The
hours passed while they kept the watch. No
new threats developed while they rested. As the entire group started stirring both Tragg and Sonja
chose private corners and began to meditate.
Spike and Aldarys rummaged through packs and managed to put together a
passable breakfast. Soon, rested
and prepared, they were ready to venture once again through the tunnels.
They removed the blockade at the entrance of the cavern as quickly and
quietly as they could and exited into the dark.
Aldarys and Spike led them out they
resumed their march. They passed
another delving that proved as fruitless as the past few that they passed.
The mine took a slow turn to the north and continued winding through the
rock beneath the castle.
“How big to you think this mine was
before they met up with the drow?” Aldarys
asked.
“Ye can never tell with drow.
Sometimes miners can dig for generations before running into the caverns
of the Underdark, and other times the drow are active just beneath the surface.
If Maktar’s plan was to meet the drow in the mines, they could have
been making their way up to him while the miners dug.”
The mines cannot run far north, as the
castle itself backed up to a cliff.
Bryn
Mawr said to Spike.
“We should not run too far north.”
Spike told the others. “We
should expect it to either turn or head down soon.”
They continued walking until they came to
a new cavern carved out in the rock. This
one was considerably smaller than where they had rested.
Broken long tables littered the ground and a few scattered chairs
suggested that the miners used this cavern as a base of operation.
Piles of large scrolls of paper were partially buried in the far reach of
the cavern. Mac dug through the
pile and pulled out a few of the scrolls. Spike
and Tragg set up one of the tables and they unrolled the scrolls.
“Surveys and assessments of the
geology.” Tragg said as he looked
over the first scroll.
“What would that be in a more common
tongue?” Mac asked.
“Whoever headed the mines seems to not
have been completely without his wits. While
the mine rolled out he had a team conduct surveys of the type of rock in which
they dug.” Tragg explained.
The blank look on Mac’s face told that
the dwarf’s words went completely over his head.
“When ye dig for metals or gems it is
important to note the terrain where ye be diggin’. They don’t just spring up from nothin’. So the boss of the mines had taken into account that the
castle sits in a cliff of igneous rock, which may be conducive to finding a
deposit of coal, but the pressure necessary to compress that coal into diamonds
cannot happen so close to the surface. Ye
have to mine hundreds of feet down to find the necessary elements to make a
diamond.”
“What of other gems?”
Aldarys asked.
“The only other gem worth this type of
a dig would be emeralds or rubies, and this terrain does not suit their
formation. They are formed deep in
the ground below jungles or wetlands. Digging
for them is precarious because of the pockets of steam and hot air that
accompany them. What I’m tellin’
ye is that ye will not find gems in this mine.
Neither does it show promise for gold, platinum, silver, or really any
mineral worth this kind of a dig. By
this scroll I will tell ye that whoever led this dig had to know that.”
Tragg told them.
“Then what were they digging for?”
Mac asked.
Tragg rolled the report out until he
found what he was looking for.
“Ah, here it is: a map of the proposed
dig. Whatever it is they were
searching for was right about here.” Tragg
said as he showed them a diagram of the mine.
According to the map the mine, starting
at the tombs of the royal family, branched into two directions: north and east.
The north branch eventually turned east and the east branch turned north.
The two were to meet eventually at a point marked with a square.
“They had two teams working to this one
point.” Tragg said.
“So why all the delving…if they were
looking to reach this point?” Mac
queried.
The miners were all subjects of the
kingdom, volunteers who were promised a share in the riches when the mine
struck. They would not have done
this kind of work if they did not have the firm assurance of King Alliaceous.
Bryn Mawr told Spike.
“The miners were digging for precious
gems. They were ordinary men of the
kingdom who were promised a share in the riches. They had no idea until the end that it was all a hoax.”
Spike confirmed to the others.
“The question is then, who did the king
put in charge of the mine?” Aldarys
voiced the question for them. “My
best guess is that it was either this Maktar, a crony of his.”
His
name was Bertrum, and Maktar kept him on a very short leash.
