Chapter Thirty-six

Over the Deep


We looked over the edge and watched him disappear into the darkness. Sindus backed up from the edge and pointed out that the duergar had called for help, and we would be there for the help to find if we stuck around.

I suggested that we get away from the edge so the other duergar didn't know that we were still in the area. Melima wanted to kidnap one of them for ransom. "I'm done playing nice!"

Sindus suggested bribing them to give us Kima back. Keothi suggested bribing a small group to help us get to Kima, but based on what had just happened we didn't think that would work.

We discussed how we could all get across the chasm with the bridge out. Keothi mentioned that he had his immovable rod, which gave me an idea. We all had rope. We could tie a couple lengths together, tie it to the rod, then I could go halfway across the chasm on my broom and stick the rod in the air, allowing us to swing across.

We were at an impasse as to our plan of action once we got across. Melima still really wanted to kidnap someone. As we were arguing, Ari'yasa turned into a giant bat. Naidaroe climbed onto her back, securing herself with a rope, and they took off towards the ceiling.

Seeing that part of our party had left, presumably to explore some more, we decided to explore the ruins on our side of the chasm. We found more and more stone statues. Many of them seemed to be trying to avoid looking at something.

I recalled hearing something about a creature that could turn things to stone if they looked at it. A woman with snakes on her head. We were lucky that hadn't been any of us.

Sindus found a statue that was holding a dagger. "Yes! I want a stone dagger!"

I sighed. "Sindus, please don't." These had been real, breathing people at one point.

Melima tried to stop his arm, but he brought his small hammer down and broke the hand of the statue off clean at the wrist. Melima was fuming. "You don't steal from the dead!"

"It's a stone person!" Sindus said.

"You're disgusting, you're vile," Melima said. She walked away while Sindus tried to work the dagger out of the hand. He got most of the hand off, but where the palm of the hand met the dagger was going to need more work.

We found some actual corpses as we continued exploring. Most of them were dwarves, but there were a few that I recognized as goblinoid. Those ones were much older. Those turned my thoughts towards home. I hoped that the war against the goblins was going well, and that my parents, and Lorcan too, were safe.

There wasn't anything of value we found. I looked for the statue that I had seen earlier with a squidlike head. I remembered generally where I had seen it, and found it fairly quickly.

It was a little taller than Melima and thin. Its head was bulbous and perfectly bald. There were six tentacles coming from where the mouth should be. I couldn't see any arms, just a long, flowing robe. This was the only one that I saw at all as we walked around.

We gathered together back where we had been resting when Ari'yasa left. Keothi wanted to figure out exactly how we were getting over the chasm. Our friends had been gone for about a half an hour, but if they were scouting around it could take a little bit. Though I was starting to get nervous about how long they had been gone.

"Let's make a fire!" Sindus said. I knew he couldn't see in the dark, but was that really necessary?

"Let's not draw attention to ourselves, please," I said.

"Why? They can't see in the light anyway!" I shook my head. I stopped and cocked my head. I could hear the creaking of wood in the distance, coming from across the chasm.

"Tawariell perked up," Keothi said.

"I'm hearing wood creaking," I said. Having some experience in what could be made with wood, it heightened my sense of danger approaching.

"So, go check it out!" Sindus said.

"Just, be on the lookout. I'm wondering if it is a catapult or something." They nodded, and I took off along the wall on my broom as I had earlier.

The duergar were pulling something apart, making what looked like a makeshift bridge that would swing out in sections. They had a bunch of siege equipment around that it seemed they were going to use to get the bridge out. They were making fast progress. It made me wonder what they wanted to do on our side of the chasm, besides find us.

I returned to my friends as quick as I could while remaining hidden. "They have some way to make a bridge really fast by flipping it over the chasm. So, Keothi, I think you are very right that we should figure out what we are doing and take some action if necessary."

"Could you tell how many were preparing to make their bridge?" Keothi asked.

I hadn't been able to tell. We discussed stopping them from getting across, but without our entire party, that didn't seem like a good idea. Neither did crossing the chasm where we were at.

With how long the others had been gone, we decided that it might be better to cross then. Melima suggested creating something to distract the duergar and send them in the wrong direction as we crossed. I looked to our rogue. "Hey Sindus, you talked about making a fire, right? I'm wondering if most of us try to cross over on the other side, while someone else makes a fire in one of the crumbling buildings. Not too close to where they're building the bridge..."

"...but far enough away we look like we're intelligent?" Sindus asked.

"Yes. But close enough they can see it, but it's not like we're stupid, building super close to the edge," I finished.

Sindus laughed and spoke as if he were one of the duergar, "it seems super obvious that they're trying to get us over here!"

