Duergar & Daemons (Being a Sequel to An Adventure in Five Acts) [Updated] [5/25/25]

[ilgatto]

Duergar & Daemons
Part I: In Search of Adventure​

In which the players and the DM agree that our noble heroes did not venture into the mountains after all but rather made camp a short distance from Albert Murphy’s hideout; that Sir Oerknal has been catatonic ever since he set foot in the hideout because the player has left the building; and that the chevalier has taken to sleigh rides on the Icy Waste in his new plate armor and fur cloak.

Day 26: We find Navarre, Sir Eber, and Sir Oengus looking at the clouds coming in over the mountains as they have breakfast in their camp.
“No large battles for the time being,” Sir Eber says, turning to his noble fellows.
“Well spoken, Sir,” Navarre replies, grinning.
Some distance below, the chevalier passes in his sleigh, striking gallant poses.
“Je suis aventurier!,” he cries, waving at his noble companions.
“What ponce is this?,” Sir Eber scoffs.
“Best leave him to it,” Navarre replies. “Besides, he has a point… of sorts. Are we not all ‘adventurers’ now? Is this how such roving men and women are born? I have to admit that returning home seems to have lost some of its meaning. Too much has happened in the past couple of ten-days.”

Day 28: That morning, Sir Suvali has returned with new supplies.
“Messieurs!,” the chevalier declares, rising to his feet after a couple of glasses of Lillac. He strikes a splendid figure in his new plate armor and fur cloak. “We need a plan de campagne!”
“Hear, hear!,” Navarre agrees. He, too, is enjoying some Lillac.
“I must heal,” Sir Eber says.
“Indeed, mon ami, indeed!,” the chevalier says, waving a hand. “Eh, bien! Do we go home or venture forth?”
“The source of evil is in that cave,” Sir Eber says. “Our place is here.”
“Are you suggesting that this ‘evil presence’ is actually behind the revolution?,” Navarre asks, emptying his glass.
“I don’t think Albert Murphy is ‘evil’ as such,” Sir Eber says. “After all, the man dined at your table.”
“Har, har,” Navarre says. “Why speak of ‘evil’, then?”
“We must fight evil wherever it is,” Sir Eber says. “And it is in that cave.”
“My dear fellow,” Navarre says. “Need I remind you that there is a war going on beyond these mountains?”
“Yes, yes,” the chevalier interrupts. “That is all as may be. But surely you are not suggesting we wait for you to regain your strength dans la gueule du diable? The place doesn’t agree with me at all!”
“Scared, Sarazin?,” Sir Eber says, glowering at the chevalier.
“Pas du tout, mon cher! Pas du tout!,” the chevalier says, perhaps just that little bit too fast. “It is just…”
“Gentlemen,” Sir Suvali interrupts. “We can camp in the smithy down there. Albert Murphy was in there so I think we can safely assume that it is free from the evil influence of the pit. I do not feel much for staying out here while we wait for Sir Eber’s wounds to heal.”
“Although I think your reasoning is flawed, I must admit that I’d rather spend the next days close to a fire in a smithy than out here,” Navarre says.
“So it is agreed,” the sorcerer says, getting to his feet. “Gentlemen, back to the cave.”

And so our noble heroes return to the cave in the rift, where the DM doesn’t say anything about eerie atmospheres. They light fires and make themselves comfortable. When breakfast is boiling in a kettle over one of the fires, Navarre has another good look down the pit Sir Eber has dubbed ‘the source of evil’.
He shivers involuntarily.
“Indeed,” he muses to Sir Suvali next to him. “One has to admit that it does have a certain… disturbing quality.”
“It’s not the pit,” the sorcerer says, after intently staring down the hole for a round or two. “It’s the wall.”
“Even so,” Navarre says, as he looks around the cave once more. “This whole place has a strange feel to it.”

