A/N: I still make no money from the wonderful world of Avernum/Exile, which remains the property of Jeff Vogel and Spiderweb Software. I promise to return to the game unharmed the following persons: Boutell, Frank, Aife, Phyllea, Sue, Doc, Grant, the GIFTS (giant intelligent friendly talking spiders), and aranea; and places: the Foul Cavern, Grahk's Peninsula, Fort Draco, the Spider Cave, and the Aranea City
As they rowed northward, they stopped to rest on a small island which proved to have a hidden passage. Insatiable curiosity demanded investigation, and so they gathered their belongings and moved to the opening.
The huge, dark cavern was very different from most of the other caverns in Avernum. While most of Avernum had been warm and moist, this chamber was dry and icy cold. Most of Avernum reeked of sulfur, while here there was no odor except for the faint hint of decay. And while the majority of Avernum was quiet, this cavern was filled with distant snarls and hisses.
As they made their way around a narrow ledge, they found a shade floating in a corner—not of a human, nor even a slith or nephil, but of some creature from an unknown race, tall and spindly, with an angular face and piercing eyes. It stared at the adventurers sadly.
"What are you?" asked Brynja.
"I was a vahnatai, like those who are buried in the crypt here," replied the ghost.
"The vahnatai? What are they?" asked Brother Theo.
The voice became sad as the ghost answered, "We are a race of old, we have gone deeper. I know not what happened to my brothers and sisters who fled, but I stay here. And sense the debaucheries."
"That doesn't sound good," said Rudel. "Debaucheries?"
:Of the lord of the crypt. Fear it. Flee it. It lusts for the blood of any living thing," said the ghost. "I will not serve it. I will wait on this ledge until the world ends."
"Why do you haunt this place?" asked Jynx.
"The only vahnatai left anywhere I can sense are dead. But alive like me," replied the ghost. "Many are in the crypt."
"Where is the crypt?" asked Ansel.
"Near here. Stay away," warned the ghost. "They are those who hate living, and lust to devour them."
"I'm sure we'll be fine," said Ansel. "We've done well in the past."
They continued on around the narrow walkway, passing between two black obelisks into a chamber with two tombs guarded by a demon. Once the demon was dead, they looked around, seeing no obvious doors.
"There's gotta be more," said Ansel. "That was too easy."
"Here," said Brynja, who had discovered a secret door, but no more than she had gone through than the others heard her shriek.
Hurrying after Brynja, they found another room with many alcoves, and an altar at the far end, and the alcoves were filled with undead. Fighting their way through, they paused again to look around, for it still had seemed too simple to overcome these foes.
Finally, though, they found themselves in a chamber ruled by a lich, but when the lich was dead, it became apparent that the creature had started life as something other than human, appearing much taller and thinner than humans, with a huge, misshapen skull.
"Vahnatai?" said Brother Theo, jotting more notes in his journal.
"Could be," said Jynx. "I know I've never seen anything like it before."
"Not a whole lot here," said Ansel. "Let's get going."
On the way out, they came to the place where the ghost stood, and Ansel said, "By the way, you don't have to worry anymore. We killed the lord of the crypt."
"You have done me a great service," said the ghost. "I need stay here no longer. Farewell." With that, the ghost faded away.
"I guess that's a good day's work, then," said Ansel. "Let's get out of here and rest up before we move on."
After a decent rest, they started rowing east and north, finally pulling to rest at Grahk's peninsula. Carefully avoiding the spiders of the region, they made their way into Fort Draco, and from there, up to a blacksmithy. Here, there was an utterly enormous anvil, which would probably take at least ten people to lift, a sign declaring it to be the property of one Boutell the Smith. Then, they saw a massive bearded man who appeared to be covered in an inch-thick layer of soot.
"What are you making?" asked Ansel.
"Just some of the best weapons and armor in Avernum. This is my forge, and I can repair just about anything as well. I'm the best smith outside the Great Cave," said Boutell.
"Better stuff in the Great Cave?" asked Duncan.
"Yes, the Great Cave is far south of here, and I've heard the city of Dharmon has the best steelworkers in all Avernum, but that's a long trip," said Boutell. "I just wish I had a truly taxing job."
"What would tax your skill?" asked Jynx.
