Duergar & Daemons (Being a Sequel to An Adventure in Five Acts) [Updated] [26 Oct 2025]

[ilgatto]

Duergar & Daemons
Part XV: Savants & Dragons​

Night 138, continued: And so it is left to the chevalier to do the scouting himself. He advances to the intersection as stealthily as he can and has a peek around the corner to his right, to find himself staring into yet another dark passage, hewn and dug from the bedrock, unlike the main tunnel. He dashes across the tunnel to the left wall and looks around the corner there, into a similar passage but with two duergar in it some thirty feet away. These look unlike any duergar he has seen before: they stand as tall as the average human and are lithe of build, clad in black leather armor and wearing hats with exceptionally wide rims – wider even than those of the rothmen. He straightens his back and turns the corner.
“Messieurs… bonjour!,” he starts. “A moment of your time if you would be so kind! We are but simple travelers seeking passage and we put ourselves at the mercy of your suggestions! Some introductions, perhaps?”
“Drop your weapons!,” one of the duergar barks, his voice muffled by a cloth or scarf covering the lower half of his face.
“An intriguing proposal,” the chevalier returns. “And one we might consider if you would do the same, especially so since your crossbows seem to be pointing in my general direction. Messieurs, I express my concern! We would happily comply with your request in many other circumstances! We come in peace!”
“Peace?,” the duergar growls.
“We are trying to hold our own in a strange land,” the chevalier says, smiling benevolently.
“You attack our community,” the duergar says. “Surrender! Face justice!”
“A-ha-ha-ha!,” the chevalier laughs. “That would not quite appear to be what transpired at all! There we were, on a pleasant promenade when all of a sudden a wall opened and… eh, bien, the rest is history!”
“You are surrounded by a superior force! You must surrender for this reason!”
“Not at all, not at all!,” the chevalier says, gesturing magnanimously. “Mes amis! I assure you…!”
“You murder ten duergar!,” the duergar interrupts.
“Monsieur,” the chevalier says with only a slight hint of sarcasm in his voice. “I offer you my sincerest apologies for defending our lives. Perhaps if your… confrères would have initiated the proceedings with a conversation?”
“Blood-money!,” the duergar says. “We want price of blood.”
“Ah! Le bout de l’oreille, as it were,” the chevalier says, rather more grimly. “Messieurs, there can be no question of payments. We were forced to defend ourselves. Rest assured that we will not hesitate to do so again.”
This seems to throw the two duergar for a bit.
“You want go where?,” one of them asks after some time.
“Further and beyond,” the chevalier says. “To the surface and the tower that can take us there. And trade! We have had many pleasant exchanges with many hospitable duergar on our way down here.”
“Trade!,” the duergar scoffs. “Duergar no traders! Stick’em up!”
“And to whom would I have the honor of surrendering?”
“We are the mad dwarves! The land walkers!”
“Messieurs, mes compliments! And now as to the way ahead! Does it go upward?”
“Maybe we can tell you.”
“Très bien! Extraordinaire!”
“How many are you?,” the duergar asks.
“There are a number of us,” the chevalier says reassuringly. “Four, five, six, eight, something in that order of magnitude.”
“You take passage behind you. Straight on. Out of our territory.”
“Straight on into… whose territory? If I may be so bold?”
“Five days no man’s land. Then Dragon Point.”
“Would you be so kind as to disclose whether we can expect any more traps or similar unfortunate impediments along the way?”
“Possibly. But no way to surface at Dragon Point.”
“Ach! There is no tower to the surface?”
“There is tower. But no way to surface.”
“And what about pits? Arrow slits? Bolt holes?”
“You take care and no problem.”
“And what would I be looking for, exactly?”
“Each family of clans makes own traps.”
“Judicious, prudent even! And you are?”
“I am one of the eight.”
“Do the other eight wear hats like you?”
“Yes. We are highest rank of clan.”
“A great honor!,” the chevalier says, with a slight bow of the head. “I bring regards from the surface!”
“Why are you in duergar realms?,” the duergar asks.
“We seek to contact your people. To establish friendly relations and sound trade agreements. To live in harmony.”
“Everything underground belong to duergar. You must leave all things you find.”
“Bon! Messieurs, it has been a pleasant exchange,” the chevalier says, before turning to his noble fellows around the corner. “Mes amis! Shall we?”

Duringst the meanwhile, Sir Eber has tied the giant’s hammer to a length of chain, which he intends to use as device to activate pit traps by hurling it to the ground from time to time – a ‛mine flayer’ if you like. This has taken him some time and he is rearing to go when the chevalier has finished negotiating passage with the two duergar. He and the chevalier take the lead and they cross the intersection, past the first passage right and into the next, where he starts hurling his contraption to the floor. They have not covered a yard when they notice a door in the left wall and two duergar in wide-rimmed hats appear some thirty to forty feet ahead in the light of the chevalier’s lantern.
“Bonjour!,” the chevalier hails them. “I assume that you have overheard my conversation with your kin back there?”
The duergar do not react.

Behind him, Sir Oengus and Navarre have both advanced to the intersection. When the latter hears the chevalier addressing yet more duergar in what is no doubt going to be a lengthy conversation, he decides to start one of his own with the two duergar in the other passage.
“I say, chaps,” he starts. “I couldn’t help but overhear you calling yourselves ‛mad dwarves’ and ‛land walkers’. Would I be right in assuming that you are the ones who raid the surface from time to time?”
“Maybe,” one of the duergar says.
“I see,” Navarre continues. “Then you would have a way up, what? You see, I find myself faced with a small problem of a regal nature up there. What do you say we come to some sort of agreement?”
“No deal.”
“Now look here, chaps,” Navarre says. “That just won’t do. We are all going to have to deal with what lies in the future, what with the pillar being as large as it is these days and the real possibility of an outside threat. We shall have to defend ourselves sooner or later and it won’t do if we are at each other’s throats when the time comes. By Olm! Even now a war rages above and bandits run amok!”
“What is your offer?”
“I say we start by assisting each other in small ways. To begin with, I would call upon you to aid us in dealing with a traitorous villain, say, by providing us with some way to get to the lair of the miscreant. A nocturnal operation perhaps, to lure him forth so he can be dealt with in a proper manner?”
“What do we get?”
“We have much to offer. Recognition, a profitable trade route, gold and wine as much as you can carry, weapons, military support to bring order to your realm.”
“Children?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Children.”
“I see,” Navarre replies, somewhat taken aback. “For what purpose?”
“Secret purpose,” the duergar says. “Taboo.”
“Indeed,” Navarre ventures, when he hears Sir Eber holler in the background. “Perhaps we can continue this conversation in less trying circumstances and, above all, surroundings? Dragon Point, perhaps?”
“Dragon Point? Hmm…,” the duergar says, apparently mulling over the suggestion. “Hmm… Problem. Hmm… Business proposal.”
And now both duergar start speaking to each other in their silent tongue.
“Gentlemen?,” Navarre resumes.
The duergar do not react, continuing their silent conversation.
“Well, then,” Navarre says, clearing his throat. “A pleasure, I’m sure. Perhaps another time?”
But the duergar do not speak to him again and so our noble hero heads back to his noble companions in the passage across the intersection.

Up there, the two duergar have not reacted much to the chevalier’s overtures. He and Sir Eber have advanced a bit and noticed a second door some distance from the first in the same wall. Sir Eber is presently inspecting the first door and sees that it is made of wood featuring extensive carvings of various foodstuffs and mugs. An inn? He looks at the chevalier, who has moved to the second door and is still keeping a watchful eye on the two duergar down the passage. Without further ado, the ranger starts thumping on the door.
“Hullo!,” he hollers. “Friendly folk!”
But there is no answer. Some yards ahead, the chevalier has seen the two duergar vanish and he presently has a good look at the second door, which he can only imagine to be a stable door of some kind. Behind him, it is Sir Suvali’s turn to cross the intersection with Sir Eber’s slaves, soon followed by Navarre coming from the left.

