5 – Dark as a Dungeon

"Better a hoard of raging bugbears than a clever kobold pack." –Ribald Barterman, Old Ribald's Guide to Dungeoneering

Gorion was marching her through a dark forest, past clinging brambles and over rotting logs. Her short little legs could barely keep up, and the looming figure of her father was drifting further and further away with every branch that slapped her face or root that tripped her foot. Soon Gorion's silhouette was at the edge of her vision and she panicked and ran.

When she turned the corner around a tree her father was gone entirely. She kept running, dodging past trees and ducking under the wicked claws of branches that seemed to be trying to grasp her; to pluck and pull her up into the darkness.

She broke through the trees and found herself on a wide path. Ahead it branched in many directions, some leading into mist, others into darkness, and down some she thought she saw thick black smoke. As she stepped forward the central path became clear. It was wide and straight; an orderly tunnel that cut through the trees and branches.

Perhaps she walked towards that wide, inviting path, or perhaps she was pulled. Either way the pull was definite and powerful a few steps later. Gravity shifted and the open path seemed to slope now. Sharply. Then iIt was not a forest path at all but a mine-shaft and she was sliding. Sliding and then falling into the earth.

Far far below the shape of a leering skull was etched into the ground. It came to life as flames burst from the floor, illuminating its outline. Somewhere in the darkness a deep booming voice laughed as she fell.

With a gasp Ashura started awake and sat up in bed. There was a strange tingling in her left hand, and to her shock when she looked down her palm was glowing with a faint blue-white light. She felt bodies stirring beside her, Imoen at her right and Jaheira at her left. With an instinctive act of will she forced the glow to subside.

"Is something wrong child?" Jaheira asked sleepily.

"Bad dream," Ashura replied as she lay back down. "Sorry." Within moments Jaheira's breathing was gentle and even again. Khalid, who lay past Jaheira on the far end of the bed, never stirred. The wide single bed had forced them to pack in rather snuggly, and Ashura was keenly aware that her movements would disturb the others.

Once again she lay there for a long time, the nightmare playing again and again in her mind, unable to sleep. That glowing skull with its halo of tears was still there whenever she closed her eyes. Perhaps she drifted off a few times before dawn finally came and the four companions began to rise and prepare for the day. It was enough to half-convince herself that the glow in the palm of her hand had just been a dream as well.

As they got dressed and assembled their gear Ashura noticed that Jaheira was putting on something different than her usual padded leather. After slipping a simple green tunic over her head the druidess pulled a heavy looking piece of metal armor on and began to adjust what must have been a dozen straps. The armor consisted of a coat of interlocking metal splints with rounded shoulder-plates and a series of metal-on-leather straps that covered her loins. Khalid helped tighten the armor at the back as Jaheira put a simple steel helmet with a nose-guard on her head and strapped it to her chin. Finally she strapped a heavy wood and metal kite shield to her back, a replacement for the smaller shield she had been carrying.

"You bought that at the smithy?" Ashura asked.

Jaheira nodded. "Who knows what we will face down in the mine. I thought I'd be prepared. And you should as well." With that Jaheira pulled something out of her pack and handed it to Ashura. It was a helmet, of finder make than Jaheira's and topped with a red plume.

"Uh, this was the huntress' right?" Ashura asked.

"Aye," Jaheira said. "Xzar tested the enchantment last night and I believe it would work best for you. Put it on."

Ashura gave her a dubious look and then shrugged, placing the helmet on her head. There was no noticeable effect.

Jaheira walked to the room's single window and drew the curtains tight. The light noticeably dimmed and Ashura began to see a faint red glow emanating from the half-elf's body. Glancing around she saw the same sort of glow coming from Imoen and Khalid. It was a wavering light that roughly matched her companion's silhouettes.

"Look at the floor," Jaheira instructed. Looking down Ashura noticed faint bits of red light crisscrossing the room. They were roughly the size and shape of footprints.

Ashura gasped. "Wow. Is this…this is infravision isn't it?"

"Exactly," Jaheira replied. "With the helmet you can see heat the way Khalid and I can. Very useful in the dark."

"Aww," Imoen complained. "And I'll be blind as a bat."

"You can have the helmet if you really want," Ashura offered. "But I bet it would cramp your style. You ever train to aim a bow with a helmet on?"

"Nope," Imoen said. "Not to mention it's hard to sneak around when your head's clanging against stuff. But I call dibs on the next darkvision ring or necklace we come across!"

