Chapters

Skeletons!: You gotta understand, I’m shooting blanks!

Zombies!: Every time we come down something worse is here

Spores!: Don’t poke anything in here

Leave no door unopened: No-one likes the fungus is what I’m hearing

The Gulthias Three: I saw a dragon, and guess what? I saw an Owlbear!

The Aftermath!: Oh my gosh, that’s amazing!

---

Skeletons!

After a short period of rest, Eearwaxx announced a plan. “I’m going to ask Haberdash to fly down and tell us what’s down there. It’s a spirit creature so it can talk to me,” he explained happily.

Arlington could find no flaw in this suggestion — in fact it was a clever one, cleverer than he might have expected from one so young.

Eearwaxx sent Haberdash off with a whisper, and the great owl flew freely down the shaft. Thick, pale vines lined the shaft all the way to the bottom eighty-feet below. The vines looked as good as knotted rope for the purpose of climbing.

The shaft opened into a wide cavern. Luminescent fungus, shedding violet light, clung to the walls and ceiling. Haberdash perched atop the lowest vine to observe what lay beyond. She reported the air was surprisingly damp, but still chilly, and the floor was covered with a layer of earth, mixed with rotting vegetation and the remains of cave animals. The owl didn’t want to stay down there long as there were at least eight hooded creatures, human-sized, shuffling around the room. Eearwaxx called her back.

“Were there any openings from the chamber?” Arlington asked.

“A rough corridor to the North, and maybe two doors,” Eearwaxx interpreted. “And a ten-foot fall from the ceiling. She also says the creatures didn’t move like humans. Creatures.”

“How do we get down there fast?” Arlington asked.

“Well I know how to get down really fast, but let’s climb,” Tarquin joked.

“I don’t want to be climbing down while they’re stabbing at my arse,” Arlington complained.

“We can use the vines,” Tarquin said, “And we have rope in case of troubles.”

“And at the end of that we’ll all be rolling around on our arses while they come at us. How do we get down there quickly? Who’s got wings?” Arlington said, not looking at Octavian.

“Look. If you are trying to suggest that I go down by myself,” Octavian growled, “To see the eight humanoid creatures that the owl says are weird, I am not going to do that.”

“For what reason?”

“I don’t want to die.”

Arlington huffed his pipe and turned back to Tarquin.

“I suggest we make a move as one,” Tarquin suggested, settling the tension. “I can setup an illusion so that we can make the final jump,” Tarquin offered.

“Yes,” Octavian nodded. “I’m quite willing to go down with the party but I am not going by myself. It all seems odd — those creatures aren’t trying to escape up here. There is no fire, it would be freezing.”

“Heroes must,” Tarquin said mightily. “We climb as one, I hide our progress with an illusion.”

“Wizard do you have a spell? Old man?” Octavian demanded. Eearwaxx shrugged and flipped open one of his spellbooks. He held a feather aloft. “I could help us float down. One of us. Or two.”

“So we have two of us floating, one flying, and the rest climbing. Above a vision of the tunnel that I create,” Tarquin proposed then shook his head. “Look, we’re over-complicating this, let’s just climb. Go!”

Morgan vaulted over the edge and started climbing down. Tarquin hurried behind preparing his spell as he descended. Everyone followed behind, except Octavian who floated down on his wings. The vines made the descent easy.

Morgan paused at the top of the illusionary barrier and stuck his head out to take a quick peek. It was as Haberdash had described, and Morgan spotted mushrooms and fungi growing on the floor detritus, as well as a few saplings. His sharp nose also detected the air was redolent with odours of loam and decay. Octavian picked up the same scent, surprised that anything earthy could grow down here.

Morgan watched the eight figures moving slowly over the dirt floor. It appeared to be tending to the soil and plant-growth with a long sharpened bone. Morgan looked to Tarquin. “Go?”

“You go, I’ll follow,” Tarquin nodded.

Morgan quickly changed position so he was hanging from the ceiling, then dropped and landed silently in a crouch. Alas his four companions who followed fell with rather less grace, crashing to the ground in an ungainly pile.

Octavian, arriving late and staying airborne, noticed one more creature — a small creature that looked like a walking bundle of sticks. What was a twig-blight doing underground, he wondered briefly, before flying down to defend his companions.

The eight shambling figures turned slowly to face the new arrivals, pulling back their hoods to reveal warped skeletal faces. They raised their bone weapons as one and stumbled forward.

Jankx was quickest to react. Spinning to face the twig-creature he surprised everyone — particularly Eearwaxx — by firing a bolt of flame (this time from his finger instead of his mouth) into the tiny beast. It was instantly set ablaze, withering and shrinking in the crackling-inferno. Jankx was shocked by the effectiveness of his attack, grinning as Eearwaxx frowned: was Jankx a mighty wizard too?

A long-limbed skeleton raised a sharpened bone fragment and slammed into Jankx who recoiled in pain. Arlington shot the closest skeleton to him, tearing some of its little remaining flesh free. Eearwaxx, distracted by Jankx, couldn’t avoid a massive scything blow from another skeleton. Another tried to smash Octavian, but lost control of its bone weapon on the down swing. Arlington too was hit with two brutal blows, but his attempt to fire back missed even at point blank range, the bolt skidding through the bones of the skeleton. He cursed remembering the boar-spear strapped to his back which would be far more effective: next time.

The skeletons now surrounded the party. Morgan tried to force a break in their deathly circle but swung wide. Eearwaxx took another blow, causing him to shrink backwards whilst trying but failing to blow one up with a quick spell. Tarquin saw the young wizard was stumbling and quickly healed him and simultaneously inspired Morgan’s next attack.

Octavian realised something had to be done, quickly, before the skeletons got an unbeatable upper hand. He summoned a field of entangling vines which instantly grappled three of the skeletons in pale white tendrils — taking them out of the equation temporarily.

Jankx tried to attack with his daggers but missed — he blamed his still hot fingers. The skeleton retaliated but missed, but a second struck true. Eearwaxx took yet another blow. The wizard was bleeding and bruised from multiple hits. Morgan managed to avoid the incoming attacks and this time made no mistake with his blade, shattering his target into hundreds of pieces of bones.

Tarquin pulled his trusty rapier out and made mince-meat of his nearest skeleton, shards of bone flying free. Eearwaxx took inspiration from Tarquin’s success and managed to land a fire orb on his target.

