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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MarauderX" data-source="post: 2600774" data-attributes="member: 9990">41Session 41: Duergar MountainThe party retreated from the chaos that ensued behind them. Occassionally as the group healing their wounds they glanced back to see the skeletal figure of Thovaas Stroth cradling the vile Book of Synnestra before he walked out of sight.The group turned and continued down the massive tunnel next to the river. Darkness eventually surrounded them and Alex pulled out his sword of light to guide their way. After a short bit Jerrin tells the others that he saw a glint of metal up ahead. The rest think the short druid is seeing things, but the halfling insisted that Quentin go ahead to scout. Quentin Blythe returned and said that he didn't see anything, and assured the others that nothing strange lay ahead. Before he could close his mouth he heard a clink like the armor Thovaas wore. With looks from the others Quentin shrugged and blamed rats when he knew it couldn't be.Jerrin cast a spell that mimiced bright daylight on a sling stone and propelled it down the tunnel. It landed and brightly lit a section that had a dark seal that ran like an arch over the tunnel. The group heard a faint female voice and again there was more sound of shifting armor against metal and stone. Grimnyr rushed to the overlap of stone and found a black leather flap covered with lichen that allowed a smooth bond between it and the stone. Yanking it aside, the tall bard saw a grinning elven face staring back at him. Several other elven faces were stuffed in behind his, and each had a weapon in their hands that they couldn't possibly use in the cramped crevasse.The first elf smiled and foppishly introduced himself as Qua'jere, and with a nod Grimnyr insinuated that he should step out into the open tunnel. The elf skittishly poked his head into the tunnel and after looking left and right he extended a leg and lithely stretched into the open, his one hand supporting his long bow and the other on his hip. With a new confidence he introduced the others as they emerged from the crack in the wall. First stepped a hulking human barbarian named Yenmeer, followed by the elven missionary Olyver. An elven wizard named Zegree came next, followed by a pair of elegantly dressed elves, Urnst and Avaya, that looked to have been invited for their accomplished skills in either diplomacy or for other talents.The groups scanned each other over and made pleasant conversation for a minute before the fidgeting Qua'jere insisted they continue their stories elsewhere. The party admitted they were looking for a safe avenue to temporarily escape, and the new group said they knew of a place to rest for a while. Qua'jere led them to an open area and upward onto a wet ledge that was hidden in darkness from the dim glow of the tunnel crossroads below. As they rested the party assisted in keeping watch with the others, and through a series of whispered conversations the party learned what the elven group was doing in the Duergar Mountain.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------The group of elves had come as a diplomatic envoy to establish a relationship with the strange new race of dwarves. Qua'jere was an accomplished speaker and was given permission to be the first to contact the duergar. He assembled a team of elves to best represent them, which included Urnst for his fantastic and believeable promises and Avaya for her feminine wiles. Zegree was added for his analytical insights into the duergar culture and Olyver to represent the elven gods and possibly to enlighten the duergar. To the elves, Yenmeer made the perfect human representative - strong and tall yet simple and dim-witted. They set out to first meet the duergar and succeeded after passing through the wintry north. A dozen other elves, mostly of Qua'jere's family, accompanied them to bring food, fine clothing, spices, gifts, and provide protection.At first the duergar were aggressive and attacked them on numerous occassions. Qua'jere then played to their more curious side and left them a number of gifts near an underground barracks. The elven trinkets did the trick; within a week Qua'jere was learning their tongue and had received several gifts in return. The elf managed to get across to their superiors that he wished to talk to whomever was in charge of the duergar, and soon enough the entourage was being led through the dark corridors of Duergar Mountain.The entourage found themselves in front of the duergar king after an exhausting journey through the dirty mines of the mountain. The king was silent as they stood before him, and they took a moment to tidy themselves before presenting the first of several gifts to him. He was given a dove made of pure gold which had gems for eyes and outstretched platinum tipped wings. Qua'jere explained that to the elves the dove was a symbol of peace and unity among all beings. The king murmured that they