"Deal."

Their guide to the Nashkel mines was an energetic female soldier who led them on the long trek up into the mountains with a spry step. She explained that the mine was built high in the rocky feet of the slopes, a good eight miles from the green plains where Nashkel's farms prospered. The path grew steeper and steeper beneath the green silhouettes of the Cloudpeak Mountains which rose before them into a dull grey sky. Thick clouds clung to the mountains, threatening rain that never quite materialized.

As they climbed the guide explained that the mine was relatively new, dug roughly thirty years ago. "It wasn't built on any old ruins or natural caverns," she said. "You always hear about monsters crawling out of those, but it's odd that something would be sweeping in and haunting our little mine."

The trees thinned out and then disappeared completely as they came to a craggy plateau that had been clear-cut long ago. Ahead were several crude wooden buildings. The guide told them that they were barracks for the miners and guards along with several supply sheds and other outbuildings. The mine itself was a quarried-out hole in the earth several hundred feet wide.

A wooden stairway led into the pit and the lone entrance into the ground was at the far end of the quarry. Wooden struts propped the earthen doorway up and a series of rail tracks led through the middle. Mining carts, both empty and full, sat upon the rails here and there. The gravel floor of the pit crunched beneath their boots as the party made its way across.

Three heavily armored Amnish soldiers guarded the entrance of the tunnel, standing behind a tall, gruff looking man with sandy blonde hair and well-made work clothes. The man scowled at the group as they approached and the guide rushed ahead. "These are the adventurers the mayor called for," the soldier explained.

The man continued to scowl. "Well," he spat, "if it's Berrun's orders I won't stand in the way, but they'd better behave themselves down there in my mine. I won't tolerate any smashing of my equipment or abusing of my men."

Jaheira raised a placating hand. "Understood," she said. "We are merely here to investigate."

"Hmph. Well investigate gently and be out as quick as ya can," the supervisor said before stomping off.

The guards at the entrance silently parted, and after bidding goodbye to their guide the party walked under the struts and into the darkness. A few paces in the tunnel began to descend down wood-braced steps. Soon the sunlight was gone, replaced by the dancing flicker of regularly placed torches.

They were startled as Xzar let out a giddy sounding, childlike sigh. "Oh," he sang. "I'm never quite so comfortable as when I'm at least six feet under."

Ashura giggled and the rest gave Xzar uncomfortable looks. He just kept trudging forward, smiling at the ceiling. Today his face was painted with a pattern that resembled a skull.

Soon the tunnel opened up into a wider cavern where the mining rails split out in many directions and carts sat idle, a few piled high with raw ore, most empty. The constant tink-tink of picks striking stone echoed through the tunnels and spindly miners in short, rough-spun pants and shirts rested by the carts. Xzar approached one of the men and casually asked where to find the "monsters."

The haggard old miner just chuckled.

"We are investigating whatever is tainting the iron," Jaheira explained, "and need to know the layout of the mine."

The miner nodded and explained that most of the tunnels eventually dead-ended or connected to each other in a loop. Only the far southeast tunnel spiraled down to the lower level, which the miner described as a less orderly honeycomb of crisscrossing and downward-sloping paths.

Before descending they decided to methodically explore each tunnel on the upper level. The guards and miners that they met told them a little about the creatures that haunted the mine, saying that a few men had seen red eyes glowing in the dark. Growing up in Candlekeep Imoen and Ashura had both read their share of bestiaries, but eyes glowing red in the dark could belong to a large number of different creatures, from fearsome spined devils down to lowly goblins.

Another clue came when they found a series of unattended ore carts around a lonely bend of the track. Khalid and Jaheira both squatted and Ashura followed. With the vision granted by her helmet she could see pairs of faint red tracks glowing beside the carts. They were small and strangely shaped with three pointy, elongated toes.

As the dim glow of the heat-tracks began to fade Jaheira tugged at Ashura's arm and the two began to follow one of the sets. They quickened their pace and Jaheira gestured for the rest to fall in behind her. Soon they were jogging along, eyes fixed on the glowing markers. Imoen made a confused sound but Jaheira shushed her with a rough hand-gesture. The glow of the trail seemed to grow brighter and brighter and-

-Then it abruptly vanished. They searched a bit, confused. Was there a crack in the wall somewhere? How had the creature slipped away?

