You put the gnomes in the semicircular room, close the doors so they can remain there safely with their lantern, and you return to the MADNESS test.

Upon entering, the door closes behind you.  Only your light amulet and the glowing cube emit any light.

You look down the pit with the four sets of ladders going down.  The ladders go down into darkness, not into a natural darkness, but into another of those darkness spells that seem to be common in this ancient temple to obscure what lies below.  So each of the 4 ladders goes down about 20 feet and disappears into a cloud of utter blackness.

Lukas heads to the madness room and peers down into the pit.  "Wonder if it has a bottom.  Should we bother to tie a rope to ourselves for when we go down?"

Shae will look around the entrance room, including the ceiling, and she will drop a small item like a coin or rock down the pit to test it out.

"I don't like this.  This is going to turn sour any second." Tahldar says as the others look around.

"That seems to be how these things work," Kahan responds, waiting to see how far down the drop is before descending the ladder.

"Someone could go down there and investigate, with a casting of fly and a rope tied for safety"

"Well, someone has to go down first.  If a volunteer will help, I will go.  After all, I am the smallest!", he says with a nervous giggle.  "A rope and a fly spell would certainly be welcome."

"We should be saving our spells if we can.  In any event a rope should work just fine.  Does anyone have rope?"

Borimer gives Tahldar the fifty foot coil of rope attached to his pack.

Tahldar looks aghast at the rope and the prospect of manual labor.  "Even though our friend Leogold is on the light side, I'll leave holding the rope in your capable hand Borimer.  I suspect there's more strength in your pinky than my entire arm." he says as he flexes a thin and quite spindly bicep.

Didit shrugged. "Ok, no fly spell, but then we should use another rope, and then we all should help with it. Every pair of hands can be the difference between life and death"

Borimer lashes one end of the rope around his handless arm and gives the other to Leogold, and then nods.  "We're good to go my friend."

Leo takes the end of the rope and ties it around his waists.  "I guess there is no way to know if one is better than the other", he says eying the ladders.  "If for some reason I can't talk, I will yank the rope repeatedly if I need to be pulled back up." He just picks the closest one and starts to head slowly down, checking each rung before putting his full weight on it.

Lukas walked around to another ladder "Let's see what madness comes"
He tied one end of his rope around the top rung and then dropped the rope down into the blackness.
Then got a firm grip on the rope he proceeded to climb down.

Shae tosses small pieces of rubble down the hole.  They disappear into the magical darkness, and you don't hear anything below.  It is then you remember the magical silence spells in addition to the darkness spells that were cast.

Lukas and Leo descend the ladders with ropes attached.  As they get to the darkness, all sight and sound of them disappear.  You are left feeling only their weight on the rope as they continue to descend.

PM

PM

Leo climbs back up the ladder and once securely topside he begins to relate what he found.

"The darkness and silent area only seems to cover about 15 feet of the descent.  After that it cleared and we could see and hear again.  Immediately we saw another dragon statue, this time with a purple gem.  I left it for now.  There was also a stone doorway but there was no apparent way to open it, other than removing the gem I imagine. Also, the floor appears to have mirror-like qualities from a type of reflective metal I am not familiar with.  Other than that, I didn't notice anything remarkable."  Pausing for a second, he adds "Oh, and the ladder does appear to be safe.  At least both of us made it down without mishap."

Shae says, "Well, that's good.  Let's all climb down together and then take the gem from there."

With resignation, Tahldar takes his position to climb down the ladder.  Knowing full well there's a fierce storm ahead that he is about to enter.

Borimer will go down the ladder first when the group is prepared to descend.  He looks forward to using two feet, one hand, and a stump.

Kahan follows after when a spot is available. If anyone needs help down he will help them first, being one of the stronger party members.

Didit will go last, but before proceeding she asks "Are you sure the floor is safe?"

"Eh, we were standing on it.  All I really know is that it was a noticeably reflective metal - like a mirror", he says in reply.  Shrugging he continues, "Does it make me comfortable that things will work out?  Not really.  None of these things has exactly been...fun.  This is madness after all", he winks as he gets in line to go back down.

Everyone reaches the bottom of the pit safely.  The darkness and silence spell only lasted for about 15 feet before opening up. into normal darkness, but this one is lit up by your light gem.

You are inside the pit leading down, with walls on all sides.  There is an ancient stone door on one wall of the pit.  There is also, right in the middle of the pit floor, another of those dragon pedestals.  This one has a purple gem in the maw of the dragon.

The stone door appears that it will not open until the gem is removed from the dragon's maw on the pedestal.  There are not any marks, rubble, or anything else on the floor or walls.  The floor is made of very reflective metal, like a mirror.

You find on the reflecting floor the pebble that Shae had dropped down here, but nothing else.