Madness and Mayhem
Water pervaded the great cavern housing Mantol-Derith. Falls cascaded into pools which spilled over into streams that rippled over the rocky ground or billowed up from the churning water as vapor - clouds of chilling mist which glowed ghostly pale and ethereal in the light of the enchanted lamp posts of Mantol-Derith - to rise up and condense on the ceiling and drip off stalactites in an ever-present pitter patter from above. Presently one of those descending drips struck the nape of Kuhl's neck and he was treated to a splash of cold water which somehow got under his armor and tunic to slither down his spine, making him suppress a shiver.
Small wonder, given this constant light rain of condensation, that the merchants of Mantol-Derith erected tents to protect themselves and their wares from getting wet. Back on the other side of the ravine, where the duergar and svirfneblin set up their marketplace, the tents and stalls were destroyed - victims of the outbreak of hostilities between the two races over the theft of a mysterious black gem. The stalls and tents on this side of the ravine still stood but were empty of merchants and trade goods. The drow and Zhentarim had also retreated to their fortress-like enclaves when the fighting between the gray dwarves and deep gnomes began.
Kuhl and his companions followed a walkway of crushed crystal leading past the empty tents and stalls to a stone bridge spanning one of the streams of the cavern. The path glowed under the lamp post light, each piece of crystalline gravel a little prism of reflective color which blended together into a shimmering walkway that crunched as they tread on it. This strange type of path had not been present in the duergar section of Mantol-Derith, which made sense - why would the gray dwarves, with their innate power of invisibility, want something underfoot that might reveal the steps of someone unseen? But members of the other races of the trade enclave would want such a potential warning system and, beyond that, the walkways were beautiful to behold.
Step by crunching step their procession made their way to the stone bridge spanning the stream and across - Aligor leading in his crimson plate armor followed by Ghuldur, the duergar chief negotiator, who joined them wanting to get to the bottom of the mystery of the black gem which had wreaked so much havoc on the peace of Mantol-Derith. Next walked Rhianne, hooded and cloaked, then Sky, with Kuhl bringing up the rear.
"Where is he?" the former knight whispered, his gaze searching their surroundings.
They were looking for a deep gnome named Flink, an apprentice of the duergar prisoner, Yanthra. Once Rhianne's spell-song calmed the svirfneblin mage she had admitted to stealing the black gem from Krimgol, refusing to return it after he'd brought it to her for appraisal. What she could not explain was why she'd done so or tell why she previously thought it a gift from the gnome god Segojan Earthcaller. Her sanity returned, she scoffed at the thought, and mourned the loss of life in fighting over the gemstone.
Contacting her apprentice via sending spells she learned he had taken it for safekeeping and fled her stall only to have it then stolen from him. He claimed to be in the Zhentarim enclave, just over the bridge, watching the thief, but now that the companions had come here, he was nowhere to be found.
"There," Sky said, tail lashing as she pointed a clawed finger.
Kuhl caught a glimpse of movement among nearby piles of stones, then realized one of those piles was actually a small figure - a gnome - seamlessly blending into the rocky surroundings. His skin seemed to shift from mottled shades of gray which blurred into the stones around him to a more flesh colored complexion as he revealed himself.
"Are you the ones Yanthra sent?" the svirfneblin asked.
"Flint?" Rhianne questioned.
The gnome nodded.
"Where is the gem?" Aligor asked.
"Why didn't Yanthra come herself?" Flint asked, his pale eyes narrowing as he glared at Ghuldur.
"Yer master stole from one of us," the duergar leader growled. "Now it could be the fault of the gem she stole or could be her own greed got the better of her. Till I know one way or the other, she stays a prisoner."
The svirfneblin bristled, drawing himself to his full height. Seeing where things headed, Kuhl intervened, crouching to be more at eye level with the gnome.
"Flint," he said. "Yanthra said to trust us, didn't she? Finding this black gem may be the only way to help her. Can you tell us what happened to it?"
He'd heard Yanthra's side of the sending spell conversation and knew what she said. The gnome hesitated, uncertain for a moment, then relented.
"He took it from me," Flint said, pointing. "Up there. The gargoyle."