I continued my plan. "But in the meantime, everyone else would cross over the stream to get across the chasm."

We decided that Melima would set the fire with magic. Sindus couldn't see in the dark to get over to where we wanted to cross, while we needed my broom to set up our way across. She would wait for ten minutes after we headed off to give us some extra time.

Keothi, Sindus, and I made it to the far end of the cavern without incident. I left them to securely tie the rope around the immovable rod while I flew up to scout out the other side, making sure we had a safe landing zone.

There was hardly any movement on this far side of the cavern. There was only an occasional torch, but not close to the wall where we wanted to go around the camp. Most of the duergar were going to the other end of the cavern where they were trying to get across.

The rope was secure when I returned, so I flew off with it about halfway across the chasm. I pressed the jewel on the end with a "click" sound. I tentatively let go to make sure it stayed, then gave it a tug or two. It wasn't going anywhere.

I returned to the edge with the rope. Keothi decided he would go first, and we tied the rope around him so it wouldn't tighten around him as he went along. We decided that rather than try to catch them on the other side I would guide them along as they swung, giving them a push if needed.

Everything was going well. All the knots were secure, the rod was set at the right spot as a pivot, Keothi swung straight ahead— and then he couldn't grab the edge. I tried to push him, but I couldn't hold his huge frame to get him up on the ledge.

He swung back, and I followed him. When he reached the apex on the other side, I gave him a shove, giving him more speed so he'd get farther over the edge of the cliff. When he got to the other side again I gave him another shove, and he barely pulled himself onto the ledge.

We pulled the rope off of him and I flew it back to Sindus. He was much lighter, and Keothi was able to grab him as he reached the other side of the chasm. I brought the rope back and waited for Melima.

What seemed like a half-hour was more like five minutes before I saw her coming from the corner of my eye. She took a look around as she reached me. The rope disappeared into the darkness, we couldn't see what it was attached to from the edge.

I helped her get the rope around her and gave her a slight shove as she jumped off. Keothi and Sindus were ready for us as we reached the other side, and caught Melima easily.

I wound the rope around my arm as I flew back to retrieve the rod. Another click of the gem and it moved freely. I flew back to the group. We had made it across. At least, most of us had. Who knew where the other two were?

We were right in between the cavern wall and where the tents started. There were muffled sounds of duergar talking, but not close enough I was worried about us being heard.

There hadn't been many explosions lately, and I started to wonder if there would be another one soon. We went around the camp, hugging the wall as much as we could. When we got to the area where I had seen the explosions happen, there was rubble strewn about the ground.

We had to come away from the wall to avoid walking on the rubble of rock and making noise. On the other side of the rubble pile was a small hole in the wall with three or four duergar in it, chipping at the wall with pickaxes.

I wanted to sneak past them, and whispered this to the group. Sindus agreed. Melima wanted to take them out, but I shook my head. We didn't want to draw attention to ourselves. With how much noise they were making, we decided to all run across the entrance to the hole together.

On the other side were two large tunnels. The first one seemed to slant up, the other slanted down. There wasn't really any place to hide to wait for our other party members. I turned to the group that was with me. "Well, there's no point in going up, because Kima is probably down. But we haven't seen the other two yet."

No sooner had the words left my mouth than a huge bat flew over my head, out of the tunnel leading upwards. It shot towards the ceiling and tried to stop. A figure fell off of its back and landed in front of me. Naidaroe was a bit shaken, but in jovial spirits.

The bat circled around and landed. It nudged Naidaroe a little bit, helping her up. After glancing around to make sure we hadn't been discovered, Naidaroe explained what they had seen.

"We flew for about an hour up this long tunnel and it came up to an opening. It was huge, we couldn't see the ends of anything. On the ground were shards of bone that had been smoothed down and other shimmery kinds of things.

"We decided to come back because there wasn't much to do, but if you guys want, we can go back and explore. We might be able to find Kima if we keep going."

The bat, which I knew now was Ari'yasa in a creature form, pointed towards the other tunnel, which lead down. I nodded with her. "Ari'yasa, you know the spell called Pass Without Trace, right?" The bat nodded. "I know that spell, I just don't have the ashes I need to cast it. I think it would be really good to go down into enemy territory with."

She lifted her wings and looked at them. I gathered that she couldn't use magic as a creature. I looked to the others in the group. "Is it useful to have her as a bat right now?"

"She can be a scout, but she can't talk to us," Sindus said.

"She told me she can do this twice before resting, and it lasts two hours. This is the second time she's done this since we last rested, and she has about an hour left. There was a set of duergar coming down this tunnel, about five minutes away," Naidaroe said.