Jankx focused on his hot hand and tried an attack, but missed again. He spat a curse — maybe this magic thing wasn’t worth the trouble if it meant everything else started failing. The only good news was the skeleton missed its counter-attack. Arlington hauled his boar-spear free and shattered the creature’s skull with the flat of the blade, causing it too to shatter.

Octavian didn’t waste any time on the skeleton trapped in front of him, infusing his weapon with shillelagh and smashing it hard. The skeleton didn’t die, but it was ripped free of the vines. Octavian watched with surprise as instead of advancing and attacking, the bone-creature stepped back, crossed its arms over its chest in an act of supplication, and shattered itself into bone shards. The druid didn’t know what to make of this — why self-destruct? He made a mental note to check the shards once order was restored.

The skeletons had other ideas.

---

The skeleton trapped in the vines next to Morgan wrenched itself free, avoiding Morgan’s opportunist attack as it did. It raised its arms in the air and sucked all the shards from its fallen allies, creating a new, huge, skeletal beast covered in bone armour. Arlington’s eyes were wide: this was not good.

Eearwaxx dropped to one knee as he took yet another blow, crying out as the skeletons wouldn’t leave him alone. Morgan swung hard and again shattered his foe — but the bones were instantly absorbed into the mutating skeleton which swelled with newfound strength. The huge skeleton let out a deathly roar of triumph, but that was quickly changed to frustration as it struggled to loose itself from Octavian’s vine-field.

Tarquin finally missed with his rapier, but made up for that by healing Eearwaxx to keep him on his feet. Eearwaxx, reinforced, shot a bolt of frost into one of the remaining skeletons and killed it instantly, with the bonus effect that the ice stopped the bone-shards from flying to the mutation though they all wriggled with intent.

Octavian had a wary eye on the big skeleton but needed to kill those closest first. He shillelaghed another tangled victim but couldn’t kill it. Jankx finally found his focus and finished off his attacker — third time lucky — causing it too to shatter. He tried to mash the shards into dust but there were too many, all shuddering as they prepared to fly away.

Arlington turned to face the boss and fired with deadly precision, but the bone shield deflected the bolt with ease. Morgan sprinted forward but missed with his swing as the vines got in the way. Tarquin followed the young warrior and finagled his rapier through the plant-life and sloughed impressive chunks of bone off the massive beast.

The boss roared and absorbed Jankx and Eearwaxx’s bones into its body, instantly recovering from Tarquin’s cutting blows. It howled and this time ripped itself free of the vines, stomping over to Morgan and pounding with its huge fists. Morgan staggered under the massive blow.

A ringing bell sounded out over the battlefield as Eearwaxx tolled the skeleton boss, rattling it very slightly (Eearwaxx was sure a knucklebone dropped loose). Octavian focused his brow and centred an earth-tremor directly under the big skeleton’s feet, slamming his staff into the ground. “So down beast!!” The skeleton staggered and dropped to it’s bony hands-and-knees as bones were rattled off it by the shaking ground.

“Attack!” Octavian cried. Jankx nodded and sprinted forward. But the spell-curse had returned and he bumbled his attack yet again. Tarquin looked quickly to Arlington and shrugged as he nodded his head in Jankx’s direction: what’s the story with this guy? Arlington grimaced and raised his crossbow again. This time his bolt flew fast and true, tearing bones free from the fallen giant skeleton.

Morgan took some revenge by crashing his massive blade into the exposed ribcage. Tarquin followed up with some razor-sharp rapier work. “One more hit and it dies!” he cried. He pulled out his dagger and ripped it up into the skull of the beast. For a moment nothing happened, then the creature exploded into thousands of shards of tiny bone, dying with a wail of bitter disappointment.

Only one skeleton remained, and it soon died too after Eearwaxx tolled its demise, the vines themselves started tearing bones off it, and Octavian cracked his staff into its collapsing form. This time when the bones shattered they stayed where they fell.

---

“You’re starting to change my opinion of…other folk,” Arlington said somewhat awkwardly. Octavian’s vines and quake had turned the tables on the fight. “As for the rest of us — that was awful. As far as I can see the greatest fighter in our team is Tarquin, the scribe.” Arlington turned to Eearwaxx, who was trying to dress his injuries and turned back to Tarquin. “But before that goes to your head Tarquin, if you want this story to remain a good story, you look after this boy.”

Tarquin grinned as he helped Eearwaxx, who grumbled that he was fine but complied. He was barely older than the young wizard he thought to himself, having spotted the elvish blood in the spellcaster, but it was remarkable what difference even a few years could make. “He’s safe for now. But Arlington — I need to rest. We can’t keep this up without some recovery time.”

Octavian followed up on his earlier instinct, studying the bones to try and discover what had empowered it — was it a bone golem? The growth on the floor and walls also interested him. It wasn’t natural that rich loamy earth would thrive here in the bone-cold, leading him to conclude that something or someone was cultivating the growth. He remembered the skeletons had been tending the ‘garden’ before the attack, perhaps under the direction of some other being (skeletons not being know for the self-motivation).

Morgan paid no heed to Arlington’s subtle criticism as he sifted through the bone rubble, finding nothing of interest. He moved toward the opening to the north which opened into a rough stone corridor and cavern. The remnants of a campfire glowed faintly in the near distance. He took a few more cautious steps into the cave, finding the floor stained and covered with old bones, and the air reeking of blood and animal musk. Dim light from more glowing fungi showed a rough low ceiling and walls — this was no longer part of the citadel it seemed.

Jankx followed Morgan, taking the opposite wall. Around the barely smoking fire-pit were some clear floor areas, evidently where something rested in front of the heat. A small hollow to the east held a pallet of matted furs, a wide wooden board on which a variety of weapons are affixed, and a great cloak of patchy black fur hung on a slender pole. To the edge of the niche are two large nests made of hair, dry fungus, and refuse. All looked recently used.

Morgan signalled to Jankx from the other side of the room, pointing to a hidden niche. Jankx nodded slowly as he saw what Morgan had indicated: something, or someone, was leaning against the wall in the darkness.

