Darien spent the rest of the day cleaning up the ruins of what had been the research library of Cordin Oakstaff. He'd managed to straighten back up all the bookshelves, but he'd lacked any kind of idea as to what order the books had been in originally. He'd settled on organizing them alphabetically by title so he'd at least be able to find something if necessary.

Lendus had prepared a meal for the two of them, but Darien had been hesitant to eat it as he didn't know if the young wizard might be attempting to poison him. Darien considered his usefulness to Lendus had yet to expire, so he assumed the food was safe. He still ate cautiously. Afterwards, he kept an eye out for books on poisons and their antidotes as he worked on the putting the books away.

At sunset, Lendus returned from burying his former master and vanished into his room, the door bolting shut after him. The chambers of Cordin were magically sealed and prevented Darien from sleeping there for the night, and other than the library itself, the only room he could find available was a small storage space in a dusty basement.

The walls were made of dull gray cobblestone, sunken back from the wood pillars holding up the ceiling. Wedged in between the pillars were boxes and crates covered by spider webs and years of dust. The floor was obscured by a layer of sandy earth left over from when the building had been constructed. No one had bothered to clean the place out, so it remained.

He lit a few candles to see by, placing them on loose stones around the basement to provide marginal amounts of illumination. He also bolted the door at the top of the stairs, even though he knew it wouldn't keep out a determined magic user. Taking a broom, Darien swept the dirt on the floor to one corner of the basement to deal with another day. He also used the broom to clear out the spider webs and any of the arachnids still present.

When he was finished, Darien started reading some of the books he'd collected during his organization of the shelves. He started with one detailing the amulet and its known abilities. Strangely enough, the amulet was reportedly crafted by the serpents of the Velacian Mountains.  He found it odd the very magical item needed to conquer the reptiles had actually been made by them, but he suspected they'd never anticipated it'd be used against them.  Unfortunately, the book was lacking any form of description. He assumed it was the reason Cordin and Lendus had such a hard time finding it as they didn't know what to look for, but it also made him question how Cordin had managed to get his hands on it in the first place.

Darien wondered about the origins of the amulet.  Since the serpents created the magical item, it stood to reason they'd have more, so Darien had trouble understanding how one amulet would've helped Cordin Oakstaff defeat the reptiles if they could produce and wield as many as they needed.

Thinking back to what Lendus had told him about the amulet, he realized the answer. The amulet granted magical power to those without it and amplified the power of those who could wield magic. Darien suspected the serpents lacked magical abilities and had constructed the amulet as a countermeasure against enemy wizards. Cordin's abilities would've been increased enough to the point where the serpents own power would no longer be enough to stop him, allowing him to bring them down and achieve victory. He thought it a cunning method of turning their own creation against them.

Darien guessed the amulet was in the pouch he'd been given.  He also suspected Lendus might be watching him remotely with the aid of magic, so he didn't dare remove it from hiding. He intended to keep it concealed until such time as he'd learned enough to face Lendus in a fight. If the apprentice discovered Darien's secret before he was ready, the fight would be considerably one sided and lethal.

In order to do his work in secrecy, Darien needed to shield himself from prying eyes, magical and otherwise. One of the books he'd brought with him contained information on a shroud enchantment, blocking vision of any kind from penetrating the magical shield for as long as it was in effect. He memorized the words before pretending to go to bed.

Darien's bed was little more than a thin mat he'd found rolled up in one of the storage crates. It smelled of the cedar box it had been housed in, but the scent wasn't strong enough to make him prefer to sleep on the floor. Dragging the mat into a corner, he curled up on it and pretended to go to sleep. Reaching into the pouch he'd received from Cordin, Darien took hold of what was contained inside without removing it from the pouch.

He was forced to rely on touch alone before the shroud enchantment was in place, but it served well enough to give him an idea of what he held. The object was round and flat, similar to coin slightly smaller than the width of his palm. It was made of either metal or stone, mostly smooth and cold, but he couldn't tell which material without seeing it.

One surface was carved with something he couldn't fully make out, but he could detect a multitude of lines etched into the material. The center held something with the area around it recessed so the middle of the coin shaped object stood separate from the rest. Having stolen a number of amulets over the years, he assumed the raised center was in all probability a jewel or crystal, most likely for focusing magic rather than simple ornamentation.

Darien was mostly convinced the object he held inside the pouch was the amulet Cordin and Lendus wanted in their fight against the serpents. Darien was about to recite the words to enact the shroud enchantment, but a sudden thought gave him pause. If he was wrong about it being the amulet, the enchantment wouldn't work as he had no magical power of his own. Without a shroud to cover his activities, Lendus would be able to see everything and know Darien had kept something from him. He was gambling his life on being right.

Lacking any better choice, Darien recited the words to enact the shroud enchantment.

A cloud of orange sparkles appeared all around him in a dome of glittering color, but it vanished as quickly as it had come. Darien reached out to where it had been, and the sparkles returned around his fingertips. When he withdrew his hand, the sparkles faded away instantly.

Darien laughed as he realized the shroud enchantment was active. He had performed his first act of magic. The object in the pouch had to be the serpent amulet, granting magic to those with no capability.

He opened the pouch fully and removed the amulet. As he suspected, the central protrusion was a gemstone, a cut and polished ruby glittering in the candlelight. The surrounding material was metal, but what he'd thought were words etched into the surface was the meticulous work of a master craftsman. Two snakes had been carved into the surface, each and every scale of their skin perfectly rendered in metal. The outermost snake of copper was coiled clockwise around the center ruby while the inner snake of silver was coiled in the opposing direction. The snakes intertwined along the way until their heads met in the center on either side of the ruby. The tips of the snakes' tails twisted together to form a loop where the chain of a necklace could be threaded.

Darien had seen many pieces of jewelry, and stolen quite a few of them, but he'd never seen such detailed workmanship before. If he didn't know better, he would've thought the snakes capable of coming to life and slithering away at any moment.

His enjoyment was short lived as he realized the danger of what he held. Cordin Oakstaff had been planning to use the amulet to bring down the serpents before Darien's unexpected arrival had killed him. The thought of what Lendus would do with such a powerful artifact sent a chill down his spine.

He began digging through the books with a furious intensity, searching for either a way to destroy the amulet, lock it away, or dispel its abilities if it fell into the wrong hands. He wasn't entirely sure his hands were the right ones, but he trusted others even less.

During his investigation, he heard a noise coming from below his room. Darien had thought the basement was the lowest chamber, but as he listened, the sound came again, a soft scraping. Something was definitely below him.

Finding the right words in one of his books, he held the amulet firmly in his right hand and whispered the magical instructions. The stones of the floor lifted up as if on invisible strings, realigning themselves to form steps into a secret room below his storage area.

What Darien found could only be described as a dungeon. Bare stone walls composed the utterly square room, and a massive cage of iron bars filled the center. Chained by her wrists inside the cage was a woman lying face down on the ground but as Darien carried one of his candles closer, he saw what had made the scrapping sound. From the waist down, the woman had the body of a snake.