"This is why I chose Kuhl as a detective partner," Sky whispered under her breath. "What he lacks in investigating and reasoning skills he makes up for in gaining trust. Useful in learning information."
"I think she is talking to the Stone of Golorr," Dawnbringer said telepathically. "You think it is influencing her? Has she been acting strangely?"
Kuhl ignored both the thoughts of his sentient sword and the tabaxi's whisperings, as far as he could tell, Sky still acted like Sky. He focused on where Flint pointed. Today, it seemed, would be a day of finding those who could hide well amongst stone and rock. After an eye straining search he spied the gargoyle perched on a ledge near the ceiling.
"What's a drow gargoyle doing here?" Ghuldor asked. "They usually guard their enclave."
"He seems to be watching the pavilion," Aligor said. "More importantly, if he has the stone, how are we going to take it from him when he is up there and can easily fly away?"
The gargoyle did stare fixedly at a large pavilion surrounded by a few other smaller tents, sitting as still as a statue and ignoring the pitter patter of drops falling on him from the ceiling. The symbol of the Zhentarim - a winged white flying snake on a black and gold shield shaped background - decorated the pavilion. Trails of gray stained the canvas from years of water dripping down from the stalactites above and the ground around the tents held puddles. There being no sunlight in the Underdark to evaporate them, these puddles probably never dried, just slowly leaked in tiny rivulets through the rock.
"He might not have the gem," Flint said. "He might be waiting for the one who does. Watching for them to come back out of the pavilion."
"Waiting for the one who does?" Aligor asked. "You said he had it."
"I said he took it from me," the gnome corrected. "He might still have it, he might not. Things have happened since I fell, and he grabbed it."
The former knight sighed at this information and Ghuldor groaned and shook his head in frustration.
"Ye ain't certain it's in that pavilion or with that gargoyle, are ye?" he said. "Could be anywhere now."
The gnome shrugged and something he saw in the glare of the duergar in response made him shuffle back. Kuhl worried he might run off and use his inherent rock blurring magic to hide again.
"Why don't you tell everything that has transpired since you first took the gem," Rhianne said, tone gentle and reassuring.
Flint stared up at her for a long moment. As if trying to pierce the shadowed depths of her cowled hood.
"You were in Blingdenstone when the Pudding King attacked?" he finally asked. "As were you and you."
He directed the other two queries towards Kuhl and Sky. All three of them nodded in acknowledgment, which prompted gnome to nod to himself in turn before beginning his tale.
"I thought I recognized you," he said. " I was in the back of our stall when yelling started. It was Krimgol. He wanted the black gem he left for Yanthra to appraise returned and refused to believe her when she told him it had been stolen and she'd compensate him."
"Knew a lie for a lie," Ghuldur scoffed.
The gnome pointedly ignored the accusation and continued the story.
"She'd told me earlier we mustn't give it up. That it was svirfneblin heritage. So, I grabbed the gem, slipped out the back tent flap, and ran, blurring as I went. But I quickly felt dizzy. Disoriented. And tripped coming across the causeway over the ravine. I dropped the gem in my fall and by the time I scrambled back up, a gargoyle had swooped down and snatched it."
"Ye crossed the ravine towards the drow enclave?" Ghuldor asked a question in his tone. "Why did ye do that? Yer own was closer."
"The dizziness was likely caused by the delusions of the gem starting to influence his mind," Dawnbringer mused telepathically. "But perhaps he didn't possess it long enough for it to take effect. So, what he says may be reliable, unlike the ravings of Yanthra and Krimgol before Rhianne's music cured them of their madness."
"If our enclave was searched," Flint reasoned. "And the gem was found there, everyone would believe my master lied. But if I hid blurred in a dark corner in drow territory what she said would be sort of true. It was stolen, but by her apprentice, and she wouldn't know where it was."
"So, if I understand ye right," the duergar chief acknowledged. "Ye stole it to try and make her lie not a lie, though it still was, but then had it stolen in turn. Sounds a bit like justice to mine ears."
The gnome pursed his lips, seemingly trying to think of something to say in response, then sighed, shook his head, and again took up his tale.
