Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 8

The depths of despair

In person, Emerson the mine boss seemed better suited to hard physical labour than balancing business ledgers. Broad and muscled, with shrewd grey eyes, he gave the group a cool appraising look after Jaheira had introduced them.

"So you want to take a look at me mines," he drawled thoughtfully. "Well, I see no harm. There be problems in the lower levels, where we lost some workers. The men talk of things a-movin below, but who's to say?" He shrugged. "The earth, she hides many things from sight."

The Amnish soldier guarding the mine entrance gave the group a respectful nod as they walked by. "I wish you guys luck in there. Whatever's been causing all the trouble isn't something I'd wanna run into."

"Sheesh, this seems to just get better and better, doesn't it?" muttered Imoen.

Jaheira gave her a grim smile. "Hold fast, child. Onward."

The mines were dark, damp and stifling, just as the books would describe it, Elene thought. Fortunately, most in the group possessed darkvision, so navigating in that environment was not too difficult. The miners they spoke to were a terrified, paranoid bunch. Speculation ran rife from demons to dragons in the deep, but without exception they all spoke of missing miners or guards and the numbers seemed to be increasing in recent week. Not only that, several adventurers who had ventured in recently to solve the mystery never resurfaced. On that ominous note, the party finished interviewing the miners and plunged on deeper into the mines.

The air grew hotter the deeper they traversed. Imoen wiped at the beads of perspiration on her forehead, for the first time wondering if the life of adventuring was really as great as the tales painted. She glanced at her friend, but Elene was tight-lipped and deep in thought. She had been in a strange mood since the hunter attack at Nashkel Inn.

It was deep within the second level of the mines that they all but ran into a miner barrelling out from the corner, seemingly running for his life.

"They're coming to get me! Gotta get out!" he wailed.

"Who, man? Who are they?" Jaheira grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him slightly.

The man sputtered, eyes like saucers. "Oh Gods, you hear that? They're here!"

Jaheira shoved the man aside and out of sight. His warning gave them enough time to draw their weapons before the first arrow flew out from the darkness and pinged harmlessly against Khalid's shoulder plate. Barks and yips echoed out from the corner, along with the light sound of pattering bare feet on the stone.

"Kobolds!" growled Kivan as he loosed his arrow into the dark.

A shriek resounded as the arrow found its mark. Imoen stood back and cursed as she could not see a thing, but the rest of the party were well equipped to face the diminutive dog-faced creatures suddenly pouring out from the tunnels. Vicious as they were, it was a short fight as the kobolds did not have the numbers to swarm and overwhelm a group of armed adventurers. The man they ran into was long gone, bolted off to the higher levels and hopefully, to safety.

"I think," Jaheira began, wiping the tip of her staff on the dirt. "We need to scout the route before advancing."

"I can do it," Elene spoke up.

Jaheira shot Kivan an uneasy look, which he returned with an indifferent shrug.

"I have good eyes for tripwires, too. I can look out for those as I go along," the girl added.

"Ugh, I wish I had Darkvision, then I could go too!" Imoen grumbled.

"Alright, child." Jaheira grasped Elene on the shoulder. "But the first sign of danger, you come straight back to us, you hear?"

Elene nodded before advancing from the group, her slight form almost melting into the shadows. Ahead of her, the tunnels widened into a chamber where the ore carts were collected before being pushed up to the higher level – she dipped into the cart and collected a palm-sized chunk of ore sample. The rest of the group settled into a side tunnel to wait. And a nerve-racking wait it was.

Eventually the elf girl returned with her report. Crumbly ore and even more kobolds further down. However, she had discovered where the rest of the guards were holed up and collected more information while she was there. The kobolds were thickest in the third level – that area had been more or less abandoned by both miners and guards as they had been losing too many people of late. There simply weren't enough guards to patrol and monitor every inch of the tunnels and the creatures seem to pop up at the most unlikely places, leaving bodies in their wake.

"Almost like an infestation," Elene concluded.

