She nods, idly playing with his hair, as he rests.<br/><br/>About an hour later, the Lord and Lady are finished, and ready to depart. The rest of his short stay in Brindol is fairly uneventful, though he does notice an unusual presence, as he departs; a brief energy signature of someone who teleported out of the city, while he was away in the Fane, matching the known magic abilities of one of the marilith's associates. Investigation and attempts to follow the teleport, unfortunately, lead to a dead-end fairly quickly, but it's clear someone was there.<br/><br/>The next three months pass fairly uneventfully, as he spends his time in the cave, attempting to drive deeper and deeper. While he makes it back to 400 easily enough, the battle with the Shadow Marilith, which seems to grow stronger, and almost more substantial, each time he fights it, drains quite a few of his expendable resources... and the following levels start just under that level, and continue upwards, along a strong, linear path. While he's as strong as he is outside, by that point, every one of the fights is at least a rank 12 deity, or equivalent. The 403rd floor, on his third attempt, actually consisted of fifty different epic level adventurers, and, while not individually powerful compared to him, and seemingly lacking in coordination, they very nearly mobbed him. Only careful applications of his Divine Shield spared him, as they didn't have the proper tools to pierce it, effectively. However, near the end of that three month span, he does, finally, reach floor 479, before being pushed back, just shy of being killed.<br/><br/>A couple of hours after finishing that run, Draiss is contacted by his Shadow Stalkers, informing him that preliminary investigations of a new plane have revealed unusual findings, that he may be curious in investigating, personally, though it's not an urgent matter.