Faced with walls of glyphs and multiple lines of text, the group waits for Barada to finish his translation. The story of the evil that befell the sphinx empire comes to light and the text is revealed to be riddles. The riddles are answered in turn, and each instance of answering opens a door to a long hallway. Each hallway terminates in a test of some kind – stone golems, acid river, trapped alcoves, etc., etc. Copious magic use – teleportations, vitality spells, fly spells, walls of force and the like allow the group to obtain the desired objects at relatively small personal risk – a decided change of pace from the usual mayhem and blood-soaked tales of triumph.
The triangular keys are recovered over the course of several days time and placed within the central pyramid in the riddle chamber. The room is revealed to be an elevator room of some sort and the descent is a long and slow one. The elevator deposits the group in the corner of an immense chamber that hints at yet more secrets and riddles to be dealt with. Cautiously, the group fans out to explore this new space…
Down, down, down we go, how we get up nobody knows.