The noble duo return to the smithy, where Sir Eber, nestled in furs, has started carving a three-faced icon out of a log. After breakfast, the chevalier puts away his armor, with which he has been tinkering ever since he took it from the dead halberdier.
“Messieurs,” he says. “A plan de campagne is in order. Eber, you have suffered greatly and we should return to Diamond Castle as soon as you feel up to traveling. You can recuperate in all comfort there while we discuss our options before we return here to eradicate the evil root and branch.”
“Why wait?,” Navarre asks. “Suvali can use his wand and we can be in the castle in hours.”
“Impossible!,” the sorcerer all but interjects. “The wand has no more charges left.”
“Indeed?,” Navarre asks. “It no longer functions?”
Sir Eber coughs loudly.
“Two days and I’ll be as good as new,” he says.
“Excellent!,” Sir Suvali says, pouncing on the chance to change the subject. “Then it is settled. Gentlemen! Eber will sleep for two days. After that, I suggest we either go rimward to the spot marked “X” on the new map or enter the tunnel in the pit.”
“I say we start where we are,” the chevalier says. Apparently, he has had a change of heart.
“You are probably right,” Navarre muses. “If there really is some great evil down there that has led to this ‛revolution’, it may be worth exploring. Besides, I’d rather not leave it festering if we would venture into the unknown. If only to avoid having to face it if we should have to make a hasty retreat.”
“We will stay here for two days in any case,” Sir Suvali says.

The next two days are spent in relative peace and quiet. The fires are kept burning, Eber is fed hot soup, and Navarre and the chevalier repeatedly venture onto the Icy Waste to hunt show hares. On one of these trips, when they are discussing the notion that they may truly be adventurers now, Navarre admits that he is somewhat at a loss as to what to do next. The whole episode with the entire nobility of the realm fleeing Diamond Castle instead of fighting alongside our noble heroes still weighs heavily on his mind and the events of the last couple of ten-days seem to have shaken the very foundations of the world he thought he knew. Ice giants? Sea ships? Flying apparatuses? Icy Wastes? A revolution? Our noble hero cannot help but feel that things will never be the same again and that there is something he must do.
But what? Surely he cannot return home to his old life as if nothing has happened? Should he venture into a tunnel leading deep into the earth to confront some ‘source of evil’? Is this ‘evil’ a threat to The Forest? Was it the reason Albert Murphy did what he did? Shouldn’t he somehow start preparing the duchies for an uncertain future?
When the noble duo get back to the cave, Sir Suvali approaches and suggests using chains to stop whatever may come from behind the bricked-up wall in the pit. However, he puts forth an exceedingly complex plan while remaining vague on details and so the only thing Navarre takes away from it is that the bricked-up hole seems to be too small to allow an ice giant easy access.

