Episode 27 - What Lies Beneath...

General Summary

Sword of Air

Episode XXVII

What Lies Beneath…

Staring into the darkness of the communal prison cell, Mherren ponders whether he should wait for Haji Baba and Zimlok to talk their way out of this predicament, or just take matters into his own hands. The Druid seems like a good negotiator, but that blasted bird is a liability. He growls unconsciously with the effort of thinking, causing his Svirfneblin cellmates to press themselves a little harder against the prison bars at the far end of the cell. The half-dozen Deep Gnomes have left a cautionary no-man’s land around the huge, scarred Half-Orc, and eye him with surreptitious suspicion from under their unkempt brows.
An hour or so passes, and Mherren hears a commotion building somewhere outside the lockup. There is shouting, and the unmistakable clanging of steel on shield. He stands up and peers through the bars into the gloom. The prison guards draw their short swords and step cautiously towards the entrance, exchanging nervous glances. A flurry of movement in the shadows. And then, all hell breaks loose as several wild-eyed Svirfneblin launch themselves at the guards and run them through. It is over before Mherren can draw another breath.
He watches as the aggressors relieve the guards’ dead bodies of their keys and proceed to open the cell doors. Strangely devoid of signs of jubilation, the prisoners file out with grim expressions on their faces, nodding to their liberators and following them out into the Neblinhala. Shortly after, more sounds of fighting drift to Mherren’s ears. He stands there, dumbfounded, trying to work out what just happened. In a state of Orcish confusion, he tiptoes needlessly out into the empty anteroom, gathers his possessions, and, wincing at the whining cell door, carefully reincarcerates himself.
There Mherren hunkers, listening to the raging rebellion outside, until he hears the faint padding of soft catlike steps. He looks up to see the familiar face of Lightstrike beaming down at him.
“I thought I’d find you here!” says the Wereleopard cheerily. For some reason he is dripping wet and caked in garbage. “Boy, have I been on an adventure…” And he begins to recount his exploits with Ki-Shun in the Feywild as they run through the tunnels and out into the chaos of the subterranean ravine.
“There! That’s where I leapt over them all!” says Lightstrike proudly. The swinging, creaking bridges are packed with brawling Gnomes. Looking up to where they suspect their friends are, they see fighting everywhere, punctuated by small flailing bodies plummeting into the canyon. Too many to carve through, even for these two mighty heroes. Instead, they decide to climb. Mherren channels his dark magic and scampers spiderlike up the wall, with Lightstrike clinging to his back, until they reach a ledge not yet breached by the rebels. Nearby, uniformed Svirfneblin hold back the pressing throng, and there, around the corner from towering double doors, two shadowy figures are disappearing down a narrow fissure…

