Betrayed by ill intent, the Seekers of the Lore finally enter the underground complex beneath the Stone Tooth through its deepest chamber, where they come face to face with a terror none of them can withstand. What bargain can they make to save themselves from annihilation in the Forge of Fury?
Heath the Wizard and Yushi the Bard looked on in horror as the Black Dragon of the Black Lake towered above their dwarven friends, Eumin the Paladin and Kheldegan the shopkeeper. The dwarves were mesmerized by the treasure on the island in the center of the lake and did not realize the danger they were in.
In that moment, Heath and Yushi overcame their terror and revealed themselves. They attempted to parley with the dragon, hoping not to be devoured. They offered to acquire whatever the dragon might desire. For surely, the mighty creature was here in the depths of Khundrukar in search of buried treasure, not all of which had yet been found. Their guess was right. The dragon held back her claws, for the moment. She revealed that she indeed wanted relics yet hidden within the ruins of Durgeddin’s citadel. They were Durgeddin’s sword and hammer.
Legends told of the final battle between the orc hordes of Many Arrows and the last dwarven defenders of Khundrukar. The stonemasters carved their own sarcophagi in preparation for their final doom. Not all were interred there, since the last defenders were all cruelly slain and slaughtered by the orcs. But the fate of Durgeddin himself was never told. No orc returned from the last stand that Durgeddin had made in the inner sanctum of Khundrukar. And no word was ever spoken of the Lord of Khundrukar since the fall of the citadel. Surely he had been buried and perished long ago, but no orc had the honor of dealing the final blow. And none knew what had become of Durgeddin’s sword and hammer which he was said to have wielded to the last.
The Black Dragon coveted these relics greatly and wanted them for her collection. She offered the adventurers their lives if they promised to bring back the sword and hammer of Durgeddin from the depths of Khundrukar. The adventurers had little choice but to agree. And so their bargain was sealed.
The four heroes, driven by terror, delved deeper into the ruins of the citadel. But none of them were accustomed to traveling through such deep places of the earth. They tried to climb up a waterfall and fell. They awoke only to find themselves somehow above the waterfall. They were in the cavernous nest of some unseen subterranean horror that had covered them in slime while dragging them there. They escaped before it returned to feast on its foraged prey. But on ascending to the upper levels of the complex, they began to hear the sound of a distant metallic ringing.
The Forge
Eumin knew that it was the song of a hammer striking hot steel upon an anvil. Then she and Kheldegan were filled with the hope that not all the dwarves of Khundrukar had been lost. Perhaps an elder had survived and yet lived in the forge made by Durgeddin and his smiths. But as the party continued to ascend and the sound drew nearer, Eumin felt a foreboding in her heart, which soon gave way to confusion and then to anger. For the sound of the hammer that she heard was an unfamiliar song, as if sung in a foreign dialect or language long since divorced from her own people’s tongue. The reason became clear then the tunnels gave way to a great hall, whereupon the ruins of a forge could indeed be seen. The light from the fire of the forge illuminated the faces of two dwarf-like figures. Their skin was ashen grey. One had a beard white as bone, the other a fell crimson color like blood.
They were grey dwarves from the deep subterranean realm that existed far below the surface of the world. Long ago, the grey dwarves had forsaken the sunlight that touched the mountains and abandoned their kindred—delving far away into the darkness, speaking in strange tongues, and learning unnatural powers. Yet these gray dwarves were far from their homeland. And as far as Eumin and Kheldegan were concerned, these ancestral traitors of the dwarven people were defiling the heritage of their kindred folk.
Eumin and Kheldegan fell into a rage and charged at the gray dwarves. The gray dwarves did not appear to be startled by the presence of intruders, though they did seem surprised by the odd direction from which the intruders had arrived—the direction of the Black Lake. Still, these gray dwarves were not to be trifled with. With his subterranean magic, the white-bearded gray dwarf suddenly grew to a giant size—hammer, shield, and all! The giant dwarf pinned Eumin down with his equally enormous shield, while striking at Kheldegan with his enlarged hammer and keeping him at a distance. Meanwhile, the red-haired gray dwarf held up her own hammer and approached Heath and Yushi menacingly.
But the wizard and the bard had no intention of fighting. For Yushi heard the voice from the Black Lake echoing inside her mind once again, demanding to be released. She knew that the voice had a power of enchantment. And this time, she was prepared for it. She guarded her own mind and also managed to ward Heath from the power of the mysterious voice, but their two dwarven companions had succumbed to its will. Their eyes were full of wrath. Yushi and Heath feared for them, but the bard and wizard had their own threat to deal with.
