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Explorer
72—In the North, all heads turn into the wind.
Thelbar passes his hand through the stack of sealed documents and sworn statements, scattering them across the narrow, low table. He checks the title of each paper as if to reassure himself that he has missed nothing. “I am suspect of Cormyr’s information. These documents read like a field-master’s projections for a silver mine. If Moradin’s name is known to the scribes of Cormyr, they have surely forgotten how to spell it.”
“Still, I am assured that these papers are the whole of it,” Elgin says.
Thelbar smiles to himself. “I doubt that, Elgin. They love you dearly, it is true, but Lathander has frightened them. My brother and I have made it clear that we owe no allegiance to Cormyr—perhaps we should be more concerned with what was not included in these reports.”
“Like what killed all the adventurers they kept sending in?” Taran asks. “What we need to do is find any survivors and get a first-hand account.”
Gorquen sets down a roughly drawn map of the mountain passes near Kor’En Eamor. “How many have died?” she asks.
“Twelve or thirteen, at least,” Taran says. “And that’s just the official count.”
-----
“I am preparing a commune, to be sure,” Elgin Trezler says. The party is discussing spell repertoires in preparation for their journey. “And I’ll have ready a dispel enchantment. In my experience, having a companion dominated is a terrible thing.”
“Yeah,” Taran says with a grin, beginning to brag about how especially terrible it would be if he were the one dominated, but before he can finish he catches Gorquen’s accusing eye, and falls silent.
“Take it twice,” Gorquen says icily as she stares down her suddenly sheepish companion.
-----
The party is able to teleport to the temple of Lathander in Suzail, were they are received without ceremony. From there they use magic (and Gorquen’s new black wings) to fly North into the Storm Horns—the sharp and foreboding mountain range that marks Cormyr’s Northern border. The mountain range buffers the beleaguered kingdom from a large community of rapacious goblinoids, orcs and giants that occupy the Stonelands on the other side of the mountain.
Spring comes late to the Storm Horns, and as the altitude rises, the temperature drops. Snow still covers the mountainside, and a deeply-felt unsettling chill plays amongst the quiet peaks, as if something terrible were always hovering just outside of the party’s vision.
Taran notes several strange weather phenomena, including breezes blowing against the prevaling winds, and thunderheads that form, then dissipate with no storm to show for it. Elgin explains that these phenomena characterize the Storm Horns, but seem to have increased of late. The recent winter was brutal and cruel, he says, and even as far South as Eveningstar the cold took lives.
Several miles north of Eveningstar, well up into the mountain, a fading community called Storm’s Rise scrapes a living out of the mountainside near the entrance to Kor’En Eamor, the cream of its youth withered away to war, disease and isolation.
The town is where the maps mark it to be, but the maps do not tell the tale of this unfortunate place. Built entirely of stone, Storm’s Rise sits on a sharply pointed promontory of rock, isolated by a deep chasm from the mountain around it. Crumbling guard towers lean drunkenly at their posts on opposite ends of a single arched bridge, the only access to the town. The part of the town accessed by the bridge is also its lowest point. Storm’s Rise has only one street; a spiral that winds its way up through dozens of individually made stone dwellings until it culminates at a vast manor-house. As the party flies closer, they see that the town is severely worn down and many of the buildings have begun to crumble and fall away into the depths. Precious few smoke plumes rise from the chimneys of Storm’s Rise, and there is no foot-traffic at all.
In fact, the only visible villager is a single old man wearing a leather helmet and a half-suit of ill fitting ringmail, leaning on a spear near the town-side guard tower.
Taran signals for a halt when he spies the elderly guard. The old man is half asleep and does not notice the flying characters. “Now who the f--k thought this was a good idea?” Taran wonders out loud.
Thelbar grunts his amusement, but Elgin’s voice is soft. “We are likely looking at the only person in town with free time, and lots of it.”
“That’s a good selection criteria,” Taran mutters and he flies ahead, landing directly in front of the man. The elderly guard stares at Taran with wide eyes, a startled gasp puffing visibly out from his mouth in the cold mountain air. Taran regards him, then reaches out and removes the bolt from the man’s crossbow. “Relax,” Taran says. He points back toward his companions. “That’s Elgin Trezler. We’re here to help.”
The old man’s eyes light up. “The Elgin Trezler!” he exclaims. “Praise Lathander! You must be Jumdash Dir.”
“Jumdash Dir got fired for being an a$shole.” Taran spits. “I’m the new a$shole. Where’s your commander?”
The man replies that he does not know.
“Great,” Taran says, and he signals his friends to approach. When they land, Thelbar tells them that he has spotted an elaborate garden terrace next to one of the better-kept homes. The party walks up the winding road to the home, and knocks on the door. Several moments pass, then the top half of a two-part door opens, and a wizened dwarvish face stares evenly at the group, without fear or surprise. The dwarf is old, certainly, but there is no trace of senility in his eyes. His face is round and soft, his beard worn short for such an old man.
