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Cautiously you step out of the transporter beam and enter the cavern. The shattered remnants of the crystal dais crunch underfoot as you make your way across the floor towards a tunnel which gradually descends for more than a mile before reaching a circular cavern. The mouths of several smaller tunnels meet at this chamber, and all of these entrances are dark, save for one which radiates an icy blue luminescence. Before approaching any closer, you retrieve the Tome of Darkness from your Backpack and consult its pages.

The black page that revealed to you information about the realm of Huan’zhor is now featureless, but the one which follows it has transformed; it has taken on the appearance of a thin sheet of ice. Sandwiched within its transparent layers are lines of blood-red writing interposed with intricate diagrams and astrological charts. Relying once more upon your Magnakai Discipline of Pathsmanship, you are able to decipher much of this sorcerous text. The writings inform you that you have entered the realm of the Demoness Shamath, the Mistress of the Gates of Darkness, who rules from her Throne of Power which stands beside the Pool of Sorrows. You pass over a long list of unspeakably cruel deeds which have secured for her the rulership of this realm, until you come to two very useful pieces of information. The first reveals Shamath’s secret name ‘Gnekasha’ and the second details how one can escape from this realm. You swallow hard when you read that ‘all those who would seek to leave the realm of Shamath must first spill their own blood in the Pool of Sorrows’.

You close the Tome and stow it away into your Backpack, and then stealthily you approach the tunnel entrance which is radiating a pale azure light. When you halt upon its threshold and peer through its embellished archway, you witness a scene which both shocks and confounds you.

Turn to 275.