Ruins of Elendon, Part One

As the cave entrance closed behind us, we were amazed by a wondrous view. Spread out before us in this vast cavern was a large city of long ago. This city was something from the old country, probably build sometime during the second age. This was something that no other person in Quandra has seen in centuries.
 
Since this was Andar’s expedition, he led the way and we differed to him as to where to go. We traveled through the abandoned streets marveling that the buildings were so well preserved. This underground city has not been ravished by time nor the elements as a city on the surface would have been. Our goal was a large building that we saw off in the distance, probably a church or cathedral.
 
All was quiet and we did not expect to encounter any living being in our exploration. As it turned out, we were correct, although we soon discovered that we were not alone. It was quickly evident that the city was not uninhabited as we were soon accosted by the denizens of Elendon. We heard movement all around us and my divine senses detected the presence of a large number of corrupted undead. I detected that these were of the same make as the ones we first encountered in the little village outside of Malletford.
 
We took refuge in an ally hoping that the vial creatures would not detect our presence. Unfortunately, one of the creatures found us, but we easily dispatched it. As it turned out, these creatures were not as tough as the previous creatures that we have encountered probably due to their ancientness. These creatures may be more easily dispatched, but their vast number more than makes up for their vulnerability.
 
The noise of dispatching this one drew the attention of the rest of them in this neighborhood so we took refuge in a nearby abode hoping that the rest of the creatures would pass us by. Unfortunately, that would not be the case as these creatures were on the hunt and would soon detect our presence no matter what precautions we took. As they amassed in the street outside our hiding place, I guarded the door ready to take out the first one of these vile creatures that came through.
 
As I was carefully looking out of the door, I was witness to a large tidal wave of water that washed away all but a small handful of our opponents. I had not seen her do it, but I knew that this was Willow’s handywork. A few of the remaining creatures came through the door and the windows, but the combine efforts of myself, Andar, and Fang soon made quick work of dispatching them. It seemed that we all had a knack for hard jelly. We were convinced that the coast was clear for now, so we continued our trek to the large building that we had seen off in the distance.
 
We were soon accosted by another large group of the vile creatures. Our leader, Andar, concluded that we could probably evade our foes if we would travel through the buildings instead of in the streets. This proved to be a wise choice as we made good time and arrived at our target destination without any further encounters with the walking dead.
 
We eventually arrived at our destination; a grand temple carved into the cavern wall. Outside, in the center of a dead garden was a huge statue of some long forgotten humanoid. The upper portion of the grand carving was shattered, remnants of who or what it was scattered all over the ground. The only remaining portion of the statue was from the waist down, showing that it was humanoid and bi-pedal.
 
We were greeted by a mysterious robed figure; its features hidden. It gestured with one human-looking arm for us to follow. It opened the doors to the temple and led us through a smooth hallway roughly forty feet in length to the main temple room. It continue to a large stone door with a smoky looking appearance shot through with black veins like water drops.
 
This opened to a cavernous room with a tusked skull altar. Standing in front of the altar were two individuals. One of the individuals introduced himself as Zelmazoc. This was the elven wizard that raised so much havoc in Highfield and was the reason for our journey into the mountains and subsequently the corrupted Fey Realm. The other person introduced himself as Ardane Delorian, a name unfamiliar to me. I found out later that Willow and Andar had had dealings with this person before we became a fellowship.
 
Since Andar had communicated with this individual before, Zelmazoc, he took the lead on conversation with Willow as back-up. The conversation seem to be going well, until Andar and Willow started to tell bald-faced lies. The lies were not small ones but rather large unbelievable ones. Zelmazoc quickly saw through the fabrications and became extremely angry. An attack on us was imminent, except that Ardane stepped in and diverted his attention long enough for our fellowship to exit the temple. We met with no resistance from the monks in the main chamber, but outside was a different story.
 
The battle between Zelmazoc and Ardane was loud and raucous. They made so much noise that they attracted most all of the undead creatures in the city. We had a fairly defensible position at the bridge in front of the temple, but we looked for alternate means of egress. On one side, Andar found the ground dropped off to a deep chasm, but if we were really lucky, we could descend by jumping down from ledge to ledge. On the other side, I found a tunnel that lead downward. This seemed like a more sensible means of travel, so we took it. Andar and Fang led the way while I took up the position of rear guard with everyone else in between us.
 
This tunnel spiraled down and down and down until we found an intercepting tunnel that crossed our path. This tunnel was perfectly smooth and unnatural looking. We decided that we did not want to meet the architect of this tunnel, so we continued downward until it finally leveled off and we found more buildings. These building were carved out of the stone of the walls. The architecture was similar to what we had seen in the city above. We deduced that this could have been the original city and abandoned when the city above was built.
 
A ways after leaving this second city, we found another intersecting tunnel. This one was also too smooth to be natural or caved by hand. We also discovered the remains of a hapless creature that was not able to get out of the way of the tunnel creator. The remains had hard leathery skin almost chitinous with tuffs of long spikey hair. This just reinforced our desire not to meet the creator of the smooth tunnels.
 
We did not encounter the smooth tunnel maker, but we did encounter a creature that matched the remains that we had found earlier. Andar was scouting up ahead with Fang when a large creature burst out of the side of the tunnel wall that we were traversing. It grabbed Andar and disappeared into the wall on the other side of the tunnel. It happened so quickly, one minute he was there the next he was gone, that we did not see what type of creature had taken him.
 
All of us hastily pursued the creature and Andar and soon entered a large cavern where we saw the creature attempting to eat Andar. The wedge-shaped creature was massive and powerfully built, standing roughly eight feet tall, measuring nearly five feet across, and weighing in the neighborhood of eight hundred pounds. It looked something like a cross between a great ape and a beetle. Armor plates covered nearly all of its chitinous body. It had sparse, course hair that could have been scattered feelers for feeling its way in the dark of the earthen depths. It had a low, rounded head that was dominated by a massive pair of mandibles and rows of triangular teeth.
 
The creature had Andar in a powerful embrace, attempting to render his body to mincemeat. Andar seem to be mesmerized by the creature, unable to defend himself or attack the creature, so the rest of us quickly rushed in to aid and save Ander before he was shredded to death.
 
Our attacks seem to frighten the creature as it burrowed into the ground to escape. Escape was not what this creature had in mind. The crafty creature burrowed underground, came up next to me out of the ground, and delivered three successful, powerful attacks on me. The creature’s devastating attacks nearly did me in, but with the combined attacks of my companions, I was able to deliver the final blow that ended this creature’s life before it could take any of ours.
 
Luckily, no one else was seriously hurt and my injuries we quickly attended to. With all of us safe and out of harm’s way for the time being, and with our long trek and ordeals behind us, we settled down for a much needed short rest.