on regarding her Goddess' virtues, and uses all her knowledge to present her case that the Moonmaiden loves all creatures equally and regardless of your race. (She's dead serious on her arguments.)

The voice replies to Rhayna: Then would your goddess condone your actions if they lead to the death of thousands of elves? For that is surely the outcome if you follow the counsel of my master. Know this: although the talisman will surely work as intended, my master uses you to enact his own vendetta.

3

The voice then turns to Sekkar:

You are the leader of your group, no? And yet you follow the demands of my master without question? You are no drow slave. What became of the last drow that tried to enslave you? Are you so submissive that you will let him use you for his purposes, to dispense with you when he is finished? Or will you rather use him for yours, then likewise dispense with him?

Sekkar's hand jerked and he almost ruined the sword knot, when yet another voice barged into his mind completely uninvited. The lizardman localized the source of the intrusion, narrowed his eyes at Grin and answered with laughter. "Says a lot about your perception and skills. Your goading is for warm-blooded hotheads. Which is not me. I am also no leader, but I do care about these people. To me you, drow, are all alike - treacherous untrastworty backstabbing bastards. You proved it right now. But even a broken stick can be useful now and then - to start a fire, for example. I am watching your master and now you too. You two do something I do not like - I will kill you. It's that simple. Now, quit bothering me or your master will learn about your betrayal sooner than you planned." Sekkar glanced at Vizeran - was he really unaware of his apprentice's plotting? Drow! He shook his head and returned to crafting.

Sekkar glances around but Vizeran is not present, having locked himself away to complete the talisman. It seems while the master is busy, the apprentice is pursuing an agenda of his own! Despite Sekkar's warning, the voice speaks once more: Alike and yet not alike. I wish you no harm. But I know what it is to be a slave...

Grin makes no attempt to contact anyone else, and doesn't respond further, either verbally or telepathically, except to see to the group's comforts.

It will be another eight hours while Vizeran completes the creation of the talisman. Does anyone have any specific things they would like to accomplish?

(did all that conversation occur in people's heads, or did any of the group respond out loud?). If out loud, Pax hears only Sekkar's response while he looks at Grin.  She sends a message spell to Pax, "Betrayal? Grin is wanting to betray his master? What was that about?" 

"I am sure the Goddess knows what she's doing. Who am I to question her motives right? Ok!! Now, if you will excuse me, I would like to go over some more books from this lovely library, if you don't mind. Have a great day Grim!!" With that said, Rhayna goes back to her book reading, as if the conversation had not happened. If Kaylyn also happens to be in the Library, she will mention to her discretely. "You know, that Grim guy was super weird talking to me telepathically. He had some questions about the Goddess..."

(I think Rhayna will just stay in her safe zone, aka the library.)

Kaylyn grinned at the others and the near perfect execution of their plan to ambush and kill the beholder.  After returning to the tower she ignores all else as she spends all possible time studying the Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun and practicing its guidelines.

She would stay up all night without rest and risk exhaustion to study the book. 

(Sekkar could laugh and talk openly)

"The guy hinted that his master is about to use us and then get rid of us. And that we should instead get rid of him. Nothing new, I'd say."

Pax looks curiously at Grin, then back at Sekkar, then back at Grin. She sends a message silently to Grin, "You think we should eliminate your master before he can enact the ritual? Unfortunately we have no other way to prevent the demon invasion, so....unless you're pro-demon invasion, I'm not sure what you're suggesting."

Pax's question is met with silence for a minute, until a guarded telepathic answer finally comes, with subtle emphasis placed on certain phrases:

I said no such thing. The ritual must take place. The demons lords will be summoned to the talisman - wherever it is placed - and driven into a violent frenzy. They will fight until one alone remains. Great destruction will occur, but my master will remain safe, here in his tower...

Pax replies (with message if necessary), “I thought we all had to travel to a tower in the drow city to enact this ritual. Including your master. If what you say is correct, we could put the focus anywhere, like say in a big empty cave, or in the illithid dead brain cave, since we have to get rid of that thing again anyway. Though. The drow are not friend of ours. Chaos and destruction in their city is two birds with one stone, as far as I can see. Why do you care?”    Pax says this to Grin, but her face frowns with the thought and it’s without conviction or any malice. Her mind struggles with the thing she’s battled since she’s found herself down here. What is evil? Can anything be ….black and white….came to her. Drow and normal elves. Dark and white. She remembered the drow in the trading hub, and how though not entirely friendly, were not evil. She looked back at Grin expectantly for a response. 

Excited that someone is lending an ear to his machinations, Grin continues to speak telepathically to Pax:

He speaks half-truths to his own ends. I cannot lift a hand against him for I am bound to obey. But if you were to leave the talisman in...

Grin cuts off. In a typically dramatic twist, it is just at this moment that Vizeran again emerges from his laboratory, heavily robed and bearing in the palm of his hand what looks and feels like a five-pound heart carved of black stone. Kaylyn detects a strong aura of conjuration magic, but all members of the group can sense the throbbing of fiendish and arcane power in the small item. The drow wizard looks drained and exhausted, and dark veins are visible under his skin along his neck and face, but still he bears up with a demeanor of strength and authority and he issues his next directives between heavy breaths but with an excited sparkle in his eye:

It is done... The talisman is ready... Now... for the final task. Thou must travel to Menzoberranzan, to Sorcere, the tower of wizardry. There thou must locate and acquire Gromph Baenre's grimoire, and plant the talisman in it's place. When thou has done so, send me word and I shall perform the final spell. The demons will be summoned to the talisman, and battle to the last. Defeat whichever remains, then bring me the grimoire, and I shall reward thee all.

And with that he holds out the dark heart talisman to whoever is willing to take possession of it...