"Nothing I've found yet," said Boutell. "Sometimes I wish I could get a real challenge."
"As it happens," said Ansel, "I have a sword here that needs some repair."
Boutell grinned. "At last. A challenge worthy of my skills!" He carefully took the pieces of Demonslayer and set to work.
While Boutell worked, the companions headed out to the next shop over, Aife's. She was smiling, but dirty, wearing a dress which appeared to be black, though in a town like Fort Draco, it was impossible to say whether that had been the original color.
"Good day," said Ansel. "There's a sign outside which says you'll pay us for aranea fangs?"
"Ah, yes. The aranea are a race of vicious, evil spiders which live in the tunnels to the west. They harass the merchants. Very dangerous. I have set up a reward system for anyone killing these creatures," replied Aife. "When you find their fangs, bring them to me, and I will give you ten coins for each pair."
"That sounds fair," said Brother Theo, and he got out the fangs he had stored.
"Thank you," said Aife, handing over a small pouch of coins. "Some of the spiders are friendly, but those aranea are vicious and unrelenting man-eaters. You've made these tunnels a little more safe."
"So, what do you do for this mining town?" asked Rudel.
"I'm the town metallurgist, and I dabble in chemicals as well. You would be amazed at how often the cave workers need an alchemist of some sort," replied Aife.
"What do you do with the metal?" asked Duncan.
"The miners dig up the ore—copper, silver sometimes, but mostly iron, and bring them here to analyzed. If I say the ore is ok, then the ore gets processed, mostly into pig iron, but we can even make steel in small quantities."
Brother Theo said, "Chemicals? Testing? Do you know any alchemy?"
She smiled. "You wouldn't be interested, I'm afraid. The alchemy I do is painfully tedious stuff to the layperson." She thought for a moment, then said, "Wait a minute! Someone passing through taught me the recipe for an exceptionally strong healing elixir. Some minors use it to heal those injured on the job. If you want, I could teach you the recipe."
"Please," said Brother Theo. "I'll be glad to pay."
"By the by," said Ansel, "We're looking for someone named Phyllea. Can you tell us where she might be found?"
"Ah yes, you need to see her?" said Aife. "She's a private one, but not above seeing the occasional visitor." Aife pointed at the seemingly solid west wall, and said, "She's past there."
"Thank you," said Ansel, and they followed Aife's directions.
In the secluded area, a woman was pacing, seeming lost in thought.
"Excuse me, what are you doing?" asked Ansel.
"Research," Phyllea answered. "Please go away."
"Well, we're trying to find the recipe for graymold salve. Do you know where Cortath is?" said Brother Theo. "We'll be glad to leave then."
"He crossed the bridge to the west and headed south. Looking for graymold. I think he has a hut down there," replied Phyllea. "Go away."
"Certainly," said Ansel. "Thank you for your time."
Wandering about Fort Draco, they came into a laundry which seemed to be quite the anomaly in this place, for the woman running the place was dressed in clean garments that were a color other than sooty black.
"What do you do in this town?" asked Brother Theo.
"I sell supplies to the miners and such, and also to the adventurers that come this way," replied Sue. "I also run a laundry service for the locals."
"What sort of supplies do you sell?" asked Rudel.
"Well, mining supplies, mostly. Stuff you wouldn't be interested in. But I do have some things that you might like to buy," said Sue as she brushed off a box with her hand.
"I don't mean to be rude," said Brynja, "but how are you so clean while everyone else is filthy?"
"Yes, I used to spend all my time keeping things neat, but then I found out how reasonably priced dirt-repulsion spells are. This is why everyone brings me their dirty clothes for cleaning," replied Sue, sounding quite pleased that these itinerants had noticed the cleanliness in her place. "My shop is the only place clean enough to get the job done. The job might not be glamorous, but let's just say it's well worth my time."
"Can you do our laundry?" asked Ansel.
Sue laughed, and replied, "No, as much as I would love to, I have more to do than I'd like."
"Heard anything interesting lately? Rumors and the like?" asked Ansel.
"Actually, yes. A crazy fellow was wandering through here a few weeks ago. He said that he'd met a bunch of friendly spiders to the west, and that one of them was looking to hire some humans. It's name was spider," replied Sue. She shrugged, and continued, "That doesn't make any sense to me, but that's what I heard."