Yet onward they marched, with Elene scouting and the rest forming up ambushes once they knew where the kobolds were clustered. The hours seemed to blur into one another, most in the group began to lose track of time. Luckily, Jaheira's senses kept them grounded, and despite the fatigue creeping in, they had only been in the Mines for just over a day. Small nicks and cuts began to accumulate on each of them after each skirmish. Eventually, they packed themselves into a storage room to have a rest. In the darkness of the small room, the girls flinched at the sound of every scrape or clink beyond the door. Fortunately, this gave Elene the time to prepare an Identify spell, which she used on Greywolf's sword. The blade was powerful, touched by Sharrans and tainted with darkness, but she decided that it would be used for good purposes for as long as it was in her hands.

After resuming their slow trek in the gloom for another hour, they finally reached the lowest level in the mines. The group tensed at the bodies littering the entrance to the level, decay already setting in. Three miners lay abandoned on their front, their backs peppered with arrows. Killed as they ran, like vermin. Nothing much could be done to help them except to secure proper burial once the problem was rooted out.

Unlike the previous levels, the kobolds had had ample time to settle in. Elene pointed out a line on the ground which turned out to be a tripwire, similar to what she'd seen Kivan prepare in the wild to catch game. After that discovery, they were much warier with their steps.

"Good find," Kivan patted his young protégé on the shoulder as they moved along. Elene tried not to glow from the praise but judging from the amused look Imoen was giving her, she'd failed on that mark.

The kobolds had also cottoned on to their new enemy and the trail of bloodshed they'd left behind. Skirmishes then morphed into running battles as the little creatures attacked them from corners and at every opportunity they could find. Jaheira corralled the group to move forward as quickly as possible to avoid being worn down by sheer numbers.

Eventually they came to a bridge, whereby both sides were a sheer drop into what looked like a bottomless chasm. Elene alerted the group that not only was the bridge itself littered with tripwires, but a pair of kobold sentries lurked on the other side with arrows ready. A quick strategy was hatched to clear this obstacle, which involved sending a minor illusion formed to look like a terrifying glowing banshee across the bridge. The sentries bolted in confusion at the sight of the illusion, giving Elene a small window to disarm the tripwires for safe crossing.

By the time the creatures came to their senses and returned for a counterstrike, the party was ready for them. Kivan and Imoen's arrows made quick work of the vanguard, with the fighters mopping up the rest. Elene quietly marvelled at the efficiency of her new sword, how it was light to swing and cut deep even with a light stroke. Fighting picked up pace as they made more progress, descending into what looked like natural caverns formed underground as opposed to the man-made tunnels they had been traversing through before that point.

The fracas well and truly intensified as they traversed a passage which crossed a rivulet of lava. Fire arrows flew at the party from the other end of the passage, catching Jaheira on the arm. Despite that, she and her husband charged forward to close on the archers before they could wreak more damage. Elene, however, stopped in her tracks when she heard a cry of pain from behind.

Imoen was on one knee, reaching a hand behind her to grapple with the kobold who had snuck up on her. Kivan shot an arrow into the creature's head without hesitation but the damage was done. Elene ran back to her friend's side, half-embracing her to hold her steady. Even in the dark, she could see that the creature's blade had perforated deep into Imoen's back, a dark patch steadily growing where the wound was. Elene glanced up and met Kivan's eyes – for the first time in their acquaintance, he looked worried.

"Kivan, cover them! I'll take care of her," she told the ranger.

He hesitated, eyes flickering to Imoen's grievous wound, but advanced swiftly to help their comrades still clashing with more of the creatures further ahead.

"H-how bad is it, Lene?" Imoen stammered, putting her arms around Elene.

"It's alright, Im." Elene shakily pulled out a roll of gauze from one of her belt pouches, pressing it onto the wound, earning her a pained hiss. "You'll be alright."

Slowly, she brought her other arm up to gently embrace her friend, a feeling of helplessness overwhelming her as she felt blood pour through her fingers. She did not have a healing potion on her, and she knew Imoen didn't either. Despite what she had said, she had no idea if Imoen would be alright. And if anything happened to her one remaining friend in the Realms, she had no idea what she would do. If it wasn't for her, Imoen would still be safely tucked away in Candlekeep. She closed her eyes and prayed. Prayed with all her heart.

