Part 6
Part 6:
They went down to the cellar shortly afterwards. The tunnel was pitch black, although that was no obstacle to darkvision. From the tunnel wafted an unpleasant, briny, smell, and from somewhere down there came the faint sound of something hissing. Beyond the senses, though, there was something else down there, something that made her skin crawl. A glance at the other four proved that she wasn’t alone there. Hergal accompanied them down.
”I have a bad feeling about this.” said Estivan, ever the master of the obvious.
"Lets go.” said Silver, sounding uncharacteristically concerned. “I've less reason to like what ever is in here every second."
"Want me to take the front?" asked Usha.
“I’ll take point.” said Estivan curtly
"Have it your way. Want some help painting the target on your forehead?"
"Do you guys think you can sneak in? I would rather not charge in and get killed." said Blue, doubtless recalling what had happened in the forest.
"Blue, look at what I am wearing.” said Estivan with a tone of exasperation. “I am in armor. I don’t sneak.”
“Like I told the centaur lady, he makes a great moving shield.” whispered Silver to Carudan.
"I heard that.” the knight replied.
"An amazing feat, good knight."
"Thank you, your approval means everything to me.” replied Estivan sarcastically.
Usha sighed to herself. "We may have a problem fitting the egos down this tunnel....."
"Well we haven't seen any more of those things around, but we'll keep on the look out.” said Hergal. “But if this is the way they're getting in, I don't think there are going to be any more. Are you going in there to investigate?"
“Yes, we are.” replied Estivan.
"Well if it's alright with you, we'll stay here to make sure nothing else gets past you." said Alibon.
"If it does, then it's probably killed all of us, so you should bear that in mind if you decide to fight it." said Usha with a smile.
They headed down the slippery, slime-encrusted tunnel, which led onto a spiral staircase, roughly hewn out of the rock, and going down. A couple of exits were passed on the way down, but they had caved in long ago, and were impassable. Eventually, it came to a large room that seemed to have been some sort of foyer, the desk is long rotted and chairs broken.
"What do you reckon they used this place for?" asked Usha.
"Looks to me to be a waiting chamber. of sorts, like those of public officials." replied Estivan, looking round for any danger.
There was only one door out of the room, which seemed to be locked. A search yielded something made out of bone and shell that was either a musical instrument, or some sort of tool. ("Ugly, primitive, barabarica but still fascinating") Blue found a button connected to the door. Usha poked it with the haft of the halfspear, in the absence of any other way forward. There was a loud buzzing noise, and then the door opened. Usha winced. She’d like to think that that had just been a magical doorbell, but she couldn’t shake off the feeling that she’d just rung the dinner bell there.
The room beyond looked like a library. It had been ransacked at some point, with broken shelves, books thrown about or torn open. Some of the papers seemed to have seen utility as toilet paper.
They went in. Silver made a beeline over to the intact books, and started looking through them. Usha’s ears pricked up. There was a sound from behind one of the doors that sounded like running water. She opened it.
She squinted into the blackness. And barely had time to register the thing flying towards her before it was on top of her and Estivan. A net! Not fast enough to evade it, she was stuck and entangled. And the caster wasn’t shy about making himself (herself?) evident, even if the awful brine odor hadn’t been a giveaway. From the darkness emerged three skum, two of them armed with tridents, one with a longsword. Usha realized this wasn’t a good situation. She tried to throw the net off, but the slick cords defied her grip. Cursing, Usha barely managed to deflect a trident thrust with her darkwood shield. A grunt of pain and splatter of blood from her right side informed her that Estivan hadn’t been so lucky. A javelin and some kind of corrosive projectile shot at the attackers from the rear of the room, but both missed, the dart spearing one of the discarded books.
The hell with this. She opened her mouth, and released a jet of flame that briefly illuminated the scene in a hellish red cast. But it had done what she’d hoped for—burnt a hole in the net. And the sound of sizzling skum flesh was a nice bonus, though their slime shielded them from the worst. Estivan, one step behind, did the same trick, the jet of acid felling the weakened creatures. Usha shrugged off the net, her morningstar already jumping to her hands. At some point, two other skum, bearing kamas, had burst in through the other door, and were assaulting Carudan and Silver, presumably expecting easy kills. However, Blue decapitated one with a well-aimed slash, and the next one had barely had time to notice it had been hit with another acidic projectile, before Usha brought the morningstar sweeping round in a crescent with pain on the end, sending it’s head sideways with a sickening crack. It fell to the floor like a sack of potatoes.