Now that everybody is in the second passage, our noble heroes decide to move on. Sir Eber hurls his hammer about for a bit, soon hitting a hollow section in the floor some ten feet after the second door.
“Pit!,” he hollers, reeling in his hammer. A closer inspection reveals the pit to take up more than half of the floor, leaving only a narrow path to safety along the right wall. Sir Eber and the chevalier, on point as agreed, start checking the walls for any arrow slits and it doesn’t take the latter long to locate one in the wall above the pit.
“Ssssh!,” he whispers, pointing at the hole. “Here is one!”
It would seem that the noble chevalier has quite forgotten about the racket Sir Eber has been making with his hammer and hollering. Indeed, as if to lend credence to the notion, the latter now starts thumping on the stable door again.
“Hullo!,” he hollers once more. “Friendly folk!”

But still no answer comes and so he opens the door to reveal a long, low, vaulted room with four low cubicles to each side. He sticks his torch into the room and inspects the wall to his left but he cannot find the arrow slit that must be there.
“Nothing here,” he yells, entering the stables to determine whether any invisible duergar lurk there. There aren’t and there are no giant spiders in the cubicles. What he does glean is that the stables have been cleared quite recently. He reports as much to his noble companions when he gets back to the passage.
“Let’s get a move on,” he adds, his hammer loosely dangling from its chain as he starts edging past the trap. When he reaches the other side, he smashes it into the floor a couple of times and quickly locates another hollow sounding section in the floor, this time against the right wall – the pits being in much the same configuration as those our noble heroes found yesterday.
“‛You take care and no problem,’ indeed,” Navarre murmurs, to no one in particular. “Treacherous lot, these duergar.”
One by one, the company inch past the pits, with Sir Suvali using some chalk to mark them – and the arrow slit – in passing.

Past the pits, the passage abruptly widens into the main tunnel again and the company continue their journey in much the same formation as yesterday, with Sir Eber and the chevalier on point this time, followed at some twenty yards by Sir Suvali, Rodlu, and Sir Eber’s slaves, and with Sir Oengus and Navarre at about the same distance again in the rear guard. The formation changes around midday, when Sir Suvali takes Sir Oengus’ place in the rear guard and he and Navarre hang back for an hour or so to see whether any of the land walkers have been following them and want to talk. But no land walkers appear and the noble duo eventually hurry back to join the others.
And so the company trudge down the tunnel for the rest of the day and make camp late in the evening.

Night 139-142: Four days pass without incident and our noble heroes find that this section of the tunnel seems to see even less traffic than usual. Indeed, for almost all of these four days, just about the only event of some interest would be the discovery of a shallow hole dug into the left wall relatively recently, which they come across on the second day.

At the end of the fourth day, the tunnel starts turning left, which is Sir Suvali’s cue to declare that the company are now somewhere between Big Beach and the Isle of Bread, which the chronicler only now realizes must be a play on the Isle of Dread – just goes to show how a good story can immerse players to such an extent that they forget even the most blatantly obvious references to reality.

Night 143: Early in the day, company notice a set of double doors in the right wall, made of stone and carved to resemble, if anything, a coffered ceiling. Without much ado, the chevalier knocks on one of the doors with a flourish.
“Most learned masters duergar!,” he calls. “We are here for an audience! Your reputation reaches far and wide and we have come a long way to make your acquaintance! To revel in your literacy!”
Three sharp whistles come from behind the doors but nothing else stirs for quite some time.
“Here’s another one!,” Sir Eber hollers from some sixty feet further down the tunnel.

The chevalier advances to the second set of doors, in which a small hatch now opens.
“A-a-a-a-a-h! Messire!,” he sings. “Une perception agréable!”
A beam of bright light shines through the hole.
“Salutations!,” he continues. “I am delighted that you have taken note of our invitation! We seek audience, oh most learned of literati!”
The hatch closes.
“I shall wait here!,” the chevalier calls.
Some twenty minutes pass before the hatch opens again.
“Ah!,” the chevalier resumes. “Bonj-ou-ou-ou-r! That was quick!”
“No,” a somewhat shrill voice comes from behind the hatch.
The hatch closes again.
“To what?,” the chevalier calls.
The hatch opens again.
“No audience,” the voice comes.
“Mon Dieu!,” the chevalier exclaims. “That was quick! No matter. Un petit entre-nous will do!”
“I am a servant,” comes the voice.
“And so are we!,” the chevalier sings. “Colleagues! Et vous êtes?”
“We are the seigneurs of Dragon Point,” the voice comes.
“A-a-a-a-h! A fortunate occurrence, for we are in possession of a volume that may interest les seigneurs of Dragon Point!”
“A book? What kind of book?”
“It is a matter for scholars,” the chevalier says solemnly. “It will only be disclosed when les érudits have convened to speak.”
The hatch closes.

Five minutes later, it opens again.
“Now that is what I would call quick,” Navarre murmurs in the background.
“We give good money for books,” the shrill voice comes. “Give us the book so that we can appraise its value and the proper coin will be handed to you.”
“Indeed?,” the chevalier says, in apparent wonder. “What languages do you speak?”
“Gaelic, the Tongue of the Underdark, Demonic,” comes the voice.
“A-a-a-a-h…,” the chevalier says, with a definite hint of regret in his voice.
“We are also interested in other languages.”
“And we are also interested in books,” Sir Suvali hollers from the back.
“We only buy books,” comes the voice.
“We seek a way to the surface,” the chevalier says, after a vexed look at the sorcerer.
“You are lost?,” the voice comes.
“C’est-à-dire…,” the chevalier starts. “We would like to go to the surface. We would appreciate your assistance.”
“I would advise you to retrace your steps,” the voice comes.
“Impossible. It would take too long. We would run into all manner of robbers and scoundrels.”
“Ah, yes. The riffraff! As a matter of fact, it is for this exact reason that we will not open the door.”
“Et voilà!,” the chevalier resumes. “We would seek your assistance. We have been told that you live in a tower that reaches all the way to the surface.”
“But without an exit to it,” the voice comes. “Your other option would be to continue on your way. You will get to the Broken Lands but much of the area has caved in. You will have difficulty finding a way through the many narrow passages and dangerous creatures lurk there. A clan of savage duergar on steeders also lives there.”
“Creatures?,” Navarre asks. “What kind of creatures?”
“Monsters.”
“Such as? Elves?”
“Xorn.”

“Gentlemen,” Navarre starts, turning to his noble companions. “I trust I need not remind you that good manners oblige us to honor the wishes of these sage gentlemen. My lords, I bid you prepare yourselves to risk life, limb, and goods and confront the ‛zorn’ in the Broken Lands…”
“We still want to see the book,” the voice comes somewhat anxiously. “We will give you something as a guarantee of return while we study it and we will compensate you if we decide to copy it.”
“We have more books than one,” Sir Suvali says.
There is a moment of silence.
“What do you require?,” the voice comes again, now in a decidedly more reasonable tone.
“A conversation,” Sir Suvali declares. “A good meal.”
“We will pledge one hundred gold to study the volume.”
“We are not interested in gold,” the sorcerer says. “This is a unique opportunity for both of us. We offer knowledge from the surface world and not all knowledge is contained in books.”
“The king is dead,” Sir Eber comes in. “You know who killed him?”
“No.”
“That, too, is something we can tell you about,” Sir Suvali says.
There is another moment of silence.
“Tradition requires that people who pass through these doors never leave again,” the voice speaks again.
“‛People’?,” the sorcerer says. “Duergar or humans?”
“Well…,” the voice hesitates. “I suppose it could be argued that humans are not actually people.”
Another moment of silence.
“Very well,” the voice speaks again. “Are you willing to sell books?”
“Certainly,” Sir Suvali says.
More silence.
“The humans are allowed to enter,” the voice says when it speaks again.