“Revered elder,” Thelbar says in dwarvish. “We are here at the behest of Cormyr and the good folk of the realm. We have come to offer assistance and have come to you as friends to the dwarven people.”
“Then you should leave,” the dwarf says in perfect common. “No friends to the dwarves want to be here,” and with that he shuts the door.
“Oh, hell no,” Taran mutters, and pounds on the door again. When the dwarf opens the door with a flat stare, Taran smiles and says, “You have a nice garden. It’s obvious to me that you spend a lot of time keeping it up. The rot-root is going to trouble your spring-bloomers once it warms up a little, but it’s a really nice garden nonetheless. We, on the other hand, are impatient, willful and extremely violent.”
Taran stares at the dwarf for a long moment, the smile suddenly gone from his face. The briefest of smirks crosses the dwarf’s features, and he says, “Go see Ashnern in the Lady’s Manor, and leave me be.”
“Was that so f--king hard?” Taran wonders to himself as he walks away from the dwarf. “Why can’t anyone ever just give it up the first time?”
“Ashnern is a Monstrologist,” Thelbar says. “A scholar named as an associate of the adventurers who fell within Kor-En Eamor. He should be able to provide us with some insight about what to expect within the Delve.”
“And maps,” Taran says. “He’d better have good maps.”
The party makes the long trek up the winding spiral road, and notice along the way that there is some life to the town after all, even if most of it remains inside, or peers at the group through closed shutters. The lone road winds around and between the narrow stone buildings of Storm’s Rise, so steep in places that rough steps are cut into the road. The Lady’s Manor is a small multi-level stone keep whose better days have long since passed. The outer walls are slowly surrendering to rot-root, a form of destructive vining plant that burrows into cracks in a stone wall, enlarging holes and undermining the structure. Many of the windows have been broken out, and replaced with slats of wood, or in the case of the upper levels not at all.
Taran approaches the keep’s side door, and nudges it with his boot. The door swings open, and Taran looks over his shoulder at his companions. “Hello?” he yells. “Ashnern?”
After a moment, a thin, reedy voice emerges from the darkness. “Yes? Who goes there!”
“I have Elgin Trezler here with me,” Taran says. “We are here to help.”
“Elgin Trezler you say?” the voice chirps. A small, white-bearded gnome emerges from the darkness, squinting through a human-sized monacle into the afternoon sunshine. The gnome approaches Taran, looking up into his face. “You must be Jumdash Dir. My name is Ashnern, and I am the Sage of Storm’s Rise.” Ashnern extends a hand, but Taran pushes past him into keep, glancing around the room.
“Greetings, revered sage,” Thelbar says. “We are here at the behest of Cormyr, and we have come to help you. My name is Thelbar Tar-Ilou, you have met by brother Taran, and this is Elgin Trezler.”
“The Elgin Trezler!” Ashnern exclaims. “Great day, Cormyr has heard our plea! Have you reviewed my letters, then sir?”
“Letters?” Elgin says with a kindly smile. “I regret that I have not.”
“My proposal?” Ashnern asks.
Elgin shakes his head no.
“Then you are not here to reinforce the garrison?”
“We were unaware that you required reinforcements,” Elgin says.
“Cormyr has no reinforcements to send in any case,” Thelbar says.
“And we’re better than reinforcements anyway,” Taran says. “We’re going to whip this Delve for you.”
“Are you now,” Ashnern says warily. “A god’s curse lingers on the Great Delve, stranger, and there is no glory to be found within that place, only death. But it is more than just cursed, however mightily so—I believe that Kor’En Eamor is the Dwarvish hell. Were you wise, you would flee from this place and never return.”
Taran looks at his companions with raised eyebrows. “What about the adventurers who made it out?”
“One has returned to her homeland, the other lost her spirit. She is here, if you would speak to her.”
“We would,” Thelbar says. “And we would see your work, as well, friend gnome.”
Ashnern narrows his eyes, and clears his throat. “Well, as to that, I am not sure what you might gain from my meager scribblings, great one. I think it better if you do not.”
“My brother is polite, but that does not make it a request,” Taran says.
“Please, Taran,” Gorquen says. “This man is a great scholar and wizard.”
“I am a scholar,” Ashnern says. “My skill with magic is slight.”
Thelbar leans close. “Do not worry Ashnern, I am a wizard and my skill with the pen is slight. I do not publish.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Then we will begin with the names of the dwarvish fallen. I meant to chronicle them all, but I stopped after fifty thousand. I have not the heart to continue. I believe that Alvodar Cursebreaker memorized them all, and it drove him mad.”