“He
was a crony named Bertrum.” Spike
answered aloud for the others.
“Well whatever their business was down
here, it is not far. Maktar was
obviously on a timetable, he had the two lines digging to the same
spot…probably in some sort of twisted race between the workers.
We may just find some answers when we find out what this is here.”
Tragg’s stubby finger stabbed a dark square where the tunnels would
meet.
“Delving was obviously a ruse for the
miners’ sake. We must make haste
and see what goal lies at the mine’s end.”
Spike said.
They all agreed and left the room.
They now wasted no time at all on the delving that the dead miners had
left behind. Truth be told, they
paid little attention to the smaller tunnels as they passed them.
They reached a point where the main tunnel veered to the west and a
smaller tunnel continued straight ahead of them.
They followed the main tunnel, ignoring the delving as usual, when
something sprang out from inside the dark tunnel and attacked them.
It was a large creature, humanoid, with
four arms. Each arm was armed with
a large curved dagger. Its four
arms flailed out in all directions
mainly at Sonja and Spike.
The group was split on either side of the creature, leaving Spike and
Sonja at the brunt of the attack.
Sonja set her scimitar flashing and hit
once for a deep cut, the creature fended off a second attack, causing Sonja to
step back away. She lost control of
the swinging blade and it hit the wall of the mine behind her and flew out of
her hand. Spike caught the
creature’s attention when she struck off one of its arms.
She held its attention while Sonja retrieved her sword and chopped into
its flank. In seconds she had
reduced the creature into a bleeding mass of clay on the ground.
“Was it a demon?”
Tragg asked as he poked his foot into it.
“No.”
Aldarys said as he stooped to examine the remains.
“It is a doppelganger of some sort.
I do not recognize its form in life, but I do recognize this primeval
slime that remains. This is the
true form of the monster: nothingness waiting for form.”
“Are you all right?”
Spike asked Sonja as they cleaned their blades.
“Yes, it never touched me.
I was just a bit clumsy is all.” Sonja
explained sheepishly.
“Clumsy can get one killed.”
Spike said as she discarded the rag that she used to clean her sword.
“Let us continue.”
They continued their walk up the main
shaft and they passed an opening that looked as if it had been punched through
the wall towards them. Looking down
through the opening they saw a shaft as wide as the one in which they traveled.
“This must have been the other main
shaft.” Tragg said.
“From the looks of it they arrived at this point second.
What we want lies ahead of us, we should be reaching the point marked
with the square on the diagram.”
They moved a bit more cautiously at this
point as they approached what they hoped would be the end of the mineshaft.
As they moved down the shaft the air around them became warmer.
They could see an opening outlined in a soft orange glow. As they neared the opening more heat poured out: not like a
furnace, but not unlike a forge.
They entered a large square room at the
end of the shaft. It looked as if
the miners had broken through a solid wall when they found this chamber.
The wall itself was smooth and made of brick and mortar.
The ceiling was high, about 50 feet, and the room itself was 80 feet wide
and about 150 feet long…not quite a square.
The room glowed with from an unseen fire that reflected off of mounds of
gold coins and piled gems. Some
silverware and gold worked flagons stuck out of the scattered piles.
The
spoils of Castle Dintmoor...
Bryn Mawr said to Spike.
Before Spike could relay the sword’s
musings a large reptilian head, red as fire, popped up over the top of one of
the piles of treasure and sprayed the room with flame. The fire, hotter than any furnace or forge in that the
dwarves smelted by, licked at every member of the group. Mac managed to dive away from the main blast, but no one
completely avoided the attack.
Tragg immediately went to work on those
around him. Though none fell to the
fire, they all had taken substantial damage.
Tragg laid his hands on Aldarys, by far the most injured of the group,
and gave him a healing. Spike took
off around the pile and attacked the flank of a young red dragon.
The dragon only stood about eight feet tall, just a head more than the
blonde Amazon.