And so it was that our noble heroes left Rodlu in the tunnel and finally gained access to Dragon Point.

 

[ilgatto]

Duergar & Daemons
Part XV: Savants & Dragons – Continued​

The door opens and our noble heroes and Sir Eber’s slaves enter a large hall, all of eighty feet wide and thirty deep, with several doors in it – the double doors to their right, a smaller one to their left, and two sets of double doors again in the opposite wall. All double doors are clad with copper featuring many, many eyes and our noble heroes notice that the walls are unusually thick. The hall is clean and empty, its only feature being a central, lowered section some forty feet wide and ten deep and with steps leading into it along its walls.
“Remind you of something?,” Navarre murmurs to Sir Suvali, looking at the copper-clad doors.
As if to belie his shrill voice, the duergar the chevalier has been speaking to turns out to be quite muscular, although he seems older than most duergar our noble heroes have seen so far. He is holding a bullseye lantern, something they have not seen on their sojourn in the Underdark so far.

“Welcome to Dragon Point,” the duergar says. “I am a servant and I will be your guide. You will leave your slaves and dogs in here and they will be taken care of as befits their status. Now, if you would follow me?”
“Is that an arena?,” Sir Eber asks, pointing to the lowered section.
The servant nods and walks to one of the double doors in the far wall. He opens them and gestures our noble heroes to proceed. They enter a room some forty feet to a side, which conveys the impression of a cross between the common room of an inn and the grand entrance hall of a castle. It is empty and deserted like the first room and another set of copper-clad double doors with many eyes in them sits in the far wall.
“I say,” Navarre addresses their guide. “What’s with the eyes? Is there a religious connotation?”
“They are the eyes of Laduguer,” the servant replies. “The good eye and the evil eye. This is the good eye. It protects from evil and offense.”
“Do they move?,” Sir Eber asks.
“Some priests can see through them,” the servant says.
“Are you priests?”
“No, no. The priests are insane.”
“So what are your books about?,” the ranger continues.
“Genealogy for the most part,” the servant says.
“Anything on mining? Smithing?”
“That, too.”

The next set of doors take our noble heroes into a hallway ten feet wide and eighty long. Many doors sit in its walls, all evenly spaced in an orderly manner, while, about halfway down, some steps up lead off of it. Again, there is not a soul in sight.
“Why the empty halls?,” Navarre asks the servant.
“Dragon Point is sometimes used for special occasions,” the servant says. “The halls are for such occasions.”
“So this is a university?,” Sir Eber asks.
“A monastery,” the servant says. “It is a retreat for men who exchange duergar society for a life of contemplation.”
He takes the company to the steps.
“Follow me, gentlemen,” he says, starting up the steps. “I hope you are up for a stiff walk.”

After some ten yards the steps level out into another hallway that leads our noble heroes to a spiraling staircase. They follow the servant up the stairs and pass a set of iron double doors to their left after some five ever-widening rotations. It features an extensive relief of weapons, shields, helmets, and similar accouterments of war.
“The war room,” the servant says, continuing his ascent.

After yet another five, six, ever-widening rotations, our noble heroes pass another door, this one made of wood and clad with iron plates, the whole carved to resemble a bookcase behind a grating. There are no more such features for some time after this.
“What is your rank?,” Sir Eber asks, leading the ascent behind the servant.
“We have no ranks as savants,” the servant says. “Compared to ranked warriors I am rank seven.”
“So you are the head guardian?”
The servant seems to consider this for a while.
“Hmm….” he says eventually. “We are all equals here. I have been specially selected from a number of applicants.”
“How many of you are there?”
“Ten.”

All of twenty minutes of climbing later, the servant halts at a third door, the stairs continuing past it. This door is also made of wood and it is clad with copper sheeting featuring an abstract, geometric design.
“Follow me,” the servant says, opening the door and stepping through.
Now, to their considerable surprise, our noble heroes are led, past two more servants, into a small, hall-like room lit by candles. Thick rugs on the floor, wainscoting and paintings on the walls, and a variety of similarly extravagant features all lend the room something of the grandeur of the entrance hall of a grand manor. Pillars and statues in the typical austere, heroic-realistic style of the duergar serve to further enrich the room. More halls, doorways, halls, and yet other doorways like this follow until the servant takes them through a door to their left into what can only be described as a sumptuous refectory, with crystal chandeliers, carved chairs, and a large central table hiding under what appears to be damask adding to the rugs on the floor and the wainscoting and paintings on the walls.
“Please be seated,” the servant says, gesturing to the chairs.
“I say!,” Navarre finally exclaims in amazement, without sitting down.
“Une merveille!,” the chevalier agrees, turning an eager eye to the cloth on the table. “Is that damask?”
“It is spidersilk,” the servant says.
“Mon Dieu!,” the chevalier exclaims, his hand gliding over the cloth. “Quelle douceur! Is it for sale? Can it be traded for books?”
“It is quite an expensive commodity,” the servant says.
The chevalier spends several minutes roaming the room, inspecting everything in it to his excited exclamations and appraising touch.
“Some refreshments?,” the servant asks, when the others have taken seats as indicated by him.
Not expecting much despite his surroundings, Navarre proposes a balanced selection of the various meats, cheeses, pastries, and sauces he has had occasion to taste before, and some gnome blood to wash them down with. Moments later, a fourth servant brings in the food and drink and our noble heroes spend some time discussing the room, with Navarre being just about the only one to partake of the refreshments as usual.

Ten minutes later, the doors open and four duergar enter the room. They are unlike any other duergar our noble heroes have seen so far, both in appearance and demeanor. Clad in sober, gray robes, they have white hair, beards, and bushy eyebrows, and they shuffle about in all modesty, their hands folded into their robes and their eyes averted as they join our noble heroes at the table.
“Messires!,” the chevalier starts. “I have to speak up! Quelle hospitalité! It is unmatched, on par even with the grandeur of Sarazin! And it is only in the rarest of instances that I allow myself to make such a compliment!”
“Sarazin?,” one of the robed duergar says.
“Ma famille,” the chevalier explains. “Ma… clan!”
Some nodding of white heads.
“We represent the last vestiges of civilization in a society that has fallen to barbarism,” one of the savants says.
“An unfortunate state of affairs,” Navarre says grimly. “And one that has been noted.”
“A-ha-ha-ha!,” the chevalier interjects, gesturing at the chandeliers overhead. “Merveilleux! Les lustres! Crystal in the kingdom of the duergar!”
“Eh, bien,” he suddenly changes his tune. “We are looking for a way back to the surface.”

In the ensuing conversation, the duergar savants, although well-spoken, prove to be the epitome of arch-conservatism, frowning even upon the presence of our noble heroes in their hallowed halls and quite unwilling to divulge just about anything about the duergar empire or, indeed, the Underdark in general. They show no interest at all in the surface world and its affairs, let alone in ways to get to it, which they repeatedly say do not exist anywhere within their tower. In fact, their disinterest in the surface world seems to be so profound that, in the end, some of our noble heroes actually start wondering whether some compelling force may be at work to ensure exactly that.