Thelbar passes his hand through the stack of sealed documents and sworn statements, scattering them across the narrow, low table. He checks the title of each paper as if to reassure himself that he has missed nothing. “I am suspect of Cormyr’s information. These documents read like a field-master’s projections for a silver mine. If Moradin’s name is known to the scribes of Cormyr, they have surely forgotten how to spell it.”
“Still, I am assured that these papers are the whole of it,” Elgin says.
Thelbar smiles to himself. “I doubt that, Elgin. They love you dearly, it is true, but Lathander has frightened them. My brother and I have made it clear that we owe no allegiance to Cormyr—perhaps we should be more concerned with what was not included in these reports.”
“Like what killed all the adventurers they kept sending in?” Taran asks. “What we need to do is find any survivors and get a first-hand account.”
Gorquen sets down a roughly drawn map of the mountain passes near Kor’En Eamor. “How many have died?” she asks.
“Twelve or thirteen, at least,” Taran says. “And that’s just the official count.”
-----
“I am preparing a commune, to be sure,” Elgin Trezler says. The party is discussing spell repertoires in preparation for their journey. “And I’ll have ready a dispel enchantment. In my experience, having a companion dominated is a terrible thing.”
“Yeah,” Taran says with a grin, beginning to brag about how especially terrible it would be if he were the one dominated, but before he can finish he catches Gorquen’s accusing eye, and falls silent.
“Take it twice,” Gorquen says icily as she stares down her suddenly sheepish companion.
-----
The party is able to teleport to the temple of Lathander in Suzail, were they are received without ceremony. From there they use magic (and Gorquen’s new black wings) to fly North into the Storm Horns—the sharp and foreboding mountain range that marks Cormyr’s Northern border. The mountain range buffers the beleaguered kingdom from a large community of rapacious goblinoids, orcs and giants that occupy the Stonelands on the other side of the mountain.
Spring comes late to the Storm Horns, and as the altitude rises, the temperature drops. Snow still covers the mountainside, and a deeply-felt unsettling chill plays amongst the quiet peaks, as if something terrible were always hovering just outside of the party’s vision.
Taran notes several strange weather phenomena, including breezes blowing against the prevaling winds, and thunderheads that form, then dissipate with no storm to show for it. Elgin explains that these phenomena characterize the Storm Horns, but seem to have increased of late. The recent winter was brutal and cruel, he says, and even as far South as Eveningstar the cold took lives.
Several miles north of Eveningstar, well up into the mountain, a fading community called Storm’s Rise scrapes a living out of the mountainside near the entrance to Kor’En Eamor, the cream of its youth withered away to war, disease and isolation.
The town is where the maps mark it to be, but the maps do not tell the tale of this unfortunate place. Built entirely of stone, Storm’s Rise sits on a sharply pointed promontory of rock, isolated by a deep chasm from the mountain around it. Crumbling guard towers lean drunkenly at their posts on opposite ends of a single arched bridge, the only access to the town. The part of the town accessed by the bridge is also its lowest point. Storm’s Rise has only one street; a spiral that winds its way up through dozens of individually made stone dwellings until it culminates at a vast manor-house. As the party flies closer, they see that the town is severely worn down and many of the buildings have begun to crumble and fall away into the depths. Precious few smoke plumes rise from the chimneys of Storm’s Rise, and there is no foot-traffic at all.
In fact, the only visible villager is a single old man wearing a leather helmet and a half-suit of ill fitting ringmail, leaning on a spear near the town-side guard tower.
Taran signals for a halt when he spies the elderly guard. The old man is half asleep and does not notice the flying characters. “Now who the f--k thought this was a good idea?” Taran wonders out loud.
Thelbar grunts his amusement, but Elgin’s voice is soft. “We are likely looking at the only person in town with free time, and lots of it.”
“That’s a good selection criteria,” Taran mutters and he flies ahead, landing directly in front of the man. The elderly guard stares at Taran with wide eyes, a startled gasp puffing visibly out from his mouth in the cold mountain air. Taran regards him, then reaches out and removes the bolt from the man’s crossbow. “Relax,” Taran says. He points back toward his companions. “That’s Elgin Trezler. We’re here to help.”
The old man’s eyes light up. “The Elgin Trezler!” he exclaims. “Praise Lathander! You must be Jumdash Dir.”
“Jumdash Dir got fired for being an a$shole.” Taran spits. “I’m the new a$shole. Where’s your commander?”
The man replies that he does not know.
“Great,” Taran says, and he signals his friends to approach. When they land, Thelbar tells them that he has spotted an elaborate garden terrace next to one of the better-kept homes. The party walks up the winding road to the home, and knocks on the door. Several moments pass, then the top half of a two-part door opens, and a wizened dwarvish face stares evenly at the group, without fear or surprise. The dwarf is old, certainly, but there is no trace of senility in his eyes. His face is round and soft, his beard worn short for such an old man.