Olaf has adapted remarkably well to the new situation. Indeed, the ruffian seems to relish in it, pulling his weight when required and proving quite capable of following orders. Our noble heroes have spoken to him in earnest and he has told them that he doesn’t care whom he serves as long as he gets paid. When Navarre reminded him of his misdeeds and that no monetary payments were to be expected, the bandit lord was quick to state that he didn’t mind serving nobles at all and that, in fact, it made for a nice change to associating with villains and bandits.
“Alright,” Navarre said, warily eyeing the lout. “You can start by telling us all you know about this ‘revolution’ of yours.”
And so our noble heroes learned that Serena the Bandit Queen and her bandits attacked Diamond Castle to gain control of the diamond mine, that they were defeated, and that the survivors – among them Serena – were imprisoned. Soon after, when Duke Blurh and his entire family had ‘died of food poisoning’, the miners rebelled. The bandits took their side and eventually the battle was won when Blurh’s personal guards started fighting among themselves and some of them joined the rebels.
Some time before all this, Albert Murphy, Blurh’s chief engineer, had become involved in a mining accident. A tunnel had collapsed with him in it and it took the miners some days to get to him. When they finally reached him, he spoke of experiencing a vision while he was trapped.
“I told you,” Sir Eber said. “There is something evil down there. The tunnel must lead to the mine.”
“He went away after this, off into the mountains,” Olaf continued. “He was gone for a long time and returned with the ice giant.”
“So the rebels took the castle before Albert Murphy returned from the mountains?,” Navarre asked. “Are you telling me that it was not Albert Murphy who started this ‘revolution’?”
“I suppose there’s many ways of looking at it,” Olaf said, shrugging. “The people revolted. Albert Murphy was there.”
“Preposterous!,” Navarre exclaimed. “Why would the people ‘revolt’? What have we ever done to them? For Olm’s sake! We are their protectors!”
“There may still be a connection,” Olaf said. “The mine had become less productive. Water had been seeping into it for a couple of years. Albert Murphy came up with all kinds of inventions and apparatuses to deal with the problem. Boiled the water to get rid of it, I think. Lots of steam.”
“And you were involved in all this?,” Sir Eber asked.
“Not at all!,” Olaf hasted to say. “I am only small fry, not important at all!”
“So what was it that you did do?,” Sir Eber asked.
“I was Serena’s assistant,” Olaf said, after only the slightest of hesitations.
“It is good of you to speak the truth, my good fellow,” Navarre said. “It is the best way forward at moments like this.”
“Yeah, well, the New Order hasn’t been much of a success,” Olaf said, shrugging again. “It was probably unwise to join forces with them in the first place.”
“You learn fast, monsieur,” the chevalier said. “Admirable! Et alors… you can keep the fires burning and take charge of the kitchens. Good for morale and all that.”
“No problem,” Olaf said.
And that was that.

Day 30: That morning, Sir Suvali calls his noble companions to council.
“Gentlemen,” he says, in his usual methodical manner. “The chance that something will strike fear into our hearts in the pit over there is real. We must decide how to deal with this.”
“Someone must remain up here to intercept those who start running,” Sir Eber says. “Maybe the runners just need to ‘sit it out’? Maybe they can enter without problems when they’ve calmed down.”
“I shall commit myself to this task,” the chevalier says, perhaps rather more quickly than he would have liked.
“How would you stop them?,” Navarre asks. “What if they become violent?”
“Let them go,” Sir Suvali says. “I will stay up here. I can easily keep up with people fleeing the cave. I can fly.”
“Is there anything in that rift we should know about?,” Navarre asks Olaf.
“I don’t know,” Olaf replies. “Murphy brought us here. We didn’t have much time before you lot showed up. My lord.”

