Chapter 13: Off to the Mines Day 21
By mid morning the seven adventurers were back together eating a late breakfast at the Nashkel Inn. They gathered their gear and headed to the mines. The mines were only a short march away so they left their field gear in one room they retained at the inn. Traveling lightly encumbered they made good time to the mines.
"I would suggest we search around the mines before we descend into them."
Sensing the logic in Jaheria's statement the party turned west to skirt around the pit of the mine. The continued to circle around the mine site determined to search the surrounding woods first. Southwest of the mine they came across a man frantically carving a bas relief into the cliff side. The carving was of a beautiful elven woman. "This must be the artist Prism." Imoen remarked, remembering a bounty notice from Nashkel. "He is wanted for the theft of some emeralds from the town. There is a reward out for the return of the emeralds. I remember that fat man told us about him when he thought you were the bounty hunter Greywolf." With that Khalid and his wife headed for Prism with the remainder of the group trailing behind.
By the time Jeral and Imoen reached the artist he was in tears and arguing with Khalid and Jaheira. "Please, you do not understand, this is my life's work. This is my muse. I have sold all my possessions for enchantments to ensure I can complete this project. For three days I have toiled with neither sleep not nourishment in order to finish this. The picture is of a lost love. I have filled this work with my life's regret for the road not taken, for risks never ventured. For what could have been. At a critical juncture in my life I lacked the courage to risk my heart and have never forgiven myself."
Jaheira was clearly unmoved. "You have stolen emeralds from the town and must return what you have taken."
"But I only took the stones because only these stones could do justice to my beauty and her piercing green eyes. I must finish, please let me finish. Then do with me what you will."
"Good sir, you may finish your muse, we will not interfere with your life's work,"Jeral replied.
"Jeral see reason, this man is a thief," Ajantis declared.
"Probably. He is also a passionate artist and this is his life's work. Who are we to quash his dream? Besides, we can return him and the stones once he is done. They are not going anywhere."
"I will be done within the hour, please let me finish."
"Very well you may continue artist, however know well that we are watchng you." Ajantis nearly choked out the words. The group spread out and settled back to watch the artist continue his work.
"None cross Greywolf and live!" The party turned to see a hard looking man stride towards them. He looked like a capable and grizzled fighter and wore studded leather armor with a beautiful long sword strapped to his hip. He was almost as tall as Minsc and nearly as broad.
"I have come for the artist Prism. He is wanted dead or alive and dead is easier for me."
Taking an instant dislike to the bounty hunter Jeral mockingly replied, "Can the mighty Greywolf not wait a few minutes to allow Prism to finish his work?"
"Who are you to dare cross Greywolf?"
"Actually a better question for you, my poorly named friend, is who wants to pick a fight with seven when they are but one? We have you at a disadvantage." Snarling Greywolf drew his long sword and advanced on Jeral.
"Stay out of this, I can handle it." Jeral shouted at the others. As Greywolf advanced Jeral drew his long sword and faced off against the bounty hunter. His eyes narrowed in on Greywolf's gleaming sword and he realized with a start that is was a heavily enchanted blade.
Jeral started to back up, looking for favorable terrain for the combat.
Impatient, Greywolf leapt forward and slashed at Jeral. Jeral twisted away and was caught with a glancing blow to his side. The blade sliced cleanly through chainmail, skin, and muscle. Wincing in pain he kept backing up. He could feel the blood seeping from his left side. Greywolf soon followed with an overhand slash. Unable to dodge out of the way Jeral put up his shield arm to intercept the blow. His buckler shattered on impact but it was enough to divert the blow as the long sword missed his head by less than an inch. Jeral found himself backed up against a rock outcropping. He saw his friends off to the side looking on worriedly. Giving his best fake smile he shouted, "I am fine; I have this idiot right where I want him." Snarling Greywolf lined up a killing blow. Jeral frantically rummaged through a pouch strapped to his right leg and drew out the wand Imoen had given him back in Beregost.
Rolling to the right Jeral narrowly avoided Greywolf's downward slash.
Pointing the wand at Greywolf's torso Jeral spoke the word of command and a bolt of lightning shot out of the wand and right into Greywolf's chest. Greywolf staggered back, paused and then resumed his advance. His hair stood up on end and a large scorch mark was visible on his armor. Jeral saw the lightning bolt rebound off the far cliff and shoot back through Greywolf's body. It then hit the rocks over Jeral's head and bounced back once more into the large bounty hunter. The bolt then fizzled away and Jeral found himself looking through a hole in the Bounty hunter's torso as he fell back to the ground quite dead. Jeral weakly got to his feet and dusted himself off. Trying to look nonchalant he quickly picked up Greywolf's coin purse and long sword. Walking over to the remainder of the party he flipped the coin purse to Imoen and handed the sword to Ajantis.