“Revered elder,” Thelbar says in dwarvish. “We are here at the behest of Cormyr and the good folk of the realm. We have come to offer assistance and have come to you as friends to the dwarven people.”
“Then you should leave,” the dwarf says in perfect common. “No friends to the dwarves want to be here,” and with that he shuts the door.
“Oh, hell no,” Taran mutters, and pounds on the door again. When the dwarf opens the door with a flat stare, Taran smiles and says, “You have a nice garden. It’s obvious to me that you spend a lot of time keeping it up. The rot-root is going to trouble your spring-bloomers once it warms up a little, but it’s a really nice garden nonetheless. We, on the other hand, are impatient, willful and extremely violent.”
Taran stares at the dwarf for a long moment, the smile suddenly gone from his face. The briefest of smirks crosses the dwarf’s features, and he says, “Go see Ashnern in the Lady’s Manor, and leave me be.”
“Was that so f--king hard?” Taran wonders to himself as he walks away from the dwarf. “Why can’t anyone ever just give it up the first time?”
“Ashnern is a Monstrologist,” Thelbar says. “A scholar named as an associate of the adventurers who fell within Kor-En Eamor. He should be able to provide us with some insight about what to expect within the Delve.”
“And maps,” Taran says. “He’d better have good maps.”
The party makes the long trek up the winding spiral road, and notice along the way that there is some life to the town after all, even if most of it remains inside, or peers at the group through closed shutters. The lone road winds around and between the narrow stone buildings of Storm’s Rise, so steep in places that rough steps are cut into the road. The Lady’s Manor is a small multi-level stone keep whose better days have long since passed. The outer walls are slowly surrendering to rot-root, a form of destructive vining plant that burrows into cracks in a stone wall, enlarging holes and undermining the structure. Many of the windows have been broken out, and replaced with slats of wood, or in the case of the upper levels not at all.
Taran approaches the keep’s side door, and nudges it with his boot. The door swings open, and Taran looks over his shoulder at his companions. “Hello?” he yells. “Ashnern?”
After a moment, a thin, reedy voice emerges from the darkness. “Yes? Who goes there!”
“I have Elgin Trezler here with me,” Taran says. “We are here to help.”
“Elgin Trezler you say?” the voice chirps. A small, white-bearded gnome emerges from the darkness, squinting through a human-sized monacle into the afternoon sunshine. The gnome approaches Taran, looking up into his face. “You must be Jumdash Dir. My name is Ashnern, and I am the Sage of Storm’s Rise.” Ashnern extends a hand, but Taran pushes past him into keep, glancing around the room.
“Greetings, revered sage,” Thelbar says. “We are here at the behest of Cormyr, and we have come to help you. My name is Thelbar Tar-Ilou, you have met by brother Taran, and this is Elgin Trezler.”
“The Elgin Trezler!” Ashnern exclaims. “Great day, Cormyr has heard our plea! Have you reviewed my letters, then sir?”
“Letters?” Elgin says with a kindly smile. “I regret that I have not.”
“My proposal?” Ashnern asks.
Elgin shakes his head no.
“Then you are not here to reinforce the garrison?”
“We were unaware that you required reinforcements,” Elgin says.
“Cormyr has no reinforcements to send in any case,” Thelbar says.
“And we’re better than reinforcements anyway,” Taran says. “We’re going to whip this Delve for you.”
“Are you now,” Ashnern says warily. “A god’s curse lingers on the Great Delve, stranger, and there is no glory to be found within that place, only death. But it is more than just cursed, however mightily so—I believe that Kor’En Eamor is the Dwarvish hell. Were you wise, you would flee from this place and never return.”
Taran looks at his companions with raised eyebrows. “What about the adventurers who made it out?”
“One has returned to her homeland, the other lost her spirit. She is here, if you would speak to her.”
“We would,” Thelbar says. “And we would see your work, as well, friend gnome.”
Ashnern narrows his eyes, and clears his throat. “Well, as to that, I am not sure what you might gain from my meager scribblings, great one. I think it better if you do not.”
“My brother is polite, but that does not make it a request,” Taran says.
“Please, Taran,” Gorquen says. “This man is a great scholar and wizard.”
“I am a scholar,” Ashnern says. “My skill with magic is slight.”
Thelbar leans close. “Do not worry Ashnern, I am a wizard and my skill with the pen is slight. I do not publish.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Then we will begin with the names of the dwarvish fallen. I meant to chronicle them all, but I stopped after fifty thousand. I have not the heart to continue. I believe that Alvodar Cursebreaker memorized them all, and it drove him mad.”
