Prologue Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI Part VII Part VIII
Reacting to Bria’s warning, Pol hit the dirt just as a massive guillotine-like blade stabbed down from above. Even though this prevented the fighter from getting waaaay too much taken off the top, she still felt the blade bite into her armored shoulder. Wounded but unbowed, she then used her impressive strength to woman-handle the razor-sharp blade out of the path of her peers.
The way now clear, the explorers pressed on into the vault. At first glance, the chambers appeared to be nothing more than a storage room with three chests sitting along the far wall. Contrary to the sparse decor, Elster seemed to be relieved by the state of the place.
"The hobgoblins must not have gotten this far...nothing looks disturbed. That's good...most of our wealth is contained within these four chests."
"It doesn’t look like much," Bria sniffed, clearly disappointed that they weren't about to take a dip in a swimmable level of gold coins.
"Despite tall tales of great dwarven riches, there is relatively little treasure here at any one time.” Elster explained. “Much of our gold is actually kept outside the stronghold, buried deep in the vaults of Deepdelve or in the possession of traveling merchants. In fact, several shipments of dwarven weapons and armor have yet to be paid for, and likely never will be, unless we recapture the fortress."
Sensing the proximity of more treasure than she’d ever encountered in her hard-scrabble life, Bria made the snap decision to start multi-classing as a rogue / accountant. Before Elster could warn her that the chests were likely trapped, she’d already disabled the device protecting the smaller, iron-bound box and thrown it open. As soon as everyone was assured that nothing would explode, they clustered around, peeking inside to find a “Potion of Haste” and three-hundred glittering gold Crowns.
The second chest was slightly larger, about two feet long, eighteen inches wide and one foot deep. This time the thief was reckless in her haste and a poisoned needle sprang from the case and penetrated her armor. Fortunately, Roman had been anticipating just such an occurrence, and he was quick to rush in and batter the rogue with a flurry of cure spells. After a few tense moments, the crisis was averted.
Inside, the Fellowship discovered a veritable mother-lode: five-hundred gold Crowns, a small cloth pouch holding four small sapphires and a “Cure Moderate Wounds” scroll, which Roman quickly confiscated.
"Good things come in small packages," Lorelei said, eyeing the final chest and rubbing her hands together.
Undaunted by her near-death experience mere moments ago, Bria threw herself into the task, but was immediately flummoxed when she failed to crack the lock on this chest. After much hand-wringing and debate, the group concluded that this was a sign to move along. Begrudgingly, they doubled back out the same way they'd come, completely oblivious to the catastrophe they'd just unwittingly avoided.
After guiding everyone back outside, Elster led them down to the end of the hall and into the now-ironically-named “living quarters.” This large chamber was lined with ten dwarf-sized bunks, most of which were pulled apart and destroyed. As the Fellowship crept inside, they took note of a door leading out of the right hand side of the chamber and the nearly-ceiling-high pile of dirt, smashed furniture and torn fabric piled up in the south-west corner.
"The dragon attack caused a foundation crack, which breached the wall in here," Elster narrated for his team-mates.
As the group approached the mound of refuse in the corner, they noticed two dead hobgoblins, their faces fearful and rigor-set. That’s when Roman was alarmed to notice that the creatures looked as if they’ve been "gnawed upon.”
Before he could shout a warning, Rincewind and Bria dove into the pile, rooting around for anything of value. The thief recovered a small lock box, but before she could open it, the disturbed trash exploded outwards as two giant, vile centipedes wriggled out of the filth.
"Let’s not do that again," he muttered, as Bria cracked open the lock box and started to distribute the one-hundred-and-fifteen gold pieces contained therein.
"Pffft, it was worth it," the thief shrugged dismissively.
Elster then escorted his allies into the second living quarters, located in the northeast corner of the complex. This room was lined with eighteen bunks and, once again, most of them had been pulled apart, as if someone or something had diligently searched the room for treasure and / or hidden dwarves. One other door led out of the room.
Finding precious little of value, the Fellowship moved on into the dining hall. As expected, this chamber was dominated by a long table flanked by a pair of benches. Twelve place settings, including plates, cups and silverware, were all still laid out on the table, completely undisturbed. As our heroes explored the room, they couldn’t help but notice a conspicuous-looking one-foot-wide hole chewed through the bottom of the southern door, as well as the powdery-white, dog-sized paw prints tracked all around the hole.
Despite these omens, the group proceeded to move into the kitchen, finding it in borderline-unsalvageable state. A worn table stood in the center of the room, with pots and pans strewn about, utensils scattered across the floor and a dusting of white powder all over the floor.
After determining that the white powder was actually flour and not evidence of a recent goblin executive power meeting, the heroes followed the tracks to the southwest corner of the room. As they ventured inside, four dire rats concealed within the debris scrabbled out into the dim light to strike out at the interlopers.
Like a coiled spring, Bria launched herself at the lead rat, nearly crippling the creature with a strike from her battlestaff. Elster surged around the table, but his subsequent hammer fall only stirred up a puff of flour on the floor. Lorelei let loose with a crossbow bolt, hoping to skewer the rat that danced away from Elster’s attack, but the creature instinctively twisted out of the way. The dwarf priest suddenly cried out in pain as that same rodent viciously bit him back.
Another rat latched onto Pol’s leg and immediately started to gnaw and tear away. With a well-measured, potent swing, she caught her assailant with the tip of her sword, cleaving it in two with an abbreviated squeak. Meanwhile, Roman ran around the room like a decapitated chicken, striking out at anything hairy and fleeting underfoot, his armor giving him a distinct disadvantage in this deadly game of "whack-a-rat.”