There was silence. Nothing else seemed to be coming through. With the threat apparently past for now, Silver began gathering the surviving books for later examination.
Silver also picked up the longsword carried by the skum leader. "Usha, want a new sword? I think you'll like the one that beast carried."
"I'll stick with what I've got for now."
"Your loss, to turn down a magic blade."
‘Magical, you say? Maybe I will….’ She said, biting back the urge to grab it, and start crooning ‘mine….mine’ in an unsavory manner. She scraped the muck from it, and gave the blade a couple of practice swings. Handled well, but didn’t burst into flame, or demand to be fed souls. Ah well, there were still rooms unexplored. She also picked up one of the tridents. Not especially good work, but it might have some utility. Both weapons got added to the collection.
“Too bad it’s a longsword….you can have it, I prefer the scimitar.” said Estivan. "Wom…er Usha, you wouldn't happen to have a potion to spare, I will compensate for it."
"I suggest you're more discrete in compensation then you were last time." said Silver sarcastically.
Usha passed him a healing potion. ‘Keep the money.’ She said. She was a bit irked that he felt the need to insist on financial transactions, even down here. Plainly not a very trusting type.
They went through the place room by room. Plainly, this had been some kind of living complex, before the skum had moved in.
The room the main skum attack had come from seemed to be their living chambers, with several fountains with matted algae placed in them that made beds of a kind. Crude tools were scattered around too.
"Shall we sure this place of anything of interest?" asked Estivan.
Usha gave him a funny look. "If you want to rummage through their bedding...."
"Well, I think not…..”
"Might be another healing potion in the bedding." added Silver half-seriously.
As Silver scanned the room for magic, drawing Arden’s attention to a corner, Usha waited for them to finish, and kept watch for another attack. "We know that as well as the skum, we're looking at the snake thing and at least one mage.” she thought out loud. “Hopefully, they're the same person. Or I could be just being optimistic. This is possible."
A secret compartment revealed a pair of boots, that seemed to be the source of the magic, and a cestus.
"I'd wash those boots before you put them on if I were you. Bear in mind who'll have been wearing them." advised Usha. She didn’t even want to think about what you could catch through sharing footwear with a skum.
"Well, if they are truly useful, I can clean them." pointed out Silver.
"I don't see how they can be useful, being rather common looking, to match the Blue Dragon's wardrobe.” pointed out Estivan.
"Looks are deceiving. Here Blue, they might help if you fall from a tower." Arden took them without comment, then moved on to have a look at the next door. Finding it clear, the group went onto the next room, which had once been a kitchen, though now dusty and cobwebbed. Checking the door beyond produced a flash, and a smell of ozone. Carduan didn’t look perturbed by the electricity. Lucky I let him disarm that one, thought Usha. She decided that sometimes doors needed picks, sometimes they needed a boot, and thank Tymora that they had someone to help them tell which.
The magical trap appeared to be exhausted, at least for the present. They went through the doorway.
The last room in this complex seemed to be a small living quarters, in rather good shape, save for the passage of time. It looked like some sort of wizard used to live here. Visible was a lavish bed, and a desk with various books on it. From what could be seen, there doesn't seem to be anything rather magical, no spell books or items left behind, but clothes and such hadn’t been disturbed.
The customary search showed up a ring of some kind. Silver tried it on. There was a bright light surrounding Silver for a second, then when it was gone, he looked like he’d just stepped out of a beauty salon He didn’t have a speck of dirt on him, his clothes were straight, he positively beamed, and smelt faintly of lavender. Wish I’d claimed that, she thought ruefully. Purely apart from the sheer practical value, she was quite certain his ego didn’t need the boost. Too late now.
She picked up a book on the desk. Strangely well-preserved. Maybe some kind of magic. She looked over the first few paragraphs, and her eyes widened. Seeing the others looking at her, she read it out loud.
"1070 17 of Mirtul: A new Arch-mage has come down to work here with us in The Pits. When I first heard that he requested this duty, I thought he was nuts, only those too hard pressed of time and money, or wish to make a name for themselves in a hurry would dare work here. Then when I saw that he was a dwarf, that explained a few things, he should feel right at home here down in the bowels of the earth..."
"1070 20 of Mirtul: Well Herrnemil definately doesn't feel at home down here in the tunnels we've carved for ourselves. He keeps complaining about the shoddy work done about the walls, and how it's too bright down here, and not dry enough. Of course it's not dry enough, the Pits were mostly dug out so some arch-wizards and unlucky students could find some way to get that damnable desert of Anauroch beaten back. Despite being down here, he doesn't know about that project, could he be starting a new one?"
