Eventually, Valygar and Minsc ran out of rooms, finding themselves in the scaffolding above the other side of the sphere. This was, Valygar guessed, where they had come in.
Below them were two round rooms, separated by only a door and resembling a figure 8.
While the southern room contained the viewing pool with the window to the Abyss, there was an unusual, if muffled commotion in the room directly north, where Reyna and her companions had made their camp.
Valygar made one last push through the rafters, making his way with hand and foot towards the top of the 8. With a small metal lever he'd stowed in his pack, he pried open one of the metal panels, giving him a direct window to the room below.
Two strange creatures had broken through the northern door — the "fish that walked as men" Reyna had mentioned.
These two creatures walked upright as men did, but their heads were distinctly fishlike, with two fins on their heads and mouths lined with long, needle-like teeth. Their bodies looked more like frogs than anything else, with powerful, long arms and small, bent legs, which ended in webbed and clawed fingers and toes. The only immediately noticeable difference between the two was their size and long, finned tails: the slightly smaller sahuagin had a tail covered in yellow spots.
Their smell of rotting fish immediately reached Valygar's nose when he'd cracked open the ceiling. Though the sahuagins' skin should have been bright green, as he recalled, their scales' color was muted and mottled. Were they sick?
But the most immediate problem, to his mind, was that they were hunched over the younger man, who didn't stir.
Valygar called out to them: "Stop!"
One of them, bigger than the other, looked up, meeting Valygar's gaze. In slow, halting Common, the fish-person said to them, their voice strangely reedy: "My people go hungry and the Master has not fed us."
"These men are off the table," Valygar said sternly.
A small, light, seemingly disembodied chuckle floated upwards somewhere inside the room.
Oh gods, he thought, he'd just made a pun without realizing it. Fortunately, it seemed entirely lost on the two fish-men below, if men they were.
"These are weak, sick," the sahuagin said, gesturing towards Reyna's companions with a clawed, webbed hand. "Their skin is even paler than usual for human-creatures."
"Well, Boo thinks you could use some sun, too," Minsc called out to them, "and then you might not smell so much like wet laundry."
"We do not wish to feed on these small pink ones, but we must," the sahuagin said. "They are no good to you, but they may stave off our deaths another day. What say you to that, dark one?"
Suddenly, dozens of small lights flew from the center of the room, bathing the round room in a golden glow, flinging themselves into the sahuagins' faces, looking for all the world like a constellation of untethered candle flames.
While the light was soft and comforting to a human, it had a much harsher effect on the fish-people. Immediately, the sahuagin covered their eyes: first with the milky-white membranes they had in place of eyelids, then with their clawed, webbed hands. But the small lights were nimble, slipping through their defenses and swarming around their faces.
The sahuagin lumbered forward on heavy, bent legs, retreating through the door to the north.
Valygar eased himself down through the missing panel, landing on the floor with the grace of a cat. Minsc followed suit, not injuring himself but making considerably more noise.
Aerie slowly faded back into view in the center of the room, her hands extended, gently guiding the cloud of lights with subtle flicks of her wrist.
"It's like the forest, isn't it?" she said to Valygar. "Sometimes, you just need some light."
"Where did you learn that cantrip?" he asked.
"The circus. We had two acrobats who did a pantomime of a love story, and these lights were always what I finished with. It's one of my favorites," she said, with a small smile.
Valygar and Minsc stood by her side as the sahuagin retreated into their quarters: yet another round room fashioned from travertine, but this one with a deep, wide pool. The fish-people, six in all to count by the number of stray limbs, barely fit in the water.
"I…I feel a little sorry for them," Aerie said. "They should be in the ocean, but they're stuck…there."
"They're said to raid seaports and serve their captives on the banquet table," Valygar said.
"Why would Lavok take them?" she asked. "It doesn't make any sense."
He shrugged. "Nothing about this place does."
Despite their tight quarters, the fish-people remained in the water; every now and again, one of their powerful limbs broke the surface, but their faces did not meet the air again while the cloud of lights hovered above them.
The door separating the two rooms had a broken lock, so with some difficulty, Minsc and Valygar barricaded it with the body of the ceramic golem they had fought. Only then did Aerie's hands fall to her sides.