did not have doves underground, just bats. Without being phased, Qua'jere rolled into the next gift of a magical wooden staff that could take the form of a snake, and told the king the command word. The king said that wood was nearly useless to them underground. Qua'jere, now stammering, presented his last gift. Two of the elves brought out a large gilded chest and rested it on the floor. After quelling the guards' fears of a trap, they opened it away from the king. Out sprang reems of cloth that danced and swayed as music came from the chest. This magical performance lasted an uncomfortable fifteen minutes before the chest spun on its own and tipped over to fill the floor with an array of embroidered cloth, any one reem of which was worth as much gold as the chest could hold. The king said that they had little use for such delicate clothing given the riggors of the stone around them. The king held the court was silent for several long minutes as he sat motionless on his throne.Finally the king stood and walked forward, scuffing the expensive cloth out his way. He asked what the elves wanted from him. Qua'jere pointedly said that they wished to build an alliance of trade to help each nation prosper and become stronger together. The king jeered at the elf then pushed by him and walked out of the court. With a look over his shoulder, the guards pushed the elven entourage to follow the king.They were led through curved corridors and everywhere they went the duergar would pause and inspect them as they passed. Then the group saw a tall group of... humans. A dozen men were lined up alongside a company of duergar and all were clad in full plate mail. The men watched the elves with wary eyes as they passed. The elves began talking excitedly, but Qua'jere hushed them to continue in silence.The king led the elves to a room with a crevasse down the middle and a round pool of water on either side. Without hesitating the duergar king jumped in. One of the room's guards activated a console next to the pool, and the king was drawn downward into the water. The whirlpool stopped and the group watched the pool on the other side of the crevasse exploded slowly upward. Out came the duergar king, and he was propelled out of the pool and landed on his feet. On the other side the group saw the king moving very slowly compared to those on their side of the crevasse. The duergar guards also jumped through and then it was time for the entourage. One by one the elves went through the oily water and emerged on the other side more covered in filth than when they had gone in. It seemed as though the duergar never cleaned the pool and the sweat and dirt of thousands of uses for the duergar had built up in the pool. Disgusted, the elves didn't have time to clean off using magic as the duergar king had again walked off through a set of double doors. They looked back to see the guards on the other side of the crevasse were moving very quickly, and the mechanics of the time-shift slowly worked into their thoughts as they walked.The king of the duergar led them through many twisted tunnels and eventually they stopped at a bare-stone room. On the far side the wall was completely missing, forming a balcony over the scene below. What they saw stunned them. They deduced that this massive mountain must be hollow as a vast cavern stretched for hundreds and hundreds of feet wide, and twice as long. The height in the center was probably a thousand feet, and from the glow from below there must have been great furnaces working. At the bottom of the cavern they saw at first what looked like a metal ship. Then Avaya scanned it and said it was an immense construct, of a size no one had ever seen. The others gasped as they knew she was right.Before them lay the incomplete Meganaut, the largest construct ever. It would stand a thousand feet tall once completed, and would be home to a duergar army inside that operated it. On the immense construct duergar moved with lightning speed; they were on the other side of the time-wave. The group had stood gawking at the edge, taking in the size of the cavern, the Meganaut, and the amount of effort it would have required to concieve and build this thing.The group turned from the edge realizing their gifts and offerings were rather meager to the duergar king. Behind them the king sat in a high throne and to his right a beautiful blond human stood smiling with her hands on her hips. Qua'jere cleared his throat before smiling broadly as he imagined aloud of what the Meganaut could accomplish. The picture of destruction and violence brought a grin to the king's face, and Qua'jere offered to take it one step futher. He offered his services, and that of the other Arcane Archers, to help rain down arrows while riding the massive construct. He said that only their arrows would be accurate enough from the shoulders of Meganaut, and together they would be unbeatable. The king's smile slid from his face.The king summoned a team of crossbowmen, and they appeared clad in full plate like