Jinnaari waited for Moon to walk away before he tried to talk with Adam. Turning to the warlock, he asked, “What’s going on?”

“We were right,” he said. “Vizeran put more than he said into this.” He held up the cylinder. “I’m not entirely certain what, but my Eldritch sight gave me enough information to limit it.”

“Damn,” the dragonborn breathed the word. He’d anticipated this, talked about it with Adam. Still, he held out a small sliver of hope that the Drow wasn’t as evil as they suspected. “The passage does exist though, right?”

Adam nodded. “Helix brought me a map. I don’t know where or how he got it, but he did. It showed the route, and the tunnel we need. Just not how to find or access the door. Which is why I didn’t just leave this on the ground.”

Jinnaari exhaled. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Pan and Caelynn talking with Thia. Distracting her while they waited. “Don’t tell her,” he instructed. “It’ll just be one more thing she’d worry about. Besides, you neutralized it.” He looked back at Adam. “You did neutralize it, right?”

“Yeah. The only thing it’ll do now is what we were told to start with. When we get close enough, I’ll know it. Oh, and I found this inside.” He placed a long, black crystal shard in Jinnaari’s hand. “Don’t tell Moon,” he cautioned, “or she’ll want to play with it.”

The paladin turned it over in his hand. The edges were cut and smoothed out. “What is it?”

“I think it’s the key to open the door. It was rattling around in the container. It’s what made the sound Moon heard.”

“Let me get this straight: he made a device to find a door, then hid the key in the device? And added a whole bunch of other things to it? That we have no idea what they did?”

“Pretty much.”

Jinnaari looked back down the path that led back to the mage’s tower. “I tried to warn him. The next time I see him, he pays the price for not listening to me.”

“Don’t get distracted. Lolth dies first. Or Herasta.” Adam paused, “You’re not really letting Thia kill her own mother, are you? I don’t know if she could handle that.”

Jinnaari shrugged, “She’s tougher than she lets on. You’re right, though. Something like that would be hard for her to live with. I only said that I might let her have the final blow. I didn’t say that it would be the one that killed her.”

Adam chuckled, “That’s an awfully thin line.”

“But it’s one we have to maintain. She’s a healer, not a killer.” He turned back toward the rest of the group. “Come on. They’re getting antsy, and we’re going to have to tell them something about what you did.”