Filll the pages bit ...
Talice leads you onwards and soon you are presented with a view that makes your hearts cringe. The large cavern that is home to Maerimydra is covered in thick layers of smoke and dust, waving up from the destruction below. While other drow cities usually lie dark or are scantily illuminated with magical lights, Maerimydra is shed in bright light, coming from dozens upon dozens fires, either ravaging through parts of the city or being part of an army's numerous camps. Clouds of smoke obstruct much of your vision though and those magical portals responsible for fresh air have apparently a hard time doing their work appropriately. Breathing is difficult and you have to use a decent amount of willforce not to cough allowed and draw the attention of any passing creature. The ground before you is littered with corpses of goblinoids, trolls and drow. You stand on the edge of a large fungi plantation, parts of which have been burned, but most is still in good shape.
(As said, you stand right to the north of the lake in northern Maerimydra.) To your left, some 500 feet away, you can spot a number of hulking brutes, most likely giants and ogres, moving about near the Northern Gate. The fungi obstruct any view to what goes on near the ground, but from the bedlam there you guess that the place swarms with hobgoblins or bugbears, close to a large campfire. To the Southeast, about a mile away, a large oval structure on a steep plateau appears out of the clouds, a magnificent drow fortress by the looks of it. Dozens of fires below it give it a garish appearance and you think you can even hear the battles that take place there. Right next to you, steep walls - at least 40 feet high and quite bright (almost white) - rise up to a plateau filled with many fortress-like palaces and citadels. These noble houses all burn or lie shattered and after a short eye-contact, Malifice confirms that on that plateau the temple can be found too. The access staircases cannot be spotted from here, but lie just beyond the dark lake in front of you. The only thing left to do is to get there without being spotted by any of the invaders or defenders ...