Morgan as stepped forward and crunched a pile of bones. Morgan froze but nothing reacted to the noise — and Jankx shook his head slowly to indicated the figure hadn’t moved either. Morgan stepped around the rocky outcrop to face the creature, sword ready.

A lifeless, muscular, yellow-skinned, orc-like creature with knotted beard and fanged teeth was pinioned to the wall. Its face was frozen in agony, and Morgan quickly saw why. Tendrils of crystalline black stone strangled around the body holding it in a web, burrowing beneath the dead creatures skin and feeding from its veins. Morgan shrunk back as he saw the stone pulsing with dark light. “It’s dead,” Morgan reported quietly as everyone joined him.

Octavian was fascinated. He identified the creature quickly. “The creature is not an orc. That’s a Bugbear — dangerous, but definitely dead.”

“Like the thing you find in your cupboard?” Arlington asked.

Tarquin recalled tales of Bugbears, used, as Arlington hinted, as monsters to scare children into obeying. But this creature was worth being scared of, not merely a fairy-tale.

The body was not mounted like a trophy, more like an experiment, Octavian observed with growing disgust. The mesh of rock that held it against the wall was like nothing he had seen, which was surprising given his Underdark knowledge. It appeared to be feeding on the body, though that could be his imagination running free. The rock was black, with a crystalline structure like glass, and cold to the touch. He chipped a fragment free and slid it into his pouch. It was cold to the touch and felt malleable, like metal more than rock, and heavier than its size.

Still exploring the camp area, Jankx quickly shuffled through the bedding and was surprised to find a sack of silver and gold coins of various size and shape. He called Octavian over, remembering the druid’s interest in artefacts. Octavian cast his eye over a handful — a real mixture of old and new, some from far to the south, Underdark coin, overland coin. A strange collection, no doubt gathered over a long period of time from various ‘acquaintances’ of the bugbear. “So who killed the bugbear, but left the coin?”

“Someone who though fifty gold was not that much,” Arlington shrugged, ruefully thinking of his mother’s lost delivery.

“Something that values the organic over the material.”

“Yes. Maybe no-one killed him,” Octavian mused. “It was a phenomena, not a sentient creature.”

“So you’re saying he went into the corner to take a dump and the wall got him?” Arlington asked.

“Just maybe don’t lean against any?” Octavian said ominously.

Everyone slowly backed away from the nearest wall. Tarquin had settled down in the small warmth being put out by the campfire and was scribbling on a piece of parchment. Arlington glanced at the title and first stanza of “The Battle of the Bugbear:

“No no no, that first crossbow bolt of mine didn’t miss,” Arlington corrected as he scanned further down the page.

“Artistic licence always has its way,” Tarquin grinned.

“Especially at the right price,” Jankx quipped.

Morgan headed further up the northern corridor, which was starting to head downwards further into darkness. “This goes down,” he reported to Arlington, “Maybe we should check the doors in the other room first?”

Arlington nodded. “I have been that leaving doors behind us is not the way to go, so I agree.”

“I remind you we do need to rest,” Tarquin sighed. “Are we securing this space before we do that?”

“I think to secure this space we need to open these doors,” Arlington said.

“I agree. So long as we’re not sallying forth. Now is not a good time.”

“We are not sallying anywhere. Don’t worry.”

“That’s what the Bugbear thought,” Octavian said quietly.

Morgan half-smirked, nodded at Jankx, and headed back to the skeleton room. Jankx checked the first door and found himself confused. Was it locked? Trapped? He didn’t know, and didn’t know how to work it out. Accursed spells! How had Eearwaxx managed it. Jankx was tempted to call for a mend, but instead just shrugged at Morgan. Eearwaxx sidled up to the door, ready.

“Eearwaxx! Stand by my side,” Arlington ordered from his vantage twenty-feet from the doorway. “You can cast from where I’m standing! Do you know why I’m standing back here? You may not literally be dying but you don’t look like you can hold himself together in a fight.” Eearwaxx waved Arlington off, but did move to stand diagonally away from the door.

“Stand in line with the door, son!” Arlington yelled.

“I’m not moving there! I’m right, I’m fine where I am,” Eearwaxx said stubbonly. “You’re not the boss of me!”

“I give up,” Arlington said slapping his forehead and nodding to Morgan who yanked the door open. Two rows of dragon-carved marble columns marched the length of a long hall similar to those upstairs, most completely covered in luminescent fungus. The cobbled floor was cracked and stained, and on it sat many small wooden tables covered in bowls and mortars. The many doors leading off this hall to the north and south were all partly open.

An instant later Morgan pulled the door closed. “There was someone in one of the side rooms to the south. Something moving.”

“Let’s get him!” Eearwaxx cried. “I’m ready!”

Tarquin grabbed the wizard and shook his head. “Can we secure that door?”

“I can un-mend it,” Eearwaxx offered.

Arlington scanned his employees, trying to determine who was able to fight and who really wasn’t. Eearwaxx was definitely not, Jankx looked in average shape, probably okay, and Tarquin didn’t have a scratch on him but looked exhausted. Morgan was covered in gore but stood tall and alert. Octavian carried one of his arms slightly gingerly, but otherwise looked determined. “Check the other door,” he sighed to Morgan.

Jankx nodded and took a deep breath. Time to get his head back in the game. He gave the door a thorough going over, kneeling down to study the lock and running his hand over the rough woodwork. This time he felt good about his diagnosis. “Clean,” he said nodding at Morgan, who opened the door. A ten-foot wide corridor led directly south, unlit and fungus-free. Sixty-feet away a rift leading east-west tore through the stonework, cutting the corridor abruptly in two in a rough crevasse.

“Can we secure this area?” Tarquin asked as Morgan and Jankx reported their findings.

“We could always go upstairs and rest,” Octavian offered.

“Can we though? It’s an eighty foot climb.”

“I’m just saying. I can fly up, tie rope…”

“If we can make it back up, we’d be better off upstairs,” Morgan said.

“Octavian’s suggestion is smart,” Jankx agreed. “Easier to secure up there.”

“And we can climb up the vines like a ladder,” Morgan added.

“I must say,” Arlington huffed, “We have explored two rooms and already a rest? I expected stronger stuff.”

“I don’t sleep, I don’t help. I’ve got nothing left,” Tarquin said firmly.

“You’re right. We got to eleven o’clock in the morning and it’s time for a snooze,” Arlington scoffed.

