[color:"#00bfff"]I had no clue, how to open it - ouch - my crystal amulet was burning like hell. I took a closer look - the tiny claw in there was opening and closing, clenching and unclenching its little fists. I took it off, held it dangling in my hand - then the tiny claw left its crystal prison for a second, tugged at the box and disappeared into it.

Jvb, DQueene and I stared at each other flabbergasted. I had enough of these puzzles, ripping out my knife...

"There, did you hear it? Keep quiet all." DQueene tiptoed to the door, held her ear against it - Jvb took position at the other side. The door opened slowly and both pounced on what came in, wrestling it to the ground.I was on top of it, dropping the box.

After a few seconds of jostling, punching, ouches and groans all was settled. The fearful face of an old man looked at us:

"Don't kill me, I didn't do anything..."

Ascolan the griffin, keeper of truth and justice, stared at the old man silently and sternly... after a few minutes we were informed about everything: How to open the box (touching the runes in a certain order, here and there) - who and where his master was (Rabaer had fled to his ally Doom Wizard Veneficus)- and... what interested me the most:

"The demon you're looking for is there, too. Rabaer has gathered all demons in his castle and then escorted them to meet their master Venificus, they will march towards Beregost as soon as the army is complete. Venificus doesn't really like them cluttering his palace, they stink, tend to tear curtains, rip up the furniture, drink, belch and don't behave very well."

I chuckled - allies can be a bother - specially belching ones <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> - DQueene and I changed a short glance and decided to let the old man go - he jumped up and fled. The rest was easy - I touched the runes, opened the box and saw.... the tiny claw out of my amulet had wrapped itself around a rubyformed pyramid: Nero's heart!. I could only take a very short glance, as I reached out to pick it up, the claw dodged my hand and emerged back into the crystal amulet, I had wrapped around my wrist on its leatherband, so it would cool off. Strangely enough the amulet was cool and calm now - so I could hang it around my neck.

"Ok, that's it, let's go back as fast as we can to the others and fetch them! We have to warn Beregost and try to reach that damn wizard. We're really running out of time!"