The scene opens with Davros descending the shaft, not yet having reached the room itself. It has begun to rain, and the rope is becoming wet. The sound of voices from above necessitates haste. Mishok is engaged in combat with the goblin guards and, wounded, is beset by mechanical spiders. Sartan stands amid the severed cable and the shattered pieces of the spider he dispatched with an axe blow. Ekso accompanies Cycek up the hallway, back towards to lab, praising his resourcefulness while surreptitiously uttering the words of a Charm spell. Cycek succumbs to the spell and views Ekso as a friend and ally. He urges Ekso to come meet his colleagues.
Davros, continuing his descent, has some trouble with the rain-slicked cables, and takes a minor fall, but successfully reaches the floor. Meanwhile Sartan and Mishok slay two of the goblin guards but not before Mishok is taken down by goblin and spider attacks. He drops to the floor unconscious and Sartan and Davros move to rescue their fallen comrade. The remaining panicked goblin guard heads back into the hallway, frantically reporting the battle to his boss, Ekso.
Cycek and Ekso emerge into the lab. Ekso bellows “desist!” and all the mechanical spiders stop moving. The howling ghouls even quiet somewhat at the sound of his voice. Cycek administers life-saving first aid to Mishok while Ekso surveys the scene. He is clearly pleased at the sight of the daylight shining from above, but he is also distracted by the damage and disarray of his carefully calibrated structure. He instructs his remaining goblin guard to be rid of the bodies of his dead coworkers. Sartan approaches the central gem in its cradle, and threatens to smash it with his axe. Ekso assures him that his forces will stand down and suggests that there can be a peaceful resolution to the situation. Ekso seems to recognize Sartan, although Sartan does not recall ever having met him before.
While Mishok is brought back from the verge of death, Ekso launches into a monologue about his efforts to bring this ancient part of the world back to its former glory. He is astonished at the party’s success at opening the portal that had thwarted his efforts for so long. He heaps praise upon them, suggesting that there may be an opportunity for them to join his team. Working to repair the damage, he takes hold of the severed cable, hold the ends together, utters indiscernible words, and the cables re-knit into one continuous piece. The mechanical spiders return to him, and one by one he depresses their buttons, closes them up, holds them to his forehead, and recites new commands. The spiders disperse and begin to re-tension the wires.
His initial repair work done and introductions made, Ekso invites the reluctant party to join him for lunch. Cycek, still under the effects of the Charm spell, encourages his wary colleagues to accept this invitation. He leads them to another passageway. Davros, Sartan, and Mishok very cautiously follow at a distance. Passing one of the empty cells, they see a pile of gear, weapons, and outerwear. Davros, being a rogue at heart, reaches through the bars and grabs a quiver of 6 crossbow bolts. Once Ekso has proceeded out of sight down the hallway, Coriander calls out to Davros from her cell. The gear in the other cell is hers. She encourages Sartan to grab her dagger, which he does. He runs halfway across the room and slides it across the floor and into her cell. Meanwhile, Ekso is patiently coaxing his guests into the dining room. The room is dwarven stone construction with a stone table in the center, surrounded by 8 chairs. There are a series of ancient tapestries hanging on the walls depicting creatures with wings and horns and bearing similar indecipherable dwarvish runes to those on the lid of the Star Portal.
Sartan insists upon a need to relieve himself. There is a facility for such bodily functions in a curtained-off corner of the adjacent room. Ekso assigns a goblin guard to keep Sartan company. Casually looking around the room, Sartan sees a bed, book shelves, a desk, chairs, and the top of a spiral stairway leading down. The spiral stairway encircles a sculpture of a winged, horned figure.