Mac, too, took off around the other end
of the pile, and struck futilely at the monster, but his swords just bounced off
of the tough red scales that armored the dragon. Aldarys took the opportunity to cast a spell, and a blue
missile flew from his pointed finger to strike the creature. The spell did not seem to phase the dragon.
Sonja did not relish the thought of
another cooking, neither did she desire to be so much dragon food, so she leapt
to the top of the pile and attacked the dragon squarely in its snout.
Her sword spun in the golden glow of the unknown light source.
She struck deeply on her first blow, and followed up with two solid cuts
to the dragon’s snout.
The dragon, taken aback by the sudden
ferocity of the small druid, reared up to its full height on its hind legs to
strike the druid down. As its claws
slashed downward, Sonja slid down the pile of riches to escape the blow.
Spike took the opportunity to plunge Bryn Mawr into the soft underbelly
of the dragon.
Tragg moved behind Mac and touched him
with his healing power before Mac sliced into the dragon for the first time.
Still, Mac’s dagger did little to damage the dragon.
Aldarys cast a second spell, identical to his first spell, which seemed
to add a little more to the dragon’s pain.
Sonja filled with a rage that consumed
her lithe frame, leapt up into the face of the dragon and slashed hard at its
neck. Her three cuts were
sufficient to sever the head of the young dragon.
She continued hacking at the dragon’s head until Spike pulled her clear
of the bleeding corpse.
They all stood silently as the druid
regained her composure. Even Mac
had nothing to say at Sonja’s sudden vehemence.
They all began to pick around the treasure, to see if they could find
anything useful to their present situation.
Tragg managed to retrieve six vials of
liquid, four of which he said was holy water and the other two healing potions.
Aldarys came away from his search with four scrolls.
Mac had abandoned his old short sword for a shiny new sword with a keen
sharp edge. He also had a
noticeably heavier purse hanging on his belt and a silver ring that he held in
his hand. Spike had retrieved a
breast piece of armor crafted of a hardened boar’s hide.
The breast of the armor had a sigil that none of them recognized, but it
fit Sonja perfectly. Sonja,
meanwhile, had found a periapt with the druidic symbol of health cast upon it.
She put the amulet around her neck.
“Can anyone identify whether or not
this ring is of a magical nature?” Mac
asked, procuring the ring.
“Hold it up, I will cast a detect magic
spell.” Tragg said.
Mac held out the ring while Tragg cast
his spell. The dwarf spent about a
minute after casting staring hard at the ring.
“It glows a greenish blue hue that I
cannot place. It is definitely
magical, but I do not know its nature.” Tragg
concluded.
“Blue green is a sign of
transmutation.” Aldarys said.
He too began to inspect the ring. Mac
handed it to him to get a closer look. Aldarys
turned it over in his hands and looked carefully on the inside and the outside
of the ring.
“Ah,” He said as if he had found
something significant. “The
incantation is clear on the inside of the ring.
This ring holds a feather fall spell that one can cast using the
incantation. You can cast it on
yourself, someone else, even an object that is falling.
You should hold onto this, it can be useful.”
Aldarys handed the ring to Mac who
promptly placed it on his finger.
“This creature must have been very
young the night that the kingdom fell.” Spike
said, indicating the dead dragon. “This
hoard is pitiful compared to tales that have been told to us in the past.
I wonder what part it plays in this game.”
“There be a door the back corner.”
Tragg said. “Maybe this
hoard is payment for keeping people from reaching that door.”
“A fair assumption.
This chamber must be the chamber that the mines worked towards, and so
that doorway becomes pivitol in our search.” Aldarys said.
“Let us see where it leads us.”
“First, we need to spread the healing
out a little more.” Tragg said,
stopping the zealous half elf.
Tragg healed Spike and Sonja of the
majority of their cuts and burns. Sonja
then used what healing that she knew to strengthen Tragg.
They found that the light of the room faded as the warmth of life seeped
out of the dragon’s body. They
turned their attention towards the doorway, which led into a small alcove that
terminated in a staircase cut into the rock that led down into the dark.
“Where do you think these stairs go?”
Aldarys asked.
“They go down.”
Mac answered.