Then it came into their minds to speak plainly with this gray dwarf, perhaps hoping to find some common ground that they could use to their advantage. They bade the dwarf to stay her hammer and hearken to their tale. They told her of all that had transpired since their arrival in Blasingdell: the aborted survey of the Stone Tooth, the encounter with orcs from the tribe that laired behind the Mountain Gate, their betrayal by a town guard who directed them to the Black Lake, and their fateful meeting with the dragon that dwelled therein. They even told her of the bargain that they had made to bring back a treasure of great value to the dragon.
The red-haired dwarf lowered her hammer and signaled to the other gray dwarf to cease brawling. She was clearly the leader among the two. She spoke in turn, plainly and truthfully, of her own people who now dwelled in Khundrukar, and the bargain that they were forced to make with the dragon of the Black Lake. The gray dwarves offered tribute, but no amount of treasure could sate the dragon’s appetite. The dragon always wanted something greater, something that no dwarf or orc or anyone else had seen in the last hundred years, not since the fall of Khundrukar. The dragon wanted Durgeddin’s sword and hammer, and when the tribute bearers failed to deliver it, the dragon ate them. The gray dwarves grew desperate and tried to forge copies instead based on what few records they could find and their own conjectures. The dwarves that delivered these forgeries were eaten as well.
Now it fell to this red-haired dwarf to attempt the next forgery in the hopes of emancipating her people with the greatest offering yet. She knew that her chances of success were slim, but should she succeed, the dragon might grant her a great boon, which would allow her to raise her own station among her people.
It came into her mind to strike her own deal with these adventurers. If fortune favored them so much as to let them survive a dragon’s den, then perhaps they might be of use to her after all. She made the same offer as the dragon. She would grant the adventurers their freedom in exchange for bringing back Durgeddin’s sword and hammer, so that she might offer them up to the dragon herself. To ensure the adventurers’ faithfulness, she would send her white-haired underling with them on their quest. The adventurers agreed to these terms.
The quest of the Seekers of the Lore was now of interest to gray dwarves as well. For her part, the red-haired dwarf shared some lore about the dangers that lay ahead of the adventurers. To recover Durgeddin’s sword and hammer, the heroes would be tested by fell spirits from beyond the grave. Hence, they would need a mighty weapon to combat the powers of undeath. The orcs stole much of the wealth of Khundrukar when they sacked the citadel, but they did not find all the hidden arms of the dwarves. The adventurers might find something to help them in their hour of greatest need, if they searched in one of two places: the ruins of Khundrukar itself where the gray dwarves now dwelled, or the tombs of the original dwarven defenders.
Since the ruins were home to the gray dwarves now, who were best avoided for the moment, it was decided that the party would venture to the tombs instead.
The Glitterhame
The heroes, accompanied by the white-haired gray dwarf from the forge, ascended through the tunnels of the mountain complex. At first, the tunnels seemed to be carved by dwarven hands, but as the party progressed, these gave way to natural corridors—filled with veins of glimmering crystals, and rows upon rows of iridescent fungi. Yushi led the way through this veritable subterranean wilderness, cutting a path through fields of tall fungal stalks and other sunless vegetation. The sounds of the deep places of the earth filled the air around her. As she took in the songs of the deep, they realized that not all of them were the noises of stones, insects, and other crawling things. Some were the noises that hunters might make to mimic the sounds of their prey.
Someone dwelled here in the brightness of the dark, and they were neither dwarf nor orc.
Yushi did not want to meet them. The party ventured away from the sounds that she had heard, and away from the luminous underground forest. They came nearer to a more cavernous place with large stalactites hanging from the ceilings, and bulbous stalagmites rearing up from the ground. When they arrived at a place surrounded by rocky projections, the party stopped to camp and rest.
Heath tried to cast a spell of warding to alert him of anyone who might approach their camp. But alas, he was too hasty in his ritual. His incantation went awry, though he pretended otherwise. The dwarves were none the wiser, but Yushi the bard knew from the sound of his voice when he spoke the words of power that Heath had made a mistake.
The hunter sounds that they had left behind in the wilderness now grew closer. Yushi warned the others to hide among the rocks.