Please. Please let her be alright.

Suddenly, she felt something spark from within her chest, which then flowed through her body like liquid fire. Her hand on Imoen's wound began to feel warm, but she instinctively kept it right where it was, channelling that spark there. Imoen let out a gasp of pain, but after a few moments, sighed in relief. Elene hesitantly lifted the gauze from her friend's wound and saw that the blood flow had been staunched. In fact, the wound looked almost…healed.

"Is it ok now, Lene?" Imoen's voice sounded small in the darkness.

Elene swallowed, still staring at the soaked patch on her back. "Yes. I…stopped the bleeding."

She pressed the gauze back in its place and sat with Imoen, eyes searching the dark corners around them for danger. They were not going to get caught unawares again, she would make sure of it. After several minutes, Jaheira strode over to them, holding her arm gingerly against her chest. She looked about as tired as they felt. Khalid and Kivan moved like shadows at her back, posting themselves as sentries overlooking the path forward.

Wordlessly, the druid took over from Elene, studying and probing the wounded area, earning a few winces from Imoen. After a few moments, Jaheira frowned, then looked over at her elven charge. Ignoring her galloping heart, Elene did her best to keep her expression neutral.

"Will she be ok?" she asked instead.

Jaheira opened her mouth as if to say something, but then appeared to change her mind. She refocused on Imoen and cast a healing spell to fully mend the damage, creating a soft bluish glow when the spell took effect. Once Imoen was steady, they then gathered themselves to move further into the caverns ahead. Kivan favoured Elene with a scrutinising look as she moved ahead of him in the tight passage but she avoided his eyes. There would probably be words with her kin once they were safely out of this hellhole.

There were no longer swarms of kobolds to bat away, but the number of traps laid out along the way increased in number. Elene was grateful to be able to focus on the meticulous task of disarming the traps, as it allowed her to forestall the moment of reckoning for what she just did. In all truth, she was frightened to the core – somehow, she had healed Imoen with nothing more than a fervent wish. How was that possible? Could she have divine favour somehow? But she was not even a proper Lorekeeper of Oghma, the whole situation simply did not make sense.

Was there something Gorion kept from her all these years? If only she had the answers.

The caverns then led into another long tunnel, which although natural, had been excavated to smoothen out the path and the walls, enabling two people to walk abreast if the situation called for it. Small, claw-tipped footprints scuffed the dirt, indicating significant kobold traffic coming in and out of that area. It seems they had finally reached the source of the infestation. The group now walked without torches in the darkness and kept their steps light, surprising and quickly subduing the two kobolds who were on the way up to the higher levels.

Unlike the other kobolds they'd killed, however, these two carried several vials of green liquid on their person. Khalid pulled the stopper on one of the vials and grimaced after he took a whiff of the liquid inside.

"Smells caustic," he told the rest.

"Maybe that's what's rotting the iron," Imoen mused aloud.

"We can give this to Berrun as proof. He will be able to tell for sure," Khalid replied, bundling up the vials in cloth for safekeeping.

They tread forward in stealth until the tunnels opened up into a giant cavern, whereby they came upon a domed stone structure surrounded by an underground lake. The water of the lake lapped gently against the stones, casting subtle, flickering reflections onto the surrounding walls of the cavern. Subterranean moss growing on the walls emitted its own faint luminosity, making the area look almost dream-like. Despite the discomfort of being so deep underground, even Kivan had to admit that it was quite a sight.

"Ten gold says the big bad is in the dome," Imoen whispered.

"One way to find out," Elene nudged her.

Once again, Elene forged the path, sticking close to the walls and using every trick she'd ever read and heeding the pointers Kivan shared with her. She snuck into the dome after Kivan sniped the sentry at the entryway with a well-placed arrow. The resounding splash when the creature impacted the lake's surface fortunately did not alert others to the scene. Glancing around, Elene saw that the area was dimly lit by torches mounted on crude sconces on the rock walls. Within sight of the dome entryway, a pile of what smelled like old corpses were heaped at the end of one corner. She reeled back in horror at the sight, wondering what the macabre collection was for.