The answer came with a twang and the whistle of an arrow. It struck Khalid's helmet with a loud clang. He whirled towards the source of the attack, his shield rising just in time to block a second shot. The arrows were coming from ahead and above, and looking up Ashura saw the red glow of two small forms sitting on top of a wooden strut that did not quite reach the ceiling of the mine.

Imoen had an arrow knocked and a confused look on her face. "They're up there!" Ashura shouted and pointed. Imoen tilted her bow and fired at the strut but the arrow struck the roof of the mine, missing entirely.

With her sling whirling above her head Jaheira took aim and hurled a stone. One of the creatures let out a high-pitched yelp and its small body fell to the floor. There was another plink and an arrow struck Jaheira's chest. The blow made her hop back but the arrow bounced off her armor.

The second little creature hopped down to the floor of the mine. The one that had fallen to the floor somehow managed to rise to its feet and together they turned and fled, jumping high in the air with each stride.

The fresh heat-tracks of the creatures led back into the main chamber of the mine and disappeared in the crisscrossing tracks of a group of miners or a patrol of soldiers that had recently passed through. The two half-elves and Ashura searched for a time but soon the tracks faded and the trail went cold.

Ashura broke the silence. "What in the hells were those things anyway?" she asked.

"They looked like uh…little kangaroos," Imoen volunteered. "At least the way they hopped."

"Kanga-whats?" Ashura asked.

"Kangaroos. They're like deer but they stand up on their hind legs with these enormous feet and they can hop really far. I read about them in some book from Kara-Tur. They're from some island around there."

Ashura shook her head. "There was nothing deer-like about those things. Their heads looked kind of like crocodiles. Definitely reptilian."

Khalid spoke up, "K-kobolds. I think those w-were kobolds."

"Aye," Montaron concurred. "I'm pretty sure those were kobolds. Nasty, tricky little creatures. Best be on your guard."

One of the plates over Jaheira's right breast was bent a bit and there was a dent in Khalid's helmet, but they were fine otherwise. After a quick regrouping they cautiously entered the tunnel that led to the lower levels. The path sloped gradually and turned, going on for what seemed like ages before it opened into a wider chamber.

A scream echoed through the cavern, then another. From the darkness a stocky, shirtless man ran towards them. He dropped to his knees, breathless, in front of Ashura. "The…the demons," the man stammered.

"Where?" Ashura asked, peering into the darkness and whipping her swords from their scabbards.

"The yipping," the man panted, finding his feet. "Yipping demons…"

"Uh…" Ashura narrowed her eyes.

The man opened his mouth to explain but nothing besides a raspy choke came out. The sound was followed by a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. The man staggered and fell forward. There was a red-feathered arrow in the back of his neck and several down his body.

"Shit!" Ashura gasped as she ducked low. An arrow whistled over her head. There, ahead in the darkness, crouched two small forms glowing with heat. As they reached to knock more arrows she charged, clearing the ground between them before the bows could be drawn again.

The creatures did indeed yip shortly before she kicked one of them and slashed at the second. The slash sent the beast scurrying back and the kick knocked the other to the floor where she ran it through.

Turning from her kill Ashura saw at least five more of the scaly little creatures hopping out from crevices and hiding places between wooden braces. They were armed with short swords and intent on overwhelming her. A line from Thorin Avshar's combat manual "The Decisive Stroke" came to mind: "If you let them set the tempo of battle you have already lost."

So she refused to let the little lizards set the tempo. Charging. Slashing. Stabbing. Stomping. Always moving, driven by reflex and instinct, she pushed into the melee and through it. Scales, steel and blood whirled around her, all in a blur.

With a stomp to the throat and a crunch the fifth kobold shuddered and ceased moving. Ashura turned and looked around the cavern but all was still now. She caught her breath, wincing a bit. At some point Khalid had joined in beside her. His shield was dented and the blade of his bastard-sword was slick with blood.

Ashura's chainmail coat was torn in several places and she was bleeding from a couple of shallow slashes. That was fixed quickly enough with a healing prayer from Jaheira, and then they went to examining the dead reptiles.

The creatures did indeed resemble crocodiles, or at least their heads did. Their bodies had roughly the proportions of a halfling, though far skinnier, and since they gave off heat they were obviously warm-blooded. The old bestiaries said that kobolds were extremely distant cousins to dragons.