"Ajantis, this is clearly an enchanted blade and also damages any it strikes with cold. It will be in good hands wielded by one such as yourself. Wield it with honor." Ajantis nodded his thanks.
"Thanks for that wand Imoen. That came is pretty handy just then." Jaheria approached Jeral and quickly cast a healing spell to close the wound on his side.
The party turned to watch Prism. After a short time he completed his carving. He then placed two large emeralds in the carving as eyes. It truly was a lovely work of art. The image forced everyone to stare at it in awe. Smiling Prism looked at his work, let out a sigh of deep satisfaction and collapsed to the ground as the last bit of life fled his body. Jeral walked over to the carving and plucked the emeralds out of the face. He tossed them to Jaheira. She wordlessly caught them and put them in her pack. Ajantis said a prayer for the deceased and then they left him where he lay.
The group decided that they had best enter the mines before losing any more of the day. After a quick trek they reached the mine entrance. The mine foreman was a grossly obese man called Emerson. He was quite colorful in expressing his disdain for foolish adventures but in the end he let them enter the mine. They realized that the source of any problems in the mine likely came from the deepest level. They found a helpful miner who sketched out a map of the first two levels of the mine. "We don't go down to the third level at all anymore. That level is full of them yipping demons."
Thanking the man, and wondering what a yipping demon was they followed the miners map through the mines. They descended to the second level of the mine without incident. Once there they ran into a large number of dog like creatures. They were about 3 feet tall, walked on their hind legs, had long tails, horns on their heads and wielded short bows or short swords. Dynaheir stated that they were called Kobolds. They were numerous, but other than a few minor scratches they were dispatched without too much injury to the party. Jaheira, Khalid, Ajantis and Minsc waded into them and cut them down in large numbers. After a few more packs of Kobolds and the odd trap they reached the lowest level of the mine. Imoen was delighted to learn that she could detect and disarm an arrow trap and that act filled her with more joy than she ever thought possible. They descended to a level that entered into a natural cavern. The tunnel ended in a narrow rock causeway across an underground lake and ended in another cave mouth.
Sensing that they were near the end of the mystery the party became noticeably more nervous. Ajantis stepped out onto the causeway and started to cross. He took half a dozen steps out onto the bridge. From off to the right four flaming arrows reached out for Ajantis, their fire leaving streaks of light in the darkness. Two arrows whizzed close by but the other two stuck him in his right side. One found the knee joint in his armor while the other entered his side under his shoulder. With a moan he crumpled to the ground and slid off the causeway into the water. Imoen screamed his name and froze. Jeral dropped his weapons and dove in after the paladin. Before he hit the water Jeral shouted, "Kill those archers!"
"MINSC AND BOO WILL PROTECT WET FRIENDS!" Roaring his battle cry Minsc stormed off across the causeway after the unknown archers. Jaheria and Khalid followed Minsc off into the darkness. Imoen fired arrows at the enemy archers in the distance. Sputtering and spitting up water, Jeral hauled Ajantis back onto the causeway. The water was only slightly over his head so Ajantis had not sunk very far. With Dynaheir pulling, and Jeral pushing, they managed to get the paladin back up on the causeway. He was breathing, although he had clearly lost a lot of blood from his two wounds. After a few moments Jaheira came rushing back from the darkness. She had a few scorch marks on her armor where fire arrows had bounced off her ankeheg plate mail. She quickly knelt down by Ajantis. "Jeral, grab these arrows and pull them out when I direct you to."
"Why? Can't you heal him magically?"
"Of course I can. But the arrow needs to be out of the wound, else it will heal improperly. Now pull."
With a sickening wet sounding tear Jeral pulled the arrow out of Ajantis' knee. The paladin gritted his teeth against the pain but an anguished moan escaped his lips. Jaheira quickly cast a spell and the wound rapidly closed leaving unharmed, but pale, flesh behind. Jeral then pulled the arrow out of his shoulder. As the arrow ripped out or Ajantis a geyser of blood spurted from the wound and coated Jeral's face and torso. Cursing under her breath Jaheira worked to quickly cast a second healing spell. Within moments Ajantis' second wound had healed and the color slowly started to return to his face. Minsc returned from the darkness holding a dozen of the flame arrows which he handed to Imoen. "Fire arrows will help little archer," Minsc boomed.
Jeral's eyes rolled into the back of his head as he took a deep breath. The rich earthy smell of the Paladin's blood assaulted his senses.
"Blood is power. Welcome the blood."
A deep voice filled Jeral's mind. With a start Jeral realized that he was licking the blood off of his face and hands. Disgusted with himself he quickly dove back in the water to wash himself clean. As he pulled himself out of the water the others stared at him quizzically.
"Er, sorry but I slipped."
"Well brother, for one who is very dexterous you sure fall down a lot."
Jaheria just snorted in disgust.
"He will be weak for a while despite my healing, we should allow him time to rest."
