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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 385427" data-attributes="member: 143">Thanks guys.  I reviewed my copy of Undermountain this weekend, and charted out a course for our doughty adventurers.  They will visit some of the familiar places (though keep in mind, 3rd edition FR is set about 20 years later), but I can tell you that a lot of what will happen is going to take us to the un-keyed areas of those huge maps.  Wolff, I'll get Pelanther (and Fenrus!) statted up and on the Rogues' Gallery thread this week.  My original conception for him was as a druid/ranger or druid/rogue, but I'm dithering because of the sacrifice of higher-level druid magic that this would require.  What do you guys think?Also, I should mention that I'll be gone for most of October (honeymoon in Hawaii, yay!), but I'm working on a "contingency plan" to keep the story thread active in my absence.  Keep posted! * * * * * Book VI, Part 8The sounds of hammers and chisels hard at work in a dozen pairs of hands echoed through the caverns and tunnels of the Underdark.  The halls of the urdunnir town, until recently haunted only by the eerie sounds of an undead infestation, now resounded with the busy noise of activity as the dwarves sought to rebuild their lives.  There was not much laughter, or sounds of happiness, not yet.  But that would come in time.At the ruined fortification known as the Shield Wall, a party of deep dwarves was hard at work making repairs.  This task was a high priority, for even though the duergar had been all but crushed by the companions from the surface world, the dwarves knew all too well that many other dangers lurked in this harsh realm.  Lok had taken the unprecedented step of sending messages to other, distant settlements of the urdunnir, and even to the shield dwarves above, seeking aid as this community worked to rebuild.  Normally the urdunnir were even more isolationist than most dwarves, eschewing contact with their neighbors, but in this case no one, even the most traditionalist of the elders, spoke in opposition to the genasi who had taken almost a legendary status among them.  Lok himself was mostly quiet, and he often spent time in solitude.  That is not to say that he wasn’t an excellent leader; he provided direction and was always there to help when a particularly difficult project required his assistance.  But inside he felt somewhat apart from this community, not fully part of these people, his people, despite all that he had done for them.  Those he had most wanted to see, his mother most of all, were not to be found among the slaves that he and his companions had freed.  The others spoke of the terrible time of the assault on their homeland and the even harsher days that followed, when many of their people died at the rough treatment of the duergar.  The urdunnir vowed that this would never happen to them again, and one of the first things that they did upon returning was to stoke the forges and set to work crafting arms and armor.  Lok spent much time there, using his skills to give his people the tools they would need to defend themselves.  This morning—though such terms were often meaningless this far under the ground—the workers at the Shield Wall were rebuilding the hinges that would support the massive pair of guardian portals.  The entire community would join in the actual task of mounting the doors, which each would weigh many tons.  One dwarven mason, still thin from his experiences as a slave, was crafting a pivot bolt with the help of two younger apprentices.  He looked down at the device that he was shaping, not fully happy with its upper bevel.  His expression grew focused as he reached down and with his hands pressed into the stone, molding it with the power of his mind and the empathy with the rock that was the heritage of his people.  It was exactly that skill that had made the urdunnir so valuable to the duergar in their mad plot to summon a god.  Within moments, work that would have taken hours using conventional tools was finished, and the mason smiled at his handiwork. Then the sound came, disturbing his focus.  The mason looked up, along with all of the other workers, their combined gazes drawn to the dark tunnel that ran off into forever.The tunnel that they were working to ward against the many dangers that lurked beyond.The sound came again, grew louder.  It was still faint, but recognizable now as a combined babble, the sound of many voices, of movement.  “Sound the alert!” the stonemason shouted, as he and his fellow dwarves rushed into activity.  Arms and armor were situated close by, in the case of just such an occasion, and the craftsmen became warriors as they quickly equipped themselves.  Several of the younger apprentices were sent to alert the rest of the settlement, following the drills that they had already practiced many times under Lok’s direction.  