Nervously, she inched forward, noting that there were two chambers within the dome, likely formed by water erosion over the centuries, because the whole place felt old. One chamber was clearly inhabited, with random scraps of cloth laid onto the floor as if to form carpets and the area smelled strongly of incense. A lamp was lit somewhere within, but she would have to venture properly past the corner to see inside the area itself. The other chamber was dark and much smaller, but a lone kobold sat at its cusp as if on guard, idly sharpening its short sword.

She crouched low, calculating. That kobold had to go, it had almost clear line of sight to the entrance. But how to do this? Logically, she should bring Kivan in to snipe the creature just as he had done to the sentry outside. But what if there were more of them inside that chamber? Would that bring down the whole place on their heads with only one way out? Or, she reconsidered, she could distract it and sneak into the chamber to see what was beyond. If there was really nothing in there, she could just finish off that lone kobold and bring the rest in without fear of discovery. That seemed the less risky route.

Picking up a small stone, she deftly closed the distance to the distracted kobold before tossing it over its head, straight into the chamber. The sound of stone clinking on stone caused the kobold to whip its head around to find the source. Before it could turn back to face the real threat, she dashed forward and plunged a dagger into the creature's neck, once and then twice. It gurgled softly as it died. She grabbed it by the shoulders and lowered the body gently to the ground while frantically looking around to check for enemies. To her surprise, the chamber was empty but for a lone figure lying on their side in the corner.

The figure raised their head and looked straight at her. She went taut as a bowstring, still crouched over the body of the dead kobold. A dozen scenarios played out in her head and she began estimating how fast she could bolt out of the dome and back to the safety of her group. As she stared wide-eyed at the figure, though, her Darkvision adjusted to the gloom and she realised with a start that she was looking at an elven man.

Slowly, she approached him. He made no move, simply watching her, as if not quite believing what he was seeing. Once she was within whispering distance, she dropped to one knee, noting that his wrists were bound with rope, with a gag in his mouth. The man was clearly a prisoner, pale and emaciated from untold days in captivity.

"Who are you?" she whispered, releasing him of his gag.

"Xan," he croaked, barely audible.

His cracked word drew a wince from her – his voice was raw, scratchy, like his vocal cords had been damaged and then starved of water. Despite the pang of sympathy from that realisation, she needed to know what she was up against, and quickly. She gestured at his bonds. "Who did this?"

"Mulahey," he answered, almost in a daze. "Next cove."

"Who is he? What is he?"

"Something orcish." The man swallowed, then licked his cracked lips. "Priest."

She pondered that, then realised she still had a bloody dagger in her hand. On a whim, she took his bonds in one hand and cut through them in quick strokes. His eyes widened in surprise as the rope came loose, falling uselessly to the ground.

"Stay here," she ghosted a touch on his arm. "We will get you out."

The elf said nothing as he laid there staring at his unbound hands.

Sheathing her dagger, she crept back to the mouth of the dome, double checking that the kobold she dispatched was hidden well enough. It was time to regroup and put paid to this Mulahey. On her way out, she caught the sound of fevered mutterings coming from the adjacent cove, as well as the scraping steps of kobold feet on stone. A part of her yearned to peek over the corner to have a better idea of what they would face, but then she remembered old stories of dark priests with divine-enhanced senses which could catch out unsuspecting scouts. Swallowing, she forged ahead on her original course of action, deciding that discretion is the better part of valour. The last thing she wanted was to end up tied up in that cave with poor Xan.

Upon re-joining her group, she watched their faces become grim as she described the interior of the dome, the prisoner and the nature of their enemy. Kivan noted that a quick arrow from the dark would end the creature quicker than any frontal assault, but Jaheira forestalled his idea.

"We need to know who Mulahey works for or our work here would only be half done," she explained.

