[imported_Augustus Lee]

He stared at the spot Grim had summoned the gate for a long moment after the gate closed. A hand rose to his chin, drawing a finger along his jawline as he contemplated the events that had just taken place. With a small nod to himself, he turned and approached the large black alter that stood near the back wall of the basement. His hands moving to smooth the pages of the large, ancient, black leather bound tome that rested there.

Flipping through the pages, he stopped having found the one he sought and drew a finger down through the lines, mumbling words from another world and drawing a runic symbol in the air with his right hand, the hand of power. The rune blazed in the air for a moment in a shade of red, and then shot towards the wall. A rift taring open between realms where it impacted the wall.

Leaning over, he snatched up a torch and lit it from another hanging on a sconce near the rift before stepping through. Immediately he was covered in cobwebs and dust. A flurry of coughing and hands waving to break the webs proceeded, followed by much swearing in Drow. He'd grown fond of the language in his youth, having taken a Drow mate, and he still found himself speaking the language when frustrated or angered.

After clearing a substantial amount of the webbing and dust from the area he stood in, he gazed around at what remained of the Lee Family Archives.

There was rubble strewn here and there from when the castle had been attacked nearly an eon ago. But enough of the archives survived to remain useful. He picked his way through the aisle of books until he came across the section near the back. The section his father had locked off from him when he was a child. The section including the darkest of magics.

He followed the titles along until he found the Book of the Dead his father had aquired from his native land of Krynn and took the tome down, brushing his hand along the surface to wipe the dust away. On the surface, in the five chromatic colors were the five heads of Takhisis.

"Maybe I can find something in here to help the man..." He tapped his fingers along the binding before nodding to himself once more and making his way back to the rift. He stopped a moment near the rift, gazing down at some of the corpses that littered the floors, those he'd stepped over without a thought. You got used to these sorts of things when you went somewhere frequently he supposed. A little shrug rose from his shoulders. But then he saw corpse of the Drow he'd been thinking of moments ago, and a small frown creased his face. "Then again...maybe in helping him...he could help me." Moving to stand next to the decayed corpse, he knelt down and lifted the body of Sshivradrastae in his arms, resting the book across what was now only her rib cage. He proceeded through the rift then and lay her body across the alter, turning to inscribe the rune that would seal the rift once again.

That done, he turned and moved to lay the corpse in a cot set several feet from the alter, the cot that was only there for nights of late study. But for now it would serve as a resting place for his former lover. He turned back to the alter then and opened the Book of the Dead atop the ancient tome that rested on the alter, and pulled a stool over to sit, hunched over the book. He began reading and absorbing the knowledge that was once forbidden to him, in an effort to help both himself...and his friend. And maybe even, if he dared to hope, his long lost Silver Rage.