When, after some time, Sir Suvali procures his notes on the strange egg our noble heroes have found, Navarre suggests an exchange of information regarding the nature of the pillar. But even this mentioning of the egg only leads to some apprehensive looks from the savants.
“The cambion duergar was interested in exactly such an exchange,” one of them says. “It led to nothing good.”
“Surely there is a difference between now and then,” Navarre says. “I would argue there is a definite need to learn as much about each other as possible at this specific moment in time.”
“Doubt and uncertainty is of all times,” the savant says. “It makes little difference to those who live in them.”
“Just so,” Navarre says, seeing the savant’s point. “But surely there is at least some difference? Does one not learn from the mistakes of the past? Consider and forgive the transgressions of one against the other?”
“Time and time again, the past teaches us that it repeats itself,” the savant says. “Increasing contact between our species will only take us closer to the inevitable consequence. It cannot bring an escape from it.”
“You may be interested in this,” Sir Suvali barges in as he procures the spell book he found in the egg.
“Ah-a-a!,” the savant exclaims, apparently finally presented with something that does have the interest of the assembly. But when he does not seem inclined to touch the volume at all, the sorcerer decides to put all of his cards on the table and he presently procures the folio he retrieved from Loremaster Fist’s cottage.
“We will pay you two hundred and fifty gold to copy these pages,” the savant says after he has paged through the latter volume and handed it to one of his colleagues.
“Grant me a visit to your library and it is yours,” the sorcerer says.
“That is not an option,” the savant says. “You must ask for something else.”
“Such as? A guided visit?”
Has the sorcerer just made a joke?
“The use of your way to the surface could be a good start,” Navarre suggests.
“Dragon Point has lain in splendid isolation since times immemorial,” the savant says.

Some time before this, the chevalier has been trying to convince two of the other savants of the advantages of a trade deal between their two peoples and he has learned that their interests lie in history, crafts, architecture, and engineering.
“Then I see nothing to prevent a profitable exchange!,” he exclaims. “We have galleries and halls full of all that on the surface.”
“Evidently, a caravan of books would be very well received,” one of the savants says.
“Évidemment! Anything is possible if you assist us on our way to the surface!”
“The best exit is via the tin mine you mentioned in this respect,” the savant says. “Other exits do exist but these are in private hands.”
“Would one of these be owned by the raiders?”
“Very likely.”
“How many raiders lurk in their lair?,” Sir Eber comes in. “Able men?”
“A hundred and fifty?,” the savant suggests.
“And their ranks? On average?”
“Raiders are more capable than their ranks would suggest,” the savant says. “Raiders of the fifth rank are many times more powerful than other duergar of the same rank.”
Which is the DM’s way of explaining that most of the raiders are multi-classed duergar.

Eventually, both conversations become one and then the savant Sir Suvali has been speaking with proposes that the monastery will pay fifty gold per spell level for spell books in general.
“Do you have any books like it?,” the sorcerer asks.
“No.”
“Now look here, old sport,” Navarre says, growing tired of the savants constantly speaking of money instead of something more useful in exchange for what must surely be a unique opportunity. “Coin is not the issue and there will be plenty of it when the trade caravan arrives. What we require is information. Information about the pillar, about what lies beyond The Forest, about ‛dimensions’!”
“Yes,” one of the savants says pensively, apparently more to himself than anyone else. “We may have books about these subjects.”
“I propose that we remain your guests for a ten-day,” Sir Suvali says. “You will copy my notes on the egg in my presence and answer any questions I might have about what I have written. I will add Loremaster Fist’s folio to the deal.”
“That is something we can agree to,” the savant says. “The arrangement shall remain limited to these conditions.”

And so Sir Suvali and the savants repair to some other room where the copying and questioning will begin.
“Right,” Sir Eber says, addressing one of the servants when the savants and the sorcerer are gone. “How’s about you and me have at it for a bit in the arena below?”

Night 143-153: As is often the case in situations like these, everything that follows is dealt with in a bit of a haphazard fashion. First, our noble heroes are assigned quarters off some hallway somewhere in the complex, where they have the use of a sauna, bedrooms, and a kitchen. Each can only be accessed through a single door and then exited by way of another, which turns out to apply to most other rooms in the complex. Right across the hallway from their quarters a staircase leads to what will presumably be the upper reaches of the tower.
When they ask a servant, our noble heroes are told that they share (this part of?) the complex with some thirty to forty duergar, very few of which they will see in the next ten-day, if any at all.

One day, Navarre suggests an expedition up the stairs across the hallway, upon which Sir Suvali says that he will ask the savants for permission when he sees them next. On this occasion, the sorcerer is informed that “nobody ever goes there” because it is a “scary place.” When he explicitly asks them for their permission to climb the stairs and whether he would have to face any guards or traps on his way, the savants shrug. They do not seem interested in the subject at all and the sorcerer concludes that the place is unlikely to be guarded.

And so, late one morning, up the stairs it is. These are over ten feet wide, with the ceiling at some six feet, and it takes our noble heroes twenty minutes of climbing (“two kilometers, twice the height of the Domtoren”) before they notice the faintest of lights coming from somewhere up ahead. The light grows brighter and brighter as they continue their ascent until it actually hurts their eyes and then, when the temperature also starts to drop, our noble heroes can only conclude that they must be approaching a space with an open connection to the surface world!
And sure enough, minutes later and still shielding their eyes, our noble heroes emerge in the corner of a large, natural, circular, cavern-like room sixty feet in diameter and with a domed ceiling all of thirty feet overhead. Daylight comes streaming in through eight huge windows, each fifteen feet tall and some four and a half wide and located at one of the eight points of the compass. A construct in the form of a large upright “X” is anchored to the floor in front of each window. A fierce, cold wind blows through the room and each window seems large enough to provide access for a small dragon, which our noble heroes do not actually realize because they have not thought about dragons for the best part of their lives but which they sort of still do.

Marveling at where they are, our noble heroes have to continue shielding their eyes for some time until they can finally look outside – and are presented with a breathtaking view of all of The Forest. Below them, under a bright, sunny sky, the trees stretch far, far rimward to the mountains in the distance. Other windows reveal vistas along the coast, across the ocean, and to the Isle of Bread. Our noble heroes take in the views overcome by feelings of awe and wonder, some in stunned silence, others to excited cries, still others to both.
With our noble heroes now able to see most of The Forest, the DM reveals that his map is based on a sketch for the second campaign he based his story on and there is a moment of contemplating absent friends.

Sir Suvali (who else?) is the first to get going again and he presently jumps out of the rimward window, unfolding the wings of his flying contraption as he does so. He soon soars high and above and estimates that room he just left is actually the hollowed-out top of a tall mountain that rises about a kilometer above the trees and that, if dragons do exist, this would have to be their ultimate lair.
Ah, and yes, back in the room, one of our noble heroes discovers the skeleton of a duergar on one of the cross-like constructs. Quite a way to go in more than one respect.

As to the copying and questioning, the savants inform Sir Suvali that the priest of Lost Yerichor was a ‛true-blood’ duergar and the half-brother of the ‛cambion’ duergar; that the latter was born of a succubus in a time when the mad priests began establishing contact with some of the various planes of existence; that the cambion was delivered to one of the mad priests as a baby and that he developed wizardly powers when he grew up; that Lost Yerichor was probably built by the White Wizard, a female, spell-using white dragon – a rare occurrence; that the duergar first came to the pillar as servants and/or allies of a family of white dragons; that, in principle, duergar priests can contact the Elemental Plane of Earth, allowing them to summon earth elementals; that this leads to contact with other planes of existence on occasion.

As the days pass and the copying proceeds, Sir Suvali, in an attempt to learn as much of the duergar tongue as possible, does his best to try and understand what the savants are saying when they converse among themselves, to their considerable displeasure when they realize what he is doing. The sorcerer is usually in the company of two of savants, one servant, and a scribe – all with the same strange, all-encompassing blind spot for anything and everything not pertaining to the Underdark.