the all of the warrior duergar. With a snap their captain lined them up and they fired a volley at rough stone bust of a strange looking duergar. The bust ruptured from the number of metal arrows rattling against it, and it fell into crumb-like rock fell on the stone floor. In an effort to equal this, Qua'jere fired an arrow at each of the crossbowmen, and each arrow struck the very top of their helms. The duergar king visably gritted his teeth. Qua'jere realized he had insulted the king and his well-trained men, and tried to talk his way into good graces, but the king's silence continued.Qua'jere then introduced Urnst, and the wily elf made great promises of wealth and glory once they were able to serve each other in a united alliance. The duergar king gave no intention of sharing a victory with the elves, and from the elven gifts thus far, he had no wish to see more. Urnst bowed and said they would return with jewels and crafted weapons suitable to scare any dragon or giant away from the mountains. The king said that he already quelled the giants and that he also had a huge dragon as his slave. The duergar king snorted and spit on the elf. Then Yenmeer stood from his kneeling postion.The barbarian strode forward with each sentence, claiming the human armies and elven arrows would strike down any foe, no matter how tall or what they were made of. He continued to say that the combined efforts of this army would march over all lands, skys, and seas, and they would rule the fires under the earth, the ice on the mountaintops, and the hearts of all beasts. The duergar king smiled as the barbarian approached him up the dias. When the barbarian reached the king's eye level, the king stood. With a clap duergar guards on either side of the entourage stamped their feet into line and drew their weapons. Yenmeer looked behind him and when he looked back at the duergar king, the head of a flail was coming at his face.The barbarian tried to swivel but the spiked head of the flail smacked Yenmeer in the face and he recoiled backward. Another blow slammed into his head, followed by two more to the man's defensively raised arms. He staggered backward as the duergar guards closed in on the entourage. Avaya, looking at the odds, yelled for the group to break a hole in their ranks. Qua'jere spotted the doorway they had come in from and dropped several duergar as Yenmeer charged at several more, bowling them out of the way with his girth. The duergar saw what was happening and quickly closed ranks to block the hole, cutting off the rest of the entourage. The king, cackling with glee, descended on the rest of the entourage, dealing a death blow with every swing of his axe. The others saw that it was too late for them and fled into the labrynth of tunnels and caves in the mountain. Zegree, Olyver and Avaya helped to hide them with magic, and after what seemed like an eternity the buzz of their escape died down.They wandered the halls and dark tunnels with Urnst scouting for traps that sound alarms, and they wandered for perhaps four days before they encountered the party.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------With the party rested, the two groups decided to get moving once again. With Jerrin and Quentin helping, they tracked the criss-crossing paths the elves had taken back through the mountain. They found guard stations where they used magic to bypass, and along the way they ambushed a duergar patrol sent throught the tunnels. Many of the tunnels were empty, and once in a while they stopped after hearing a series of shouts pass back and forth in the tunnels. After hours of walking they found a set of closed doors that seemed familar to the other group. Cautiously they approached the door and Alex noticed it had been hastily shut and that there was something behind the door blocking it from opening. He wouldn't be able to move it without making a lot of noise.Jerrin cast several spells to enhance their powers, as did Zegree and Olyver. Quentin Blythe blended with the shadows and suddenly he was on the other side. He looked around the gloomy room and saw bags of coins around a pool filled with mucky water. All of the doors had been locked and most had a something heavy in their way to prevent simply walking into the room. Dividing the room Quentin saw a crevasse about five feet wide separating his side from the other where another cess pool lay in the center. Just as he was about to take a step forward, the sting of an arrow hitting his arm stopped him.Quentin tracked the source of the arrow and saw the bump of a scaly head and a reptilian eye gazing down the length of another arrow. Quentin kicked the metal chest in front of the door aside and called his bow to his hand. As Alex and the others came through Quentin fired two arrows at the lizard-like man.Suddenly the reptilian man tossed his bow onto the sacks of coins and said he surrendered. He talked smoothly, offering the bags full of money to the large group, and said that he was glad they were still alive. He