Now, Sir Suvali comes up with another of his complicated plans, explaining who will enter what, when, and where; who will use and tie which ropes when and to what; and who will remain where in the cave with which ladders, either leaving or dropping them at certain locations and/or pulling them up, all depending on a whole range of different situations.
“Right,” Sir Eber cuts in at some point. He isn’t back to his full hit points yet but that doesn’t seem to bother him. “I’m going in.”
He gets to up and starts down the ladder, mumbling something like ‘yadda yadda yadda’ under his breath. When he is halfway into the pit, he lights a torch and casts it onto the floor close to the bricked-up wall, then continues his descent.
“You do what you just said,” Navarre says to Sir Suvali and looking at the pit. “We cannot leave him down there on his own.”
He rises and gets to the pit, where he starts climbing down the ladder as the others take up positions at the edge of the pit and knock arrows to their bows. When our noble hero gets to the brick wall, Sir Eber has just ceased trying to hammer his giant crowbar between the bricks. He looks rather pale and Navarre imagines he does, too, as he has started experiencing definite feelings of unease.
“I feel sick,” Sir Eber says, straightening his back.
“Can’t say I’m feeling too spiffy myself, old boy,” Navarre replies, righting himself just that little bit more.
Both are now gritting their teeth as waves of fear and nausea overwhelm them. Each not wanting to be the first to give in, the noble duo clench their teeth – which is now the only thing they can do to stop themselves from shaking and running away screaming.
“Allô? Tout va bien down there?,” the chevalier sings from above.
“We’re having a bit of a moment down here,” Sir Eber manages to grunt.
A strange, subtle, indefinable smell now prevails in the pit – seemingly causing the feelings of ill ease. Mustering all of his strength, Sir Eber puts a rag in front of his mouth.
“…,” Navarre mutters feebly through clenched teeth in an attempt at light banter. “…brigandry.”
“Quoi?,” the chevalier hollers. “What was that?”
Then, Navarre is the first to give in.
“I will NOT go in there,” he grunts, exhaling sharply and starting for the ladder. “I’m getting out. Clear my head.”
He climbs the ladder and heads for the exit, where he sits down and waits for the fear and nausea to pass. Back in the cave, the chevalier starts down the ladder.
“Mais c’est quoi, ici?,” he asks, when he reaches Sir Eber.
“Ah!,” he exclaims, when he misses his saving throw. “Oui!… Eh… je comprend! Eh, bien! Best get out of here, quoi?”
“Each his own way,” Sir Eber groans, still refusing to move.
Within seconds, the chevalier is up the ladder again.
“C’est dangereux là-bas!,” he cries to Sir Suvali and Sir Oengus, moving away from the pit at speed.
“I have sailed the seven rivers,” Sir Oengus declares. “It’ll take more than some bricks to scare me!”
“Non!,” the chevalier cries. “Mon ami! Don’t do it! I advise against it! We need to discuss tactics!”
“Scupper that,” Sir Oengus says and he starts climbing down the ladder.
Of course, Sir Oengus ‘Moon’ of Nisibis passes his saving throw. He reaches Sir Eber, who still hasn’t moved an inch, and takes the giant crowbar from him.
“It’ll be alright, matey,” he says to the ranger, as he starts hammering the crowbar into the wall.

And then, finally, Sir Eber also gives in. He runs for the ladder, is back in the cave in seconds and throws up when he reaches Navarre at the exit. Navarre gets to his feet and tries to assume an air of nonchalance. He still doesn’t feel anything close to wanting to return to the pit but he is determined to make the best of it now that Sir Eber has also given up. Our noble heroes throw each other some glances, pose for a bit, attempt to keep their cool. After some of this, Navarre is the first to speak.
“Olm be damned!,” he cries. “I’m going back in! You coming?”
Sir Eber starts tearing up a piece of soft cloth and hands it to Navarre before stuffing his nose with the bits he has torn off. Noses thus plugged, the noble duo return to the pit, fail their saving throws and are back up the ladder again, now, of course, utterly unwilling to EVER get back in there again because role-playing. Tiresome effect, fear.