"The gargoyle retreated to a place I could not follow," Flint said. "Inside their fortress-warehouse. So, I watched and waited until he reappeared and when he did, he followed a delegation of drow who went into that pavilion."
"A drow delegation meeting with the Zhents?" Ghuldur growled, nearly pupiless eyes narrowing with suspicion. "What is that about? Nothing good I'll wager."
"A war has broken out between two of the factions here," Aligor said. "And you wonder why the other two would meet?"
"What I wonder is…" the duergar started.
A piercing yell rent through the air. The voice bellowing it was strange - gravelly, and telling of surprise, fear and pain. Soon after the scream came the rasp of steel and ring of metal on metal. These sounds came from inside the pavilion which now lit up in a flash as someone unleashed a lightning bolt spell that caused more screams of pain and terror as it ripped through one of the canvas walls and crackled out into the cavern in an eye searing arc of electricity.
"What in the Nine Hells…" Aligor said, drawing his sword of black iron, flame colored runes igniting to life along its length.
Kuhl pulled Dawnbringer free from her sheath and her golden radiance shone as her blade blazed into being. The door flaps of the pavilion suddenly billowed outward as something flew out - two somethings actually - a lithe dark-elf, her long white hair streaming out behind her like a pale pinion and a huge, floating, scaly sphere with a large central eye, a gaping sharp tooth filled maw, and a crown of eyestalk tentacles atop its head-body. The former rode on the latter.
Kuhl had seen one of the sphere-like creatures before, the stuffed and preserved taxidermied variety in the window display in Old Xoblob shop in Waterdeep and the projection of a live one who watched the deadly game of Blood and Fortune the half-elf played in Skullport while a prisoner of the Xanathar guild. It was a beholder, and it was trying to shake the drow off, spinning, bobbing, and careening, through the air. But she gripped with her legs and clung to a dagger embedded in the beholder's side while wielding her other dagger to great effect, plunging it in and out as again and again her arm rose and fell.
"Lorthuun," Aligor breathed. "The beholder is an ally."
He leveled his sword, and a flaming beam of hellfire scorched across the distance. It missed the mounted drow by a wide distance, how could it not given the erratic aerial dance of the beholder, but provided a needed distraction. As the dark-elf glanced their way a pinned eyestalk squirmed free from beneath her boot and the resulting ray of white light issuing from the freed eye, suffused her form, then lifted the beholder's assailant off itself and delivered her head first into its toothy maw. Blood sprayed as the creature's jaw clamped shut and it spun its spherical body from side to side like a wolf scavenging off a piece of stubborn flesh from a carcass.
Then the beholder spat out its victim to fall in a discarded, unmoving, bloody heap as a new threat screeched toward it. Pivoting quickly, the floating creature brought one of its eyestalks to bear and a sickly green beam of light struck the diving gargoyle. Momentum carried the stony creature's attack through the effects of the magical ray to hit like the proverbial falling rock, this one descending with the force of a missile launched by a catapult.
The two creatures fell to roll and splash through the rocky, puddle laden cavern floor, the gargoyle cracked stony debris at the end of his crashing tumble and the beholder coming to a rest with its central eye facing towards the ceiling. It did not rise or float from the ground again. Just laid there, weakly writhing eyestalks the only sign it still lived.
"What just happened?" Rhianne asked.
No answer came at first, then Ghuldur spoke.
"Twas madness and mayhem," the duergar grunted, seemingly bewildered. "The raw pure essence of it."
"I'll see to Lorthuun," Aligor said, running towards the fallen beholder. "You look in on those inside the pavilion."
Kuhl's boots crunched against the walkway of crushed crystal as he jogged towards the entrance of the pavilion. On the way he passed the bloody and mangled body of the drow woman. She had nearly been bitten in two and was clearly dead.
A yellow-green fog leaked out from the interior of the pavilion through the slight opening of the tent flaps and out the lightning ripped canvas wall. The half-elf's eyes watered and his nose and throat burned from an acrid stench as he approached, and he coughed. An answering, gagging, hacking cough came from inside.
Extinguishing and sheathing Dawnbringer, Kuhl turned his head, took a deep breath, and forced himself forward. Yellow-green vapor billowed forth and enveloped him as he pulled the tent flap aside and entered. Even holding his breath, the gas was barely bearable. He squinted through slits in an attempt to protect his eyes and the fog burned against his skin. He caught a glimpse of a crawling figure and then he was forced to shut his eyes.