From their hiding place, the heroes discerned their pursuers not by sight but by smell first. It was the most foul odor that any of them had ever experienced! As it grew closer, it threatened to overwhelm them. Kheldegan, despite his seemingly strong constitution, collapsed to the ground and was incapacitated, unable to do anything other than quietly wretch. The others resisted the smell and soon saw its source. Three reptilean figures, armed with clubs and spears, emerged from the darkness. They were troglodytes! The adventurers remembered the rumors they had heard in Blasingdell about the tribe of troglodytes that had reportedly taken up residence in Khundrukar before the arrival of the orcs. Now they knew that the reports were true—and the troglodytes were still there.
Heath feared that these three were scouts who would alert others of the adventurers’ presence. The party couldn’t afford to let them leave.
The wizard stretched out his hand and spoke a word of power, an instantaneous incantation of flaming doom! But nothing happened. Only a puff of smoke issued forth from his hand. But his ritual words rang out across the cavernous space and instantly drew the attention of the troglodytes. They charged at the heroes! One of them hurled a spear at the wizard. Heath stepped aside, which allowed the spear to fly past and strike Eumin in the shoulder. The paladin felt the piercing pain of a crude spearhead in her flesh, as well as the sting of the poison on the tip of the spear. But she was the blood of the earth, the kindred of dwarves whose hearty constitutions helped her to resist the poison that invaded her bloodstream. Wounded though she was, she raised up her hammer and struck down one of the troglodytes. Yushi and the gray dwarf fended off another, but the stench was too great for them to put up a good fight.
At last, Heath rebounded from the failures of his previous spells. He tried once more to use his magic to save his companions. This time, it worked! A volley of magic missiles flew from his hands and struck down another troglodyte. The last troglodyte—the one that had hurled the spear—turned and fled. It did not get far before being struck down as well by another volley of the wizard’s hand.
The three troglodytes were dead, but the adventurers knew that others might come this way. They fled from the battlefield, running wildly through the caverns. The dwarves were leading the way, and Eumin was at the front of them. Somehow, their path seemed almost to have a guiding hand. The natural corridors gave way to hewn tunnels and passages. Then at last, the tunnels ended.
The Tombs of Khundrukar
The adventurers came to a vast chamber, whose floor was covered with many rows of stone sarcophagi made by dwarven hands. High above, the ceiling of natural stone and crystal veins glittered like the stars in the night sky. These were the tombs of the dwarves of Khundrukar, each made by its owner during life in preparation for their own doom.
On high ledges were the more ornate sarcophagi of the leaders among Durgeddin’s folk. It was in one of these that the heroes found the weapon that they sought to aid their quest for Durgeddin’s sword and hammer. It was the sarcophagus of a commander of Khundrukar’s defense. The etched visage of the dwarf that laid within showed a stout warrior wearing a mantle of leadership and wielding a mighty axe.
Eumin, as if still in the trance that led her to this place, removed the stone cover of the sarcophagus as one might open their own personal vault. And from within, she pulled out a fearsome axe, shimmering with power. It became clear to her companions that she had been possessed by the spirit of a dwarven commander who had died long ago but remained bound to this place—by sorrow, wrath, or an unfinished tale. With a deep voice not her own, she sang that part of a song of lamentation known to many dwarves: of the alliance of kingdoms that the dwarves had once been a part of alongside elves and men, but whose oaths had been forgotten in the hour of the dwarves’ greatest need.
Yushi was a bard from the school of dirgesingers whose songs echoed the histories of the dead and the forgotten. She knew that the song was a message from the dwarven spirits of Khundrukar, beseeching the living to avenge and bring peace to the spirit of their leader, Durgeddin the Black, who never kneeled or faltered before the enemy—and therefore was never able to rest. The spirits had granted the heroes with the fearsome axe of a legendary commander to aid them in their quest.
Before the party had arrived at the tombs, Heath was of half a mind to abandon the deal made with the dragon and the red-haired dwarf, if an opportunity arose for the adventurers to flee back to the surface world, where they could regroup and recuperate. But now that they were here, his desire to learn the true history of Khundrukar overcame his fear and caution. Among the sarcophagi, he found one that was empty and incomplete, but its inner walls were covered with runes, almost like a journal. Heath discerned that they were carved after the fall of Khundrukar. He surmised that this was the tomb of a dwarven wizard—the one spoken of in the tales of a mage whose treachery led to the ultimate downfall of his people. The etched writing spoke of tragedy and regret, and revealed efforts to safeguard what was left of the ruins from graverobbers. But the runes ceased after a certain point in time, and no more truths could be revealed by them.
To learn the remaining true history, the heroes would need to delve deeper into the heart of Khundrukar.
To be continued…
Rewards: A dwarven axe of conquest, baneful to orcs and undead foes, and able to bolster followers of the one who wields it.