They agreed that the stairs did indeed go
down, and so down they went…
…And they went down…and down…and
down…and down…
We could go on like this all day, but
just to get the point across: the spiral staircase went down an exceedingly long
way. They spent hours, in fact,
spiraling down in the ever-twisting staircase that seemed to lead straight to
the bowels of the planet. The walls
were finished, much like the walls in the young dragon’s lair.
The steps where cut sharply, and in some spots they showed signs of
recent repair. It seemed to them
that this was an access to the surface used often and recently.
Finally they reached what could only be
called the bottom. The pressure of
the weight of the world made their ears pop, and the air was stagnant so far
below the surface. They followed a
less finely kept tunnel that allowed them to walk comfortably two abreast.
The rough-cut walls told Tragg that those that cut this tunnel were
different from the men who mined so far above.
The men of the surface probably never saw this tunnel.
They walked no more than 50 feet in the
darkness when they heard a whistle pass through their midst that culminated in
the unmistakable sound of a metal arrowhead hitting the stone behind them.
They scattered a little to break up the appealing target that their
clustered group had made. Keeping alert, they saw where they first shot came, as a drow
male poked himself out of a concealed niche in the wall to fire at them again.
Mac took little thought as he threw the
dagger that he had recovered from the dragon’s horde at the drow’s head. The
dagger stuck in the left eye of the drow and disappeared, only to reappear just
as quickly in Mac’s throwing hand. He
looked at it incredulously as more drow popped out of the stonework.
Two drow had crept up behind the group,
both of them targeting Tragg who kept the rear guard. Tragg heard them and moved quicker than they
probably had
ever seen a dwarf move before. He
smashed one of them in the knee before it could bury its dagger in Tragg’s
back. He turned to face the other
who found that his companion lie on the ground, most likely crippled for life.
Two large drow charged Aldarys and Spike
at the front of the party, the first to arrive learned first hand the strength
and the fury of an Amazon warrior. Spike
ran the length of Bryn Mawr through the stomach of the fighter, who dropped his
sword when the knowledge that he would soon stand before Lloth to account for
his weakness in front of the surface dwellers.
Aldarys showed the speed of his sword and
he deftly cut the other warrior three times, spilling his innards onto the stone
ground. He kicked the dying dark
elf aside to make room for him to fight the other drow that were now advancing.
Sonja turned to assist Tragg with his
remaining opponent. She lit into
him with her scintillating scimitar. The
drow managed to block the first blow with the buckler that was strapped to his
left arm. He was, however, helpless
to stop the other two blows that followed, and soon he was lying next to his
compadre, twitching in a pool of his own blood.
The other drow quickly saw that the
narrowness of the tunnel eliminated the advantage of numbers that they enjoyed.
None felt the need to throw themselves on the surface dwellers’ swords.
As disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, sliding into narrow
clefts and niches in the tunnel walls.
They stood for a moment, watching warily
for the drow to reappear, but none came. They
waited for more arrows to fire from the niches, but none came.
Finally they moved forward down the tunnel in the same eastward direction
in which they had been traveling.. After
another 150 feet the tunnel widened out into a large cavern.
The cavern was longer than it was wide, and lit from several sconces on
the walls. A shimmering mirror on
the north wall. No art decorated the walls.
No furniture cluttered the room save for a raised chair at the far end.
At the far end of the cavern sat a drow
female, clad in silver and gold serpentine armor. Around her neck she wore a small metal vial on a gold chain.
Next to her stood an oriental man, human, wearing a black robe with silver
threadwork. He wore his hair long
with a oddly trimmed goatee on his chin. He
charcoal eyes bored into Spike and the sword that she carried.
Around his neck he wore a blue jewel that hung on a silver chain. Aldarys and Spike halted the group at the sight of the two
figures at the end of the cavern, and then they felt the pressure behind them as
nearly fifty drow fighters pushed past them and entered the room.
Maktar!
Bryn Mawr shivered Spike’s hand, the anger of the spirit of the sword
barely contained by Spike’s massive frame.