*

Towering double doors grind open as Haji Baba and Zimlok are herded into a large, sparse chamber hewn of fine-cut stone and decorated with patterned murals and silver chandeliers. Once it might have had an air of spartan grandeur, but now the walls are partially caved in, rubble spilling over the cracked floor tiles. At the far end is a simple, stone throne, upon which broods an elderly, frail-looking Deep Gnome with a wispy white beard and untamed eyebrows. Surrounding him are several guards with halberds, each wearing a silver brooch upon their lapel.
“O Gaffer, we found these two in the Hvelic crypts down below,” pronounces Eberneb. “They claim to ‘ave been looking for a couple of looters, whom we also found and threw in the lockup. Thought you might want to check out their story for yerself?”
“Hmm.” The elderly gnome strokes his beard and furrows his hirsute brows short-sightedly as he studies the Halfling and Kenku. He clambers from his throne with surprising litheness and, squinting and chuntering, walks up to the two companions.
Zimlok bows with a theatrical flourish and Haji Baba grudgingly does likewise, although without the Wizard’s ridiculous flamboyancy. “O noble king, ‘tis true,” says Zimlok beseechingly. “We are but two humble head-hunters in pursuit of our dastardly quarry. Let us have our prisoners and we shall be on our way!”
The king waggles a familiar-looking sceptre at Zimlok. “You’re a funny-looking thing, aren’t you? Never seen anything quite like you before! Now, why should I believe you?”
At that moment a dishevelled Svirfneblin rushes in and deferentially approaches the king. “Chief Slibbenorbin, there has been a breakout! One of the new inmates has escaped, along with the dragon man… and Knobberknocker!”
Slibbenorbin turns to him angrily. “Well, hunt him down, damn it! Or you know what will be next! And double the guard on the other one!”
“Yes, my Gaffer.” And the messenger rushes out in a panic.
The chief scowls and turns back to the two heroes. “Look what you’ve brought upon us! That infernal mage will stoke another rising of the Ironhackers against us. It will be civil war!”
“With respect, O king, we did not bring anything upon you,” says Haji Baba with even, measured tones, eyeing the immovable rod in Slibbenorbin’s hand. “We would have captured our prey and been gone from these caverns were it not for your men’s interference. But now that we are involved, we would aid you, if we can. Tell us, is it the Duergar to whom you refer?”
The chief, somewhat taken aback by Haji Baba’s steady gaze and quiet confidence (which verges on menace), looks her up and down and begins to pace nervously. “We have not had to deal with the Duergar for some months now. Their patrols are still frequent in the Deeps, and the foundries of Nidlhammer ring with the sound of hammer on anvil, but they have not raided our mines nor trespassed the boundaries of the Neblinhala cleft as they used to. Rather, the Grimlocks of Garzh-Nesh have been more of a nuisance of late. We have spied upon them conducting dark rituals and worshipping strange idols. They grow bolder and stray closer to these halls…”
“And the Duergar? Have you seen them take any captives of late?” interrupts Haji Baba. “You see, there is one other we seek. An Elf. We suspect she has been taken by these Dark Dwarfs.”
“I did receive a report of an Elf being taken, yes.”
“What did she look like?”
Slibbenorbin gestures to Eberneb, who says, “She was dressed like a Ranger of Qualimor. Dark hair. Unconscious.” Haji Baba frowns. Elovyn Sorrowsong had fair hair, and wore the white robes of a Priest of Arden. “Dark hair? Are you sure?”
“Quite sure.”
The Druid turns back to the chief. “Sire, we would investigate the doings of your Duergar foes, and report back to you, if that be your will. We believe they have our third assignment, and we may be able to track down the escapee along with this dragon man and the Knibberknacker of whom you tell.”
“Knobberknocker will not have gone far. He will be rallying his band of traitors as we speak,” spits Slibbenorbin. “As to the Dragonborn and your own prisoner, I care little. But if you wish to investigate the situation at Nidlhammer, I will not stop you. It is baffling that Moradin should have ceased his aggressions so suddenly and completely. But be warned. Do not take the direct route through the tunnels. Duergar still patrol these vicinities. You would be caught or killed, for certain.
“But there is another way – through the ruins of Hvela. Take the passage at Bottombottombridge. It will lead you to the ancient Dwarfish city that was the realm of the Children of Uden, before the Great Exile and The Change. Now it stands empty, although doubtless many of their ingenious defences and traps still function. And there are creatures that dwell there now. Abominations you would be wise to avoid. Still, it is a wiser route than the direct road. Sneakier, at least, but nonetheless deadly.”
“And our other prisoner?”
“I see no reason to release him.”
“Not even for this?” And Haji Baba produces a giant pearl from her bag of holding, which glitters in Slibbenorbin’s eyes.
“Very well,” he agrees after a moment, reaching out covetously.
“And that,” says the Druid, nodding at the immovable rod. “That is ours, too. A worthless trinket, but it is of great sentimental value to my friend here.”
Zimlok attempts a forlorn look.
“This? I have not had it long. My men said they found it being used as a door wedge above the crypts. I was going to use it as a back scratcher…” He eyes the pearl greedily. “So be it. You have a deal. Take your prisoner, and find out what Moradin is up to. Now, I must give my attention to the plotting of the mage usurper…”
He pauses. Listens. There is a commotion without. The din of clashing steel. Cries of pain. Barked orders.
Slibbenorbin curses. “Ach! Already?!” He sends Eberneb with a number of his heavies to go and man the bridge, keeping a handful of bodyguards with him in the throne room. “Go, then!” he yells at Haji Baba and Zimlok. “Go!”
On their way out, Zimlok catches a glimpse of a diminutive figure scurrying away around a corner. Seeing fighting at the Gaffersbridge, they decide to follow. Rounding the corner, they see the figure disappearing down a narrow fissure in the rock wall. “C’mon! This might be our ticket outta here!” says Zimlok, and gives chase.
Before Haji Baba can remind him of the need to locate their absent fellows, they are swiftly overtaken by a sprinting, grinning Lightstrike, followed by a wheezing Mherren. The Rogue, catching on quick, darts after the retreating figure, pouncing and bringing it to the ground. Mherren jogs up and plucks it from the ground by the scruff of the neck, its little legs still cycling frantically.
“Please don’t hurt me! I didn’t mean no harm! Was just curious, is all! Never seen the likes of you before!” It is a Svirfneblin boy, wide-eyed with fear.
“How do we know you’re not a nasty goblin come to murder us?” growls Zimlok, trying to look menacing.
“I’m… I’m not a goblin. I’m Fibblestib. I’m a Gnome! I was hiding in the walls – I’m sorry! I heard you saying you were looking for an Elf. Well, I saw one. The Duergar took her. All roped up and gagged, she was.”
“What did she look like?” asks Haji Baba.
“Erm, erm…”
Mherren gives him a shake.
“She had long blonde hair,” he blurts. “And was all dressed in white. And the Dwarfs had a big bag full o’ books. That’s all I saw. I swear it!
“… Put me down?”
Mherren releases his grip and Fibblestib drops to the floor in a heap. He looks up in abject terror at the looming Half-Orc above him.
“Where does this passage lead?” says Zimlok, prodding.
“It leads down. Away from the fighting.”
“You can show us a way to Hvela?”