And Sir Eber? Sir Eber manages to bring his opponent to his knees and -9 hit points in but three rounds, inflicting 53 hp damage in the first two rounds while suffering 29 himself. He announces that he is somewhat startled by the result and then two servants pick up their fallen colleague and drag him out of the hall.

 

[ilgatto]

Duergar & Daemons
Part XVI: Tunnels & Trolls​

In what starts as a session with little action and much talk and ends as one, the DM opens the proceedings by informing our noble heroes that a ledge runs around the outside of the dragon cave – the room at the top of the tower of Dragon Point; that the cave is located some two kilometers above sea level; and that he has some additional information as has been provided by the savants, being: that the duergar came with the dragon, aka the White Wizard; that a cataclysmic event involving ‛an adversary, an enemy, a force’ destroyed the White Wizard and all other dragons over a period of time; that ‛this’ was the home world of multiple white dragons before that; that ‛dragons of other colors’ may exist on other worlds/in other dimensions; that duergar also inhabit other worlds; that much of the deep Underdark is likely submerged; that the Underdark is also home to svirfnebli, illithids, and purple worms; that duergar priests can open portals to other worlds; that these are evil worlds with ties to the duergar god; that the pentagram on the plaza in Lost Yerichor could be anything; that it is ‛priest business’; and that savants stay away from priests at all times because they have a reputation of being insane.

Of further note would be a memorable but unrecorded discussion between Navarre and Sir Eber, with the latter once more arguing that all duergar must be destroyed – and what in the name of Olm was Navarre doing negotiating with the raiders?! – and the first defending the more reasonable notion that everything has its own place in nature and the grand scheme of things, and that this is exactly why he was negotiating with the raiders. This leads to the DM informing them that The Forest counts some 120,000 tax-paying souls, and that perhaps some 5,000-6,000 duergar inhabit what our noble heroes now consider to be the Underdark.
The conversation between Navarre and Sir Eber took place while they were sitting in one of the windows of the dragon cave, and it eventually turned into a more general debate about the future of The Forest and the upcoming fight against the traitorous Mim. Much to Navarre’s surprise, his noble fellows all agreed that they would support a bid for the throne by him, to which our noble hero reacted in all humility and with much curling of his mustache.

Night 153, continued: We join our noble heroes and the savants at a meal in the refectory of Dragon Point. When the chevalier mentions his interest in the spidersilk again, he is informed that it hails from the Broken Lands, a dangerous place that has collapsed into a maze-like section that goes on for days. Many beasts live here: terrible creepy crawlies, barbarians in the form of ‛wild’ duergar.
“Seigneurs!,” he calls, rising from his chair and tapping a small silver spoon against a crystal glass to get the attention of his noble fellows. “With the time of departure at hand, I call you to council! I remind you that two options have presented themselves in the past ten-day! One, we depart through the air, which, as our diligent sorcerer has not neglected to inform me on multiple occasions, will be an extremely costly affair as far as a notion he refers to as ‛charges’ is concerned. Eh, bien! While I do not have the slightest idea what that means, his insistence on the matter seems to leave no room for doubt as to the importance of the matter. Two, we continue our journey through the badlands. This will eventually lead us to the Red Cave, where experience has taught us that we are unlikely to be allowed passage. Since an assault on its walls will most likely lead to a deplorable outcome, we shall have to revert to either diplomacy or subterfuge. I therefore propose that we approach the gates in the guise of slavers come to sell slaves. A-ha-ha-ha! We will not even have to trouble ourselves acquiring this … commodity.”
“Toutefois,” he continues, casting a furtive glance at Sir Eber. “Although this might allow us entrance to the city, fortune may well turn against us as we try to leave it.”
“Maybe we should not pretend to be slavers,” Navarre says. “Perhaps the badlands will yield something of value? Then we would at least have something to sell.”

Night 154: Our noble heroes take their leave of the savants early that morning. They have been able to buy supplies and Sir Eber has even equipped his slaves with leather armor, hammers, and daggers, to the tune of one hundred gold coins. The creatures have become rather more vocal in the past ten-day and the ranger is now consistently referring to them as his ‛team’. Navarre seems to have sold one of his vials of oil of enchantment +2 for the princely sum of thirty gold coins and nine gems worth a hundred gold each.

When the doors to Dragon Point close behind our noble heroes and Sir Eber’s ‛team’ later that day, Rodlu appears out of nothing and so the company are on the road once more, with a day’s travel to the badlands ahead of them. After four hours of walking in their usual formation, the DM asks Sir Oengus to roll for a random encounter. When our noble hero promptly rolls a natural “20”, the DM has the dog on point stop, manage a single, feeble bark, and then start back for the company at speed with its tail between its legs and whining loudly. This is followed by a sound like something running and approaching fast. Sir Eber tosses his torch further into the tunnel and then a steeder comes a-charging, complete with saddle and two duergar on it, with the first alternating between looking ahead and over his shoulder in panic and the second barely moving at all. The company quickly make room to allow the speeding steeder and its riders to pass.
“Alarm!,” the first duergar screams in his own language. “Rock troll!”
Recognizing the words, Sir Suvali translates it for the benefit of the rest of the company. Our noble heroes get Sir Eber’s slaves out of the way and create a formation with three lines of defense, Sir Eber and Navarre forming the first – and then a loud stomping noise approaches fast.
“The first side passage is two hundred yards down!,” the voice of the chevalier comes from behind.

But it is too late. A huge brute made of stone appears up ahead, with a terrible head and wildly flailing its long arms as it comes thundering down the tunnel. If anything, the monster looks like an uncomfortably large, stone version of the ice troll our noble heroes encountered in the cave where they arrested Albert Murphy now many ten-days ago.
“Stand, creature!,” Navarre calls imperiously, stepping forward and raising his hand. “State your intentions!”
These become quite clear when the gangling beast continues its charge and so Navarre fires a magical bolt at it, to no effect as it whizzes past the advancing monster. Seconds later two arrows come flying past, one of which lodges firmly in one of the creature’s arms, and then a mass of sticky strands appears in front of it, hiding it from sight.
“Out of my way!,” the chevalier yells as he comes charging through the lines from behind. “Chargez!”
Annoyed because his noble friend breaks formation, Navarre retreats to replace him in the second line of defense. Nothing happens for four minutes and then the magical web starts to twist and writhe and the trollish brute reappears and continues its assault. Our noble heroes fire multiple missiles to the ‛Chargez!’ of the chevalier and the monster is hit by a torch from Sir Suvali, a magical bolt from Navarre, and another arrow from Sir Oengus before the chevalier and Sir Eber reach it and start hacking away at it, with the Sword of Shadows tearing right through the monster and ichors, gravel, and sand fly in all directions. In the next round, the chevalier manages to deliver another considerable blow and the monster is struck by yet more missiles, among them a magic missile from Sir Suvali, before it can manage a glancing blow against Sir Eber in return.
“It hits like a fairy!,” the ranger yells and then even more damage inflicted by him and the chevalier fells the monster, having suffered as much as 120 points of damage as it has.
“Gentlemen,” Sir Suvali declares from behind. “My compliments. Good work. Good thing that we had some time to prepare.”
Lowering his crossbow, Navarre turns to look at him in astonishment. Oh dear. What did the sorcerer just say?

“Random treasure!,” the DM calls in gleeful anticipation and to the cheers of our noble heroes. He rolls up some thousands of copper and silver coins and five gems of varying worth.