"I will guide you," Dawnbringer spoke in his mind. "Straight on ahead. Now reach down."
Flailing ahead blindingly as he followed her instructions his grasping hands found a shoulder and he secured grips under the crawler's arms and hauled backwards as he retreated back out of the pavilion, dragging them along with him. He felt himself pass the tent flaps but held off taking a breath for several more steps. The air was mostly clean when he did, heavy with moisture from the dampness of the cavern of Mantol-Derith, but those breaths at that moment outside the air fouled pavilion tasted as sweet as any he had ever breathed.
Still he coughed, coughed and hacked some more until he was sure his lungs would give out as he knelt on hands and knees. Another did the same nearby and he could only assume, eyes still burning so much they needed to stay closed, this was the person he'd rescued.
"It was just like the time I guided you while in the gelatinous cube," Dawnbringer telepathically mused. "Remember?"
He remembered. That had been in Blingdenstone when they first arrived in the svirfneblin city. But at the moment he wasn't inclined to reminisce about that experience, or ever really. Being inside a gelatinous cube was something he would quite willingly forget.
"Breathe," Rhianne instructed, putting a comforting gloved hand on his shoulder. "Just breathe."
It was rather obvious advice, but her tone calmed and soothed him, and he was glad of her presence. Soon the breaths came easier, ragged and burning down his throat and in his lungs, but without coughing and he was able to blink his eyes open. The drow he had rescued recovered at nearly the same time and her red-eyed glare went hostile as she looked up.
"Zhents," she rasped, lifting a hand which began to glow with arcane power.
"No," Rhianne stated, kicking the dark-elf's hand aside. "He just saved your life."
"By the Dark Mother," the drow spat. "First you betray and ambush us after giving us an invite to meet and then you want me to be thankful for a rescue so I can be taken as a battle captive? I think not."
"Lorthuun is dead," Aligor said, the crunching of the crystal gravel of the walkway presaging his arrival with Ghuldur and Flint. "Those inside the pavilion?"
"Dead," the dark-elf announced, satisfaction in her tone. "As is appropriate for oath breaking scum."
"Oath breaking scum," Ghuldur repeated. "By my experience, that's ye dark-elves. How do ye like the taste of yer own venomed fangs coming back to bite ye?"
"Ghuldur," the drow growled. "You put Ghazrim and the Zhents up for this? Well he's dead from listening to you as is his entourage, suffocated by my spell."
Kuhl knew the name Ghazrim. He was the Zhentarim chief negotiator here, the one who possessed a ring which could show the way to the stone giant library of Gravenhollow. The half-elf and his companions came to Mantol-Derith to meet that man and be given his ring.
And he was dead.
"The poison fog inside the pavilion," Kuhl said, pushing past the disheartening revelation of Ghazrim's death. "That was your doing. You cast it even though you were inside with them?"
The drow, Sirak apparently, smirked a cruel smile.
"If I was going to die," she said. "All my would-be assassins were dying with me."
"Why do you think Ghazrim betrayed you?" Aligor asked. "What would he hope to gain from that? The Zhentarim benefit from trade with Menzoberranzan. What happened?"
"I didn't see what happened," Sirak said. "But Kinyel saw something. Why else would she leap atop of the beholder and attack it?"
"Because she might not have been in her right mind," Sky called out. "This is - was - Kinyel?"
The tabaxi stood near the body of the beholder-chewed drow holding the Stone of Golorr over the corpse.
"You dare accuse one of my people, a drow, of not being 'in her right mind'?" the dark-elf said, like Ghuldur apparently understanding the surface Common Sky spoke and able to answer in kind. "And what manner of surfacer are you?"
Despite the dark-elf's haughty tone, the latter question held curiosity.
"I'm a tabaxi," Sky said. "And it wasn't Kinyel's fault. She was being influenced by this."
Bending down, she dug into a pocket on the body and picked something up. It was a fist sized black gem which pulsated with an inner pale light. Sky grimaced and made to drop the gem onto the stony ground, but letting go, a simple unclenching of her hand, seemed to take monumental effort and she stood transfixed, unable to do it.
