If the guard is within 90 feet, Pax will surreptitiously cast Hex on the guard...affecting his WISDOM ability checks. 

Since they entered the city of Menzoberranzan, Rhayna has been a little bit out of her elements. Subterfuge was amongst the many things that she was not good at, and she actually did a pretty bad job when attempting to do anything "not nice". So, the normally socially awkward Cleric tried her best not to stand out, and hide behind her companions when possible as they traveled around the city. At the steps leading to Tier Breche, she figured that now would be a good time to call upon some help with the task at hand. While waiting for their turn with her male Drow Wizard escort, she looks up slightly and her eyes begin to flutter. Her escort notices what is happening to her, but he is not sure if he should intervene. "Hummm... Are you well?" (Rhayna uses her Channel Divinity: Knowledge of the Ages feature to become proficient with Deception.) Once her eyes stop fluttering, she touches herself with the Goddess' blessing (Guidance if allowed)

Rhayna Deception (plus bardic inspiration + Guidance) : 18 (if Guidance is no bueno, roll is 17)

Rhayna turns to her escort, and her demeanor changes completely. Now she has a wicked smile on her face, more like a normal Drow. "Hey. How you doing?" She replies to the male Drow. When it it their turn to go up the stair, she goes up with a confidence that was never in her before.

(Great, I didn't change the roll line!! The roll was 18.)

The guard on the left that has been paying the most attention to the passers-by is paying even more attention now, but not in the same way. Trying hard to look nonchalant, he nevertheless is clearly having difficulty taking his eyes off the female drow that now saunters up the stairs with a sultry stride. Rhayna has not even made it half-way when Pax's Hex takes effect, after which the guard makes no further pretense of hiding his concupiscence, and instead openly ogles Rhayna as she passes him, making a few lecherous signals and calling out some crude phrases that even those fluent in Elvish and Undercommon barely recognise. The guard on the right looks up with a mild expression of horror, while the drow warrior sent to distract him with conversation also turns to watch in surprise and amusement.

Kaylyn and Rhayna have passed without suspicion, apparently compensating for the relatively increased skepticism that Sekkar and Kirin drew.

Pax is the last to go.

Pax deception : 11

Still sporting her wicked smile, Rhayna pretends that she is enjoying the catcalls. As she gets closer to the guard, she blows him a kiss, and gives him a (totally Goddess not approved) wink. She keeps eye contact so as to have his full attention as Pax starts to ascend the stairs. All the while thinking. “My goodness, is this really me??”

(Does this gives Pax advantage? ;-)

With the guards fully distracted by Rhayna's saucy behavior, Pax has no problems slipping past unnoticed. The jade spiders loom overhead, but with such stony lifeless silence that it seems doubtful to Pax that the warnings of them being other than statues could possibly be true. Resisting the urge to bunch up into a group, the disguised intruders make their way across the plateau of Tier Breche, a place where probably only a handful of non-drow have ever set foot, if any. The great spider-shaped cathedral looms overhead, while the dark warrior pyramid lurks against the far wall. But neither of these is the destination. At the left of the cavern stands a tight jumble of enormous stalagmites, the largest in the center reaching almost to the ceiling, and all having been carved and sculpted into slender towers, and with a purple glow gleaming from the few scattered windows.

Valimar slouches casually at the base of the large tower, beside an open doorway, and saunters over as the first of the group approach. It is unusual, he says quietly, but not unheard of for females to enter Sorcere. You will attract attention, but I will ensure you reach Gromph's sanctum without interruption. Follow, but do not speak. His imperious tone is irritating, but his warning seems legitimate as the group passes the doorway and into the spacious foyer. Dozens of male drow, all dressed in wizard garb, mingle within the chamber, with dozens more seen on the numerous stairs and landings that branch off the central open space to the other towers. Several curious eyes turn toward the group, but they do not linger. Quiet whispering behind furtive hands is the only indication that curiosity has been aroused at the group's arrival, but this is tempered by the apparent taboo on males making advances to females, or even speaking above their station without permission.

Now that he is inside the tower, Valimar looks identical to all the other mages. First he quietly instructs each member of the group to speak aloud a password (which happens to be the Elvish word for 'sulfur'), explaining that doing so will protect them for up to an hour against the guards and wards spell that are placed on the tower against intruders. He then leads the way up a large staircase that gracefully ascends the main tower, and affords a spectacular view of many of the activities happening throughout the complex. He nods a brief greeting to several mages as they pass, including one with a quasit familiar resting on his shoulder, and another who leads a shadow demon along by a silver chain. All give the group a guarded but curious look. Valimar seems unperturbed by a giant spider that crawls slowly along the ceiling, nor by the screams of some poor slave who is the subject of an arcane experiment taking place in a nearby chamber.

The higher up the tower the group ascend, the more the activity around them lessens, until finally they arrive at a lone black marble door at the very top of the stairs. The carvings on the door follow a web-like pattern, but the edges are etched with silvery runes. Valimar speaks a short word (which Kirin recognises as a knock spell, almost identical to his own) and the unseen lock on the door clicks. Here Valimar turns and says: This is Gromph's sanctum. I will remain outside and try to ensure you are not disturbed, although if necessary, I may be required to leave. What you do, do quickly, for your presence has already attracted attention. Then he adds, rather unusually for a drow: I hope you find what you are looking for. Good luck!

(The door is unlocked and you are free to enter. Feel free to declare any actions here, or any that are relevant to the events described)

There farther they were moving, the more tense Sekkar felt. Even when the crowd thinned leaving them practically alone ner the final chamber, it still felt uneasy. Must be the magic housing from every stone of this tower. Sekkar licked his lips in the nervous gesture of a lizard not caring how it will look on the illusionary face of a drow, opened the door and stepped inside, faithful to the self-assumed role of the mine-canary of the group.