Anyway. Eventually, we find Sir Oengus, Sir Suvali, and Sir Eber at the bottom of the pit, with Navarre and the chevalier up in the cave, the latter with his bow ready to fire. When Sir Oengus has created a large enough opening in the wall, a 7-foot-tall creature made of ice and snow emerges from a tunnel behind it. It has spindly, dangling limbs ending in huge, sharp claws; pointed ears; and a ferret-like face with sharp features and an evil grin.
Sir Oengus takes only a second to react.
“Ice creat-u-u-u-u-u-u-res!,” he yells, running toward the ladder.
Sir Eber retreats behind a pile of rime-covered chains some yards back and draws his weapons. Up in the cave, Navarre the chevalier start firing bolts and arrows at the creature – which don’t seem to affect it at all. The creature reaches Sir Oengus and starts clawing at him, hitting him in the process. Our noble hero feels a wave of cold run through his body and he has to stop moving because of it. Brutally pushing past him, Sir Suvali starts climbing the ladder in great haste.
“Thanks a bundle, fella!,” Sir Oengus yells after the fleeing sorcerer.
But now Sir Eber is moving again. He grabs Sir Oengus and hauls him to the ladder.
“Ho!,” the latter groans, teeth chattering. “We gonna deal with it or we not gonna deal with it?”
Although the missiles fired by Navarre and the chevalier do not seem to affect it, the ice creature does now shrink back from them, allowing Sir Eber to start pushing Sir Oengus up the steps.
“Aye, aye, captain!,” Sir Oengus says. “I get it! We’re going! Ho! Much as I like yer hand on me arse, methinks I’ll as prefer to get up there meself, ye rapscallion!”
Behind them, the ice creature is now retreating – perhaps it doesn’t want to venture too far from the tunnel? Or maybe it still fears the bolts and arrows coming from above even though none of them have actually harmed it?
“What in the name of Olm is that thing?,” Navarre asks, when Sir Eber and Sir Oengus are back in the cave and the ladder has been pulled up.
“Can’t say as to be sure,” Sir Oengus says. “Ice cold its touch be, though, no doubt about that!”
“It is an ice troll,” Sir Suvali says, lowering the ladder back into the pit again. “Made of ice. Its icy touch burns with cold.”
“And what are you doing?,” Sir Eber barks.
“We’ll heat something up and throw it at him,” the sorcerer says.
“Okay,” the ranger says. “We can use our fire bombs.”
“Good thinking, old boy!,” Navarre exclaims, remembering storming Albert Murphy’s tower with the ranger.
“You get back down and lure it out of the tunnel,” Sir Suvali says. “I’ll try and stop it from fleeing again from up here.”
Eyeing the glib sorcerer with barely veiled disgust, Navarre starts for the kitchen and returns moments later with some burning logs and oil-drenched rags, which he tosses into the pit
“Fire burns,” Sir Eber says. “It worked the last time.”
“Let’s go!,” Navarre says, a bit louder than he would have liked.

 

[ilgatto]

Duergar & Daemons
Part I: In Search of Adventure – Continued​

And so Sir Eber and Navarre climb back into the pit, put their swords and two torches on the floor and wait, their backs against the wall, for the ice troll to come charging out of the tunnel. And sure enough, it does. The chevalier shoots at it twice, hitting it once – to some effect even. With Sir Oengus readying a kettle with boiling water and Sir Suvali executing some intricate maneuver with some ropes in an attempt to entangle the ice troll and failing, Navarre lights and throws the first of his fire bombs at the monster, hitting it full on – and now a loud hissing happens when the creature actually seems to start melting. Eber lights his bomb, rolls a “1”, slips, and all but drops the thing, hitting the wall behind him and forcing him and Navarre to jump clear of the spreading flames.

But now the ice troll starts back to the tunnel, hissing and blowing steam and frantically trying to douse the burning oil on its body. Navarre misses it with his second bomb but Sir Eber does hit it and now the ice troll is seriously melting. Taking this as his cue, the chevalier starts down the ladder.

Navarre throws his third bomb and misses again, as Sir Eber hits the monster again with his – and it’s a good’un! The ice troll is now almost wholly ablaze and all it can do now is flail about with its arms as it weakly stumbles into the tunnel.

When the chevalier fails his saving throw and flees back up the ladder again, Navarre and Sir Eber pick up their swords, advance, and finally pass their saving throws. They charge after the ice troll into the tunnel until Navarre takes a mighty swing at it – but he only manages to land a glancing blow while Sir Eber does not hit it at all. But now, still burning, the ice troll does finally sag to the floor, where it melts away and the flames die.

