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Al'Kabor took a deep breath and the energy that was gathered from the sheer rage of the mighty wizard dissipated. "Fool! Continue." Dagda turned a worried gaze upon the wizard, her hand slowly moving to her sword, just in case.

Dabner fidgeted nervously, shuffling his feet and wringing his gnomish hands. "Wow Al, you're really mad about this aren't you."

Ignoring the last few stressful moments completely Ognit said, "Ehem, yes. So anyway, I found that if I infused that Hatch thing that's attached to the wall with just the tiniest bit of magical energy it would act like a transformer and release HUGE amounts of power!"

Al'Kabor clenched both of his fists and relaxed them once again. "For your information gnome, that Hatch 'thing' you speak of was put in place to protect the Wall of Living Stone and to keep it alive and healthy!"

Al'Kabor continued, "The Heretics damaged the wall of Living Stone by trying to do the very same experiments! After they damaged it they put the Hatch in place to keep the wall alive and strong. The Hatch and the Wall of Living Stone prevent the creatures that inhabit the Plane of Underfoot from entering the world ever again. Your meddling has obviously weakened both."

Ognit nodded and said, "Well yes, of course. My experiments were going really well and I managed to get an amazing power output on my last attempt. That's when things turned badly."

Al'Kabor put the back of his hand to his forehead and asked in a tired voice, "So you damaged the Living Stone, weakened the Hatch and suddenly you were surrounded by denizens of the underfoot breaking loose and running pell-mell to the surface correct?"

Well, that's about right," Ognit answered.

No doubt those creatures were all waiting with baited breath for the moment the wall would be weakened sufficiently allowing for their escape again. I'm sure they were alerted the moment you've begun this madness," the wizard hypothesized.

Dabner raised his hand. The diminutive cleric of Brell Serillis said, "Ognit, tell him about that Dartain guy. He seemed pretty nice, except for that bit about draining our life force and stuff."

Al'Kabor turned a murderous glare upon the gnome, "Gods strike me dead now!" His voice dripping with sarcasm and spite he ordered, "Yes Ognit, please tell me about Dartain!"

A rather large crowd of people had gathered around the group and were listening intently to the discussion. One person in particular, another Erudite, seemed very interested in what was being discussed. So interested in fact, that he was writing furiously in a small booklet apparently recording every word that was said.

Ognit said nervously, "Yes, well, this Dartain fellow was an Erudite, like you."

Noticing the anger of Al'Kabor building again upon the comparison, Ognit corrected himself. "No! I take that back! He was nothing like you actually. Not like you, uhh, he was kind of spooky though. Not like you're not scary yourself."

Ognit stopped and stammered, "Umm. I didn't mean that like it sounded. Let me start over. Ok, so this Dartain guy was an Erudite." Al'Kabor took in breath as the name was repeated and his teeth ground audibly.

Ognit laughed nervously and then said, "Yes. So he said he was trapped for a long time in the Plane of Underfoot but he seemed really happy to finally be out of there. On the bright side, he told me that The Living Wall would heal itself in time. And he said that The Hatch was still functioning properly. So everything should be ok."

Ognit smiled, "You see, no harm done! A few days and everything should be back to normal!"