“Retire now, warriors of House Glorimna.”
The woman said.
The warriors moved without a word and
filed through the shimmering mirror. Soon,
the room was empty, save for the five mercenaries and the two who faced off
against them from across the room. The man remained silent, not daring to
overstep his bounds with the drow matriarch.
“You have come far, too far, surface
dwellers. We have worked hard for
our foothold, and we will not relinquish because of your pitiful advance into
our realm. I have allowed our
partner, Maktar, to deal with you, as he has proven himself in the past.”
The woman said in her gutteral drow accent.
“Enjoy your look upon the Matriarch of Glorimna, for it is the last
thing that you will look upon before you die.”
She nodded to Maktar, and he stepped down
from the dais.
“I regret that I could not destroy you
more completely, Bryn Mawr, but your preparation for your trance was such that I
could not hurt you physically. Of
course, you never thought that I would dare to banish your soul.”
The smile on Maktar’s face proved that he was proud of his past
actions.
Maktar raised his hands in a sudden
gesture, and the swords, daggers, and maces that they held were swept up and
stuck fast to the ceiling. Spike
pulled her old standby, the weapon that she carried when she arrived at the Lone
Wolf Inn. The moment she freed it
from the sheath, it too sprang from her hand and stuck fast to the ceiling.
Aldarys started to cast a spell in Maktar’s direction, but with a
flinch of Maktar’s hand, the half elf froze.
Sonja tried to launch herself at the black wizard, but she quickly found
herself unable to move as well. Soon
all of them were held fast to their spots, watching helplessly as the wizard
began to chant an incantation.
“Stop.”
The drow woman said. “I
have in mind a bit of sport.”
Maktar turned and looked at her.
He would have scowled and spat a curse if it would not have meant is
immediate death.
“I have watched you for sometime,
wizard.” She said as she stood
from her chair. “I have watched
you wrestle and spar with the young warriors of my clan in their training yards.
I have also watched your sideways glances in my direction when you
thought that my attentions were…elsewhere.”
She looked at him coyly, but her innuendo was quite clear.
“I will allow you to be my consort for one night if you can best the
she-warrior in a contest of bare handed combat.”
Maktar looked at the drow woman, his
lascivious glance telling the depth of his carnal desire.
He then turned and looked at Spike.
He walked to the Amazon and inspected her
as he walked around her.
“You would like that, would you not?”
He said to Spike. “You
would like to teach me a lesson that I shall never forget.
Well, I shall give you your chance.
But first…”
In a quick move he stripped the spiked
armor off of Spike, and left her in the cotton kept the leather armor from
chafing her skin.
“Now, I will take you up on your offer,
Lady Glorimna.” Maktar said with
a smile.
He walked a few paces away, stretched his
arms and did a couple of deep knee bends, and then he waved his hands and
released the spell that held Spike. Spike
almost fell over with the sudden ability to move, and Maktar quickly pounced on
his chance to grapple with the Amazon. Spike
saw the wiry man lunge at her, and used her momentum to fall through the weaker
man’s lunge and roll to her feet behind him.
Maktar turned as Spike crouched in a low stance.
She did not make a move towards him, but rather chose to fight him
offensively. Maktar made a couple
of feints that Spike did not buy into, then he lunged again.
Spike stepped aside and pushed him past her. Maktar stumbled to the ground and quickly regained his feet
to start circling around with Spike.
“What did you do with the prince?”
Spike asked as she circled around with Maktar.
“The whelp?” Maktar looked almost surprised at the question.
“The child cannot help you now. The
drow punished him in their special way. Only
the matriarch has the key to unlocking his fate.”
He sneered.
Spike took a moment to glance at the drow
woman, who was fingering the vial that hung around her neck.
She quickly turned her attention back to Maktar.
“Do you plan on wrestling me into
submission?” She asked him
incredulously.
“I am quite adept in holds.”
Maktar panted. “Once I have you I will choke off your air, and you will
die in my arms.”
The thought of Maktar’s hands on her,
or her being in any way whatsoever in his arms, repulsed Spike.