“No. I’ve got to reload. I don’t care if it’s eleven o’clock or not, I’ve had a fight, I’ve gotta reload. Spend some time upstairs.”

“I think he’s talking about masturbation,” Morgan whispered to Jankx.

“I’m all out of bullets,” Tarquin continued.

“He is talking about masturbation!” Morgan blurted out.

“You gotta understand, I’m shooting blanks,” Tarquin grinned.

“What does that mean?” Eearwaxx chimed in innocently.

“Keep it clean, he’s only eleven!” Arlington scowled. “I don’t even understand what you mean by ‘time upstairs’!”

“I need to take some time upstairs so I can work downstairs,” Tarquin smiled lasciviously.

“All he’s saying is he doesn’t want to go into the next fight half-cocked,” Morgan said.

Tarquin burst into laughter — this was definitely going in the journal. Arlington knew defeat when he saw it. “Right then. Time to get up,” he ordered, pointing to the shaft above.

---

A tiny grinning face peered down from the rim of the shaft as Octavian arrived. “That quick work mighty Octavian!” Meepo cheered. “You win? Kobold safe?”

Octavian gave a theatrical sigh. “As usual — you know the others — it’s taking a while.”

“Yes, they climbing so slow, you fast with wings!”

“No you misunderstand. It’s bigger down there than we thought. So yes we have got rid of those skeleton creatures, but there is more rooms. So we have to investigate — it’s not safe yet.”

Meepo pondered this. “Big like here? Then why you come back?”

“‘They’ needed a rest,” Octavian said.

“Weak human, strong kobold!” Meepo grinned.

“Land’s sake, Meepo, lend me a hand!” Arlington cried as he reached the top of the climb.

Meepo surveyed the wounded company. “Meepo guard human while you rest. Meepo stand outside room and protect.”

“Meepo before you go, do you have any birds eggs at all?” Arlington asked hopefully.

“No bird egg. No bird here. Have egg from big dead rat? We find inside big dead bloated rat?”

Octavian paled. “Meepo do not eat that.”

“No but human eat, human want,” Meepo said pointing to Arlington who shook his head quickly. “I’m sorry I asked.”

“Human would die if they eat that,” Octavian said, “And maybe kobold too.”

“Meepo understand. No egg. I guard!” Meepo stepped outside the chamber and closed the door.

When Arlington woke to take second watch from Morgan, he found the young warrior in prayer, resting his head on the hilt his scabbarded sword. More surprisingly there was a second, ghostly Morgan-a-like who held its hands on the sword too. Arlington watched with one eye open as Morgan lifted his head and said something to the apparition, whose expression changed from a laissez faire smile to something more serious with a flash of its yellow eyes.

Arlington waited until Morgan appeared to be saying his final prayers, asking for the safety of his companions and addressed to the Morning Lord, then lit his pipe with a flare of fire in the darkness. When the flash of light died the apparition was gone. Morgan stood, nodded at Arlington, and moved away to take his rest.

Meepo poked his head in the door on hearing Arlington waking, found himself facing Arlington’s nonchalant crossbow. “Good Arlington, protect inside while I outside,” Meepo said seriously. He saluted and closed the door.

Tarquin was next, toed awake by his boss. He groaned and climbed to his feet. “Is Meepo asleep?” Arlington shrugged and settled into his bedroll. Tarquin walked outside to check on Meepo who was wide awake and alert.

“Meepo guarding! Other human on guard now?”

“Strong Meepo,” Tarquin said, placing an encouraging hand on the kobold’s tiny shoulder.

“Human going back down hole?”

“Oh yes. We have stories to write — we must go back.”

“Meepo wish luck. Hope find treasure. Know you like treasure.”

Tarquin grinned. “I’m going back inside to continue writing the tale. You know you’re a big character in it?”

Meepo smiled widely and resumed his guard stance. Tarquin settled down, pulled out his parchment, and continued his journal.

---

Zombies!

Octavian woke to the scent of cooking flesh. His saliva glands started watering immediately. “Meepo, that smells rather too good?”

“Come have!” Meepo said excitedly.

“What actually are you cooking?” Octavian asked warily.

“Giant rat! We carve it up, get flesh, cook!”

“No not the plague rat! I told you, don’t eat that! It was full of boils and eggs!”

“We very cook it?”

“Eat the thigh of the goblin, but none of the sweetbread. No brain, no kidney.”

“We eat that too!”

Octavian shook his head sensing defeat. After a meal of hard-tack everyone was ready to climb back down. Tarquin blessed the company with a quick poem.

Octavian flew down for a fast reconnoitre, expecting to see nothing. But he came to a sudden halt just before exiting the shaft when he heard deep, throaty, rattling breathing from below. Octavian quickly flew back up the well. “We’ve got company. There’s something down there that sounds very undead.”

“Mighty Eearwaxx, let us send your owl again,” Arlington ordered, “But carefully.”

Eearwaxx nodded and whispered the instructions to Haberdash. The great white own flew off and down as Eearwaxx watched through its eyes. It emerged from the shaft and whipped around the ceiling quickly. There were two huge mounds of stitched together, festering flesh, humanoid shaped that stood stock still breathing heavily. Standing at the East door was a strongly-muscled grey-skinned dwarf with a white beard. The second Haberdash emerged it pulled back a spear and hurled it at the owl. Haberdash screeched as the spear just missed and pierced one of the vines. The owl raced shot back up the shaft and into the safety of Eearwaxx’s embrace.

“Well where the hell did that come from?” Arlington exclaimed after Eearwaxx described what he’d seen.

“That dwarf is a Duergar,” Octavian explained. “The dark dwarves. Ther’re very tough.”

“That sounds bad,” Jankx frowned.

“And what are the garbage things?” Arlington asked.

“They may well be the result of what we did before?” Tarquin pondered.

“They’re zombies, a flesh-construct,” Octavian explained. “Not natural, it’s been made by someone.” His mind flashed back to the bugbear that was obviously being experimented on. Someone down there was running foul investigations into dark arts. “The Duergar aren’t known for that kind of thing, but their civilisation is large so maybe we’ve come across a particularly bad bunch.”

“Do we have to go back down there?” Eearwaxx said in a small voice.

