The heroes confront undead horrors in the shrine of Durgeddin. Although they are victorious, a conversation with a dwarf ghost confirms their worst fears: a dragon lurks in the subterranean depths beneath the Stone Tooth. They embark on their final quest to rid the mountain of this evil. But a dragon is not the only thing they find in the deepest level of Khundrukar. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Playear Characters: Dax, Gydean, Kane, Nyr, the Half-elf
Part 6. The Shrine and the Lake
1.
The party said farewell to their new companions who departed find a way out of the dwarven ruins. They had had their fill of horror in the depths of Khundrukar. They advised the heroes to do the same if they wished to live.
But Dax, Gydean, Nyr and Kane pressed on. While they debated where to go next, they heard footsteps in the distance. A moment later, a half elf came running down the hall. His face was full of terror. When he saw the party, he was greatly relieved to see that that were living breathing people. For he had just see a most terrifying sight.
He was an adventurer who had arrived on an expedition to Khundrukar, but he was separated from the rest of his party who were probably dead or lost somewhere in the ruins. He somehow made his way to the shrine of Durgeddin’s people. It was a dusty chamber filled with mounds of old bones. At the altar beyond the stone pews, there stood Durgeddin’s remains. The skeleton, clad in fine armor, was still standing upright after all these years, in the very place where the master smith drew his final breath after slaying countless orcs. In the end, it was no orc that that slain him but sheer exhaustion from swinging his hammer and sword. Small wonder the orcs named him the Maker of Death and feared him so.
But the chamber was not empty. Stirring from the mound of bones, there arose a wight, an undead creature of dread and power. The half elf fled in terror, but to his great fortune the wight did not pursue him beyond the shrine. He ran down the hall, heedless of all else, until he stumbled upon the four companions.
Having heard the half elf’s tale, the heroes were determined to rid the shrine of the undead menace. On the way to the shrine, they explored many of the other chambers. Among them, they found perils and traps that had been set long ago. The bones of dwarven soldiers slain in the orc war had been animated by necromancy, and even the moldy furnishings had been brought to life to guard the hidden secrets of Khundrukar. Kane faced the brunt of these dangers, grappling with a suit of animated armor and a living rug that tried to smother him.
What was the cause of all these threats? They came to one well furnished chamber where they discovered the answer in a journal. Long ago, a dwarf wizard named Arundil had fled the city during the orc siege. When he returned, he found all of his kinsmen were dead and the forge laid to waste. Wracked by guilt and sorrow, he lived alone among the dead and the rubble. He made what repairs he could and began to set traps and animate the bones and even the furnishings of the place to serve as guardians. But it was never enough to satisfy his paranoia. At last, he thought that he had found the answer to his plight in the form of a dangerous summoning ritual. Arundil proposed to summon a powerful friend to guard what was left of Khundrukar. But that was the last page, and the journal said no more. The heroes now realized that the ghost they had seen was none other than Arundil himself.
When they arrived at the shrine, they cautiously entered. The dust had been disturbed in places by the half elf’s earlier excursion, but the mounds of bones looked unchanged and there was no sign of a wight. All they saw were the remains of Durgeddin upon the altar, whose unmoving skeleton looked like it was ready to strike down anyone foolish enough to approach it.
But suddenly, the room grew exceedingly cold. The heroes could see their own misty breath. Then the door to the chamber closed shut. And just beneath the altar, they saw a dread figure rising from the bones. Its eyes burned with a blue flame, and its hideous laughter was enough to drive men mad. It was a wight, a fearsome undead creature. A century ago, this wight had once been one of the strongest orcs in the horde that besieged Khundrukar. When the fortress finally fell and Durgeddin was defeated, the orc shamans laid curses upon the shrine, and this orc warrior was buried alive to ensure that Durgeddin’s spirit would not return from the dead to seek vengeance upon the orcs.
Beside the wight, two other mounds of bones rose up and assembled themselves into the shape of skeletal ogres. The undead creatures lurched toward the heroes and attacked.
When the dust settled, the heroes were triumphant. The undead creatures that had corrupted the dwarven shrine were no more. All that remained were Durgeddin’s remains standing upon the altar.
Suddenly, the ghost from the well appeared in front of the shrine. It was the spirit of Arundil, the dwarf mage whose journal the party had uncovered. But this time, the ghost was not hostile to the living heroes. Instead, he knelt before the remains of Durgeddin and begged for forgiveness. But the skeleton of Durgeddin Stonehammer was silent.
The sorrowful scene inspired Nyr to call upon the spirits of nature. A shaft of moonlight appeared upon the altar, illuminating Durgeddin’s remains whose fine armor and weapons now shimmered brightly. Gydean’s eyes grew wide and his hand reached out to touch the masterwork armor which would surely fetch a high price with the right buyer. But to his dismay he found that his hand was burned by the moonlight, which remained even when Nyr had ceased to concentrate on the incantation.
“None may lay hands on the works of Durgeddin until his forge has been cleansed of the evil that defiled it,” the ghost of Arundil declared.
“But we destroyed the wight and its undead minions,” the heroes protested.
“You have yet to find the greateat evil that lurks beneath these halls. Deep beneath these ruins, through the gaping chasm east of the foundry, there lies a black lake among the roots of the mountain. There lurks a dragon, whose scales are as black as her wicked heart. She is called Nightscale, and she has claimed dominion over this mountain and all the wealth that is left in Durgeddin’s keep. She must be vanquished, or neither Durgeddin’s spirit nor mine will ever find rest.”