She decided that she would end the fight on his next pass.
She waited for him to regain his composure and charge her again.
They circled each other and Spike showed Maktar an opening.
He lunged and she met his charge with a solid fist to his chin.
The wiry mage flew backwards almost as if a catapult had thrown him.
The drow matriarch laughed raucously at
the mage’s downfall. Maktar
raised his head and glared angrily at the dark skinned woman. He then said a word in the language of magic, and
disappeared. The drow’s laughter
stopped abruptly as Spikes compatriots regained their movement and their
belongings dropped from the ceiling. They
quickly recovered their weapons and faced off against the drow.
She glared at them, baring her teeth in a frightening display of
ferocity.
“Thlak mach neshclaw!”
She spat at them in the guttural language of the drow.
She ripped the vial that hung on the thin gold chain from her
neck and threw it them. She looked triumphant at the vial tumbled through the
air. Mac made a diving catch
to preserve whatever was inside the vial. The
drow woman looked angered that the vial survived, and then she looked worried
that maybe she would not survive. She
raised her hands and cast a spell that caused a large cloud of black vapor to
grow between her and the group of people that would see her dead.
Under the cover of the vapor she dove for the portal in the wall and it
shimmered out of existence.
They all stood and stared at the vapor,
and then they heard a hissing coming from inside the mist.
With the drow gone the vapor dissipated, revealing an extremely huge
black viper that hissed at them from its coils.
The viper
spread its hood and bared its
nasty fangs. Liquid dripped from
the two long teeth that would certainly have to be poison.
The viper set its site in Spike, her being the nearest one and the
largest threat to the snake. Spike, now with Maktar in hand, stood ready for the viper’s
attack. The snake lunged, and Spike
met the attack with a slice. The
viper’s head passed Spike, and Spike passed the viper.
It seemed that neither had hit their mark. Spike turned and the viper raised its head on its long
body high above where the Amazon stood. It
tried to give a his, but instead of spitting its poison, its head slid off of
the trunk of its body from a diagonal cut and fell to the ground.
The viper was dead.
“I repeat: I am glad that we did not
get into a knife fight at the Lone Wolf Inn.”
Mac said in praise of Spike’s performance.
“What is in the vial?”
Spike asked…all business as usual.
“I am not sure.”
Mac said, looking at it. “I
have not yet opened it, but from the outside I would say that it is some kind of
potion.”
“That be obvious…what else would ye
keep in a vial?” Tragg asked
gruffly.
Mac opened it and smelled the contents.
“Well I’m done.”
He said, handing the vial over to Tragg.
“It smells vile, and it is in a vial.
That is the extent of my knowledge as far as this is concerned.”
Tragg looked at the vial and sniffed the
contents.
“It is not of a natural scent,” He
said, “Something is most unnatural about this fluid.”
“Whatever it is, this fluid is the key
to restoring Prince Darius.” Spike
said to them.
“Stand back, it may be a mixture of
magic and nature. I will cast a
detect magic spell to see if magic is involved, and if so, what type of magic it
is.” Aldarys said.
Aldarys cast a spell that caused the vial
to glow bluish green. He
concentrated on the aura for a minute and then released his gaze.
“At first I thought that this was
merely a potion of a transmutation nature.”
He began to explain. “That
is a ruse, however. The potion
exists to stop a transmutation from happening.
It is anti-lycanthrope.”
“Lycanthrope? As in werewolves?” Mac
shivered at the thought.
“If this will, indeed, restore the
prince…” Sonja let her sentence hang over their heads.
“By the rock! They infected him with a most foul disease.”
Tragg cursed. “After twenty years he will have little control over
himself in his human form, and none in his wolf form.
He will have no knowledge of his split lifestyle.
If he has survived, then he will be more dangerous than any foe that we
have faced these past few days.”
They all stood in silent agreement.
“Let us go back to the surface. Once up there I can scry for him and see if he does, indeed, still live.” Aldarys said. They all agreed, and started back up to the surface.