And now the DM asks our noble heroes for their advice on how he should handle the battle against the traitorous Mim, which will surely become a bit of a mass affair what with it involving two armies marching against each other and all that, and the AD&D rules not really being up to such. He informs them that he has been giving the matter some thought and that he sees three ways to deal with the situation. One, he can continue to treat our noble heroes as individuals and have them fight their own fights on the battlefield while he rolls some dice to determine how the battle as a whole fares. Two, being nobles of the realm, our noble heroes have the right to command small units of men, which he could then treat much like the above, with him rolling dice again for the battle as a whole. Three, that same status also allows our noble heroes to be present in the generals’ tent and partake in the decision-making.
Some questions are asked and this leads to the notion that the nobles of The Forest will constitute the cavalry, that the infantry are first-level Fighters, that the artillery comprises zero-level slingers, and that there will be some two or three Sorcerers, one of third level, one of fourth, and the third of an unknown level. A lengthy discussion does not lead to our noble heroes quite reaching an agreement, as usual, with Navarre favoring the third option, Sir Eber and Sir Oengus leaning toward the second – in combination with the first as applicable – and the chevalier torn between leading the cavalry and sipping Lillac in the generals’ tent.

Night 154, continued: The company have a good look at their surroundings and they find a dead steeder on a junction of the main tunnel and a tunnel to their left that may have been dug by the monstrous brute they just defeated. Ahead, the main tunnel narrows considerably, with walls now reduced to piles of rubble rather than solid rock.

 

[ilgatto]

Duergar & Daemons
Part XVII: Shrine of the Duergar​

In which the DM informs our noble heroes that the rock troll has started regenerating and that they are actually seeing it happening in font of their very eyes.

Night 154, continued: “I say, chaps,” Navarre says in some consternation, pointing to the wounds on the corpse of the rock troll, which seem to be closing. “What is going on there?”
“What the hell?,” Sir Eber agrees. “Is it going to rise again?”
“Should we take it to Dragon Point?,” Navarre suggests, taking a few steps back with the spectre of a never-ending fight before his mind’s eye. “Maybe the savants will know what to do with it?”
“Perhaps you should send one of your team?,” the chevalier asks Sir Eber. “Inform the savants that there is a rock troll in their tunnel?”
“That will take too long,” Sir Suvali says. “It’ll be as good as new in half an hour.”
“We don’t want go alone,” some of the slaves say in halting tones. “We like take Lord Eber for protection.”
“Scupper that,” Sir Oengus says. “Let’s bring it aboard and hurl it into the tent of the enemy on Apple Island.”
And so, after some deliberation and at the instructions of Sir Suvali, the rock troll is stuffed into a barrel, and many spikes are hammered into it to ensure that it suffers continuous damage – effectively preventing it from regenerating.
No, really.

Next, after the chevalier has taken the saddle off the dead steeder and handed it to one of Sir Eber’s slaves, our noble heroes spend some time further inspecting their surroundings. Sir Suvali declares that the tunnel dug by the rock troll must lead duskward – in the direction of Apple Island, no less – and that the main tunnel therefore leads rimward. A close inspection of the walls of the main tunnel ahead reveals that they consist of strangely cohesive masses of rubble and gravel. The tunnel narrows to some four feet wide and high, just enough for duergar to pass through. Further down, they spy a stone archway of sorts, much like the wooden support one would expect in a mine.
Facing the prospect of continuing in a single file – and crouching down at that – our noble heroes establish a new marching order: Sir Eber will lead with a lantern behind two of Sir Suvali’s dogs, followed by the chevalier, who has been on a bit of roll of late and has claimed the second line, and then Navarre, also with a lantern, Sir Suvali, Rodlu, and Sir Eber’s seven slaves. Sir Oengus will make up the rear guard.
“All right up there all by your lonesome, Eber?” Navarre yells when the company start moving again.
“Fantastic!,” the ranger yells back, twice, as he is about to enter the narrow section.

The company spend about half an hour crouching and crawling, past rifts, crevices, crevasses, and cracks in the floor, walls, and ceiling until Sir Eber announces that he has reached a fork in the tunnel. A statue of a stylized duergar is cut out of the bedrock where the tunnel splits, its arms raised in support of what appear to be many strands of a spider’s web running along a stretch of the walls and ceiling of the tunnel the company are in and those of the section that continues to the left. He reports as much to his noble fellows behind him and has a good look down both tunnels, noticing that the one to the left is likely to be a continuation of the main tunnel and the one to the right some sort of geological fault connecting to it at a sharp angle.
“Preferences?,” he yells over his shoulder.
“Left,” Sir Suvali hollers.
“What’s to port?,” Sir Oengus yells.
“Looks like a fissure,” Sir Eber yells back. “Cracks, rough walls. Sees more use than the other.”
“It is in the direction of the spidersilk clan,” the chevalier says, somewhat ruefully.
“We can also go right and deal with the lot,” Sir Eber hollers, with more than a hint of eagerness in his voice.
“Mon ami!,” the chevalier hastens to say. “On préfère to return to the surface.”
“Tiens,” he continues more pensively. “We will have to leave the spidersilk for what it is.”

And so the company take a left turn and continue on their way. The tunnel starts sloping up after some ten minutes and then widens another twenty-five minutes after that. Able to stand up straight once again, our noble heroes stretch their backs and legs and continue their journey to the surface. The walls remains cracked and torn for some time and it is obvious that the tunnel sees even less use than at any time before.
“Way past eight bells, lubbers!,” Sir Oengus says after some time, yawning. “What ho! I says we drop anchor and batten down the hatches for the night!”
“Is four days to Red Cave,” Rodlu says.
“We were here before,” two of Sir Eber’s slaves venture, all but in unison.
Navarre has another good look at the seven pale humans and, not for the first time, he realizes that he is going to have some trouble not inadvertently referring to them as asparagus at some point in the future.

When, just about half an hour later, the company do decide to stop for the night as Sir Oengus suggested, one of Sir Suvali’s dogs on point suddenly growls, then yelps and dies. Four rodents the size of a dog each and with huge teeth have appeared, it seems, from nowhere, catching Sir Eber and the chevalier by surprise. It takes them a round to recover and, by then, the monstrous rodents are all over the front lines.
But the noble duo make their attacks count as they start swinging their weapons and presently one of the creatures is cut down by Sir Eber, to their startled exclamations and ferocious squeaks of the remaining rodents. Navarre also manages to deliver a blow that counts, but it is not enough to kill his opponent and it retaliates with a critical hit, inflicting a grievous wound. Sir Eber and the chevalier continue to strike true and they each kill one of the rodents next, while Navarre struggles with his opponent once again, missing it on a “3” and fortunate not to be hit again. He remains on the back foot until the chevalier and Sir Eber join in the fray and the toothy rodent dies under their blows.
“Bloody hell!,” Navarre exclaims, grimacing as he takes some painful steps. “Where did that come from?!”
A quick inspection of the surroundings reveals some holes at ground level in the walls to the left and right. Not feeling much for crawling into the holes and running into more of the creatures in their own territory, and unwilling to risk further attack during the night, our noble heroes press on for some time. When they eventually make camp, Sir Eber pays the… his team some copper coins.
“Thank you, Lord,” the slaves say, once again almost in unison.
Watches are set after Navarre has quaffed his second potion of extra-healing and is feeling quite up-to-date again, with each of our noble heroes taking a shift in the company of one of Sir Eber’s slaves, who will be in charge of guarding the barrel with the rock troll and sticking a sword into it every now and then. The night passes without event.

