The problems, however, began already as they were traveling the short distance from the gates to the shrine entrance. Vicala seemed to ever forget where they were heading and why. When at last they arrived, she fumbled for a full half-hour with her bags to find the letter in which the secret password was given to her, and when she finally found it, she couldn't pronounce the whole one-syllable word correctly in one breath, so the damned thing would not open. Zhen came to her rescue in this matter, of course.
It would turn out that on this day, he was about to come to the rescue of this highly experienced adventurer more than once. It was a sad sight, as she stumbled into the first chamber and, in the shock of finding a giant spider there, once again dropped her sword to the floor. It was an even sadder sight when she tripped over the threshold into the next chamber and fell prone, lying there until he helped her up.
Between the spiders dropping from the ceiling and Vicala accidentally summoning a fearsome demon -- which, admittedly, she did kill astonishingly quickly, in a move reminding Zhen of what he had seen her true, unintoxicated self perform in the Underdark -- travel through this dark place was slow, to say the least. He didn't lose his temper though, not even when she broke his lock-picking concentration by actually sitting herself down on the chest he was trying to open. He then told her to get the contents of the chest, and she claimed that she had found only a white piece of paper, although he later feared that her condition simply had made it impossible for her to read, or she was possibly looking on the backside. He became afraid that he may have given away something really valuable and that she might have thrown it away.
After all this, that seemed like an eternity, they finally had passed through the entire thing, and this is truly the most disturbing part. As Zhen rushed into that last chamber, he was suddenly struck by a revelation. He had seen this place before. He had fought all this lowly vermin once before, a long time ago. Thinking about it, he realized why he had forgotten about that. Of course. He had been drunk. He scribbled down his thoughts about this on a little note that later was posted on the public cork board in Blackstone Keep:
I imagine that before my female companion realizes the perils of this liquid pastime, she must one day travel down there a second time only to face the same revelation as I did. And what do you think our enemies will do in that extra time? Sit idly by? No, our enemies will make even more money, and prey even more upon the poor adventurers, without the day of salvation drawing a minute closer.
Is it worth it?
