The Perils of Accounting

Didn't quite finish the story last time, and what with the two-headed orogs yesterday I haven't gotten around to it until now. So, let us continue...
 
The group discussed what to do, and a plan was formed: bring the former slaves and the fire snake to Gracklstugh, offer the fire snake as a potential replacement (but NOT slave) for their red dragon, and have the former slaves assist in rebuilding the city from Themberchaud's attack. As it turns out, we were even able to get them organized as a Builder's Guild, with one of our Lords' Alliance friends as the Head of the Guild and the former Hall of Sacred Scrolls as their guildhall. Should make the Alliance happy with us. But that came a bit later.
 
Going back to just after the beholder's death, we decided to "liberate" its treasure along with its captives. One of the captives helpfully informed us of a small side-room filled with statues and "that odd machine". Upon investigation, we discovered hundreds of intricately made, but ultimately worthless, foot tall statues. We also found a captive duodrone, which was experiencing...I suppose the closest thing to it would be a nervous breakdown. Seems the insanity pervading the Underdark has begun affecting constructs along with flesh-and-blood. Nevertheless, we were able to use one of the small diamonds that the beholder had in its treasure hoard (sorry, get to that in a bit) to restore its sanity. We released it, and learned that it was part of the Modron March that the others we'd met months ago had belonged to. It also told us that there was something called an "Orderer" some distance to the south. None of us knew what it was referring to, but since we were going to be headed in that direction soon, we decided to have it accompany us.
 
Anyway, going back to the treasure hoard. Remember the huge relief of the beholder in the ceiling? Within the pupil of the central eye was a vertical tunnel leading into a large treasure room. It wasn't the massive pile that Themberchaud had lazed upon, but it was no small thing, either. Over a thousand platinum pieces, and 15,000 gold pieces, plus a small assortment of magic items. We also found a small ledger, which gave us some bad news and worse news (and some neutral news, just to round things out).
 
The bad news was that the beholder was in huge amounts of debt with the Black Network (Zhentarim). It was all in there, clear as day; the beholder had borrowed the money in exchange for finding and delivering magic items to the group. However, once it got the items...it kept those too. Eventually, the Black Network realized that they wouldn't be getting any returns on their agreement; they broke off their business deal some eighteen months prior and hired an adventuring party to slay the beholder and deliver its collection to the Network. However, it seemed that most of the adventurers had been killed, with Shedrak and the two knights being bent to the beholder's will. Knowing all this, if we wanted to, we could've kept the treasure and not said a word to the Zhentarim...but such a prospect would have been foolish, given that the group was assisting our Underdark expedition. I did the calculations, and if we wanted to pay back the beholder's debts, with interest, and give the Black Network the "fair share" of treasure they desired for the expedition, we would have to give them the entire content of the treasure vault, excluding the gems and a single magic item.
 
It was a hard thing to swallow, but we knew the Black Network could make our lives very miserable if we crossed them. So we decided to keep one magic item (a robe of stars) and allocate the rest for giving to the Zhentarim. But that was merely the "bad" news. The "worse" news came next.
 
So it turned out that the slaves that Karazikar had were sent as "payments", from a few different sources. The largest one by far, however, was marked with a special symbol. Upon showing the symbol to Jorlan, he confirmed that it was a drow noble house (which I'd suspected), and that the symbol in question was of the DeVir house. Given that the house had long been annihilated, it could only have been one member of the house in particular.
 
Vizeran. Vizeran DeVir.
 
The neutral news was that the gemstones (split between diamonds and opals) were gifts from a dragon whose name none of us recognized (it looked like the words "Two" "Tank" "Common" mashed together, which doesn't make any sense).
 
Anyway, that was all of the treasure we could find (the hammer of banishment had not survived its fall of over 100 feet), but there was one last surprise. One of the former captives brought me a set of scales that Shedrak had stored in his sleeping area; they were made of silver, and suspected to be a magic item, but neither the beholder nor any of its captives had known how to use it. But when I touched both of its dishes, thinking to myself that I wanted to use it...
 
I rose into the air, and the scales in front of me. My hands flew out to my sides, hands upturned, as if to catch something. The colour washed out of everything around me (or so it seemed; that part didn't happen to any of those watching), and all I could see were the scales in front of me. I saw the dishes of the scale wobble, and a symbol formed in each of them; a green eye surrounded in thorns in the left dish, and a red gemstone at the center of a blue flame in the right dish. I couldn't explain why, but suddenly I felt like putting as much weight as I could on the left dish. As I thought this, I saw the left dish dip down as the eye glowed brighter; and as it did, the flame seemed to dim and flicker. And with that, both I and the scales fell back down.
 
I'll spare the suspense, and reveal what I've deduced since; somehow, that magic item "rebalanced" the Warlock and Sorcerer aspects within me. My Warlock abilities skyrocketed, but my Sorcerer abilities dipped extremely low as a result. No wonder the beholder or its captives couldn't work it; only someone with such a divided self could make use of the thing.
 
Anyway, with that done, I opened a teleportation circle leading back to Velkynvulfs, ushering the freed slaves through in groups of ten, followed by our expedition, with me last. We distributed people, treasure, and whatnot as described above, and went to deliver the eye to Vizeran. With our first two reagents collected, he began the first steps of the ritual, giving me some tutelage in magic as he did, as the process took the rest of that day and all of the next. I'll admit, I did learn a good amount, but I could never ignore what we found in that ledger.
 
We departed on the 10th, in search of the next reagents; eight angel feathers, each from a different angel, and the heart of a goristro (a powerful type of demon). Our destination was the Great Maze, which delighted our modron companion (we neglected to mention them to our archmage patron). And so we've been traveling.
 
But I don't spend my nights idle. Having the Aspect of the Moon within myself means that I have eight extra hours per day to plan. And so I'm beginning a plan that I know Tanebi won't approve of, but hopefully the rest might understand. I don't blame him, honestly, because it's exactly the kind of underhanded dealing that often lands individuals in so much trouble. Nevertheless, the plan must be made.
 
Because Vizeran must die.