Hours had passed, Boutell's forge reaching incredible heat, but at last the job was done. A tear ran down Boutell's cheek as he returned the gleaming blade to Ansel.
"That was marvelous. My doubts are gone. Now I know that I am truly a great smith," he said. "The mighty blade Demonslayer is yours. Now I must go rest."
"Thank you," said Ansel, taking the restored sword.
Moving into the inn, they noticed a large, genial-looking man wiping the counter, though everything bore a thin layer of soot, a small green lizard with a ribbon on its tail and a bell around its neck scampering about, and an old woman in ragged black robes, apparently looking for something.
"What are you looking for?" asked Ansel.
Grant replied, "I'm looking for my familiar right now. It's being very naughty. Then we're going to go meet the dragon. You know, mighty and ancient Motrax lives in a cave to the east and welcomes all humans. He actually likes us. Mages from all over go to learn from him. If only I could find that naughty, naughty familiar, I'd be on my way now." She turned to continue searching, spotted the lizard under a table and leapt after it, while it ran away from her.
"You're trying to find a familiar?" said Duncan.
"Yes, my little lizard. My friend! And helpmate! Who I won't punish! Not at all!" she said, getting louder and louder until she was shouting.
From somewhere else, a little voice said, "Yeah, right."
"Uhhh, hello lizard," said Ansel. "What are you?"
"Hiss. I'm a familiar. Hiss," replied the lizard, trying to shake the ribbon off its tail. "Hiss."
"For what wizard?" asked Jynx.
"Hiss. For her nibs, Grant. The one who makes my life one long string of torments and humiliations. Hiss, I say. Hiss. Hiss?"
"Oh. Hiss?" said Ansel, experimentally.
"Yeah, whatever," replied the lizard.
Settling in at the bar, Brynja said, "Why is everything so dirty?"
"It's not dirt, it's practically money," replied Doc. "Fort Draco is Avernum's primary source of metal of all sorts. A bit of dirt is a small price to pay to keep our little nation growing."
"What are you doing here?" asked Brynja.
"Well, I serve drinks to the rowdies, when work lets off. I got a room in the back you can rent. Other than that, I just try to keep things clean. Room costs five coins, a drink one," replied Doc.
"Who are these rowdies?" asked Brynja.
"The miners and the forgers," replied Doc. "They're a wild crowd, as you can well imagine."
As they settled in around drinks and food, Rudel said, "You know, I was just thinking—those spiders looking to hire humans ..."
"Yeah," said Ansel. "Wasn't there supposed to be one of those things we're looking for." He paused, seeing that Grant was still distractedly trying to capture the lizard, "The brooches. With the spiders? If we can get it from them, might be well worth it."
"It'd be the last one," said Jynx. "And since we're this close."
"Then let's go," said Brynja. "A chance we could get out of this pit?"
After the pleasant meal, they went west from Fort Draco, until they came to a valley with walls covered with thick, impassible sheets of spiderweb. Instead of the eerie silence that one might expect in such a foreboding location, there seemed to be a lot of high pitched voices in the distance.
Moving in, the cave was filled with webs, stretched floor to ceiling, and stalagmite to stalagmite. Spiders ran up and down them and back and forth across the floor and ceiling. These were large spiders, most of them three to four feet tall. However, something odd was going on here, for the spiders were all talking in a high-pitched voice, in the human tongue. And furthermore, they seemed a bit strange, though friendly.
Finding one spider which seemed a little more poised than the other spiders, Ansel managed a "Hello."
"Hi," said the spider in the high-pitched tone.
"What are you looking for? Maybe we can help?" said Ansel.
"I'm looking for flies! I met this human once, and he told me there were things called cockroaches, which are really yummy," replied the spider, "but I've never found any, so I eat flies."
"What did you learn about cockroaches?" asked Duncan.
"Well, hmm. They're slower than flies and meatier. And they walk instead of fly! And they shoot fireballs, so you have to be careful. Or is it the aranea who shoot the fireballs?" said the spider. "They're silly."
"Aranea?" said Jynx. "Can you tell us anything about the aranea?"
