SILVERYMOON
Chapter 22
"Down here is full of natural caverns that were simply reused. We have to get past them to reach the Forge level where we need to search. Glowing lichen will light some areas," Ghared told them all.
"I knew it!" Then Alexis burst out with, "It's the Underdark! We asked for too little to do this." Alexis now knew she didn't like it one whit.
"The Underdark is still miles below here." Ghared didn't see what the problem was. That was what Dwarves did. Mithral Hall was the different place. Some of it was even on the surface, something not very Dwarven.
Still, this time Ghared took the lead, and down the steps they went. The stairway twisted and turned a long way downward. The floor had been cut into hundreds of shallow steps, but the walls and ceiling were still natural rock. About sixty feet down, a rushing stream spilled from a narrow crack to the south and crossed the stairway, disappearing into a narrow, winding tunnel to the north. The rill was only two or three feet wide.
"This way." Ghared led them across and into yet another chamber. They saw a huge cave faintly lit by natural phosphorescence. Its ceiling rose fifty feet high in places. Crystals glimmered softly in the eerie light. Weird, beautiful flows and structures of delicate stone graced the chamber. The western portion of the great cave was separated from the rest by a steep bluff; the ceiling here was half the height of the rest of the chamber.
A couple dozen large stone sepulchers lined the cavern walls, each carved with intricate reliefs and designs and marked with Dwarvish runes.
"They're coffins." Alexis got close to one and ran her hand over it. She looked at Ghared. "It's made of marble."
"The final resting place of Durgeddin's clan," Ghared said quietly. To her, this was a HOLY place and should never be disturbed. "Depending on how fast this place fell, they might all be empty." Ghared wiped away a stray tear.
This cavern was indeed massive, and it seemed to last forever. They saw fifty-foot tall ceilings and tombs for Dwarves that littered the wall from the floor upward. Some appeared to be open, while others were clearly closed.
"This is the door we want." Ghared stopped in front of it. Cut into the cavern wall was a small but strong-looking door of iron plates, about five feet tall and four feet wide. Heavy rivets studded its surface, and a tarnished silver rune – Durgeddin's smith-mark – gleamed on the door's rusted face.
"Locked." Ghared had tested it to make sure. However, she had an answer for it and pulled out a key from her backpack. "Pray that the lock hasn't rusted solid or rusted broken."
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The stairs beyond the door went up instead of down and ended in a room.
The stairs ended at the entrance to an octagonal chamber. The floor was inlaid, but the blue tiles were cracked and dusty. The walls were dressed with polished marble. Large doors of iron-bound oak exited to the northwest and northeast. Three cast bronze statues, almost ten feet tall, stood by the west, north, and east walls. Each depicted an armed Dwarf. The eastern and western ones carried axes and shields, and the center statue was armed with two axes. The ceiling rose in a dome almost thirty feet above the floor.
"WOW!" Rick liked this room a lot and walked toward one of the statues.
But Ghared stopped him. "Those are traps, ignore them. Come this way." She led them somewhere else. They watched as she moved the statue to the east, exposing a tunnel that wasn't too short for her, but they were all going to have to bend over to walk in it.
Down the stairs, in the tunnel they went. Eventually, they exited into a grand room. "This is the Great Hall," Ghared told them.
It was an enormous hall lined with ten great pillars carved into the forms of giants and dragons. Those pillars supported the vaulted ceiling high above. Guttering orange torches set in sconces along the walls illuminated the room, and a mighty throne sat on a dais at the opposite end. Once covered with tile mosaics, the walls had been smashed and defiled by graffiti. Tiny fragments of tile littered the floor. Five other exits were visible.
"ORCS!" Ghared's voice was filled with disgust for the creatures. They had been there and done all this damage.
"Follow me." Ghared took them to a pair of open stone doors that looked broken and unable to swing any longer.
Double stone doors led into a barrel-vaulted area containing several furnaces. The eastern end of the chamber continued into a large, dark cave, from which a cold wind moaned. A stream of water rushed from west to east, through the center of the room, crossed by two stone bridges.
On the opposite side held one large old forge, no longer lit, and one very old anvil, along with two smaller forges and several small anvils.