After Bria made short work of her maimed victim, Elster managed hold off the rats long enough to heal up his own nasty wound with a spell. Rincewind snuck up behind the same critter and smashed him across the spine with a quick strike. Lorelei cursed under her breath as she missed her intended target, breaking an urn half-filled with beer (?) instead. She did succeed in driving the rodent right into Pol’s range of attack and the warrior's subsequent sword strike rang true. Almost too true, since Pol was now forced to pry her sword free of a crack in the flagstone floor. Finally, Roman was rewarded for his diligence by liquefying one of his more agile quarry.
Bria continued to be a whirling dervish, felling another rat with her staff. Completely on the defensive now, Elster could only shoo the biggest rodent back with some wild hammer swings, while Rincewind telegraphed a strike on the same determined creature. Reacting to the crush of humanity converging on it, the rat flew right into Elster’s bearded face. After ripping her greatsword free, Pol swore audibly when she saw that she was standing too far away to help her dwarven compatriot.
Running on pure instinct, Elster dropped his hammer, brought his arms up to guard his throat, seized his ratty assailant and then hurled it into a pile of debris in the corner of the room. Bria, Rincewind, and Roman all converged on the spot where it landed, but only succeeded in subduing a pile of pots, pans and other refuse. After vainly rooting through the trash for some conclusive signs of a kill, the Fellowship concluded that the final rat had likely retreated through a hole in the wall.
Hoping to justify their choice to enter this grief-stricken room, our heroes proceeded to tear the chamber apart looking for anything of value. But, after spending a good fifteen minutes searching high and low, they were crestfallen to discover that all they’d found was a fresh coat of flour on their hair, clothes and armor. The one encouraging discovery was that the small chamber to the south east, the entrance to the Spirit Well according to Elster, was still locked up tight as a drum.
"Thank Moradin, but it looks like the invaders didn’t find the key to the Well," Elster observed, dusting his cloak off and checking for residual wounds. "Had it been defiled like the shrine, it would have signaled the death knell for our people."
"Wait!" Bria blurted out. "Did you say ‘key’? I actually found this back in the practice area, where we fought the ghoul."
The adventurers gathered around Bria as she produced a large iron key from one of her numerous belt pouches.
"Okay, when the hell were you going to tell us about that?!" Lorelei snapped, snatching the key away and turning towards Elster.
"When the time was right," muttered the thief, crossing her arms and pouting.
His eyes alight, Elster accepted the item as if it were part of some elaborate religious ceremony. He then beetled his way over to the portal, put the key in the lock, opened the door and then ventured into the Spirit Well, with the rest of the Fellowship trailing after him.
Even though, by now, the group was acutely aware of the dwarves' penchant for modest wonders, they still couldn’t help but feel a bit underwhelmed by the sight just inside the door. At the end of this tiny alcove was a nondescript well standing about two feet high, with a bucket and a rope sitting nearby.
"I don’t know if it was random good fortune or the favor of Moradin himself, but we discovered this magical spring while tunneling out these corridors. Anyone who partakes of the well will be refreshed. Come, have a drink!"
After everyone bathed their wounds and indulged in a quick sip, they were stunned by the water’s healing properties.
"Amazing!" Rincewind sputtered. "I’m gonna lug off as much of this stuff as I can carry. Quick. everyone give me their waterskins! Uh...Lorelei, little help?"
Elster smiled as the elf mage leveled a withering glare at her human counterpart.
"I’m afraid the healing properties can only be used daily...and the water seems to lose its magical influence whenever it’s taken too far away from the well."
"What!? Really? Stupid conditional magic water!" Rincewind muttered. He then sprung up, dropped the bucket, kicked it into the corner and then wandered off.
Laughing in spite of himself, Roman got to his feet and tried to dust himself off.
"Well, we’ve been through everything, haven’t we? Looks like the place is secured."
This time it was the dwarf’s turn to laugh, but the sound was conspicuously devoid of any mirth. If anything, it was a nervous reaction, pregnant with fear.
"If only that were true, my friend. I’m afraid that our greatest challenge still lies ahead of us."
"What do you mean?" Pol demanded, palming the hilt of her sword anxiously.
Elster looked around the chamber as if his thoughts were suddenly very far away.
"Well, in case you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of dead goblins and hobgoblins in here...and they didn’t meet their end at the hands of dwarves."
"Then what was it?" Roman asked, unable to prevent his voice from wavering.
"The sentries at the door told me something in dwarven before we left. They said that something was trapped in the sergeant-at-arms’ quarters...something vicious, something magical..."
"Vicious and magical," Roman muttered. "Wonderful."
"I suspect that, before we’re done, we’ll be needing even greater magiks than the Spirit Well can provide," the dwarf sighed.
Elster heaved himself to his feet, slung his hammer over his shoulder, gestured for the other to follow and started to shuffle down the hall. Unbowed, but still burdened by a fear of the unknown, the group reluctantly fell into formation, unwilling to let their guide stray too far away into the stifling murk of the once-great dwarven hall.
Next up: the Fellowship is forced to confront its greatest challenge yet...and one member of the group will fall!
To be continued...
IMAGE CREDITS:
Treasure chest: https://forgedgaming.com/products/mimic-chest-dice-storage-box-container?variant=31196150497411
Centipede: https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=77
Dire Rat: http://www.electric-rain.net/2015/03/10/menace-manual-dire-rat/
Spirit Well: https://www.kindpng.com/imgv/TJwoTh_fountain-old-stone-wall-old-well-water-pick/
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