"1070 30 of Mirtul: The High Priest at the Temple of Lathander is throwing a bit of a fit once again as he reviewed the grounds today. I didn't get to see much of it, since I seem to be perpetually chained to my work, but I've gotten news from the 'surface dwellers'. It's always about the few priests that we detain down here to help with some of the more complex spells. I honestly don't know why we allow them down here, they are competent with their own form of magic, but they definitely aren't suited to the extended hours of research required down here. They need to go 'worship their god' a little too often to effectively work underground in my opinion."
"1070 14 of Flamerule: Mystra, what Herrnemil is don't isn't sorcery, it's metallurgy! I've been seeing an inordinate amount of metal tools and such for a while, but didn't think much about it. Today they brought an entire forge down here, and dug an exhaust tunnel so they can work in a totally enclosed laboratory. We have some people work on magical arms down there, but most of the metal work takes place up top. Why would they need that sort of secrecy for?"
"1070 25 of Eleasis: Poor Karliek, today he came down in the pits without the proper warding against all the stray mana flying around these tunnels. As soon as he came to the major cross roads, there he was turned into an Ettin! Took us all day to drag him out of the tunnels, and that's not the worst part, his two heads were constantly blaming each other for who was the numbskull that got them into that predicament. I only pray that they can revert him back soon..."
"1070 2 of Eleint: Something odd happened today, it took 15 men to draw Herrnemil off of a sorcerous prodigy who came down to do a bit of work. As soon as they crossed paths, the dwarf launched himself on the unsuspecting sorcerer, not with spells but with a poker he had close at hand. He was clubbing him over the head in it in some strange sort of rage, cursing him out in dwarven, which I have no knowledge of. Afterwards we had to rush the sorcerer to the temple as fast as possible, it took a few spells to get him up to snuff, but they almost lost his pseudodragon familiar. I wonder why he went off like that? He seemed distant, but he did not seem at all violent."
"1070 30 of Uktar: Mystra, I am tired, it's been a very long month, and I've mostly spent every waking moment of it down in the depths. Earlier there was a major accident, one of the condenser crystals in the raw mana understanding experiment some how crossed streams with Herrnemil's elemental forge. So understandably, all the power got translated into one of the largest explosions this university has ever seen. I've been called in to help contain the magic from blowing the other crystals in the laboratory, not to mentioning the whole dimensional damage done by it. All of the nearby walls were blown down forming some sort of massive room. It even opened a great rift into an unknown cavern system, from which we have heard chittering and squishing of things down in the depths, already we have had to fend off several goblins. I fear we might have reached the Underdark, but hopefully we'll have the tunnel contained before too long..."
Usha felt a chill on mention of the Underdark. She recalled stories from her childhood. Even if the reality was only a tenth as bad, she still wasn’t going down there anytime soon, if she got any say in the matter.
The last entry said something about being under siege by those Calimport bastards, but finished with a squiggle, as if he’d been abruptly called away
“So this place was some kind of a secret forge…..” said Blue.
“I wonder what Calimshari were doing this far north….” mused Estivan.
Silver said "First it only might have opened. Second, they said it should be contained. We have only seen skum up here. If we end up going further down, then we can worry."
Usha thought for a moment. “Skum are aquatic, therefore they’ll have come from the bottom. But speculation is useless. We need to look ourselves.”
The salvageable books were gathered up, and left in the junction where the fight with the skum had been. Silver wondered out loud if they should start charging the collage for all the books they’d found for them.
Usha went through the second door. As she stepped over the threshold, she felt a sudden sense of vertigo. Voices whispered on the edge of her mind, speaking wordless entreaties to flee, to run before you die, you can’t win here….
But she was made of sterner stuff than that, and fought back the wave of unreasoning panic.
She shuddered, and looked round nervously as she passed through the door. "Something.....something's here, trying to cause fear."
Again, this trap seemed to have been a one-shot. The doorway led into a small room with no exits, save the stairwell leading down into deeper darkness. Usha smiled grimly, and said “Into the deeps.” She took a step onto the steps, noting that at some point she’d become point man rather than Estivan. Guess he’s less keen on leading after taking some knocks, she thought with a mental chuckle. And then laughter in an echoing, deep, voice echoed through the room—no, not through the rooms, through their minds—as yellow mist oozed into the doorway.
Her new sword was already in her hand. Alright, time to put your money where your mouth is, she thought grimly.