On the bodies were mismatched weapons, mostly short swords and bows, and simple roughspun tunics. Also several of the creatures carried green glass vials attached to their belts.

Imoen and Xzar both examined the strange liquid. "Hmm," Xzar hummed, turning the glass around and around in his hand as he sniffed the uncorked bottle. "There's definitely a hint of death here. Of rot and rust and…delicious impurities."

"You can uh, smell all that? Death?" Imoen asked. "I just smell something acidic and some heavy metals."

"Oh, anyone can smell death my dear. It is the most pungent and obvious scent of all. But the essence of corrosion; death distilled. That is a specialty of mine, and I recognize it well." He hummed to himself, putting the stopper back into the vial.

Imoen shook her head. "Regardless, I'd bet anything this is how those sneaky little lizards are messing up the ore."

"Yeah," Ashura grunted. "Definitely seems like some sort of sabotage operation."

They formed up again and crept further into the darkness. It was eerily silent now, and there was no sign of more miners. As they wound their way around a bend the silence was broken by the groan of a bow being pulled. Ashura tried to duck but winced as she felt the arrow strike her squarely in the chest. The chainmail did its job and deflected the arrowhead, though bits of the armor fell to the cave floor in the process. Two more arrows flew by her and she heard Khalid let out a pained gasp.

Ashura charged. In the dark ahead she could hear the little creatures panting as they fled before her. Little bastards were trying to hit and run now, wear them down. The corridor they were running down quickly opened up into a wider cavern. She could hear the rush of water all around, perhaps from some sort of underground river.

Her foot struck something and there was a loud creak to her right. Before she could react something heavy struck her in the side. The wind was knocked from her lungs and she was flung off her feet and into the air.

With a cold jolt she hit the surface of the underground river and nearly blacked out. Involuntarily she gasped and took in a lungful of water. Her arms flailed but the light above was dimming. She was sinking! Her armor was dragging her down.

Fighting back panic and the burning in her lungs Ashura tore at her belt. She managed to rip it away and quickly shrugged out of the chain shirt. The metal-studded leathers she wore beneath threatened to drag her down anyway but as she kicked and flailed the light above her grew.

Her arms broke the surface, and then her head came clear. She coughed and swung her arms, her hands slapping against the stone surface of the walkway. Eventually she found enough of a handhold to pull herself halfway out of the water and then crawl on hands and knees onto the stone.

Ashura coughed and coughed until she was retching up water and what remained of her breakfast. As she caught her breath she heard the earsplitting yelp of a dying kobold nearby. The sound startled her onto her feet. The creature fell face first onto the stone as Montaron twirled his blood-drenched sword casually. Apparently that was the last of the kobolds, at least for this ambush.

In addition to the dead kobolds there were human bodies lying all around them, miners it appeared from their dress. Red feathered arrows peppered most of the bodies and with her infravision Ashura saw that some of them still held a little heat. Freshly dead. Probably the group that miner who had screamed about yipping demons was from.

It took Ashura a few more moments to fully catch her breath. Imoen walked over and squatted beside her. She offered Ashura a wet sack, which she recognized a moment later. Her backpack. It was soaked but apparently Imoen had been able to pull it from the river. One of her swords lay on the walkway, but her belt, other sword and her scabbards were gone, along with the healing potion she had attached to it. And her chainmail shirt. Damn.

With a hoarse voice Ashura muttered, "Okay, trying to chase these bastards down is a really bad idea."

"Agreed," Jaheira said sternly. "We have to be cautious from here out. The deeper we go the more traps there will be. Montaron and Imoen, you'll need to take the lead. Try to stay low and retreat if you come under fire."

They both nodded grimly.

Ashura managed to find a second short sword that suited her among the dead kobolds. She stowed it and the other sword in her pack for now, though, and picked up a short bow and a quiver of arrows from another corpse. She had never been a good archer, but it seemed like a better weapon to carry at the ready for now.

With more than a little trepidation the group began to creep deeper into the earth.

Author's Note: For those curious about Dungeons and Dragons-y things Ashura's a barbarian, though more in a "favoring a fast, lightly armored fighting style" sense than the "channeling Uthgardt animal spirits" sense. I'm also generally writing this story with 3.5 edition rules in mind (in which case Ashura has at least one level of fighter, since she's literate and has a bunch of duel weapon feats.)

I also wrote her with the chaotic neutral alignment in mind, though where she goes morally might (or might not,) change depending on where the story goes.