Session 23: The Duergar Plot

General Summary

With new formal wear provided by Michael the party met with 8 of the members of the Council of Speakers. Present were Dorbulgruf Shalescar, Duvessa Shane, Trovus, Edgra Durmoot, Danneth Waylen, Nimsy Huddle, Naerth Maxildanarr, and Oarus Masthew. The speaker of Caer-Dineval was unable to attend due to failing health and the speaker for Good Mead had recently been killed and had not yet been replaced.   During the meeting the speakers shared what they knew of the situation as it had been presented them while the party filled in any gaps their knowledge afforded. What was determined was that Ten Towns was being infiltrated by invisible duergar who amongst other things had been stealing chardalyn. The party informed the speakers that the duergar had been working with frost druids for some unknown reason, gathering chardlyn and creating weapons to outfit berserker-like warriors to create an army. The council informed the party that they had recently captured one of the duergar infiltrators and learned from him that their leader, Xardorok Sunblight, had a fortress in the Spine of the World and his efforts were nearing completion. They were unable however to force him to disclose the nature of those plans or the exact location of the fortress.   Several plans were offered up to find the location of the hidden fortress. Veld suggested contacting his clan as they were natives to the mountain range and would be best able to scout it. Edgra suggested tracking down one of the Reghead nomad tribes as they were always on the move and had extensive knowledge about all things crossing the tundra. Danneth hinted that Duvessa might have a group she used to keep tabs on the other towns through magical means and suggested the be used to divine the location of the fortress. Though not admitting to the claims of spying she did acknowledge the group of psychics, though they had been unable to use their abilities for the last month or so as there had been some sort of psychic static being broadcast over the region. The council agreed to offer a bounty of 1,800gp to the party should they manage to save Ten Towns from the duergar threat, with each of the towns putting up part of the purse. Should a town be destroyed their portion obviously would not be included in the payment.   With further knowledge of the cause of this psychic disturbance and an intention to seek it out soon anyway the party chose to head south to investigate the downed ship after meeting with the psychics to finalize a deal. They headed south using Michael's enhanced psychic abilities to point them in the right direction, finally coming to a small valley with the crashed nautiloid ship partially dug into the snow.   They approached cautiously at first until they spotted two large caterpillar like creatures concealed nearby. They engaged and kill them but the resulting fight was observed by a small figure on the upper deck of the ship. Michael telepathically hailed the creature in deep speech, demanding they come out of their ship to deal as they had brought the crystal as requested. The figure refused stating it far too cold outside and invited them into the ship. Inside they saw a small squid-faced humanoid accompanied by a stitched up creature and several small floating squidlings. The small humanoid, detecting the surface level hostility in Michael's mind offered to trade one of their "guns" for the crystal before Michael began casting a spell in hostility.