"We need the other side and then that way." Ghared pointed to her left. In that direction, the water was flowing, and they could hear it roaring like a waterfall.
Walking next to the river, they stopped at a large chasm in the ground. The water flowed over the side and plunged into the depths below. "We fly, or else we climb down the ladder on the far side. If he escaped, he would be down there," Ghared indicated.
"We can't reach the ladder from that side?" Corimin had a flying potion, but it was the only one he had.
"That side of this area is the main housing. If there was a fight, that would be where it all took place, so it should be full of dead Dwarves and hopefully double the number of dead Orcs." Ghared wanted to think that they put up a tough fight even if they did lose.
"Me first, be right back." Kate shifted into a swarm of bats and plunged down into the darkness.
"Ghared, what's down there?" Alexis inquired.
"A black lake. Along the edge of the lake, there's a pathway to a well-hidden secret door. It leads to a secret room that can become a hidden room to hide in and wait for rescue. If there is a potion of water breathing, he could swim his way out. But I'm told it is a long way. Miles, actually. Where it ends, I don't know. I only know of the room itself," Ghared explained.
"Given there's ice above us, I'm betting the water's just above freezing," Rick said. He certainly didn't want to swim in it. Hypothermia would set in in minutes, if not less. It was an icy tomb.
"Icy water in the dark. Lovely." Corimin just knew this was going to be bad.
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"Where is she?" Alexis was beginning to get worried. But suddenly, a swarm of bats landed next to her and changed into Kate.
"You want the good news or the bad news?" Kate had both.
"Good news. This place stinks of death," Alexis told her.
"All right, the good news. The waterfall ends in a pool and sends water spraying everywhere. The place is totally wet and slippery. There's a walkway on the far side, and the ladder actually does come down on that side.
"From there you take a bridge across a river, walk a ways, and then back across another bridge. Both are made of stone and look stable. From there you walk the edge of a jet black lake that is freezing cold. I tested it," Kate told them.
'And the bad news?" To Alexis, that kind of sounded like bad news.
Kate didn't look at her. "There's an island in the middle of the lake. On that island is a Black Dragon."
Alexis exploded. "I KNEW IT! What is it with Dragons anyway? Black is Evil, right?"
"How big?" Corimin asked Kate.
"Young, the same size as the Green one, and that Brass one," Kate replied. "It's resting on a pile of coins and other things."
Ghared nodded. "A Dragon Hoard. Every Dragon has one somewhere."
"Then to reach this guy, we need to kill a Black Dragon." Alexis continued complaining, "We seriously asked for too little for this."
"Lightning Bolts and Fire Balls! How do we do it and not get spotted, and it breathes on us first?" Corimin knew they had killed that Green Dragon, so why not do the same thing for this one?
"We can fly. Maybe spread out, so it doesn't know who to attack first?" Rick offered.
"There are places to land on the far side. There are three stones we would have to jump, one to the other, or get wet on this side. Rick takes that one, and we take the other two," Kate suggested. Except that left out Corimin and Ghared.
"I have one Potion of Fly," Corimin said. "It will get me down there, only not back up if we stay too long. I would have to climb to get back out."
"As do I. I came prepared for this," Ghared said.
Kate quickly came up with a plan. "All right, so Alexis and I get into place and wait a minute, maybe. We attack and get its attention. You three fly in, land, and attack. Just don't get in too close or get hit by fireballs."
Alexis nodded her approval. "It worked on that Green Dragon."
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Amazingly, it worked out almost just like it was planned. The only deviation from the plan was that just as Corimin and Rick launched their Fireballs and Ghared threw her hammer, it was slipping into the water to decide who it was going to fight back. However, two Lightning Bolts, two Fireballs followed by Ghared's flying hammer hitting it in the back and then flying back to her, killed it. It dropped dead into the water and sank to the bottom.
"Okay, Young Dragons we can handle. They get any bigger, and we're hamburger," Alexis stated as Rick, Alexis, and Kate landed on the island. Ghared and Corimin headed for a hidden secret door.
(6,200 silver pieces, 1,430 gold pieces, two garnets worth 200 gold pieces each, a black pearl worth 55 gold pieces, a wand of magic missiles (33 charges remaining), a +2 great axe bearing Durgeddin's smith-mark, a +l shield, a potion of healing, and a potion of flying.)
