Sekkar keeps his guard up and points Kirin to the area where the door is suspected to be. Kirin hurries over and casts his spell, upon which a large arch-shaped slab of stone protrudes from the wall and swings aside, revealing...

... a dark void, like a still, vertical, liquid surface of perfect blackness.

Kaylyn meanwhile examines the arcane vibrations around the door and recognises the features of a powerful magical trap of some kind, probably something akin to an imprisonment spell. The fact that Pensive was caught and not any of the others suggests the trap was keyed to ensnare simpler beings. Kaylyn cannot tell how or where Pensive is trapped, but she cannot renew the mental connection nor can she dismiss Pensive as she normally would when he is in trouble.

Rhayna takes a brief look at the dark void and recalls having heard of similar creations. Certainly this suggests a passageway or portal of some kind, but one that is no doubt designed to restrict access to anyone that doesn't belong - in this case, being in the office of the highest ranking drow mage of the northern Underdark, it probably is meant to permit passage only to high-level magic-users.

(That's one round out of ten for the banish spell. Rhayna hasn't had time to inspect the book's contents, but is probably far enough from the shelf to negate the warding glyph.)

Rhayna goes to check the portal. “Humm… Interesting…” Then she hears Pax. “Ohh the book.” She takes out the book to show it to her companion. She doesn’t believe that’s the grimoire. “I don’t believe…” Then it dawns on her that it might be safe now to inspect it. She forgets that she was talking with Pax and opens the book, leaving Pax hanging for the moment. She also forgets for the moment that she is standing not very far from a dark void.

"If that's the book, we need to leave. If we need to get going, I use I'll be last to go in just in case it ends my spell," Kirin states as he looks between the book and the portal. 

Pax puts her hands out to either side of her in an expression of exasperation. "Really. And you know that from a brief glance. Hey. Books can be dangerous. A statue is about to return. Girl...focus. Stop reading. If it's not the book, then what book is it. You pretty much B-lined directly from the door to it like it was calling to you."  Pax approaches, attempting to get eyes on the book and ready to yank it from her hands if the Rhayna gets a little lost in it.

Kirin waits while Pax and Rhayna to fight over check the identity of the book. There is nothing on the cover, but after flicking through a few dozen pages (with Pax spying the process), Rhayna discovers that the book contains detailed instructions on how to create a stone golem. There doesn't seem to be anything else special or sinister about it, but the contents are probably important and rare enough to warrant the warding glyph that was placed on it. And the fact that it remained in plain sight suggests that it is not the 'incriminating evidence' that the Matron Mother came searching for in her previous cover-up incursion.

Manual of Stone Golems

"Decide something, are we jumping into that blackness or not?" Sekkar was still waiting for the statue and could not afford distraction in a form of thinking, but was ready to follow.

Pax glances away from the over-the-top cook book, flickering her hand at Rhayna to do with as she wants, and looks around.  "There's a statue coming back any moment, and we need to search this room for the book. I don't think we should not leap through the black portal to who knows where. The box is meant to be left here, and it seems as good a place as any. I'll face the guardian, Sekkar, you can attack it from behind." 

Letting the black shadows crawl up and around her form, soon Pax is shrouded in darkness, sparkling frozen bits hanging in the air around her. Armor of Agathys at 3rd level. 

She stand roughly before where the statue left from, and readies herself for combat.

Sekkar nodded and took the position "behind" the place where the statue was supposed to appear (hide action, Stealth: 20 )

Kaylyn looks at the void, understanding what it is and the risks involved.  "The book is that way." she says pointing at the void.  "The drow didn't find the book because it isn't in this room.  Whatever the risk, we must proceed in and find it."  She looks around at the others.  "Are you ready?" 

When they indicate they are, she steps into the void.

Pax frowns and glances over her shoulder back at Kaylyn, "We don't even know what the book is or why we're looking for it. Just that a bunch of Drow want it. We should, at minimum, leave the box here, primary mission done, so that if the book is that way, we don't have to get back here to leave the box behind...."

"We need to put the talisman somewhere. Vizeran said to put it where the Grimoire then send word to him to start the ritual," Kirin reminds them as he had partial headache from keeping the spell up, "So someone figure out what to do before big stone statue comes back. If it's same construct as that manual entails and only this much space, I'm almost tempted to try my luck with the portal,"

"Then just leave the box here, maybe under the table or behind the books and let's go." Sekkar was waiting, though. Kirin had to be the last, but the lizardman wanted to make sure others are safely through before joining them in the portal (?) if that thing was the portal.

"Pensive is within, somewhere, trapped in some way. I cannot feel him, yet I cannot dismiss him either to recall him another time.  I mean to enter.  If we are gone when the golem returns then it will likely resume its place and guarding.  We will deal with it as needed if we return to this room." Kaylyn says, ignoring what the others said of the talisman.

Sekkar and Pax remain poised for the possible return of the statue, Pax casts her eyes around the room looking for potential places to leave the talisman. Perhaps with the books on the shelf? Under the desk? The box itself was inconspicuous enough, but if more drow mages forced there way in here, would they not detect the strong magic aura? Could it be disguised somehow? Guarded? Or should she wait until they found the grimoire, and place it there as Vizeran instructed?

As indecision mounts among the others, Kaylyn has an added concern that steels her resolve and heightens her urgency - the disappearance of her beloved familiar. Deciding that the delay has persisted long enough, she takes a breath and steps into the void...

Almost as soon as Kaylyn touches the inky surface, she vanishes!

(Three rounds down on the Banishment spell)

Pax takes a moment to pull out her Gem of Seeing.  She triggers it and glances around the room.  Then, if she doesn't see any better spots, she gets the box and moves over to a bookshelf. She withdraws the heart from within, and hides it, best she can, on the bookshelf, high up on an upper shelf or on the very top of the shelving, using mage hand to slip it out of direct view if possible.  Good enough for now. 

"Alright, let's go." 

That done, with the gem of seeing still in her hand, she grabs the lead lined box and jumps through the black void.

Rhayna sees her companions starting to jump into the black void portal. "Err.... Ok..." She goes quickly to the check the parts of the desk and shelf that she detected an aura of magic. To see if she get find any clue regarding the portal.

Rhayna Investigation: 28

Pax scans the room with the aid of the gem, but finds no illusions, nothing in the Border Ethereal, and no-one who is a shapechanger. Indeed the whole rooms seems unusually sterile by the usual standards for the lair of a powerful wizard. It seems if any such magic tricks were ever present, they were cleared out by whoever searched the room previously. With no better options, Pax plants the talisman out of sight and then disappears into the portal...

Rhayna nudges Kirin out the way as she also takes a brief look at the desk. There are a few trace auras and telltale signs, and her opinion is that Kirin's unathorised touching of the desk is probably what activated the statue. And although the desk drawers feel empty, they could very well be connected to minor demiplanes of their own, like individual 'bags-of-holding', although certainly these too would have been searched previously.

There is nothing about the desk however that gives any information about the portal. It seems whoever searched the room previously completely overlooked the portal. It was only Sekkar's keen eyes that revealed the barely-discernible marks from the door's movement. And the faint magical aura that was there may have been previously disguised by the presence of some other arcane object, which has since been moved.

Rhayna, Sekkar and Kirin remain in the room...

((Sekkar is waiting for Rhaina to enter the portal. Then he would follow, allowing Kirin to be the last to keep the statue banned))

Finding nothing useful, Rhayna follows the others through the portal.