Night 155: After an early start, the company have been on the move for some four hours when the tunnel starts sloping up again and they enter a more humid area, the wall to their right even dripping with water. They haven’t covered fifty yards when they come across a set of double stone doors to their right, all straight and austere in style like most duergar doors. They advance with some caution and notice that the doors do not seem to shut properly – a faint green light can be seen shining through the narrowest of cracks between them.
“Danger,” two of Sir Eber’s slaves venture when the company have regrouped.
“Comment?,” the chevalier says. “Because?”
“All who enter no leave,” the slaves say, shivering noticeably.
“And what is there?,” the chevalier asks.
“Temple of duergar. Do not enter. Nobody come out alive.”
“Messieurs,” the chevalier says, turning to his noble companions. “It would seem that we have two choices. One, we open the doors. Two, we ignore them.”
“Well, Eber?,” Navarre says, turning to his noble fellow when the latter does not proffer one of his belligerent suggestions nor, indeed, has already forcibly opened the doors. “What of it?”
“Priests use spells,” Sir Eber says, glaring at a barely hidden smile from the chevalier. “Let Suvali decide.”
“Mes amis,” the chevalier says. “I advise caution.”
“Green light is evil,” the ranger says, when Sir Suvali doesn’t say a thing. “Things must be put right.”

A vote is taken and when Sir Oengus, Sir Eber, and Sir Suvali quickly vote against moving on, the chevalier advances.
“Allô?,” he calls, knocking on one of the doors. “Nous sommes des marchands! We request a parley…”
His voice trails off as the door starts opening slowly, giving way, it seems, to his knocking. He sticks his head through the opening and sees a shallow vestibule giving into a cavernous room some forty yards across and with a domed ceiling fifteen yards overhead. It is permeated with a faint green twilight that seems to come from splotches of some phosphorescent growth on the walls and ceiling. A carpet of a strange, rubber-like grass, weed, or algae of some sort covers most of the floor, waving ever so slightly in a light, non-existent breeze. A tall tripod stands in the middle of the room, with a large spool of some kind attached to it, twelve foot long and six in diameter and with a rope coiled around it.
“All-ô-ô-ô-ô-ô?,” he croons, inching into the vestibule. “Y a-t-il quelqu’un? Guests! Is there a farmer in the meadow?”
To his right, he notices an opening in the wall of the cavernous room, with what seem to be three pillars taking up most of it. When there is no answer, he takes some tentative steps forward and calls again.
Nothing stirs.
He inches yet further into the vestibule and now Sir Eber also steps through the opening. Presently at the grass-like growth in the cavernous room, the chevalier gets on his knees and has a long look at it, noting that the grass does not reach all the way to the wall to his right, leaving, as it were, a walkway to and some way past the opening with pillars in it. He gets up and starts inching along the right wall toward the opening.
“Archers!,” he yells to his noble companions in the tunnel.
“Ready,” Sir Suvali replies, stepping into the vestibule and readying his bow.
“Ready,” Sir Oengus replies, also slipping through the door and taking a position against the left wall, an arrow nocked to his bow.
“All-ô-ô-ô-ô-ô?,” the intrepid chevalier tries once more, as he creeps further and further into the room. Or perhaps he is just testing the acoustics again – hard to tell.

But still no answer comes and the chevalier advances further down the wall, soon noticing a second, utterly dark opening further down. When he reaches the first opening, the pillars he saw earlier turn out to be something like the duergar equivalent of caryatids, holding up the archway as they are and with snakes writhing around their arms.
“Watch out for snakes”, he calls back to his noble fellows.
“What,” Sir Oengus comes. “In the grass?”
Behind the caryatids is another room, a cave-like affair containing an apparatus of some kind, an ornate altar of obvious and surpassing quality, a font-like structure underneath a cross-like contraption suspended from leather straps, all to his left. To his right is what looks to be a very well-equipped but basic workshop. At the back, more than half of the room is taken up by a pool.
“Allô?,” he calls yet again. “I speak to the invisible person in the room! Have no fear! We are but merchants! You can show yourself!”

But all remains quiet. He has another look into the atelier cum temple behind the caryatids and finds no signs of prolonged disuse. No dust or debris on the floor, altar, or workbench, no corrosion on any of the metal objects in it. He reports his findings to his noble fellows and now Navarre also enters the vestibule, crossbow cocked.

The chevalier passes between the caryatids and has another good look around, noting that the cross-like contraption can be lowered onto or into the font by loosening the leather straps. He advances to the pool at the back and sticks his sword into the water, moving it around for a bit and causing some ripples – or is that a snake he sees? He takes a step back but the image is gone – if there ever was one. When Sir Eber arrives and starts inspecting the font, he leaves the room and heads for the dark opening further down the wall.

When he is about halfway, a hammer hits him in the back of the head. He ducks – too late, of course – and lashes out at whatever is behind him, which is nothing. When he turns around, he sees a hammer floating in the air close to his face, glowing faintly in the green shimmer permeating the cavern.
“Attack!,” he yells. “A hammer! Un marteau volant!”
Sir Eber comes a-charging and he, too, lashes out at something that isn’t there.
“Magic hammer!,” he yells, when the flying hammer strikes at the chevalier again, now hitting only his shield. Not really knowing what to do, the chevalier dives through the dark opening just yards ahead and he ends up in a pitch dark room, the hammer right behind him. Sir Eber follows him into the dark room and now tries to hit the hammer itself, with as little success as his earlier attempt as the hammer hits the chevalier on the head again.
Unable to shake the flying menace, the unfortunate chevalier starts stumbling about in the room, crashing into a camp-bed, some amphorae, and ultimately into a largish statue. Showing no signs of abating, the hammer hits the chevalier again, to his ever more frantic cries. When Sir Eber unleashes another futile attack, the chevalier fumbles for one of his bags of coal dust and hurls its contents across the room, covering both himself, the ranger, and much of the room in the dust – but not revealing some invisible wielder. Crying out in consternation, he charges out of the room again.

Duringst the meanwhile, Sir Suvali has cast Detect Invisibility from the spell book he found in Lost Yerichor but this, too, does not reveal some invisible entity wielding the hammer. He has advanced further into the room and has passed Sir Oengus, who has been inspecting the tripod and the spool in the middle of the cavern during all of this. The tripod is straddling a large slab of stone sunk into the floor. Sticking out from the center of the slab is a thick iron ring and a strange cable is wound around the spool. He decides that the spool must be a winch and then the cursing chevalier comes charging into the cavern, with both the relentless hammer and Sir Eber on his heels.
“There is nothing I can do!,” the ranger yells in obvious frustration as he keeps hacking away at the hammer without any effect.
“It’s a spell caster,” Sir Suvali says, quickly moving out of the way of the fast approaching noble duo.
When the chevalier starts zigzagging through the room, Sir Eber runs to the opening with the pillars, inspects them for a brief moment before he enters the room beyond and starts hitting the water.

Back in the cavernous room, the flying hammer turns its attention to Sir Oengus but misses him as our noble hero lashes out at it to no avail in return. Finally relieved of the hammer, the chevalier also runs to the caryatids and hurls the contents of another bag of coal dust into the room beyond, with results as expected. When Sir Eber starts checking the walls for secret doors, the chevalier gives up and runs back to the vestibule. When he turns around again, Sir Suvali almost crashes into him as he comes running into the vestibule.
“It will run out!,” he yells as he pushes past the chevalier and exits the room.

By now, the flying hammer has missed Sir Oengus a couple of times – and he it in return – and it presently turns its attention to Sir Eber, who has appeared in the cavern again. Hammer and ranger miss each other for a couple of rounds until the latter moves back into the room behind the caryatids and the hammer doesn’t go after him, suspended as it remains in mid-air only inches from the opening.
“The hammer cannot get past the caryatids!,” Sir Suvali yells from the doorway in the vestibule.
“Seriously?,” Sir Eber hollers. He steps back into the cavern to see if he can find some vantage point where an invisible spell caster might hide. The hammer moves to attack him again, but to no effect.
“Can’t be long now!,” Sir Suvali yells from the doorway.
And then, sure enough, when Sir Eber has advanced some way into the cavern, the hammer disappears.
“The hammer is gone!,” Sir Suvali yells. “I will warn you if it reappears!”
“You do that,” Sir Eber murmurs to himself.