then offered to send them through the pool-portal to the other side, and claimed that only he knew how to operate the device on the pedestal next to the pool.The party listened skeptically, but the other group nodded in agreement, and soon the snake-man was pressing the single button on the pedestal while saying a random word and making lavish gestures. One by one they were flushed to the other side, and there they saw a half dozen more bags of coins spilling over around the pool. Yenmeer grabbed several of the bags with silver in them. Once they were all on the other side, they looked back to the slower moving side and saw the reptilian man moving impossibly slow on the other side. Grimnyr fired a warning arrow through the time shifting-crevasse, and he flinched and changed direction. Quentin, growing impatient, launched four more arrows at him, and the slow fleeing lizard-man was pinned to the opposite door by arrows, and there died.Hearing Quentin mumbling about poison arrows, Urnst hit the button on the pedestal and dove into the pool. On the other side he scoured over the body and grabbed the arrows as well as something that was rolled up in the creature's vest. He quickly returned after going back through the pool connection.Urnst unrolled the parchment, which felt like stiff leathery skin, and looked at it under the light from Alex's sword. Both groups gathered around it. Avaya and Zegree began to make sense of it and how it was a map of the mountain itself. Avaya pointed to one of a pair of blue dots on the left and said that that's where they were now standing.As they inspected the map, Grimnyr and Jerrin heard footsteps descending on stairs behind the door they faced. Unblocking the door to have easier access to whoever was coming, they were all quiet as the door opened with a creak. In poked the head of a duergar, and he asked what they were doing there. Avaya, one of the few to speak the dark dwarf language, told the duergar guard that they were on their way to meet with the king, to discuss important financial matters. The duergar gave a confused look then relayed what Avaya had said up the stairs. Soon more boots could be heard scuffing against the stone stairs.A half dozen duergar joined them in the room, which now suddenly seemed crowded. The leader of the duergar said he would be glad to take the group to the king, once they said they said the king's name. Avaya stammered for a second, repeating the quiz to the others. The duergar snapped at her, and then broke a warning grin, saying that he was only kidding and to follow him.He led them deeper into the mountain, and at each guard station they came across he spoke a different word to set the guards stationed there at ease. Two hours passed as they went through the mountain, and finally they were escorted along a narrow corridor and told to enter a small chamber. In it sat a darkly cowled figure whose face they couldn't see, but Avaya noticed the hands grasping the sides of the throne were the same as the duergar king's. He spoke softly at first, asking why they were there. Qua'jere and several others explained that they were part of the entourage, and that they were very sorry for what had happened earlier. The elf then tried to make amends by saying he would be glad to give the king his very finely crafted rapier, should it please him. The king was silent.Then finally he spoke, and asked who the extra members of the group were. Quentin offered that they were also part of an entourage, but came on behalf of the fabled dragon Thermoleth. The duergar king said that he'd already had a dragon working for him instead of working for one instead, but he did take note of the dragon markings on Quentin, Alex and Jerrin. He had them step to one side, then cursed at the rest of them, saying that they should pay for their dishonorable behavior, then again he sat in silence.It was a long couple of minutes before the king spoke again, and asked the party if they were their to sabotage the Meganaut by drowning the mountain before completion. Everyone looked at him blankly. He then told the guards to guide them to dinner - he would attend in due course. The king suddenly flickered and disappeared; he had been a magically concocted image the entire time. The guards escorted the large group of humans and elves up steps and stairs that became increasingly wider. Finally they came to a tall, vaulted hall, and it was littered with all sorts of tables and chairs. Several long tables were put end to end and the party was made to sit at them. The sat and talked in a low murmur as the hall began to fill with duergar. Only about half of the tables were full when the king sauntered up to the only exquisite table placed at the opposite end of the hall. The same duergar guards watched over the group as battered metal plates with food spilling over the edges clanked down in front of them. Yenmeer tore into the meal with a savage hunger while the others watched for any ill effects to overtake him. When nothing happened