The tunnel is about two and half yards in diameter and it gradually widens into what seems to be a larger room several yards away.
“Take this,” Sir Suvali says, extending two burning torches as he stands in the opening of the tunnel. Navarre takes a few steps back, takes the torches and advances again. He hands a torch to Sir Eber and the noble duo slowly move toward the larger room. They soon come upon what appear to be four bodies on the floor – the frozen corpses of stocky, bearded creatures in black metal chain mail armor. Our noble heroes subject them to a cursory inspection.
“They must be the smiths from upstairs,” Sir Suvali says behind them.
“You think?,” Navarre wonders. “What are they anyway? Dwarves?”
“They seem small enough,” Sir Eber says. “Interesting armors.”
“I say we see what’s what up there first,” Navarre says, nodding to where the tunnel – or room – seems to continue. He has grown tired of failing saving throws and doesn’t want to get back to the others and risk having to make one all over again when he has to get back into the tunnel. He moves further into the room, Sir Eber and Sir Suvali right behind him. A second opening seems to be in the wall at the other end of the room.
“Ahoy!,” Sir Oengus’ voice comes from behind.
“Ahoy!,” Navarre yells back. “We’re still alive!”
“Let’s go,” he says to Sir Eber as he starts for the second opening. “I want to know what’s down there.”
“What’s with the sudden urge to lead?,” Sir Eber asks. “Let’s wait for the others.”
“They’ll be here soon enough,” Navarre says, moving into the dark tunnel. “Let’s continue at a slow pace.”
“Is it safe?,” the voice of chevalier comes from far, far away.
“Yes!,” Sir Suvali yells, following Sir Eber into the tunnel.

And so the chevalier enters the pit, fails his third saving throw and starts up the ladder again in great haste.

Moving further into the tunnel, Navarre and Sir Eber notice something sparkle in the distance. Ice? Crystals? Advancing cautiously, they reach another cave-like room, this one wholly covered in ice and icicles and with several large, crystalline, vine-like plants filling most of it, everything sparkling in the light of their torches like a winter wonderland. Holding their breath in wonder, the noble duo exchange some glances until they notice the nauseating stench again.
“Is it the plants?,” Sir Eber asks.
“It would seem so,” Navarre returns, scanning the floor ahead. “I see no corpses or anything.”
Without stepping into the room, he has a closer look at the plants.
“I say!,” he all but whispers after a moment. “The plants bear fruit. What are they? Apples? Globules?”
“Best be careful,” Sir Eber says. “Plants can be dangerous.”

Navarre hurls his torch into the cave, hitting one of the plants. Several of the globules explode, releasing a crystalline powder that all but instantly fills the cave. Several saving throws must be rolled, most of which Sir Eber and Navarre fail. At the same time, an unearthly, insane scream comes from somewhere behind them.
“Get back!,” Navarre yells, shivering to the bone and struggling to wrestle past the ranger behind him, who is trying to wrestle past Sir Suvali in turn. “Get back!”
Unable to see much with but a single torch at their disposal, the noble duo stumble back through the tunnel, back into the pit, past Sir Oengus, and up the ladder again. Sir Eber runs to the smithy and starts rinsing his mouth with water, coughing, gagging, and throwing up again. Navarre decides to do the same, even though he doesn’t quite know why.

Come to think of it… there is little else he seems to know. What is he doing here? Who are these people? Who am I? What is that creature cowering in the corner over there? Why is that ruffian shouting at me?
“Lord! Lord!,” the ruffian yells. “It’s your Oerknal! He’s gone mad!”
Navarre has to sit down for a bit and notices that the big man next to him does the same – a look of wonder in his eyes.
“He started screaming!,” the ruffian yells, pointing at a squat creature cowering in a corner. “What in Ulm’s name is going on?”

Back in the tunnel, Sir Suvali has somehow managed to cause the explosion of at least one of the other fruits. Obviously having passed his saving throws, he is presently moving across the room. Sir Oengus is behind him and there are no more explosions, although the plants do move to ‘face him’ when he passes.

It takes Sir Eber and Navarre some time to gather their wits and, when they do, Olaf tells them that Sir Oerknal suddenly started screaming and then became catatonic again. Our noble heroes try to get the creature to tell them what happened but they do not get a reaction of any kind.
“Take care of him while we’re gone,” Sir Eber says, lighting a torch. “We may be a while.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Olaf says, glancing uneasily at Sir Oerknal.

When the noble duo leave the smithy, they run into the chevalier.
“You coming?,” Sir Eber asks.
“You will not get me into that tunnel if seven elephants would drag me!,” the infuriated chevalier fumes.
It just doesn’t seem to be his day.

