Murtagh descends into the tunnels beneath Nal Gorgoth, finding the air hotter and fouler than before. He checks the energy stored in Zar’roc’s ruby, chooses stealth over magical light at first, and kills an archer who tries to ambush him from the darkness.

At the bottom of the stairs, three Draumar attack in quick succession. Murtagh dispatches them easily and realizes their poor, piecemeal resistance is meant only to delay him, either so Bachel can escape or so her followers can prepare.

Murtagh reaches the Well of Dreams and finds it deserted, with the grate pulled aside and black smoke venting from the shaft through hidden slits in the ceiling. By extending his mind, Murtagh senses Bachel far below and chooses a passage that might lead downward, accepting the risk of becoming lost in the underground maze.

As Murtagh descends through the complicated warren, he uses Thorn’s distant mind as a point of orientation and eventually creates a red werelight. The air grows heavier, smoke drifts through the tunnels, and the oppressive presence he felt in Nal Gorgoth intensifies. Murtagh’s focus begins to slip despite new wards, and he is plagued by vivid visions of Tornac, a screaming man on a black-sun plain, flights of dragons, and Nasuada suffering in the Hall of the Soothsayer.

In a mushroom-filled cave, Murtagh discovers a grotesque pale scavenger feeding on a dead cultist. When he probes its mind, he senses only hunger and learns more are coming. A horde of the creatures, which he thinks of as fingerrats, swarms him; his wards nearly fail under their attack before he kills them with a thought-spell and flees, pursued by their distant chittering.

Murtagh continues through the nightmare-like tunnels, killing two more fingerrats and questioning whether such creatures exist only under Nal Gorgoth or wherever the Draumar worship. Then he encounters a large, black, insectoid horror with bladed mouthparts and pincers. It retreats instead of attacking, leaving Murtagh unsettled by how many unnatural creatures may lurk beneath the village.