everyone ate their servings with much less delight.The king ate and soon afterwards he started giving instructions to groups of duergar in the great hall. After each command the group would cheer then run out of the hall. When he pointed to the party he told the duergar guarding them to take them to be registered. Then he spoke to the group and said for them to go back to the great dragon Thermoleth and accept her assistance in cornering the Litorians. He left shortly afterward, and soon the rest of the duergar began to filter out. The duergar guards guided the party down the hall and out through a set of tall double doors, away from where the king had exited. They were led down a wide hall and eventually they saw a massive gap ahead in the tunnel. Beyond this a giant wheel lay at the end of the tunnel with many doors branching away from it.In the gap the group could see branches that protruded from each side to the other, as two huge cogs might meet in a great contraption. The cog teeth provided bridges over the black gap, and each side also disappeared into darkness. The other side was busy with several groups of worker duergar huddled in each corner. Immediately on the other side of the gap were several tables with parchment and books stacked in front of a very sombre looking duergar with pure white hair. The duergar scratched down the number of party members and began recording details on each; what they were carrying, what they looked like, height and approximate weight.The group milled around the big wheel with the duergar guards trying to keep track of what the party was doing. Quentin used this confusion to suddenly disappear. Grimnyr slowed down the duergar secretary by asking a series of questions about the construct in the middle of the wheel, each deeper and more inquizitive than the last. The duergar told Grimnyr everything he could to impress the tall man, saying that the construct, when inactive, acted as a locking pin to prevent the wheel from turning. He showed the locked drawer where a wand was kept that controlled the huge metal construct, then even made it move to show off to the bard. Then the bard hummed an enchantment that drew in the duergar's fascination with him, and swept over an enchantment to get him to give over the wand. The duergar snapped out back into reality as he heard several of his comrades shouting at him to stop. But it was too late; Alex snatched the wand and with a flick of his wrist he tossed it to Quentin. Quentin's hands called the short, metal, many-buttoned wand to him, and his thumb worked to active the construct. Meanwhile chaos had broken out around them.Qua'jere shot two of the farthest worker duergar with arrows as Zegree slammed two more with magical missles. Jerrin cast several enchantments and suddenly shifted to become a massive mound of shambling plant debris. Avaya was slashed across her arm but retaliated with a bolt of lightning against the guards. Grimnyr ran and jumped at another frightened worker across the room, felling him with his axe. Alex and Urnst worked with Yenmeer to bring down three more of the duergar guards. Only a few of the duergar workers managed to flee safely out of the room; the rest where soon defeated by the party and their new allies.The group pulled out the map once more to find out where they were. They saw the cog room and the circular curve of the mountain where they were. They saw the massive area for water and the streams that went from it to the Meganaut Cavern. Perhaps the king meant that the mountain can be moved - spun on an axis with the great cogs like the one in the room they were in. They decided to try.Quentin pushed the silvery wand with his thumb several more times and it began walking in a circle with the cog. It slammed it's waist into one of the eight pushbars and strained against it. Jerrin then threw his weight behind the wheel and began pushing, his leafy branches straining against the metal pushbar. Them Yenmeer and more joined in. With a lurch it gave way and the wheel was moving.They spun it around once, and they could see they had moved the tunnel they had come from the dining hall by about twenty five feet. The wheel stuck there, but soon they got it moving again. They kept rotating it with brief pauses when it caught or when someone became tired. When the effort was beginning to affect several of them they had turned the wheel thirty eight times - almost a thousand feet of the entire circumference. Avaya, doing the math quickly in her head, advised that they should continue until they reach one-hundred and eighty turns - that would turn the mountain around completely. Avaya then checked the cliff-like opening and saw that another tunnel would be coming up shortly, and that it had duergar waiting to see them as well. She pulled a flask from her pouch and began emptying it on the stone floor to create a slick greased area next to the precarious edge. Let them come then, she said to herself.</blockquote>

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