“These remind me of tales of the flesh zombies from the east,” Tarquin said. “In the old stories the surest way to rid the world of such abominations was fire,” Tarquin said patting Eearwaxx. “In the stories that I know, fire was our friend, and Jankx knows how to wield it, as does Eearwaxx.”

Eearwaxx’s spirits lifted at this news. A mighty wizard feared no undead!

Arlington nodded, but he had a second idea. “Or — could the dragon fit down this hole? Because we don’t need to call on its favour to get it to go down this hole, all we need to do is to tell it that there are things in its domain that it needs to clear out.”

Morgan frowned. “But surely in that case then why do we need to go down at all? If the dragon is going to go down there to fight things then it’s going to want to claim whatever it finds for itself.”

“We’ve got an ace in the hole with that one,” Tarquin said. ““And I don’t think it’s ready. We should leave it licking it’s wounds for now.”

“I hear what you’re saying, that makes sense,” Arlington conceded.

Morgan nodded. “By the sounds of it this Duergar might decide to have a go at us if it knows we’re coming down.”

“And I think it does,” Tarquin said, glancing at Haberdash.

“How about I fly down and keep going right into the Duergar,” Octavian offered, “Knock it to the ground and you come running. The problem will be not the Duergar, though they are famously tough, but the constructs.

“If I remember rightly, constructs shuffle,” Tarquin said. “That buys us some time.”

“Yes they are normally slow, but they are big and strong. And dumb.”

“The brains down there is obviously the dwarf.”

“They don’t have to be clever to kill us,” Morgan warned.

“How about you fly out of the hold, strafe around the room drawing fire, while we pounce?” Arlington suggested.

“‘Drawing fire’?” Octavian scoffed.

“How is that different from charging straight at him!?”

“One is heroic and one is stupid,” Octavian growled.

Morgan sighed and looked at Arlington. “Do we absolutely really need to explore this bottom level?”

Tarquin jiggled his pocked suggestively — there was no sound of clinking coins. Arlington smirked.

“I think we do,” Jankx said. “This is why we are here.”

As soon as Jankx said this Morgan hoiked himself over the edge and started the descent.

---

---

The nimble Jankx was first to drop from the shaft, taking a spear to the shoulder as a reward. He landed with a grunt and spun to face the northern ogre-zombie, shooting a flaming strike into the lumbering creature. The fire instantly caught and the zombie’s rotting flesh went up in flames — but it didn’t stop moving. Everyone else landed behind Jankx with a thump.

“Our visitors show themselves at last! More fodder!” the grey-skinned dwarf cried. He mumbled a few words under his breath and raised his hands to the ceiling. The ground underfoot twisted and erupted into hard spikes and thorns, piercing everyone where they stood.

The flaming zombie, which was now far scarier than it was when unlit, rumbled into the fray, ignoring the spikes and clobbering its massive fists toward Morgan. The young warrior managed to sway back and avoid the swinging blow, feeling the heat of the flames as it skimmed his chest.

Eearwaxx flung an orb which exploded into lightning as it struck the flaming abomination. Charred chunks of flesh were dropping from the zombie as it burnt and the smell was retch-inducing.

Arlington swung his crossbow up and fired at the Duergar, ignoring the zombies. The dwarf cursed as the bolt struck him low in the belly. Tarquin was more concerned with finishing off the flame-zombie, piercing its chest with a precision rapier strike. As he plunged the razer sharp blade into the voluminous flesh he felt something inside burst. He had a moment to regret his decision before the zombie exploded in a flaming inferno.

Everyone reeled back as the flames struck, and Jankx, who was closest, collapsed to the ground with a cry, unmoving. Eearwaxx dropped unconscious, his beard singed and hat askew.

Octavian, still in mid-flight, was buffeted away by the explosion, and watched with horror as his companions fell. He made a quick decision: everyone was going to die if the Duergar wasn’t stopped, and he wasn’t confident he could kill him in one blow. He corrected his path to land behind the dwarf and whispered a few words of magical power before spreading his hands as if he was gripping his foe. The Duergar tensed and tried to turn to face Octavian, but as he did his body seemed to slow and stop, frozen in place by Octavian’s spellcraft. The dwarf’s eyes looked murderous but it couldn’t move an inch.

Morgan spun to the second zombie which was rumbling forward. He sprung out of the field of rocky thorns and leapt onto the zombie. His sword struck true and sluiced a slab of bulging flesh from the creature. It raised its fists and swung at Morgan, who used the same swinging move to avoid the blow. Zombies will never learn, he smirked.

Arlington glanced at his fallen companions but could do nothing until the enemy was dead. Seeing Octavian had the dwarf under control, he aimed at Morgan’s ear and fired another bolt into the bundle of flesh behind him. The bolt sunk into the fleshy horror, spewing undead goop out the wound. “Get them up!” Arlington yelled at Tarquin who was running to Jankx.

---

Jankx lay dead on the ground, pinioned on a shard of rock and charred from the flame. The light faded as he felt himself drop further into darkness. An inglorious end to an inglorious life he considered. Just as he started to lose touch with his sense of self, he felt a hand reach down and grasp his jaw, lifting his head to face a pair of glowing yellow eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Ezra whispered, though his mouth didn’t move. “You don’t belong in this place — dark things are awakening. Morgan seems to like you, Jankx, and one day I might too. Just remember I’m always watching. Now begone!”

---

Tarquin knelt and waved a healing hand over Jankx, watching with relief as the fallen rogue heaved in a ragged breath and opened his eyes. Tarquin glanced over at Eearwaxx and saw his sunken chest was breathing, so he raced over toward the Duergar to asist Octavian.

Octavian didn’t need the help. He pulled his staff out to apply the coup de grace. He staved the frozen dwarf in the temple to knock him to the ground, then applied three sharp blows to cave in the now dead Duergar’s head.

Morgan saw the dwarf drop out of the corner of his eye and felt his emotions calm — things were coming back under control. He calmly sliced across the ogre-zombie’s chest, trying to disembowel it just like his father had taught. More slabs dropped to the ground, but the zombie retaliated by paffing Morgan on the side of the face with one massive hand. The hand closed around Morgan’s head and flung him to the ground. The zombie fell on top of Morgan, burying him under mouldering rotting flesh.