The boy nods mutely.
“Take us there.”
They follow the whimpering child down through the cramped passageway, which descends steeply through the face of the Neblinhala cleft. As the passage widens and levels off, Mherren hoiks Fibblestib on to his shoulders.
The Svirfneblin boy seems to relax a little, and perhaps even to enjoy the ride. Eventually they join another tunnel. “You’ll cross two bridges,” says the boy. “Then look out for a chimney hole, like a gullet going straight down. It will drop you into the Halls of Hvela. Below the ruins runs the Hlokeduin, an underground river that flows out of the Elf kingdom to the west. Follow it until you reach the mushroom caves. Beyond these caves, you are close to Nidlhammer. Good luck!” He pauses, and regards Zimlok quizzically. “What kind of bird are you, anyway?”
Suddenly feeling very self-conscious, Zimlok fluffs up his feathers and squawks: “Begone!” And he stalks off down the tunnel, preening himself and muttering, “Bird indeed! The cheek!”
They trek along the tunnel for nearly an hour, eventually reaching a fork. Which way to go? Had Fibblestib duped them? Or just forgotten? From the right-hand passage there is a swelling sound, unidentifiable but rapidly growing in volume. Pattering feet. Hundreds of them, closing fast. His spiderclimb still active, Mherren scuttles to the dark ceiling of the left-hand tunnel, Lightstrike clinging to his back once more. Haji Baba morphs into a scorpion and slips into one of Zimlok’s copious pockets, who clicks the heels of his boots together and spiderclimbs up with Mherren. They wait with bated breath.
Out of the gloom comes what can only be described as a swarm of Grimlocks, surging up the tunnel like an army of ants, their numbers so great that they climb over each other and up the walls in their frenzy. If the Grimlocks were to continue straight on, the fellowship would surely be spotted. Mherren’s grip begins to slip. He grits his teeth. Zimlok squeezes his eyes shut. The horde is upon them, chattering and slavering, all limbs and jutting teeth. And at the last second, it swerves up the passage the heroes have just travelled down, in the direction of the Neblinhala. There are so many, it takes a minute or two for the swarm to pass.
Then – silence.
Zimlok dares to open one eye.
“C’mon, scaredy-cats,” he says, trying to sound breezy, but a tremble in his voice gives him away.
“Who are you calling a scaredy-cat?” demands Lightstrike huffily.
They descend from the ceiling and continue along this left-hand tunnel, which widens into a large cavern bisected by a wide crevasse. The remains of a broken stone bridge span half the chasm. Employing their spiderclimb technique once more, they negotiate the obstacle… almost. Lightstrike loses his grip and plunges down thirty feet on to hard stone with a horrible crunching sound. After a few seconds he staggers, limping, to his feet. “I’m all right,” he blows, rubbing his haunches. “… I think.”
After another hour or so negotiating their way through a field of jagged statagmites, they come to another crevasse. This one is spanned by a rope bridge, intact but rickety-looking, with frayed ropes and missing timbers. Zimlok and Scorpio-Baba deploy the same tactic as before, after Zimlok uses his wand of secrets to check for traps, but when Mherren tries to set off up the walls he sprawls flat on his back: the spiderclimb spell has worn off. He and Lightstrike eye the rope bridge suspiciously, then an idea strikes Mherren. The Elf Queen’s ring!
He runs his fingers across the black opal in its silver claw setting, visualising a shadowy, ethereal bridge that suddenly materialises like black, coiling smoke across the ravine.
As Zimlok and Haji Baba, who drops her scorpion form, reach the floor of the far side of the cavern, their eyes widen as they watch their friends’ crossing. For emerging from the dark recesses of the chasm, and looming over the comparatively tiny forms of Mherren and Lightstrike, five huge, glistening tentacles undulate towards them. One wraps around the Wereleopard’s waist, lifting him effortlessly into the air. He attempts to slash at it with his dagger, but the creature’s hide is too tough and the blade glances off. Mherren throws him a rope, remembering at the last second to keep hold of the other end, but then another writhing tentacle grasps the Warlock by the ankle and hoists him into the air as well. Both tentacles flail around for a second, as though toying with their victims, before withdrawing back into the darkness below.
Haji Baba tries an infestation spell, to little effect, but Lightstrike just manages to tie the end of his rope around the immovable rod and throw it to Zimlok. Mherren does the same as he is pulled inexorably downwards, using his mage hand to take one end to the Wizard. As he secures both ropes and clicks the button on the rod to anchor them, he spies Haji Baba preparing to strike the ground with the end of her thunder staff. “Noooooooooooo!” he yells in needlessly melodramatic slow motion, and simultaneously throws a card from his deck of illusions to the ground. An illusory cloud giant springs from the card and leaps at Zimlok’s command into the rift.
A second passes. The ropes are straining to breaking point. The cloud giant is lost!
Haji Baba throws caution to the wind and slams the butt of her staff into the ground, sending a sonic wave of rolling thunder down into the pit. The whole cavern shakes, and the tentacles writhe and go limp, slamming Mherren and Lightstrike into the canyon walls.
“Do I have to do everything round here?” says Haji Baba.
Zimlok trips over the immovable rod and stubs his toe. (-1 hit point – DM)
They haul on the ropes, muscles and sinews straining, a new vein popping rather unpleasantly out of Haji Baba’s forehead, until finally two hands – one greenish, one leopard-spotted – reach up and clutch on to the lip of the crevasse.
As they drag the semi-conscious forms of Lightstrike and Mherren away from the edge, one feebly snaking tentacle reaches out towards them from below, and Haji Baba gives it a smart bop on its tip with her staff. The thing retracts and slithers back into the gloaming.
The Druid heals the worst of their wounds with her magic, as Zimlok attempts to appear useful with an illusory medical bag. As usual, the only one he’s fooling is himself.
Having recovered sufficiently to make it out of the cave, the four adventurers make a dash for it before the tentacled aberration recovers. Exhausted, they stagger on until they find the ‘gullet’ that Fibblestib had spoken off. They examine the squeeze-hole fearfully, but, with no safe passage back, they climb down, wedging themselves by their backs and feet and edging down bit by bit for seemingly interminable hours of claustrophobic, agonising descent.
Finally, soaked in perspiration, delusional and almost in tears, they drop out of the bottom of the hole into a low hallway that leads into a massive, cathedral-like space whose ceiling is so high it is obscured from sight even with their darkvision. Their steps ring out and echo in the perfect silence. Innumerable cracked pillars like titans’ legs rise from the floor and disappear from view above them. Their circumferences are carved with Dwarfish runes and geometric patterns, and here and there a piece of masonry betrays even older roots, bearing traces of cave paintings similar to those they found at the entrance to the caverns. Some of these paintings appear to depict great leviathans like monstrous whales – a strange thing to find so far from the ocean. Hung from another pillar is a rotting tapestry, faded and riddled with holes. But a similar sea behemoth appears in this, too, along with fragments of Dwarfish poetry that reads:

Dark-hearted One
The God Below
A solid sea
Doth gird his soul

Too numb with exhaustion to care, they sit down where they stand and make what preparations they can to sleep. Just as they are discussing who should take first watch, they hear a strange dragging and clomping sound. It grows louder, and then a man in rags, with rotten flesh sloughing off his bones, shuffles towards them out of the surrounding darkness, clutching in one fist a sorry-looking bloom of black-petalled flowers sprouting from a single, thorny, purple stem.
He brandishes the morbid bouquet at Haji Baba, and, his dislocated jaw working in a most disconcerting manner, whispers huskily:
“Why do I get all the difficult jobs? Thought I’d never find you. Well, here you go. Happy bloody Druid’s Day.” The postal zombie thrusts the gloomy plant at Haji Baba, who hasn’t quite worked out whether or not she is hallucinating, and limps off back into the shadows.
It is only as she catches scent of the bouquet that Haji Baba realises it was not only the zombie who stank of death. As she inhales the sickly odour of decomposition, the very air around the flower begins to hum with silent screams…
XP: 300 each
Is this some awful waking nightmare? A sleep deprivation-induced mirage?
Will our intrepid fellowship ever get to have a nice snooze? Or to have a good poke around to see what their newly-acquired magic items do?
Can they negotiate the Halls of Hvela unscathed? What strange beast do the pillars and tapestry represent? Will they find the Hlokeduin and the mushroom caves that lead towards Nidlhammer? Why have Moradin’s Duergar ceased their aggressive incursions on the Neblinhala?
And will they find Elovyn Sorrowsong there? … Alive? Find out in the next riveting episode of…

Ye Sword of Air!

Report Date

21 Mar 2021