In a sphere of light, the ill-begotten adventurers find themselves still on the other side of a large wooden door. After a bit of time becoming acquainted with the lack of sensory information presented, while the druid begins a plan that had come to him within a dream. He walks up to the wall adjacent to the door as a large worm-like creature with a glowing red face materializes before him, immediately beginning to burrow into the stone. He summons two more of these creatures to create a small tunnel around the doorway, which leads them to the other side of the darkened tunnel.
They walked cautiously down, until a tremble in the ground caused the priestess to halt, while Fenris and Cailin were thrown forward as the ground began to tilt. Eventually the hallway became a giant ramp quickly sliding the two towards a glowing pit.... of lava! As the two splashed into the pool, Fenris threw his wings out and flew from the heat as the mechanik gestured in an attempt to free himself. However, the pain was too much and he fell unconscious, sinking deep into the lava. Fenris flew back towards the door as the floor leveled itself out, meeting up with Tuka huddled against the door.
The two of them wandered about the corridors and tunnels almost aimlessly until they found themselves back at the entrance they first came through. Fenris attempted to dig his way through the dirt and rock once more, finding that it would only fill itself back up right after. As a last ditched attempt at escape, they brought some of the body parts from the alchemist's laboratory they had discovered back to the grinning devil face they had passed by before. Tuka, with a rotting eyeball in hand, reached into the pitch-black mouth as Fenris watched her body crumble into dust. All alone in this god-forsaken pit, he walked to the top of the corridor and summoned, once more, a lava worm. After a failed attempt at burrowing through, he rested with the hopes of performing this task once again in the.... morning, if you would. He awoke and immediately set to his task. Summoning a worm to dig through, then another right on the heals of it's corruption. Then another. And another, all the while making headway through the demonic stone, until finally a break! He rushed through the ash as the last worm vanished and reaching out he found a handfull of dirt as the walls began to close around him. Dirt and rock surrounded Fenris, as his final restinging place would be a coffin of stone.
Autukalina, Cailin, and Fenris each awoke the next morning (in the hospic tent, his shop, and the stables respectively) as the events of their dream (or nightmare, if you prefer) swiftly fled from their memories. Each made their way into the Legendary Horse for breakfast, per their ritual, as they awaited their companion Sariphina. Ginbin interrupted their meals with news that they are to report to Captain Letoshek immediately. After a stern talking-to about the previous nights scuffle in the bar, they were told to sleep the day off and return to duty the following.
As each wandered around Amberstone, they came to the conclusion through different means that their waiting was for naught: The partner that they had known as Sariphina was not known to anyone else in town; stave for Mennamora, who recalled that being the young girl who delivered the ledger of her dearly departed friend and colleague. With shock and worry on their minds, each of the went to rest.
The next morning, they awoke with a pain on their chests. Each found a suspicious marking that had been etched in their skin overnight, apparently without even waking them. As they met up again in the town center, they shared their findings that Cailin had been marked with the arcanic symbol of "fire" while the priestess found hers to mean "darkness" in the same runic language. Now their task had grown from simply discovering the whereabouts of their past companion to now also figuring out who had marked them with these cursed symbols.
