If I had to list the dangers that have done the worst to humans of Faerun down the years-beyond their own pride, greed, and folly-I'd look first to the weather and the floods and famine it's caused, second to the hunger of hunting dragons and the swift breeding of bloodthirsty ores and goblins, and third to wizards. Or perhaps first to wizards. These days, certainly first to wizards. Pillage a dozen Realms with a spell, anyone?
Years ago they'd discovered that this one small stretch of passage was safe. It ran between the archway whose pillars were carved into the likenesses of many writhing gargoyles and the little hall where four passages met, where it was rumored a hidden portal opened betimes to admit something large, dark, many-clawed and lurking that liked to hunt mages.
Safe, that is, from sending echoes-even of whispered converse-elsewhere.
It was always chill and dark, and as cold as stone everywhere that never sees sunlight, but those wizards who knew about it often tarried here to murmur words back and forth, like guilty young wastrelblades discussing secrets whose careless revelation would mean swift and harsh punishment. Their conversations were usually low-voiced, cryptic, and short-for even Zhentarim wizards have no love for slow deaths in torment.
Two wizards were standing in the safe stretch now, facing each other with their backs to the rough stone walls, where each could look down one direction of dark passage and see the slightest intrusion or approach when it was yet far away.
"If I have anything to say about such things," the taller wizard was saying sharply, "there'll be no more chasing about after useless, overly dangerous might-be's like this spellfire. We've strayed very far from being a fellowship founded on coins and power for all, with a hierarchy intended merely to keep peace amongst us and keep the ambitious from blasting the rest of us or betraying all our secrets in their eagerness to command all.