With that, it was decided. Jaheira, Khalid and Elene would go in and confront Mulahey while Kivan and Imoen hid in the shadows to foil any ambush or unseen traps.

It was a workable idea, Elene thought, especially since they had no inkling on how many kobolds could be in there.

She did her best not to cringe at the relative din they were making as they entered the dome together, knowing for certain that it would attract the attention of the occupants further in. Sure enough, her sharp ears caught the sound of boots shuffling towards them from around the corner. Jaheira moved ahead undeterred with staff in hand, ready for confrontation.

"What? Who comes?" A hulking figure ambled towards them, dressed in what seemed like parts of chainmail armour. As he drew close, the dim firelight brought his green-tinged skin and tusks into sharp contrast, confirming Xan's description of his captor. When he caught sight of the armed trio at the threshold of his lair, however, he shrank bank in fear. "Tazok must have dispatched you, and my traitorous kobolds let you pass, didn't they?"

Elene fingered her sword hilt nervously, resisting the urge to glance back into the shadows. Tazok?

Mulahey jerkily drew the morning star at his belt and pointed it at them. "I knew I could not trust them! Armed as such, you have obviously been sent to kill me! By Cyric, not a measure of ore leaves these mines unspoiled, and I am still to be executed?! I'll not lose my head over this! To me, my minions!"

Yips and barks of kobolds heralded their arrival, half a dozen of them pouring out from the alcove Mulahey came from. As the party advanced, Mulahey raised his free hand and barked a quick incantation. To their horror, the mound of old corpses at the end of the cavern began to shift. Three skeletons with bits of flesh still clinging on them rose to do his bidding. They were armed with steel picks and crude knives, likely remnants of miners killed by the kobolds.

Jaheira quickly summoned vines to rise from the earth and hold the skeletons in place. "I will hold the undead!" she called out and moved to head off her foes.

Khalid and Elene were swarmed by the other kobolds before they could close on Mulahey. Two arrows flew in, one felling a kobold and the other lodging itself in Mulahey's collar, earning a guttural roar of pain from the orcish priest. Elene lost track of much of what happened next as she lost herself in parrying stabs from kobolds in the tight space trying to clear a path for Khalid to charge through to the priest.

Just as Khalid stepped up to slash at Mulahey with one of his swords, however, the priest shot off a spell freezing both the warrior and Elene in place. A kobold managed to plant its small blade deep into Elene's thigh, which would have solicited a shout from her if she had been able to open her mouth, before an arrow ended its life. The elf was still unable to react as the last kobold standing jumped in front of her to take advantage of her paralysis. Another arrow flew in from afar, striking Mulahey in the arm but the half-orc ignored the wound, raising his weapon to land a potentially deadly blow to Khalid's head.

Out of the corner of her eye, Elene saw the nearest torch on the wall flicker and then bloom into ball of fire. The flame jumped from the torch to sweep against Mulahey's unprotected face, singeing him badly and ruining his concentration. Mulahey grabbed at his face and wailed in pain even as he swung his weapon. In the same instant, his magic hold on her broke, allowing her to make a reflexive slash which decapitated her kobold assailant. Likewise, Khalid careened out of the way of Mulahey's wild strike in the nick of time.

"Good spell!" he gasped.

"It wasn't me!" Elene replied, clutching her bleeding thigh.

Khalid didn't reply as he shifted his footing to slice unerringly at the priest's middle, leaving a deep trail of red in his sword's wake. Mulahey shrieked and brought the hand clutching his burned face to the wound for an attempt at healing but the half-elf stepped in close for the coup de grace, impaling the enemy with his main hand blade. Cringing, Khalid kicked the dying creature off his blade before moving to help Jaheira still facing off against the two remaining skeletons.

Elene limped towards their beaten opponent and watched as he took his last breath. Instinctively, her head whipped to the right when she realised there was a figure slumped just at the mouth of the alcove.

It was the prisoner, Xan. He was staring at Mulahey's corpse, his hand still locked in a cantrip gesture to control flames.