Within minutes, every dwarf in the urdunnir town would be preparing to deal with whatever threat was approaching from the dark ways of the Underdark.The main entrance to the dwarf town was not entirely undefended, although the temporary barriers that the dwarves had created were not nearly as effective as the completed Shield Wall would be.  A low trench had been excavated across the width of the passageway, to delay any assault, and at its far side a metal grating had been constructed across the entire passageway, filling the tunnel to half its height of fifteen feet, topped by a line of curving spikes that would make climbing it a dicey proposition.  The dwarves readied their weapons took up their prepared positions behind the grate, facing out into the darkness of the tunnel.  Several knelt and pressed their ears down to the stone, trying to determine more about those who were approaching through their connection to the stone.  What they sensed became immediately obvious to all of them, as the noises became louder, building upon themselves through the strange acoustics of the Underdark.  The faint voices became a confused medley, raining down a torrent of gibberish that held a distinct undertone of madness that all of those that had suffered at the hands of the duergar could identify with, at least on some level.  But the dwarves, hardened beyond the toughness of the stone they resembled by their ordeals, waited stoically for whatever was coming.  They did not have to wait long.  Within two minutes the first crest of an onrushing wave of dark forms emerged at the edge of their darkvision, filling the tunnel in a crowd twenty feet abreast and many ranks deep.  The creatures that comprised that horde were small, hairy, almost indistinguishable within the mass, their chaotic gibbering taking on a new intensity as they spotted the defenders.  Gibberlings, the humanoid equivalent of army ants, relentless and unstoppable save through death.  The first rank of defenders fired their crossbows through the grating into the onrushing horde.  The bolts could hardly miss, but the few gibberlings that fell barely made a dent in the oncoming mass.  There were hundreds of them, at least, the ranks of creatures running well back into the tunnel until they blended together in an indistinguishable seething mass.    The dwarves reloaded and kept firing, holding their positions even as the mad caterwauling coming from the rush of gibberlings threatened to break through even their stoic front.  The defenders numbered ten dwarves, but they were outnumbered at least twenty to one by the attackers. The gibberlings reached the trench, and without hesitation the wave poured into it without breaking.  The creatures were canny climbers, using their own fellows as ladders as they filled the pit and pressed up the far side.  An untold number were crushed by the fall or by the pressure of their own companions upon their bodies, but the horde paid no heed to its losses.  If anything, now that they were nearly upon their prey their manner grew more fierce, more eager.  The first few that clambered onto the grate died swiftly, run through by dwarven spears or impaling themselves on the sharp metal edges that had affixed to the defensive structure.  But they came on, and the grating began to shake as more and more of the gibberlings clambered up onto it.  “Fall back!” one of the dwarves cried, and the dwarves retreated, falling back to the chamber behind them.  Ahead of them lay the main corridor that ran up into the urdunnir town, only moments away from being filled with swarming gibberlings eager only to kill and destroy.  “Rally behind me!” a voice cried from that corridor, a bold voice that resolved into a figure that emerged into the chamber a few moments later.  Its owner was a familiar form, clad entirely in plate armor, with a heavy shield forged from bluesteel on one arm, and a frost-rimmed battleaxe held at the ready by the other.  Behind the warrior were several other armored dwarves, too few.  “Defensive wedge!” Lok cried, his presence alone bolstering them and fortifying them against their fear.  The dwarves retreating from the Wall joined their comrades from the town and formed a double line that formed to a point, and at that point stood the mighty genasi fighter.  The dwarven defender, champion of his people, chosen of a god.  The gibberlings had amassed enough numbers to push madly forward into the gate, and with a loud crash that echoed through the place it toppled heavily to the stone floor.  More were crushed as the falling gate pinioned them against the floor, or were trampled by their allies rushing up from the pit, but that still left more than a hundred that came forward now in a disorganized but inexorable rush to battle.Lok took one step forward, placing himself even more out in advance of his comrades, and squared himself in a defensive stance as he slammed the head of his axe down against the floor.  The impact sent a single solid note through the chamber, as if stating with resolution, here I stand.  The dwarves gathered a final collective breath, steadying their courage, and then the wave crashed down upon them.</blockquote>

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