We agreed to go into the downward tunnel, and Ari'yasa would stay as a bat, scouting ahead, and come back if she saw anyone. Sindus reminded us that he had powder that would cover our tracks.

Ari'yasa flew off ahead as we began our descent. The tunnel curved to the left in a gradual spiral. It grew warmer as we went deeper into the earth.

The large bat came back and landed in front of us. It stood upright on its legs and pulled in its wings. It turned blue and the hair on its head turned white. Where the bat had been, Ari'yasa was now standing.

"Hey guys! I found a little alcove down here. We should stop for a little while and rest. Past the alcove the cavern starts to change a little bit, it starts to narrow and little streams of magma come out from the wall. We probably want to stop before we keep going and head into something else," Ari'yasa said.

"You didn't see any of the dark dwarves?" I asked.

"I didn't see anyone."

"That seems weird to me, that there be no dwarves going down if that is where their capital is." I wasn't complaining, but it made me a bit uneasy.

Melima suggested that with the situation in the cavern, they may have all hands on deck to get across the chasm, which would make it the perfect time to sneak down to the stronghold.

We decided not to rest in the alcove, we didn't think we had time to take the time to sleep needed for those of us who needed to replenish our arcane reserves. If we needed to, we could go back to the alcove.

We reached the alcove in the wall, it went deeper than could be seen from the main tunnel. I took note of it, it could prove useful if we needed to hide. We decided again to keep going.

I was leading now, Ari'yasa holding closer to the middle. There did start to be streams, then pools of hot orange liquid, the magma Ari'yasa had mentioned. Heavy footsteps started echoing up the chamber, as well as the creak of a cart.

I held up my hand, then pointed towards the way we had come. I whispered up the line, "I want Sindus down here to cover my tracks!"

I could now hear deep voices from down the tunnel, though I couldn't make out what was being said. I moved to what was now the front of the line, going back. One of the voices changed tone. Sindus whispered back up the line. "Everyone move faster!"

The creaking of the cart stopped, and the footsteps became faster. "Should we turn and face them?" Keothi asked.

I agreed and turned around. I couldn't quite see around Sindus, but he buckled over with a bolt in his back. I walked down a few more steps until I could see an enemy. I cast my arrow splintering spell and let my arrow fly. It splintered and pelted the dwarf reloading a crossbow. A few shards hit another dwarf next to him.

I sent off another arrow as Keothi leapt towards them. It landed in the same place the brunt of my first arrow had hit. The dwarf nearly dropped his weapon from the impact. Keothi brought down his hammer right on top of the dwarf's head, driving him into the ground. He landed right next to the magma pool.

Keothi bounced his hammer to the other dwarf, right into his stomach. He had to dodge a stray bolt from Naidaroe as he righted himself. "Get those tiny little things!" she sang.

A bolt of fire flew past Keothi, there had to be something else behind him. A bolt from Sindus landed in the throat of the dwarf I could see. He was barely standing, struggling to breathe.

Ari'yasa stepped forward and produced a whip covered in thorns. She wrapped it around the dwarf and pulled him towards her. He fell forwards onto his face.

Heavier footsteps echoed down the tunnel. A huge bolt, almost as big as a javelin, flew past Keothi and struck the wall. Another one landed in the goliath's leg. There was a war cry as Keothi pulled out the bolt.

I moved farther forward until I could see a large dwarf loading a huge crossbow. Knowing how hard it had been to take down the big ones before, I put more power into my splintering arrow spell.

My arrow broke into longer slivers, pelting the duergar in the chest. I followed it with a second arrow, right into a large wound left from an arrow shard. The duergar flashed me a furious look.

Keothi hit the dwarf in the shoulder, but the dwarf blocked a second blow with a buckler on his arm. Keothi used the momentum to come back faster, breaking the bolt being loaded and driving the dwarf's chest into the ground.

All was still for a moment as Keothi and I listened for more movement. Once we were satisfied that we were again alone, we looked at the contents of the cart.

Keothi suggested that we check for tracks leading back down the tunnel, in case someone had fled to raise the alarm. I saw the large cart tracks leading up, but no recent tracks on top of them.

There were long beams in the cart, made of wood that almost seemed it was rock. It was an ancient wood. There were some building and mining tools, as well as what appeared to be a large glass box with a locked latch. It was completely filled with something solid black.

Melima didn't get anything arcane off of it. I wondered if this was what caused the explosions, having seen what Lorcan had loaded his weapons with. I decided that if we were to open it we would rest to recover first.

We loaded the bodies into the cart. We figured the beams would be difficult to get into the alcove cavern, and tried pushing them into the magma. They only sank down a hand or two, and barely started burning. We pulled them back out and stamped out the flames. We'd have to get them into the alcove.