Hey, thanks Wolff. I had a lot of fun too--I haven't played the SP campaign since last week, I'm having so much fun with the toolset and the DM client.
Next game tonight: "The Crossroads." It is a compilation of all of the modules I've mad thus far connected to a central area with a tavern, NPCs, and quests. Drop on by if you can (game starts at 7p.m. Pacific). More details can be found in my game announcement thread on the Software forum.
And here's your update, as promised!
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Book V, Part 11
The next few days found their pace slowing considerably, as the relatively smooth tunnels they’d traversed since leaving the urdunnir town were increasingly replaced by uneven changes in slope, narrow ledges that ran around deep gorges, and yawning clefts that were often too wide to simply jump across. Their skills and their magical abilities allowed them to bypass each of these obstacles in turn, but each subsequent barrier dragged their pace down further.
As they progressed, each of the companions could feel the oppressive weight of their surroundings draw tight around them like a cloak, and they spent most of the time walking in silence, the only sound the scraping of their boots on the stone. During their rest periods they did discuss what they knew of their foes and what they might expect, but even those conversations were wooden and flat, lacking the spark that one found out under the open sky above. One thing that both Lok and Cal remarked upon was that the deep dwarves were reputed to be sensitive to bright light, a trait that was fairly common among those races that lived far from the sunlit surface of the world above. The next morning Dana added to her list of spells a pair of powerful divine enchantments that could summon a light as strong as daylight.
Hopefully, that would give them an edge in the coming confrontation that loomed larger with each step they took.
It was still early on the third day after their confrontation with the beholder-kin and the drow scout when the twisting passageway they’d been following opened onto a vast natural cavern. The tunnel ended in a wide ledge that overlooked the open space beyond, the floor below lost in the darkness that surrounded them. Even Cal’s low-light vision was not enough for them to mark the bottom of that chasm, but there was no other apparent direction to go but down. A quick search revealed a narrow, steep, twisting trail that ran down the cliff face from one corner of the ledge, the route barely a hand-span’s thickness at places.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding,” Benzan said, after noticing their prospective route. “Even I would have a tough time negotiating that.” He glanced pointedly at Lok, who seemed grimly determined even as he avoided the lip of the ledge.
“What are you worried about—you’ve got that sword, you can levitate right down,” Dana pointed out. “Maybe we can repeat what we did in the shaft,” she suggested.
“Um… I think I’d rather avoid that, if we could,” Cal said, and although Lok did not speak it was clear by his slight change of expression that he agreed. “Besides, I’d like to know what’s down there, before we go dropping anywhere.”
“One scouting mission, coming right up,” Dana said, straightening as she closed her eyes and entered her communion with her goddess. But Benzan forestalled her.
“Cast the spell on me. I can see in the dark, so the light won’t give me away to anything that might be out there, and I’m better at not being seen.”
Dana seemed to bristle for a moment at the suggestion, but Cal nodded. “It makes sense,” he said.
Dana’s expression softened, and she cast the spell, granting the power of flight to the tiefling. “Be careful,” she told him.
“Wow… I like this, I like this a lot,” he said, testing out the power as he spun in the air and swooped around the circumference of the ledge in a tight spiral. “All right then, be right back,” he finally said, and he shot down into the darkness.
At Cal’s suggestion Dana retreated back into the passage a short distance, so that her light would not show them so clearly on the ledge. Minutes crept on as they waited, with nothing but the silence of empty blackness all around them.
“He’s coming back,” Lok finally said, his voice a low rumble.
“I see him,” Cal replied.
Moments later the tiefling reappeared over the edge of the cliff, looking none the worse for wear for his exploration.
“Well, did you see anything?” Cal asked.
“It’s basically just a big cavern,” Benzan said. “The floor is very uneven, but passable. It’s about a hundred feet down from the ledge here—and lots of pointy rocks down there, so I’d not recommend taking the fast way down. There’s a few exits on the far side, more tunnels by the look of them, but I didn’t explore any further than a quick look.”
“No occupants, then?”
“Well… I didn’t see anything, but there was a moment or two… It was a probably nothing, but I had the feeling that someone or something was watching me. With my ring, I’m not sure how anyone could detect me, especially since flying is silent, but I’ve learned to trust my instincts.”
“As have we,” Cal said. “But there’s nothing to be done for it now; if there is something down there, it saw us the moment we stepped onto the ledge with our torch. Let’s make our way down.”
They negotiated the cliff fairly easily, with Benzan shuttling down Cal and Dana with the still-potent power of Dana’s spell, and Lok descending down a length of rope from their bag. Benzan flew up to recover the rope once the genasi had finished the descent. He avoided making the obligatory comment about it being a tougher route on the way back—for the moment, they needed to remain fixed on their current errand, and worry about what might come after later.
By the time they were ready to start out again the spell of flying had expired, so Benzan walked alongside the others as they made their way over the uneven floor of the cavern. Benzan’s comments had been accurate; the stony surface undulated like the waves on a stormy sea, and it took them nearly an hour before they drew near enough to the far side of the cavern to see the tunnel entrances that Benzan had noted earlier.
It happened so suddenly that none of them had time to do anything but start in surprise. One moment they were alone, trudging across the cracked stone in the reassuring light of their torch…
…and the next they were surrounded by dark, powerful forms that rose up out of concealment amidst the neighboring stones and crevices. There looked to be dozens of them, all fur and muscles and malevolence as they formed a ring around the four surfaceworlders, holding back ten paces distant like a wave surging against an invisible barrier that was about to come crashing down. They were ferocious in appearance, their faces almost like those of the forest bears common in the Western Heartlands, with more stubby, broader jaws and penetrating eyes that showed a glint of intelligence. Their fur was streaked with jagged lines of dark color, letting them better blend in with the surrounding stone, and some of them carried weapons, crude items of stone and metal that nonetheless looked menacing in their powerful hands.
Surrounded, the companions reflexively formed a defensive square, their hands darting to weapon hilts, wands, or spell components.
“Don’t make any aggressive moves,” Cal cautioned.
One of the creatures stepped forward out of the ring, its eight-foot height and broad, powerful shoulders setting it apart from its brethren. It carried a massive two-handed mace fashioned of flat, black metal, and its hands tightened almost eagerly around the haft as it faced the companions. The streaks of dark pigment that darkened its fur formed jagged lines across its face, enhancing its already considerably ferocious appearance.
“Jabbrak mathur, nak tok toros,” it said, its voice a combination of deep growls and sharp, angry barks. “Mak torak chik tik marghnak.” As he finished, a growl passed through the surrounding ring like a tremor, and they seemed to lean forward, as if waiting for a single word to unleash them.
“Anybody speak bear-man?” Benzan asked between clenched teeth.
“It’s a dialect of Undercommon,” Lok said. “He says we have trespassed upon the territory of the quaggoth.”
“Oh, that can’t be good,” Benzan muttered.
“Kak margh ak braktoth,” the quaggoth warrior said, punctuating his statement with a feral grin that showed his thick, uneven teeth.
“He says that the penalty is to be torn to pieces,” Lok translated.
The ring closed in, slowly.
). But I've decided to stick with it--usually these "writer's funks" pass and the words start pouring out again. Today I forced myself to just sit down and write for a few hours (update tomorrow morning--I left the disk at work). I want to at least finish the story through the end of book V, as I have some big ideas I want to work through before I give my characters a chance to breathe (not too deeply, though...). There's no shortage of ideas (I've got at least enough material for 4-5 more books... mostly wrapping up all those loose threads Krellic mentioned), and hopefully I'll be able to put some of them down in words before the story loses all interest for me. 