"Jaheira, we cannot rest here, we are far too exposed. Like it on not we must go on. Ajantis can serve as rear guard while we move forward."
Jeheira mutely nodded. She helped the Paladin to his feet. Ajantis unsteadily stepped to the rear of the party as they resumed their march.
The group crossed the causeway and entered a smaller cavern. The cavern was well lit with torches in wall sconces. The central cavern went straight for 30 paces and then branched out into 3 chambers. The group turned right into the closest chamber. It was clearly set up as someone's residence. Furs and cheap tapestries lined the walls while a large hideous orange and red rug lay in the center of the floor. In the back of a room a large ugly half orc sat seated on a large wooden chair behind a desk overflowing with scrolls and books. He sniffed the air for a second and then looked at the group before speaking in heavily accented common.
"What? How did you get here? Did Tazok send you to kill poor Mulahey?"
"We know not of any Tazok, fiend. We are here to stop your attacks on the miners and your poisoning of the iron in the mine." Jaheira clenched her staff tightly and advanced on the half orc.
"Her speeches are no better than that of all the assassins," Jeral snorted to himself.
"Intruders! Help my minions! To me! To me!" The half orc bellowed. He then picked up his shield and morning star. Khalid shouted an alarm as a half dozen skeletons and half dozen kobolds appeared to the rear of the party.
"Minsc, Khalid! Aid Ajantis, the rest of us will help Jaheira." With that Jeral drew his long sword and waded into melee with Mulahey. Mulahey was trying to cast a spell but heavy pressure from Jaheira and Jeral continually disrupted his attempts. Dynaheir loosed a magic missile spell into Mulcahey while Imoen peppered him with fire arrows. Minsc bellowed a war cry and waded into the skeletons sending bones flying in all directions with each massive swing of his great sword. Khalid stood safely behind Minsc and engaged the kobolds with arrows. Ajantis, despite his weakened state, was holding his own against the kobolds and skeletons. He was doing little damage but was keeping the creatures occupied as he deftly parried their attacks.
The continuous barrage of missiles prevented Mulahey from completing any of his spells. Without his spells and his allies he soon fell to the combined onslaught of a quarter staff, long sword, arrows, and sling bullets. Once he fell, the party made short work of the remaining kobolds and skeletons.
The half orc's body yielded a clearly enchanted ring and a pair of enchanted boots. "The boots offer protection against lightening. I cannot determine the function of the ring. We can identify them once we get back to Nashkel," Jeral mused. A further search found a map, a note from a contact in Beregost and a pair enchanted short swords. Jeral put on the enchanted boots and continued examining the two swords.
"Hey! Over here!" Imoen's voice rang out in the cavern and everyone raced to see what had caused her to cry out. Imoen was standing over a body that reached up a feeble arm as if pleading for assistance. Jaheira and Ajantis knelt down over the body. After a few hushed words a blue hue encased the feeble man. Shaking his head he slowly got to his feet.
"Eighty and five days have I been entombed in this dank cavern. My thanks for the assistance and the healing. Some help with these chains would be helpful as well." Imoen pulled out her lock picks and shortly had the elf freed from his chains. He stretched out his limbs. He was clad in robes of the deepest blue, although the robes were now stained from months of grime and blood.
"I am Xan, a mage of some renown. I was sent to investigate the iron shortage and you can see my fate. Obviously you have been more successful." The elf was almost as tall as Jeral and very thin. He also has a face that was perpetually set in a distressed frown.
"Ahhhhhhh, there is some glimmer of promise. I see you found my sword, I will be taking that." With a flick of his wrist one of the short swords leapt out of Jeral's hand and floated over to Xan's. Patting the sword fondly he smiled briefly and made a few practice swings. The blade shone fiercely with a blue fire that exactly matched the color of his robes. He quickly sheathed the sword and then the ever present frown returned to his face.
"Well I guess that sword belongs to you good elf. Please come with us as far as Nashkel."
"I thank you for your kindness, although I suspect we are surely doomed."
After a thorough inspection of the entire chamber the group found a number of scrolls indicating that Mulahey had a contact staying at an inn in Beregost. The group knew that would be the next step in order to determine who was behind the iron crisis. Dynaheir also found a number of spell scrolls.
"Jeral, here are scrolls for armor and sleep. I have already scribed both of these in my spell book. If you wish I can assist you in scribing them in your spell book when there is time." Nodding appreciatively Jeral took the scrolls and stored them for future use.
Slowly retracing their steps the enlarged party worked their way back out of the mines.
"Can you believe the nerve of that guy? We save the mines and we cannot even get a thank you out of the mine foreman."
"Jeral, the goodness of the act is reward enough. We do not need thanks from any man."
Jeral could not help but role his eyes at the Paladin's words.
"Boo says the mayor of Nashkel will say thank you and give us a reward."
"Good point Minsc, I had quite forgotten about that."