"Sky?" Rhianne asked worriedly.
Jaw set and golden eyes narrowed in a mask of determination Kuhl had never before witnessed on her feline features, the tabaxi won her internal battle of will power. The gem dropped from her fingers to fall with clink and to roll into a puddle. There it lay for a time, glowing with the ebb and flow of its eerie, pulsating pale light, as they all silently stared at it, mesmerized.
"What is that?" Sirak finally hissed, red-pupiled eyes wide with wonder. "How did Kinyel come to possess such a thing?"
"It's not important how she got it," Aligor said, hefting his rune-scarred black iron sword as he advanced towards the black pulsing gemstone. "What is important is madness has afflicted all who possessed it for more than a moment. The breaking of the peace of Mantol-Derith between the duergar and svirfneblin, Kinyel's unprovoked attack on the beholder Lorthuun, who knows what more, was caused by this gem."
The drow winced at his emphasis on the word 'unprovoked' but focused on Ghuldur as she crawled to her feet.
"Is this true?" she asked.
The verbal exchanges thus far between the dark-elf and duergar revealed a mutual dislike, but apparently, she trusted his judgment more than anyone else present.
"I can only say this," Ghuldur said, shrugging as he stared at the gem in the puddle. "A duergar I've known since we were freshly weaned from our mothers' teats found that gem and soon believed himself an outcast of our people when he was not. He brought the gem to Yanthra Coaxrock for appraisal, hoping the treasure he gained selling it could buy back his honor. Instead of appraising it, she stole it, stole it and tried to pin the blame of the theft on ye drow."
"Yanthra Coaxrock stole it?" Sirak asked, voice dubious and brow scrunching in confusion.
She clearly believed this out of character for the gem merchant.
"She said it was the heritage of our people," Flint said, a quaver of uncertainty in his tone as he came to the defense of his master. "A gift from Segojan Earthcaller."
"She stole it," Ghuldur said in answer to Sirak. "And so now we ask ye, since Kinyel had the gem, anything odd in her behavior? Anything other than suddenly attacking the beholder?"
"Kinyel must have seen a threat…" the drow trailed off and canted her head, as if a thought occurred to her. "Though I hadn't planned on bringing her to the meeting. But she insisted, grew agitated when I first said no, sure the Zhents planned treachery. And her suspicion, for some reason, was on the beholder, Lorthuun, though she could give no evidence as to why."
"You see the pattern?" Aligor said. "This gem causes madness and destruction, and we need to destroy it."
He now stood in front of the gem, boots in the puddle it lay in and black iron blade in a two-handed grip. Sirak gave the pulsating object a long, considering look, then nodded. The former knight began to raise his sword at her gesture of approval.
"I wouldn't do that," Sky said.
"It needs to be destroyed," the former knight insisted, ignoring the tabaxi as he prepared to strike.
"It's just that Golorr says a demon lord is imprisoned inside," Sky said, tail lashing. "And destroying the gem will probably release it."
That statement brought Aligor's swing to a halt. He lowered his sword, backed away a few steps, and turned with a look of helpless inquiry at the others.
"If we can't destroy it," Rhianne said. "And can't handle it. What are we going to do with it? We clearly can't leave it there in the open for anyone to pick up."
Kuhl had an idea. In an act of foresight fitting for a daughter of the goddess of magic, Lady Laeral Silverhand actually prepared for such an eventuality knowing they likely would face demons in the Underdark.
"We need to bring Aleina and Jhelnae here," he said.
Oh man, what can I say? Mantol-Derith is giving me Trouble (and yes that T was meant to be capitalized). The problem is that the party does a lot of 'witnessing' of events rather than being part of the events (as written). I am keeping it as written and just forcing my way through because I plan some major departures from the module in the future (which I think will be fun, we'll see). Okay, I think I can wrap up Mantol-Derith in one more chapter and the problem will likely be it will be too short. But I think this is a good stopping point so I didn't want to add anymore to this chapter. Thanks for reading. Are the Mantol-Derith chapters working for you or are you like, "I can barely read this... I have to force myself..."?