Back in the dining hall, all are seated, and shortly the east door opens. A young woman clad in black, grey, and red enters with a small two-headed dog on a leash. Ekso rises and introduces her as Wendella. She has black, spiky hair and a red 8-pointed star either tattooed or painted on her forehead. He tells the party that she is no longer a child in need of her foolish parents, but rather a grown woman with a mind of her own. He says she is referred to by some as the “Princess of the Undead” but he dislikes the name. He regards the “undead” as more alive than the living. They have twice the life, and thus she should be called “Princess of the Double-Live.” Expounding on this theme, she asserts that she has made a pledge to a being of great power and it is her obligation to help bring him into this world.
The conversation goes on in this vein until suddenly the party awake in a different place. As they observe their new environment from behind bars, they come to realize that they have been drugged. The seem to have slept for some time, and are now in individual cells along the perimeter of the Gem Lab. They also seem to have been relieved of their weapons and gear. They see Ekso about his work at a stone workbench at the west end of the room. Cycek finds a jagged edge on the iron frame of the cell door and begins working at cutting the bonds that secure his hands behind his back. He is in a cell immediately adjacent to that of Coriander. They speak to each other in Elvish, and begin hatching a plan. She is unsure, but suggests that she can cast an illusion to draw their captor close to the cell door, and then stab him with the dagger. It seems unlikely to work, but worth a try. Meanwhile, Davros, Mishok, and Sartan all seek ways to cut their bonds as well. Mishok, his hands behind his back, realizes that he still as the mechanical spider in his back pocket. He is able to remove the device, and then with great effort, step his feet through his linked hands and bring them to his front side. Having watched Ekso reprogram such a device, he holds it to his forehead and commands it to steal the keys from Ekso’s belt. He releases it and it sets off on its way.
During this time, a tall charred figure enters from the west side of the room. It is Eve Viscerator and she is in bad shape. She reports to Ekso that there has been fighting on the perimeter with guards from the city. The guards have been routed, but her forces have taken losses. She begins to tell of four assholes who climbed the cliff and did THIS to her. Ekso turns an eye toward the cells and she follows his gaze. Realizing that the captives are the ones who wounded her, she flies into a rage a lurches toward Cycek’s cell. Ekso commands her to stand down, but she continues. He puts a hand to her shoulder, speaks some words, and the bugbear captain goes rigid, trembling and smoking, and finally collapses to the ground. He commands the aghast goblins to haul her out of here.
This commotion spurs Coriander to act. She casts an illusion of a huge gem on the floor just outside her cell, as if, perhaps the dying bugbear had dropped it. Ekso’s eyes go wide and he turns and reaches for it, but he suddenly realizes that it’s an illusion. Coriander casts a ray of frost that envelopes Ekso, to no avail. He resists the spell, and enraged begins to verbally assault Coriander. Cycek momentarily distracts him and she uses that moment to stick the dagger in his side.
The goblins, who have begun dragging away the blackened carcass of Eve Viscerator, stop in their tracks at the sound of their boss’s bellow. Before they can act on his behalf, Sartan and Davros begin taunting them. They come close to Davros, who tries to convince them to release him. One refuses, but the other is nearly swayed. One goblin, by the name of Longdick McGee crosses the room to confront Sartan, who has during this time, managed to escape his bonds. Sartan finds that he still has his hypnotic fidget spinner and he puts the unlucky goblin into a trance.
Mishok calls upon the sacred flame and brings flash after flash of fire upon the bleeding wizard, who is no longer cool or collected. He is shouting and raging now. Ekso wounds Coriander with a magic missile and then binds her to the bars of the cell with a web. He also exhales a poison gas into Cyceks face. While Ekso struggles in front of Cycek’s cell, Mishok’s spider appropriates the keys and begins to bring them back to his new master. One more blast of fire causes Ekso to retreat. Cycek, also having cut his bonds, removes a boot and hurls it at Ekso, striking him in the ass.
Across the room, the goblin named Greaseball has been persuaded by Davros, that he is better off releasing the party because otherwise he’s going to end up dead, just like his bugbear captain. Greaseball unlocks Davros’s cage, just as two mechanical spiders unlock and open the cell containing two enraged ghouls.