Pax mutters a few arcane words, casting See Invisibility on herself as they stand outside the door. Glancing around surreptitiously, she then follows Sekkar into the room.

Kaylyn continues to walk with confidence, her eyes forward, acting as if she knows exactly where she is going and why.  When they reach the door she nods to Valimar.

She then casts Detect Thoughts and directs her thoughts to what, or who, may be behind the door.  She rests her hand on Sekkar's arm and stops him before he proceeds into the room.  

((Can we still communicate telepathically?"))

(If not, Pax would have asked us to stop to renew the spell.)

As Rhayna enters Gromph's sanctum, she stops pretending to be a Drow, and shivers a little, trying to forget what happened at the steps. She concentrates for a moment and casts Detect Magic, and looks around from the entrance.

The chamber beyond the door is floored in black marble, lined with shelves laden with books and scrolls, and dominated by a broad desk of polished bone. A plush chair covered with lizard hide sits behind the desk, while a smaller and simpler zurkhwood chair sits facing it on the opposite side. A seven-foot-tall obsidian statue of a four-armed, sword-wielding drow warrior stands behind the desk against one wall. Burning red candles are set about the room in holders made from skeletal hands.

Kaylyn senses the presence of no thinking creatures beyond the door.

Pax doesn't see anything invisible (a logical sentence) either before or after the door opens.

Rhayna detects the presence of magic on the door, the candles, parts of the desk and shelves, several of the books (one in particular), and part of one wall.

The room beyond is about 30' in diameter. There is no map provided in the adventure, and I don't think we'll need one. Just let me know roughly where you plan to go in the room. Let's say the desk is on the far side to the door, with shelves on either side.

Pax steps inside the door, waiting to one side to let people in. Then she closes the door and leans back against the wall to one side of the door with a clunk. A heavy sigh issues from within her helm. Her hands are shaking a bit and for the first time in a long time she feels claustrophobic inside her helm. She pulls it off, taking deep shaky breaths and letting her sweat dampened hair, turned white by the illusion magic, hang down across her face. Battle is easy compared to this cloak and dagger business. She tries to calm down while she watches around the room and listens for any noises while her allies search the place. 

Sekkar went straight to the desk, in the hope the grimoire they needed was right there and easily recognizable. It's a book. right? Where you write things? So, not on the shelves but on the desk. Logic! Should some book similar to the described one be there, he would not touch it but point to others.

Just in case, he also tried to scan the room for conventional traps (magical were taken care of by the others). Perception: 16

Kirin takes a moment looking around the rest before settling on investigating the desk himself, pulling out all the drawers and feerling around for any switches and similar.

Investigation 17

Quote from ZorgAlmighty >>

Rhayna detects the presence of magic on the door, the candles, parts of the desk and shelves, several of the books (one in particular), and part of one wall.

Rhayna makes a beeline to the book (the "one in particular"), and she will examine it (without touching). (If allowed, she will check for traps, and etc.)

Rhayna Investigation (25)

5

Sekkar passes briefly past the desk, but seeing nothing grimoire-like on top, he instead prowls around the room searching for traps. Kirin on the other hand first makes a brief circuit of the room, but seeing nothing that probably hasn't been already seen by the Matron Mother's goons, who searched the room previously, he makes his way toward the desk. Rhayna moves directly to the shelves, and even in this dark and dangerous place she immediately gets a pang of homesickness for Candlekeep and its myriad books. Pax takes a brief respite but remains alert, not trusting the deceptive quietude of the room, while Kaylyn stands by Pax and has Pensive make a careful inspection of the room.

Sekkar finds no conventional traps, but he does notice that the floor in front of the marble wall on the far side of the room, just to the right of the desk, has more scuff marks and scratches than the rest of the floor, and in the kind of arc that the scraping of the bottom of a door would leave, and yet he sees no seams in the wall or any kind of latch.

A strong aura of abjuration rests on the book that first attracts Rhayna's attention. She has seen this type of thing before, in one of the restricted sections at Candlekeep, and deduces that this book most likely contains a warding glyph of some kind. However, from what she knows, such protection can dissipate once the protected book is moved far enough away from its usual place. There are no markings on the spine or cover that indicate the contents of the book. Some of the other books on the shelves give off a milder aura of illusion magic, and probably contain some sort of illusory script.

Seeing nothing on the desk beyond simple writing implements, Kirin attempts to open the drawers. As expected, they are locked. Of course! Any wizard worth his wand would lock his own bureau, and probably with arcane locks as well. A simple hefting or wiggling of the locked drawers from underneath suggests that they are full, however. There don't appear to be any other buttons or latches that Kirin can see.

As Pax watches the others cautiously search the room, a slight movement catches her eye. She looks to see what it was... but there is nothing. She could have sworn... something near Kirin, near the desk. Then she sees it again... The statue! A very slight motion in one of the four arms. And then in another. And a faint red light inside the eyes.

Just as Pax is about to send a warning, Pensive vanishes! The little pseudodragon was just passing by the place where Sekkar was examining the floor and wall, when it suddenly disappeared. Kaylyn feels her connection with Pensive sever, but not before feeling the briefest moment of surprise and panic from her familiar.

Everyone please roll initiative!

Statue: 15

If you roll higher than the statue, you can post your action.

Kirin initiative 23

"Hold still," kirin states before casting hold monster on the statue.

Wis save 18

Rhayna Initiative: 21

Sekkar Initiative: 21