The instant Morgan disappeared Ezra appeared holding what looked exactly like Morgan’s sword. The yellow eyes glowed with fire as it raised the sword ready to strike. Arlington raised an eyebrow and pulled on his extinguished pipe.

Jankx slowly sat up, head still groggy. He was surprised to see Ezra standing over the ogre, who seemed to be trying to feast on Morgan. Completely disoriented, and without thinking, Jankx pointed his crossbow at the mound of flesh and fired. It struck true, shredding festering skin as it sunk into the creature.

Instead of firing again, and much to everyone’s surprise, Arlington pulled out his short sword and charged down to the zombie. The sword had a saw-blade on one side and a slicer on the other. He pulled the sharpened-blade up from groin to head, slicing the ogre further open.

Eearwaxx groaned, still lost to the world. Tarquin glanced over, then over at the construct. He recalled what happened last time one of the abominations had died and decided Eearwaxx was the priority. The bard ran over and knelt beside the young wizard to heal him. Eearwaxx opened his eyes gratefully as Haberdash cooed in his ear. Tarquin smiled quickly then hurled a casual dagger down into the zombie.

Octavian was amazed Tarquin hadn’t once again stolen the kill. “Dive, get out of the way!” he cried. From over the Duergar’s fallen body he summoned his thorn-whip and shot it across the room. It went straight through Ezra’s ethereal shape and pierced the ogre-zombie’s walnut-brain, ripping its head open and killing it.

The ogre zombie belched a final breath and the mass of flesh settled atop Morgan. The young warrior felt the massive body go limp and he started to heave to get the weight off. Arlington saw Morgan struggling and put in a boot to give some additional leverage. Morgan took the help and flung the body away. He stood up looking rather the worse-for-wear, covered in zombie-rot and breathing hard. Ezra put a hand on Morgan’s shoulder, nodded, and vanished.

---

Octavian searched the Duergar’s body, finding a small pouch of gold (mostly Underdark) and a sapphire. Tucked into a pocket was a small sliver of same the glass-black rock he had chipped from the bugbear’s lair.

“I need another sleep,” Tarquin said once it was over, only half-joking. “Rinse and repeat, this is not safe.”

“We should go back up,” Octavian nodded.

“Next time we come down there will be two more. Metal constructs this time,” Arlington scowled.

“I think we should see if we can stop these doors from opening and just stay here,” Morgan agreed. “Because having to come down that hole again puts us at a disadvantage.”

“I say we stay here, because every time we come down something worse is here,” Arlington repeated.

“Well Arlington as you seem to have all your faculties,” Tarquin said, “You can stand watch while we all rest.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m surprised that you’re finding it such a challenge, but never mind.”

“Good leader I look forward to the time that I lay my blessings upon you,” Tarquin smiled, ignoring Arlington’s criticism.

“Is he talking about masturbation again?” Morgan whispered to Jankx.

“He always is,” Jankx winked. He set about wedging the doors closed with pitons, assisted by Morgan’s brute strength.

---

Arlington was as good as his word, taking first watch. He watched Ezra materialise to watch over Morgan as he knelt down to rest. It seemed we were going to be see more of Morgan’s strange companion, he mused.

Arlington decided to stay awake for the duration, realising he was unhurt, but shook Jankx away after several hours. Jankx woke from a deep slumber, still groggy from his collapse. Almost as soon as he became alert he noticed the eastern door was being rattled as something attempted to open it from the other side.

Jankx crept to the door and listened. From behind he heard a Dwarvish voice cursing. “Where are they?! Why is this door locked??” The speaker then switched to a language Jankx didn’t understand, and he heard what sounded like goblin’s squeaking in response. He estimated maybe half a dozen voices before they dwindled as the group walked away from the door.

Jankx communicated all this to Arlington and Morgan, who had also woken. Ezra was nowhere to be seen. “One grey dwarf and maybe six goblins. You must have pinned the door well Morgan as they gave up and headed off — for now.”

“Well let’s consider they might find another way. Morgan just check the door to the south,” Arlington ordered quietly.

Morgan moved to the door and listened, hearing nothing. He removed the pinions and crept down the corridor toward the rift. He stopped short when he heard what he assumed was the same deep voice grumbling from the east side of the crevice.

“I heard the same voice approaching from below,” Morgan whispered when he returned. “We can re-pin the door but it’s going to be loud at this point. Or we can just wait to see who pokes their head in?”

“Let’s just block the door. It will wake everyone but they need to be,” Arlington said.

“Or we keep watching the corridor,” Morgan urged, “It’s much easier to keep people off funnelling them through a doorway.”

Jankx suddenly heard the voice again, louder now and definitely from the southern corridor: “Spears ready!” Jankx held his finger to his lips and whispered. “The dwarf is coming, and they’re armed with spears.” He quickly woke everyone else with a quick warning.

Tarquin listened to the briefing and had an idea. “Let’s get them on the back foot,” he grinned, and summoned an illusion of the back wall of the room. “When they open the door they’ll be faced by a wall — should give us the initiative.”

Arlington nodded approvingly as the ‘wall’ sprung up. Everyone took up postion around the door and readied as the voices approached ever closer. Octavian heard orders being cried in deep-speak: “Get on with it, get in there and murder them!”

The door was flung open and standing behind were five spear-wielding goblins who jolted to a stop when they were met by Tarquin’s wall. Standing behind the goblins was another Duergar, who growled as he swelled rapidly to double his size: “There’s only two of them! Charge!”

---

Arlington immediately let loose a bolt that slammed into the oversized — and overconfident — Duergar. The grey-skinned creature growled with anger and flung his javelin at Arlington in return, shunting it into his shoulder. Arlington frowned.

Jankx decided to clear the goblins and immediately killed one, his crossbow bolt running clean through the neck of the closest foe. The goblin blinked once then collapsed to the ground. Eearwaxx recalled his success sending the upstairs goblins to sleep and followed suit here, introducing two to their dreams. Unfortunately one of the sleepers fell forward through Tarquin’s illusion, ending the charade. “Us boss, there’s more than two?!” a still standing goblin cried. “Attack you worthless fools!” the Duergar yelled.

Morgan dropped the first goblin to emerge with a swing of his blade, and as he did Ezra materialised behind the Duergar and made a very similar attack, slicing an ethereal sword into the leader’s back. The dwarf was caught utterly by surprise and killed. Morgan smiled and jammed his sword tip into one of the slumbering goblins at his feet.