The secret tunnel went around the lake and opened up onto a bridge across a thin stream of freezing cold water. It was so cold that the top was ice so someone could walk across it. However, on the other side was a stone door that refused to move.
"Give me a minute. Stay here still, Patches. I know you hate it, but it's safer for you." Alexis went Ethereal yet again, forcing everyone to wait.
Eventually, just as everyone was starting to worry, the door opened to show Durgeddin himself. He spotted her. "Ghared. I might have known."
In a heartbeat, Ghared was down on one knee. "Master! Thank Moridin that you are alive and well!"
"He tried to kill me," Alexis complained.
Durgeddin defended his actions. "She's a SUCCUBUS! She told me a tall story, but then she finally told me your name, and that you were just the other side of the door."
"I'm just happy that you are safe, Master," Ghared said fervently.
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They spent too much time in his hideout, and the fly potions wore off. That meant a long climb for the three of them since Durgeddin didn't have a fly potion to get back out. What he still did have was a lot of rations, water, and other things.
Down there, he learned why it was just Ghared and these four from Silverymoon.
"A Red Dragon!?" Alexis queried since Ghared hadn't told them about that. "What is it with Dragons, anyway?"
It turned out Mithral Hall was dealing with a Red Dragon that was raiding their place. So, they couldn't afford to spare more than just Ghared who knew where to go, plus these four.
"I owe you four, then." Durgeddin offered them more compensation. "I have a few weapons stored away, one of which I can give you. Made by me, personally."
First, they had to reach the Forge area and let him open the secret doors that housed them. However, to get that far, they had to climb the ladder and walk through all the dead Dwarves and dead Orcs.
"We will avenge them," Durgeddin swore.
"We were told the Orcs came from the mountain range on the other side of the ice, out into the desert. And that there's also a Young Blue Dragon out there," Kate warned him.
Durgeddin was undaunted. "We will kill them. We will kill all of them."
"How did they get in, Master?" Ghared didn't understand.
"They dug a tunnel that we failed to notice. They swarmed everywhere. My charges I was teaching fought to protect me so I could get away. They offered up their lives for me. The Orcs will pay." Durgeddin was going to get his revenge eventually.
"I should have been here, Master." Ghared felt bad that she hadn't been.
"They would have killed you, Ghared. There were hundreds of them." He was actually glad she wasn't here. "What I didn't know about was the Black Dragon. That's new. How he found the place, I don't know." Durgeddin didn't know when that happened.
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Four horses, one Goat, and five camels. So Durgeddin was left riding a camel which wasn't that easy. They were all rigged for cargo, not a rider.
"MY BUTT!" He hadn't been on it long, but he was already hurting. "DRAGON!"
Thinruthlaem came bounding up to them, thankful to spot them. He could use another deal for another camel.
"NO, NO! He's friendly!" Kate held up a hand to keep him from taking out his weapon and getting ready for a fight.
"YOU MADE IT! Who's the new guy sitting on my camel?" Thinruthlaem asked.
"This is Durgeddin. He is the Dwarf we came here to find." Kate looked him over. "You look well."
"I'm hungry, but I'm fine. Make another deal," Thinruthlaem offered. "I travel with you, and you let me have a camel?"
"Where is the Fire Elemental?" Alexis queried since Patches liked him.
"I do not know. He walked out into the desert and I never saw him again. I do know one thing, though. I saw a Fire Giant with a troop of twelve Gnolls headed for your hills," Thinrythlaem informed them.
"Is that bad? That's bad, isn't it?" Alexis looked from Durgeddin, to Ghared, and back to Thinrythlaem.
"If there is one, there is more than one," Durgeddin said grimly.
"Please, take us to one of your Oases," Kate asked. "We need to refill all of our water containers. The horses, Goat, and camels drank all we left behind."
"Follow me then. Richard Castle, I require more stories." He was learning to like Rick.
"Castle's head is going to get really big if we keep this up," Kate murmured to Alexis softly which had Alexis smiling, since Kate was right. This Brass Dragon was buttering up her dad for something.
