Coraine drops the final few feet to the floor, his boots thudding against the stone that is barely visible beneath the swirling, luminescent fog. He finds himself in a five-foot deep circular pit. At floor level, the chamber forms a large octagon some eighty feet wide; at each of the cardinal compass points, a wide set of stairs leads some fifteen feet upward to might bronze doors. The doors to the north are chained and locked, and silvery runes dance across their surface.
To the south of the pit in which the knight stands is a large alabaster slab, upon which sets two knives and a bowl of fine crystal. To either side of him are two large crystal braziers suspended from tripods on silver chains; these are the source of the sickly sweet perfumed smoke rising into the air.
All is quiet within the chamber.