Fortunately, Navarre and Sir Eber do not have to pass saving throws when they enter the tunnel again and they reach the room with the frozen dwarves without incident.
“Areu!,” Navarre yells into the darkness ahead. “Chaps! You in there?”
“We’re past the plants!,” Sir Suvali’s voice comes from far ahead. “Move very slowly! That works!”
“They froze to death,” Sir Eber says, on his knees next to one of the corpses. “They have no wounds. Maybe the evil force causes catatonia in all dwarves? It would explain what happened to Oerknal.”
“Perhaps they came prepared,” Navarre muses, shining his lantern at another corpse. “Any strange items on them? Witch brews?”
The noble duo investigate the corpses for a bit and then Navarre spots a puddle of water creeping past him on the floor in the direction of the room with the crystalline plants. He wonders why it hasn’t frozen – and why it is moving at all – and then Sir Eber also notices it.
“The remains of the ice troll,” he says. “Torch it!”
He puts his torch to the puddle, which hisses and steams until it is gone.
“What is this place?,” Navarre wonders, shaking his head as the weird events keep unfolding. “What is this world?”
“The ice troll may have a connection with the plants down there,” Sir Eber says. “I’ve heard stories.”
Thus confronted with yet another weird phenomenon, Navarre shakes his head again and turns his attention to the corpses once more.

Not long before this, further down the tunnel and past the room with the crystalline plants, Sir Suvali and Sir Oengus reach another cave-like room, this one with several low, ridge-like sections running across the width of the floor. In the room are four ice trolls, smaller than the one that was killed earlier, with the largest standing only some three feet tall and the others about two feet each. When they spot the noble duo, the smaller two panic and start clambering over the ridges to get away from them.
“We mean no harm,” Sir Suvali says, gesturing at the larger ice troll with his torch and advancing slowly. The creature hesitates for a second but then panics and attacks. Reacting quickly, the sorcerer tries to push his torch into its face fails and then Sir Oengus starts hacking away at it, landing a mighty blow that actually makes a part of the creature break off.

Back in the first room, Navarre and Sir Eber have not found anything on the dwarves that looks like it could provide them with some protection from the crystalline plants. They did find several items of the same strange, black metal the chain mail armors are made of, most notably hammers and a crowbar.
“They were looted,” Sir Eber says. “No money, no nothing. Only things of little value or too inconvenient to take along.”
“Still, these items are of some quality,” Navarre remarks, inspecting one of the hammers. “I do not believe I have ever seen such quality in metalwork.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Sir Eber says, adding a hammer and the crowbar to his ever-growing collection of strange tools.
“Anyway. They have nothing that could get us past the plants. Let’s torch the cave before we move through.”
Our noble heroes drench some pieces of cloth in oil, put them to flame and toss them into the room with the crystalline plants, hurl the half-empty bottle of oil after them for good measure, and start for the room with the corpses at speed as muted explosions sound behind them.

When they return to the room with the crystalline plants some ten minutes later, they find the air full of ice crystals. They watch the room for some time and presently conclude that all of the globules have exploded.
“After you, old boy,” Navarre says. “Wouldn’t want to keep you from leading from time to time”.
The ranger grunts and steps into the room. When he gets to the exit on the other side, nothing much has happened.
“I’m thr-ou-ou-gh!,” he croons.
Minutes later, Navarre has also crossed the room. The crystalline plants did not react much, although they still moved to ‘face him’ when he passed them.

Further ahead, Sir Suvali and Sir Oengus have managed to kill the larger ice troll. However, the fight has not been without consequence for Sir Oengus, who is now quite badly hurt. With the smaller ice trolls still falling over each other to get to safety, the noble duo move on.
“Areu!,” comes Navarre’s voice. “You still alive up there?”
“Ice trolls!,” Sir Suvali yells. “Small ones! You can avoid them!”
“Why didn’t you kill them?,” Sir Eber hollers.
But the sorcerer does not answer and when Navarre and Sir Eber reach the cave with the cowering ice trolls, the former once more shakes his head in wonder. Do ice trolls actually have children?
“Hello?,” he hollers to the creatures, approaching cautiously and keeping them in the light of his lantern. “Do you speak? Can you hear me?”
The ice trolls do not respond. When they see their way clear, they scamper past the noble duo and run off to the room with the crystalline plants – or whatever is now left of them.