With the hammer gone, the chevalier enters the cavern again and moves past Sir Oengus and the tripod to the pitch dark room. Armed with a lantern this time, he has another good look around and finds some blankets and a pillow on the camp-bed and a total of three amphorae containing water, bread, and the marmite-like spread of the duergar. The statue resembles a duergar in heroic-realistic style, much like the one in the ‛temple’ back in Lost Yerichor. He exits the room again and joins Sir Oengus, who has now attached the rope on the winch to the ring in the slab.
“Très bien, mon gars!,” the chevalier says. “Bon! Let us see what lies below.”
He starts turning the winch and then Sir Eber, eager to join the bravery, comes running.
“Hammer!,” Sir Suvali yells from the doorway.
But the hammer has already struck true – and once more on the head of the unfortunate chevalier.
“Retreat!,” Sir Suvali yells.
Cursing loudly, the chevalier is already on his way to vestibule, Sir Oengus on his heels. Sir Eber, fully intent on staying as close to the action as possible just in case some invisible spell caster would turn up, heads for the caryatids instead.
“We wait here,” Sir Suvali says, when his noble companions join him in the tunnel. “Sit it out. Get back in, sit the next one out, and so on, until he runs out of spells to cast. We’ll milk him dry.”
Not quite cricket, of course, but perhaps needs must and all that.

The hammer vanishes after about a quarter of an hour and so the chevalier steps back into the cavern again. No hammer appears. He advances to the tripod with the winch and starts turning it again, slowly lifting the slab off the floor after some moments. When there is just enough for him to put his hand into the opening, he gets to his knees and shines his torch into it, fully expecting the hammer to appear and start hitting him again. But no hammer appears and now Sir Eber and Sir Oengus join him and the first starts turning the winch again, raising the slab until a pit in the floor is revealed. No light comes from it and the ranger lowers the slab onto the grass next to it.
“We have over two hundred feet of rope!,” Sir Suvali, apparently clairvoyant, yells from the doorway.
The chevalier ties a lantern to a rope and starts lowering it into the pit. Its walls are rough and it would appear to be a natural phenomenon or perhaps one created by some digging or tunneling creature. So far, there are no signs of water having been in it at some point.
“Un trou,” the chevalier murmurs, lowering the lantern ever further into the pit.

Suddenly the strange grass surrounding the pit starts waving frantically, growing and grabbing at the noble trio with tentacle-like extensions. Cursing loudly, Sir Eber is the first to start hacking away at the bellicose growth, to little effect. The chevalier and Sir Oengus also start hacking at the grass but it keeps growing and writhing until the noble trio are wholly entangled in it, now unable to move until the grass suddenly stops moving after about ten minutes and they are free to move again. Sir Eber starts hacking at the grass again for good measure, again to little effect.

Still, the grass does not move again and so the chevalier starts lowering the lantern further into the pit again – until it extinguishes. He reels the lantern back in and an inspection reveals that something or someone has opened it and doused the flame.
“Tiens,” he says. “Someone is down there. A prisoner! Une oubliette!”
He puts the lantern on the floor and stretches his neck to look into the pit, now dark as pitch again.
“Allô?,” he calls. “We are here to free you! Mon Dieu! Quelle embarras! Quite a predicament!”
“Go away!,” a voice comes from somewhere on the bottom of the pit.
“We just want to talk,” the chevalier sighs, foreseeing yet another lengthy debate with some intractable creature. “Why make things difficult? You’ll get tired, we’ll get tired. No one will benefit.”
“I’m busy!,” the voice comes again.
“As it would seem,” the chevalier says. “Are you of the red god?”
“No!”
“Then who are you?”
“Diviner!”
“Merci,” the chevalier says. “Enchanté! Would you be able to assist us? We are looking for a way to the surface.”
“No! Leave now or I summon power of Laduguer!,” comes the voice.
“Not at all, not at all. On aime les duergar. There is no need for any rosseries.”
“Leave temple alive now and see as blessing,” the voice comes. “Unique!”
“We are humans. We would like to go home. We will go if you will help us.”
“How you get here?”
“Through the door, mon ami.”
“Take same way back!”
“Eh, bien. It would seem that we have reached a stalemate. Assist us and we will be on our way.”
“Go now!,” the voice yells. “Go now or suffer Laduguer anger!”
“You are repeating yourself,” the chevalier says.
“I do nothing for human!”
“Mon ami!,” the chevalier cries. “Why so hostile? We only seek your assistance”
There is a moment of silence.
“Where you want go?,” the voice comes again.
“Up and beyond. Via the shortest way possible.”
“I never up! Always down!”

The conversation goes on like this for a while and our noble heroes are getting nowhere fast. They dare not enter the pit for obvious reasons and there seems to be little they can do as long as the implacable… priest?… remains where he is. To complicate matters, the unwritten laws of the game require some sort of solution to the problem other than just leaving – what with the possibility of the priest knowing of a way to the surface and having treasure and all that.
Obviously someone has to give in, and eventually the DM opens the proceedings.
“Go to Red Cave for exit!,” the voice suggests.
“Are there no other ways?”
“Yes! Like I said!”
“Which would that be?”
“I not know them.”
Another stalemate and more of the same follows.
“Your actions have caused us grief,” the chevalier presently suggests, in a somewhat questionable attempt to gain something from the situation.
“You trespass!”
“We did not realize we were, mon ami. You must compensate us for the harm you have done.”
“Maybe he knows of ways deeper into the Underdark,” Sir Eber suggests.
“Did you hear that?,” the chevalier asks, turning to the pit again. “Alors?”
“You bring payment of slave for temple and I consider divination!”
“Monsieur, you have misunderstood me.”
“Great honor! Laduguer divination for humans unique affair!”
“We have already paid. We have suffered much at your hands.”
A burst of insane laughter comes from the pit.
“Leave temple!,” the voice yells. “You suffer no more! That is my compensation!”
“Monsieur,” the chevalier says frostily. “You are in a pit and this will remain so. Adieu!”
“Yes! In pit! In pit until they hoist me up!,” the voice yells, now quite unhinged. “Bastards!”
“You are a prisoner?,” Sir Eber asks.
“I HERE OF FREE WILL!,” the voice screams.

The chevalier walks to the dark cave in the far wall and returns carrying the amphora with bread some moments later, which he drops into the pit without further ado.
“CURSES!,” the voice screams. “You are cursed!”
“Pas du tout, mon ami,” the chevalier returns, after he has failed a saving throw. “It is to alleviate your plight.”
“Thank you!”
“You sure you don’t need anything?,” Sir Eber asks.
“I have everything!,” the voice yells.

The chevalier starts unwinding the rope from the winch, perhaps to deprive whoever is in the pit of a means to go after the company when they leave the ‛temple’, though more likely because he has spotted that the rope may be something more than it would seem at first. Obviously of the same opinion without ever having seen the rope, this is Sir Suvali’s cue to teleport in and the noble duo inspect the rope, noticing that several exceedingly long and thin iron wires are woven into it – something they have not seen before. Putting a knife to one end, the chevalier gathers he could probably cut the rope.
“D’une qualité extraordinaire!,” he exclaims.
“Thank you!,” comes the voice.
“Avec plaisir!,” the chevalier replies.
“More food?,” Sir Eber yells down the pit.
“Something to wash down the bread with?,” the chevalier suggests.
“Gentlemen,” Sir Suvali says, turning to his noble companions. “Let’s go.’

And so the company went on their way again.