“A dragon!” Dax exclaimed. The memories of his village and family, both lost in an inferno of dragonfire, came rushing back in a flash. Dax had sworn an oath to exact his revenge against dragonkind, and now he was determined to uphold that oath in memory of his dead wife and child. His companions agreed to lend him their aid. Only by defeating the dragon could they hope to recover the most valuable treasure from Khundrukar.
“I will kill any dragon that lurks down there if it’s the last thing I do!”
I
They party descended through the chasm. It was a steep and dangerous climb, but they all reached the bottom. They were now in the deepest part of the Stone Tooth that had ever been delved by the dwarves of Khundrukar. They pressed onward and found two stone bridges, built long ago by the dwarves. Upon trying to step across the second bridge, they realized too late that the stone had been corroded by acid. The bridge collapsed, and the party was divided by the river which quickly flowed into a nearby black lake.
A sinister laughter rang through the caverns. It was the voice of the grey dwarf Snurrevin. The heroes had fallen into an ambush! The grey dwarves that had survived the battle in the great hall were here, using their supernatural abilities to turn invisible.
There upon the shore of the subterranean lake, the heroes and gray dwarves waged the final battle for Khundrukar. The gray dwarves were fearsome foes, led by a female warlord named Nimira, but the heroes had grown strong and swift during their expedition. They soon gained the upper hand as one gray dwarf after the next fell to their fists, arrows, and spells. But just when they thought the day was won, the dark water of the lake began to stir. Silently, almost like a soundless mirage, the large, horned head of a black dragon emerged from the water. When the heroes and the remaining dwarves saw the dragon rearing her head upon her long neck over the surface of the lake, they momentarily ceased fighting and fell quiet, stunned and awed by the dragon’s terrifying presence. The silence was broken when the dragon finally spoke in a low hissing voice.
“Mortalssss…. You trespassssss on the domain of Nightscale. For this, your livessss are forfeit. Your screamsssss will echo in the halls of the dead.”
The dragon opened her mouth, and from the gaping maw filled with rows upon rows of razor sharp teeth, there issued forth a torrent of acid that burned everyone, both the heroes and the gray dwarves alike.
Snurrevin and the other gray dwarves were burned hideously by the acid and died where they stood. Only the warlord remained standing, and now her attention was fixed upon the lake where the dragon gracefully descended into the water with hardly a ripple to show where she had been.
The heroes, too, were badly injured by the acid attack. Those who remained conscious either tended to the wounds of their fallen comrades or began to flee. Kane alone stood his ground by the shore of the lake, but he did not challenge the dragon any further. Instead, he laid down his arms and attempted to parley with his adversary, seeing little hope of victory through force of arms.
Those who fled through the tunnel were led by Gydean, who was loathe to leave his companions behind and yet knew that he had to survive no matter the cost. But as he rounded a corner, he was taken aback by a strange sight. A beautiful woman with flowing black hair stood in the passage. And she beckoned to him.
“Come, Gydean. I have been waiting for you.”
The woman took Gydean in her arms and laid a kiss upon his lips. Then Gydean felt all care and worry melt away, and the strength left his limbs. His arms sagged and his legs gave way. Gydean fell in a swoon and was held up by the woman’s arms. She was surprisingly strong. Gydean was even more startled when her voice began to echo inside his mind. The sudden realization struck him like a hammer shaping metal into its destined form. He might have laughed if he was not filled with sheer terror as long batlike wings began to emerge from the woman’s back. For he realized what Arundil the dwarf mage had done. He had summoned a succubus with the final ritual that had sealed his doom.
The succubus used Gydean’s mind as a conduit and reached out to his companions. Their vision grew cloudy as a strange mist began to appear. Whether it was a real mist or a vision created by the demon, they could not tell. Soon, the lake and the dragon could no longer be seen. They could not even see each other inside the mist. All they could see was the white nothingness, and all they could hear was the voice, the same voice they had heard inside their dreams. Only now it no longer beckoned them to the lake beneath the Stone Tooth. Now, the voice drew them toward a new land, a dark realm full of fell creatures of the night and where the sunlight never pierced the veil of clouds. And the voice asked each of them a question.
“What do you want?”
………….
A month had passed since the last expedition set out to Khundrukar. When Amira, Varrick, and Rex returned to ask after their friends, they met Dax and Nyr who told them of all that they had experienced. But neither of them could recall any details about the final encounter with Nightscale. When they awoke after the mist subsided, they were lying beneath the sun on the rocky shore of the dark mere at the foot of the Stone Tooth. But Gydean and Kane were nowhere to be seen.
When Dax, Nyr, and the half elf returned to Blasingdell, they were hailed as the heroes who had rid the countryside of monsters. The orcs of the mountain had been defeated, and their leader Ulfe the ogre had been found dead, torn limb from limb. A terrible reptilian stench lingered on his gruesome remains. The troglodyte tribe, having had their fill of ogre meat and dwarven ruins, moved on to settle in a new location. The ruins of Khundrukar were no longer haunted. When the monsters infesting the ruins were slain or departed, the spirits of the fallen dwarves were laid to rest.
But no one knew what had become of Nightscale or the demon summoned by Arundil. And the fate of Gydean and Kane could not be discerned. For these two adventurers had answered the question asked by the mist. And their wishes were granted.
The End.
Session #6 Rewards
3 Advancement Checkpoints
3 Treasure Checkpoints
7.5 downtime Days