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When they reached his Oasis, they found four Were-Tigers drinking. They were viscous and didn't want to give up their watering hole. However, it was five against four, plus they had a Dragon. So they backed off. They had learned to fight when they had an advantage. They didn't need to end up hurt and possibly die from their wounds. They didn't go far, though. They were hoping for an opening to bag themselves a camel for a meal.
Durgeddin found out what it was like traveling with these people. They had a tent that was perfect inside. Granted, he didn't have a sleeping bag with him, but he did have a cot to sleep on, so he was at least off the floor.
As was normal, they left before the sun came up to avoid baking in the heat more than necessary. They filled all of their containers and let all of the animals drink their fill. Turned out the camels drank the most.
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While Thinruthlaem had bounded away after something once, but came back and walked next to them, the trip was uneventful when they reached the edge of the desert and the snow began.
"You want to come with us?" Kate asked Thinruthlaem. "We're traveling to Mithral Hall. It's full of Dwarves and they have a mountain."
"No, I prefer the heat of the desert. The cold at night isn't that bad, but I thank you for the offer." Thinruthlaem bowed a little.
"Once again, a deal is a deal. One camel for your help and company." Kate untied a camel to leave it behind.
"May the Gods that you support smile on you. Remember to look for me if you are in this desert again. I have enjoyed your stories." Thinruthlaem was going to miss them, but this was his home. Like any Dragon, he had a Horde somewhere safe.
"I've enjoyed telling them. Now I have new stories, I know a real Dragon." Rick was really happy about that.
They left but didn't get far enough to not hear the camel scream from the pain of being bitten before being eaten. Each of them felt bad about the camel, but better it than them.
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They made a short stop in Sundabar, and then again in Silverymoon before traveling on to Mithral Hall.
Once there, Ghared and Durgeddin made sure they were paid what was offered and made sure they kept the weapon he provided for his rescue.
"If you require a weapon, come see me, and I will make it for you at a discount, naturally," Durgeddin offered. "You have made friends of the Dwarves here."
"We will keep your secret. It is not often you meet people like you. I will withhold my judgment about humans a little more now. May Moridin smile on you all the way home." Ghared bowed a little as did Durgeddin, and they turned and left.
"We didn't get to see the City," Rick moaned. They still didn't get any farther than the inn they stayed in for the night.
Alexis rolled her eyes. "I think we saw enough, Dad."
"We have to go home and get answers. They've been lying to us, and I want to know why. I also want to know if they did this to us. Someone brought us here. Maybe they didn't mean for us to be captured by the Drow, but we were. I want answers." Kate was going to go into Homicide Detective mode and interrogate the Lady and everyone else.
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"MEOW!" Patches raced up the stairs to their front door. He was really happy to be home. He liked it here. He left it because his best buddy left and where she went, so did he.
Once the door was open Patches ran inside to search all of it. It was his duty to make sure this place was safe.
"I need a bath. I haven't had a bath in far too long." Kate felt dirty. "PATCHES!" Kate would fill the tub and Patches' job was to warm up the bottom of her copper tub to heat the water to the proper temperature.
While Kate was getting dressed, Alexis was next in the tub, followed by Rick. He preferred a shower, and yes, they did have one, but the water was freezing cold, so hot bath it was.
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6,200 silver pieces, 1,430 gold pieces, two garnets worth 200 gold pieces each, a black pearl worth 55 gold pieces, a wand of magic missiles (33 charges remaining),a +2 great axe bearing Durgeddin's smith-mark, a +l shield, a potion of healing, and a potion of flying.
440 gold pieces, 1,600 silver pieces, one potion of climbing and one magical +1 rapier sword
210 gold pieces, Topaz gem at 200 gold pieces, two onyx gems at 50 gold pieces each
Rod of Many Wands and one +3 Composite Short Bow of Oath
4 Camels
Giants Endwas a +3 Longsword made personally by Durgeddin and had his mark on it. It was made with the blood of a Fire Giant in this case, so it had bonuses against Fire Giants. In particular, plus bonuses against any race considered a Giant.
Save for the Rod, Bow, and Longsword, the rest of it was all divided up amongst the three groups. Rick, Kate, and Alexis was one group. Corimin was another, and Ghared was the other.
So Corimin went home with still more gold, and one item to sell to get even more gold, which made his parents happy.