The other sleeping goblin was summarily executed by Octavian with a swift blow to the temple. The last standing goblin clutched its spear with terror in its eyes, eyes that were soon shut for good when Tarquin skewered it with his rapier. Tarquin raised his gaze to meet that of Ezra who stood over the fallen Duergar, and doffed his invisible cap with a tiny bow.

The enemy taken care of, Tarquin and Arlington walked down to the rift, noting again the smell of burnt earth. He could see the corridor had been ripped in two by the rift, the other side having shifted ten feet further down the rip. Two-foot-diameter holes riddled the floor of the rift in an irregular pattern, requiring careful footwork to avoid.

“Well those holes look ominous to me,” Arlington observed. “Anything could be living in them.”

Tarquin nodded. “And yet the Duergar and goblins came up through this way.” He worried the rift had been formed by an eruption of lava, but couldn’t detect sulphur on the air. He also thought the raw rock floor looked rougher than a volcanic flow — but he was no geologist.

Arlington and Tarquin dragged the bodies inside the shaft room to clear the corridor of evidence. “Let me guess — another rest?” Arlington asked with raised eyebrow.

---

Spores!

Eight uninterrupted hours later everyone was ready to continue.

Jankx checked the western door again before stepping back for Morgan to pull it open. There was noise from the two southern doors, but none from the north. Morgan guessed two to ten living creatures were making what sound there was. He crept through and toed the nearest door open, revealing two unarmed, unweaponed goblins who were busy pounding huge mortars into vats of something that smelled pretty bad.

Jankx drew his weapons and hovered near the door. He glanced over to Arlington who nodded his approval. Moments later the goblins were dead, killed by dagger and long-range boar-spear. Not normally a ranged weapon, Arlington made it look like it was designed for the purpose.

Tarquin and Eearwaxx, watching the other room, saw a goblin face peek through for a moment before pulling the door closed. Morgan shoved the door open, forcing aside a dead body that was doing a poor job of keeping it closed. Three goblins cowered in the far corner, hands raised, and an operating table stood in the centre of the room. Strapped to the table was a human body in the process of being eviscerated, covered in woody, fruit-like tumours that were bursting out from the rotting flesh. A host for hideous growths.

Morgan had been feeling slightly unhappy with the relentless murder. But on seeing what was happening here — torture, to his untrained eye — he set his brow and strode to the goblins with deadly intent. One died instantly. Another managed to live for a few moments when Tarquin’s rapier finally missed, the experimental body horror distracting the bard from his work. The goblin tried to run but met only Jankx’s thrown dagger which lodged deep in its throat.

The final goblin held its hands out begging for mercy, terror in its eyes. Tarquin stood over it and mocked it with unkind words, watching it grab it’s pitiful head in pain and confusion before walking away. Arlington watched on impassively, leaning on his boar blade.

Octavian crouched down next to the writhing Goblin and grabbed it’s neck. “You will now tell us everything,” he threatened in deep-speak.

“Goblin tell! Goblin say anything! Stop killing goblin,” the pitiful creature pleaded.

“Who is running this operation? How are the Duergar involved?”

“Duergar running now. Come late and run. Kill all, take all, kill and make us work for Duergar.”

“And how many of you are there?”

The goblin pointed to her fallen fellows. “Them. Other,” she said, pointing outside the room, and up.

Octavian glanced up. “No, we’ve killed them. The kobolds rule now.”

No friends. All dead.” The goblin slumped, then a look of determination fell over her face. “Filthy kobolds!”

Octavian backhanded the creature with contempt.

“Are we interrogating again?” Arlington called from afar as he watched Octavian talk.

“Goblin will revenge filthy kobold!”

Octavian finished the Goblin with a shillelagh to the head, just as Arlington stepped inside. “Ask her if—oh.”

Eearwaxx peered over Arlington’s shoulder and saw the ravaged body on the table. It was too much for his battered constitution and he spun around and threw up all over Jankx. Tears welled in his eye as he tried to apologise, clutching the nearest table to steady himself. The table was covered with mortars and pestles, sample jars, small tools, bowls filled with crushed leaves, chopped fungus stalks, plants, and a few severed limbs, all of which unfortunately reminded Eearwaxx of the growths on the body, and he proceeded to add the rest of his stomach contents to the collection.

Morgan and Tarquin quickly scanned the northern rooms, finding garbage-strewn sleeping quarters, a barracks filled with woeful goblin weaponry, and a general quarters that opened into a foully aromatic WC. Tarquin discovered the empty south-eastern room had a caved-in wall to the south that led to the start of the rift — which must be the path the Duergar had taken. Tarquin called Arlington over to show, confused as to how the rift could simply start from here.

“The answer lies in those two-foot holes,” Tarquin guessed. “Want to go and check?”

“No. Too scary,” Arlington said sagely.

From the main room, two exits to the east were available, one from the dragon-pillar room, another via the toilet. A quick discussion resolved taking the WC path, it being the least likely to be watched.

Jankx cleared the door and Morgan opened it. Nodules of luminescent yellow fungus hung from the ceiling and walls, growing in clumps on the flagstone floor. The light illuminated portions of grand bas-relief carvings on the stone walls, depicting dragons in various stages of raining fire down upon terrified people. Soil and compost covered half the chamber’s floor, allowing a variety of feeble plants to grow. A door split the corridor to the north, and doors opened to the south and east.

Octavian stepped through and stopped, covering his mouth with a bandana and warning everyone not to disturb any of the obvious spores and fungus if it could be helped. From what he could see, someone was trying to cultivate above-ground species down here. It wasn’t agricultural, or religious, it was more experimentation — discovering new species and merging cultivars. All with the end-goal of infection and mutation if the specimen and bugbear were any indication. He was even more convinced the Duergar weren’t behind this ‘work’.

Tarquin escorted Eearwaxx through the WC, offering a hanky to cover his mouth and prevent a further eruption from within. Eearwaxx stumbled through and into the corridor. Morgan moved through to the northern door and listened closely. He heard movement from beyond. He nodded a warning at Jankx, who checked the door for traps, finding nothing. He couldn’t hear what Morgan had, but trusted the boy was right.

