We pop out from the closet in which we've been hiding. Clearly the gas has done its work. The bodies of trolls, gnomes, dwarves slump in their chairs, on each their rings -- what we've come for.

I'm hesitatant: has the gas worked? Do we have nasty business in front of us? God help us -- help me -- if we do. I'm not itching for knife work today. Not here and not like this. This isn't the heat of battle, this is just cold dispatching and not pleasant business, no matter why we're here or who they are.

The Eye of Lud has been drawing from these rings, it is oversized now, massive and heavy looking. It looks like a tree stump the size of a man's wrist mounted on a ring of equal size, the top disk graven with images to hold and contain the Eye. With this we can take on the vile Eye of the west.

"Quietus est dolorum" says the cleric, raising the Eye. My junior high latin was brief and that was half a lifetime ago -- longer. I remember the translation than the actual words he said, something like "it is painful when you sleep".

The Eye struggles awake. The blue eye radiates like a plasma globe times infinity, like a halved geoede hooked into the world's largest power supply.

Even half awake, you can feel it's awsome power.

I don't know what I expected it would do. It speaks to us in a simple singsong that is as sensical as a baby's babble and very nearly the same in tone except its like the soft cooing of a lover while being stoned in comparison. It pierces but with such a calm demeanor. It makes one happy to have freed it.

I can see what the eye sees. I can see beyond the wall and the trolls on the other side as if they were line drawings. I can see the plan for kicknig out the space above them, surprising them. I see this in the simple crayon-like vision of the Eye. The Eye knows how it will get out. We are the friends of the Eye and it will tell us what we need to do to allow it to help us.

The path is so clear now.