With the door as sealed as they could make it, they turned their attention to Reyna's companions, the two men still lying on each side of the round room. Valygar lit a lantern and set it nearby as he and Aerie examined them.
Now that he had taken some food, the younger man seemed a bit better, though he still dozed listlessly as he leaned against the wall. However, the same couldn't be said for the other man: he lay on the travertine floor, his face flushed a deep red, small beads of sweat running into his bushy, white-blond beard.
It didn't take a priest to diagnose what was wrong with him. The stench of infection was obvious at least a pace away, and its source was the bandaged wound on his leg.
Aerie gingerly rested the back of her hand against the man's forehead, then quickly lifted it. A small patch of mingled sweat and dirt from his forehead suddenly glinted on her hand in the dim lantern light.
"He's burning up," she said. "I…I wonder how long he can hold out."
"Is there anything we can do?" Valygar asked.
She hesitated for a moment. "I could memorize a spell to cure the infection, but…"
"It'd take time we don't have," Valygar said. "Anything else?"
"I could heal him so that he could better fight the infection on his own — at least until we can help him more."
"I think his best chance of survival is for us to move quickly and return the sphere to Athkatla," Valygar said. "But if you think he can't last that long, do what you must."
Aerie knelt beside him and unwrapped his bandages, wrinkling her nose at the smell but working steadily. She tried casting a healing spell before re-wrapping the wound, a long, thin slice just below his knee framed in violently red, puffy skin.
Her fingers barely touching his leg, she tried casting a spell, murmuring, "Vita, mortis, careo."
She quickly wiped her hand with a cloth dipped in spirits, bowed over as she studied him closely. But there was no change. He still slept.
She re-wrapped his wound with fresh bandages she carried. They reluctantly left the two men to their own devices and returned to the room where they had first discovered the arm.
After some effort, they retrieved it and carried it away from where it had rested beside the broken ceramic golem. Not only was the iron arm heavy, but it was also unwieldy at six feet long, with the joints locked into place. The group eventually settled for having Minsc and Valygar rest each end on their shoulders. Aerie held the iron helmet in both hands.
"Minsc is happy to serve as porter, but he and Boo would much rather deliver justice to evildoers!" Minsc said.
They started leaving the room, the two men trying to find a rhythm with four feet. Valygar led the way, with the massive, curled fist in front of him.
"I doubt we can swing through the rafters with this in hand," Valygar said. "We'll have to go through the halflings' camp again and trust they will honor the safe-conduct they gave us."
They opened the door again, intending to embark upon the winding path toward the laboratory. But as soon as Valygar stepped over the threshold, he reeled as though struck.
"Valygar!" Aerie cried out. "What—what—"
"It's…it's that halfling psion," he said. "He's trying to—"
"Boo would never speak to Minsc if Minsc did not wish it!" Minsc proclaimed from the back. "The tiny priest ought to be taught a lesson in manners, Boo says."
Valygar violently tossed his head, as though physical force could eject the intruder from within his mind.
"What? What is it?" she asked.
But Valygar's dark eyes suddenly went strangely blank, as though he saw something the rest of them could not.
"The golem," Valygar said, suddenly calm. "They don't want us to build it."
"Why?" Aerie asked.
"The golems aren't for keeping out intruders, but guarding the prisoners — Lavok's experiments. And Entu thinks we're here to take the wizard's place. I tried explaining, but…"
He was interrupted suddenly by a series of low rumbles and booms reverberated throughout the sphere, rapidly echoing against its walls, every sound amplified by its shape, as though they were caught aloft and trapped within a thunderstorm.
Valygar slumped against the frame, the golem's arm pitching downward as he struggled to stay on his feet.
"He no longer speaks," he said, clearly relieved.
But the noises grew closer and took on a distinct character — a familiar sound of heavy, inanimate feet.
Aerie, Minsc, and Valygar turned toward the source, but couldn't see anything.
"What…what is it?" Aerie asked.
"They've activated them," Valygar said. He stared into the darkness again, but this time with weary resignation. "They're coming."