The spider shuddered, and the long hairs on its abdomen stood up. "They're mean! They're smart like us, but where we are nice and friendly, they are cruel and nasty. You should stay well away from them," replied Spider. "They are scary and mean. Very scary and mean. If they weren't, we'd go do the rescue ourselves. They all study magic from when they're barely out of their eggs, and they're good at it. So be careful. Oh, and you're cute."
"So, do you spiders need any help?" said Ansel.
"Oh yeah," said spider, looking sad with drooping forelegs. "One of our spiders was captured by the aranea. They live in another cave to the ..." The spider stopped, struggling to remember the word, and then blurted, "west!"
"So, what's the reward, then?" said Brynja. "A bunch of flies?"
"Nope, flies are too tasty to give you. A bunch of mean people came here once, a long time ago. We webbed them all in a cave. You can't get to it now. If you freed our friend, we'd take the barrier down, and you could go in and take their silly things!"
"Well, I guess we'll see if we can find them," said Ansel. "Thanks for the tip."
Traveling to the west, it seemed to be fairly soon that they came to the aranea city. Like that of the friendly spiders, massive spiderwebs filled the area, but somehow, it had a more ominous feel. Soon, however, they found that no matter how the friendly spiders had seemed more than a little ditzy, they had spoken the truth about the magical capabilities of the aranea, and they were under attack at almost every corner.
Then, they came into a long cave lined with webs, which seemed to be neither for sleeping or catching food. Runes were woven into them, suggesting they were aranea books. After fighting their way through until there was no more opposition, they reached another small hallway. Here, there were runes on the floor, and when Brynja stepped on one the webbing comprising the wall suddenly vanished, revealing a small chamber filled with the bones of presumably human victims.
"Let's try this, then," said Ansel, stepping on the next rune.
Inside, a giant spider had been imprisoned, one slightly smaller than the araena. It began jumping up and down, and chattering happily. "Yayyy! I've been rescued! Neat!" said the spider. "Those aranea were nasty! They were going to sacrifice me! Or something. I'll tell my friends you were nice to me! Thanks!"
The spider ran up to Ansel, gave him a kiss on the leg, and charged out of the cave, still cheering blissfully.
"Good job," said Duncan.
"Yeah," said Ansel. "That was weird. I guess that's the one they wanted rescued. Shall we go back and collect our reward?"
"Sounds like a good idea to me," said Brynja. "Then we can get out of this creepy cave."
They made their way back to the other spider cave, which was, in its way just as creepy, and informed the chief spider (after finding him, which was a little difficult because the spiders all looked rather alike) that they had rescued another of their kind of spider from the aranea.
Moving into the newly opened passage, they found that the "evil humans" trapped there had become undead, but were less persistent than the ones of the Grim Cavern, and then they started looking more closely about. One old, withered body, dressed in the remains of a once-elegant silk robe had a broken wand and wore a malachite brooch.
"I bet that's it," said Brynja. "Looks like it fits with the others."
Finding not much else besides a few ancient coins, the companions bid farewell to the spiders, and started on their way back toward Fort Draco.
"I'm glad that's over," said Ansel. "Those spiders ... Gods, I think they were hitting on us."
"They were," said Jynx with a shudder.
"Creeps me right out," said Brynja. "I can understand why Erika didn't want to have anything to do with them, even if it wasn't that hard."
"You know," said Jynx, "I think I know just the place to give that Demonslayer sword a proper test ... the Tower--"
"... of Magi," chimed in Rudel. "You're right, Jynx."
"In that case, let's go," said Ansel. "Those little imps weren't much of a challenge."
"You know," said Brother Theo, "I think we've managed to find six crystals now. Do you want to see if that's enough to repair the damage in the cave?"
"Why not?" said Ansel. "It's on the way, more or less."
They continued south, then, until they came back to the flawless crystal cave with its dissonant hum and vibration. Carefully, they fit the six crystals into the broken places, and the cracks repaired themselves before the eyes of the companions. The vibrations turned soothing and energizing in a sudden, powerful burst. After a powerful crescendo, the energy died down, settling to a merely pleasant level.
Revitalized by their visit to the Crystal Cave, the companions then set out on their long trek down to the Tower of Magi.