Our heroes are now deep within the ancient dwarven mines known only as Heek-Hallak, and they've encountered undead and rogue elements, and now going deeper into an abandoned dwarven mine, but now their cleric, Galastia, is missing, probably kidnapped! to hopefully solve the issue of poisoned water. (Active characters with *.)
*Gwendalyn the Bright - Disgruntled acolyte of the Church, sent to solve issues within this Podunk village, but overlooked for the parish priest role.
*Carya Illinoisis - The former merchant has joined the Baronial Guard, with a focus around Mere. She's still a mountain of a woman that's even stronger than she lets on.
*Dim Cragmuffin - It's unsure what relation he was to Beulah, but the halfling was ugly as a dog bashed in the face with a mace, but also old enough to have been bequeathed an old set of armor from the Cragmuffin family ancestors. The rest aren't sure if he's volunteered for hero duty, or he's following a firefly in the same general direction as the
*Jonerir Drake - Younger brother of Belaquan Drake, who disappeared about a year ago. Fallen in with the likes of Clifford Loprete
*Hugo Swam'Pas - The popular local hedge mage from Mere known for more successes than failures in helping the village out.
*Beulah Cragmuffin - A halfling that hates adventuring, but hates seeing Hugo get any credit, whether he deserves it or not.
Galastia Axenmeld: Another disgruntled acolyte of The Church
21 Mai 535 - Somewhere within Heek-Hallak
Galastria was missing, her position in the hallway replaced my an ice wall filling up the corridor.
The screams of horror caused Hugo and Beulah to hurry to the passage. That duo had been studying the pillars in the large chamber, wondering how safe it would be to use the Broom of the Mountain Lord to fly up there, but they were stalling.
Gwendalyn was overconfident, I'll take care of the ice... She pulled out a Potion of Elemental Form and burst into flames. She advanced onto the wall and... the wall began damaging her! She let the fire go out, quite frustrated.
Dim thought to pull out his pick axe, but was held back.
"There has to be another way around. There were passageways to the north.
Beulah led the way.... She was quickly reminded of the traps in the mines, because they discovered on that had been sprung, the worn-out shoe of a goblin victim sticking out of the rock.
"I'm going to need Jonerir's staff to tap for traps. I don't want to be a pin cushion like Dim."
"Thanks Beulah!"
"Don't mention it, Dim..."
They venture into the northern passageways, finding refuse and trash, but no way in the direction Galastria has disappeared to.
It was determined that going down a stairwell to loop to another stairwell might be their only option, less they're only cleric with spell's life would need to be considered lost.
Halfway down the deep stairs. Beulah heard in broken Gulluvian, "No... More.... Steps!"
Beulah: "Beg pardon?"
"I said 'No more steps! Wait... who is this?"
"Beulah. Who is this?"
"J-J-Just come down here into the light!"
"Okay!"
Beulah and the group moved down the steps to meet four of the shortest dwarves she could imagine. They were even shorter than Beulah!
"Is this you home?"
"Waitaminute, who are you? Where did you come from."
"The stairs... Where'd you come from?"
"This is our home!"
"That would make sense. You know it's infested with kobolds?"
The speaking dwarf simply ordered another to fetch someone named Gorn.
A quick conversation with these short guys revealed no one knew about any water problem... They were more surprised that halflings and humans were descending into their lair.
A contingent of a dozen dwarves come marching into the room, followed by another smaller dwarf, bedecked in rainbow robes.
"Oh my, we have guests!"
"Hugo likes your style!" The magic-user bowed.
"I didn't realize there were halfling in the mountains!"
Gwendalyn stepped in, "Excuse me, upstairs there was a horrible battle and one of your kind was laying dead in a hallway. Do you know who that is?
"Oh no! I don't travel upstairs... at... all! But there's do many guards, and they all look the same, I doubt I could tell them apart!"
"What about the horrible people who can raise the dead?"
"That's a whole reason I don't go upstairs."
There was some circuitous conversation about stairwells and paths out of the the level, and the exchange of rations, but a meeting with the King needed to be arranged.
Within minutes, King Devin and his bodyguards arrived.
"What in the.... When Beebo said people, I didn't expect human people!"
King Devin knew of the bandits in the level above. When told of Galastria's disappearance, he only said, "She's lost to Illefarn."
"Excuse me?"
Devin: "Illefarn. the actual dwarven name of the mine"
Gwendalyn tried to form an alliance with the dwarves to fight the bandits, but Devin declined their help. Even her mentioning that one his own were dead upstairs, the king simply ordered a roll call, and admitted that if they were even beyond simple bandits, Illefarn was large enough that they hadn't been a problem.
King Devin and the dwarves returned to reclaim the mine after two generations away. The process of clearing out the mines had been slow and methodical. He wanted no alliance at this time, but he requested that his clerics heal the party somewhat, then specifically asked the party to look for the Crown of Korin, willing to pay good gold for it.
 |
| King Devin of Illefarn |
The floors on this level were empty, until they discovered four dwarves looking down a pit. Quickly referencing King Devin calmed hostilities.
"What are you doing up here?"
"Goblins live deep below, we guard the shaft here, so the goblin hordes don't climb up and attack.
The dwarves repeated the same answers from the ones below about the water, the bandits, and the displaced kobolds.
"Why would you ever want to deal with the bandits?" the one dwarf asked.
Jonerir responded, "It's very likely they captured our friend and she needs to be rescued."
"There you are, I've been looking all over for you!
They all turned to see Galastria, no worse for wear...
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