All the way back up in Albert Murphy’s cave, the chevalier takes a deep breath and enters the pit again. He finally passes his saving throw and reaches the room with the four corpses. When he searches the bodies and finds nothing of any apparent value, he murmurs to himself in disappointment before he decides to pocket one of the hammers anyway. He calls to his noble fellows, hurries through the room with the damaged crystalline plants and the cowering ice trolls and eventually catches up with the others in the room with the ridges.
Reunited, our noble heroes follow the tunnel for some time. It seems to them that they are moving ever deeper into the earth and they notice numerous strange elevations in floor and ceiling at regular intervals, a hundred yards or so between each. Proceeding with caution, our noble heroes discuss the phenomenon and everything else that has happened today. They recall some of the older stories their nannies and aunts told them when they were children, which speak of the people of The Forest having ‘fled from the darkness on “boats” before they came to The Forest’. Other stories, fairy tales rather than of any historical significance, speak of a place called ‛the Underdark’, a fey, underground realm that is supposed to be the home of dwarves and gnomes.
“Quite,” Navarre says at some point. “Are we in this ‘Underdark’? Dwarven corpses? I do declare! Are we to believe that fairy tales are true? Dragons? Elves? Griffins? Do they all exist down here?”
“Of course they do,” Sir Suvali says irritably.
“Dwarves exist in any case,” Sir Eber says. “I’ve always known.”
“Have you?,” Navarre wonders. “How so?”
“Have you forgotten Oerknal?,” Sir Eber asks. “He is a dwarf.”
Navarre looks at his noble fellow in utter astonishment. The thought had never crossed his mind.

A closer inspection of the strange elevations does not reveal any clues as to what they might be. Where they occur, there are no differences in the bedrock.
“Perhaps they were made by a large worm,” Sir Eber suggests at some point. “Earthworms do the same.”
“I’d say that’s a bit strong even for a faerie world,” Navarre says, albeit rather weakly.

Our noble heroes continue down the tunnel for about an hour until they reach a fissure of some sort.
“There seems to be no end to this place,” Navarre says, shining his lantern across the fissure and seeing that the tunnel continues beyond it.
“Back to the smithy,” the sorcerer says. “We have to prepare for this.”

When our noble heroes get back to the smithy, they discuss the events of the day.
“The tunnel leads to the mountains,” Sir Suvali says at some point.
“Does it?,” Navarre wonders. “I somehow gathered that it would take us to this ‛Icy Waste’. Strange worlds leading to strange worlds and all that.”
“It could have been a worm,” Sir Eber says once again. “Worms retract and extend their bodies when they move through the earth. Maybe this one uses its body as some sort of coil.”
“The worm came from the hole in the pit,” the chevalier says at this, obviously lost in thought and otherwise quite inebriated. “Then it went into the rift. It is a Primordial Beast.”
Nobody is really sure what he is on about and then the DM volunteers that ‘the dwarves also came from the tunnel’.

This seems to herald the end of the session and so our noble heroes subject the armors and weapons they found to a closer inspection. Navarre tries on one of the dwarven armors and concludes that it is a bit of a tight fit but that he can wear it after some minor adjustments. It is about 10% lighter than his own armor.
“Can’t say that I’ve seen anything like it,” he says, as he continues to inspect the armor. “A dwarven-forged armor. Has a certain ring to it, what?”
Sir Eber spends some time hitting another of the armors with his new hammer, finding that he cannot even scratch the metal.
“Looks like the armor and hammer cannot be damaged by anything,” he says.