Morgan popped the door, revealing another near-identical corridor. Doors to the north and east, but nothing moving or visible. He ignored the eastern door and moved straight to the northern exit, leaving Morgan to guard the east side. “This place is massive,” Morgan whispered in awe. Eearwaxx lent heavily on the wall as he moved, controlling his gut as best he could.

Octavian watched closely as people stepped through the passage, looking to see if spores were thickening in the air, but so far it looked safe. Jankx looked to Arlington for direction. The great hunter checked the way behind was still clear, then pointed to Jankx’s door and nodded. Jankx listened at the door and heard the sound of dragging feet and rasping breath - several creatures. He informed everyone.

“Do we actually need to open the door?” Morgan asked.

“Yes we do,” Arlington confirmed. Morgan grimaced and prepared his weapon.

Jankx flung the door open. Luminescent mist blurred the edges of the octagonal chamber beyond. Nodules of glowing fungus dotted the stone walls and ceiling, as well as the caps of toadstools and mushrooms, small polyps, puffballs, and lichen. The humid air reeked with rot, and inside were four lumbering humanoids, humans and elves, covered in boils and fungal growths, faces warped in a permanent scream. Eearwaxx looked in horror when he saw them, living versions of the body from the torture room. The creatures raised their clubs and stumbled forward.

Morgan pulled his scarf over his face to protect from infection and stepped into the room. He smashed it with his sword causing it to explode into spores (Morgan breathing thanks for his mouth covering), and Ezra materialised at the back of the room. Jankx barely had time think as he raised his finger and shot a ray of fire. He was so disgusted that his aim was way off, and a cluster of fungus exploded in flame instead of one of the creatures.

Octavian killed another with a single shillelagh powered swing, and it too exploded. A spore-creature lumbered down and attacked Octavian, swinging its massive club with both hands. Octavian reeled back with a grunt. The other swung at Ezra who easily shimmied to avoid of the blow.

Eearwaxx stumbled into the room, attacking blindly in a panic, he wanted to get out of here as fast as possible. He flung an orb which destroyed the second-last zombie-creature, spores flying through Ezra. Eearwaxx’s beard provided enough cover to protect his lungs. Arlington finished the final creature with another flying boar-spear.

Morgan glanced over to Eearwaxx, taking in his mental state. The young wizard was panting, eyes darting around seeking escape. Morgan walked over and grabbed his arm, hoping to shake Eearwaxx out of his fear. “They’re all dead, it’s fine.”

“I know!” Eearwaxx yelled, shaking Morgan away. He ran over to Ezra and stared hard. “What’s the deal?” he demanded of the ethereal image. “What’s going on — who are you?” His voice was suddenly calm and deadly serious.

Ezra tilted his head curiously but was silent. Eearwaxx lent back against the wall, losing interest as fast as he had found it. “All right. It doesn’t matter. Let’s go. Where are we going?”

Jankx knelt down to study the centre of the room, where it looked like a well had once been. He started to poke around at the plants growing thickly atop the round stonework, when Octavian whipped his staff down and stilled Jankx’s hand. “Don’t.” Jankx pulled his hand back fast. “Don’t poke anything in here, it’s full of spores and possibly worse.”

Octavian scanned the bodies and found more evidence of biological experimentation. It was as well that precautions had been taken, he thought, then glanced over at Eearwaxx and his ‘beard’. “You should get rid of that beard, you’re going to get infected,” he said as he strode past. Eearwaxx looked down at his pride-and-joy and frowned, then smiled. He cast a quick mend on it to bring it back to pristine condition.

A door led out to the south-west and Jankx opened it once clear. A corridor led to the south, where a faint red light pulsed softly. Magical light. Dragon-carved granite blocks lined the corridor and chamber beyond, though many were crumbled and broken, leaving stony debris on the floor.

Morgan pushed past Jankx and walked to the lower chamber, followed by the fever-eyed Eearwaxx and Octavian. A magnificent, huge, red marble statue of a rearing red dragon stood in the curve of the western wall. The eye sockets of the dragon were empty, but a red glow lingered there, providing eerie light throughout the chamber. The radiance cast an inky shadow behind the statue’s wide wings. A five-foot-diameter, circular tile of dark stone is set in the floor in front of the dragon statue, with runes carved around the circular tile’s inner edge.

The statue stopped Jankx in his tracks. He looked at it in awe. Beautifully crafted, something to be found in the halls of kings and queens, yet here it was hidden in an underground fortress. Invaluable, but no-way to recover it he thought regretfully.

Octavian was similarly impressed, though he was more interested in the lore. With a jolt he suddenly realised he knew this dragon. He cursed his memory for not recognising it earlier — the name that had been scrawled in the very first room of this place. Ashardalon!

One of the great elder dragons of legend, famed for his desperate attachment to his own life — he wouldn’t let himself die and did whatever it took to prevent his own death. The greatest of those stories told of Ashardalon binding a Balor to his chest in order to function as a second heart, and hence extend his life. The madness of the ancients, Octavian thought to himself.

“This is the great dragon Ashardalon,” Octavian explained. Tarquin grinned from ear-to-ear as Octavian relayed the story of the Balor, transcribing it quickly for later use.

“If it could capture and bind a super-demon,” Jankx said softly, “It itself must have been of unbelievable power.”

“Yes. It was an ancient dragon, and they are almost like gods,” Octavian agreed.

Eearwaxx walked immediately to the draconic runes on floor. He deciphered them quickly and repeated out loud in Common:

Let the sorcerous power illuminate my spirit

“I guess it means for me to do something,” Eearwaxx said determinedly — a great wizard was called for.

Octavian had an idea. “This probably won’t work, but can you do a light spell, great sorcerer?”

“Yes!” Eearwaxx said immediately. He spun up a daylight glow that illuminated the statue, but there was no change in the aspect. Eearwaxx next tried a detect magic on the room, finding that the runic circle was certainly transmutation magic.

“Don’t nobody touch nothing,” Arlington warned on hearing this. Eearwaxx glanced nervously at the statue, but it wasn’t big enough to be an actual dragon. And there was no demon strapped to it’s chest, he thought with relief. “Maybe flame,” he said quietly. Before anyone could stop him, he flung a concentrated bolt of fire at the circle.

The moment he did a featureless black shadow emerged from behind the dragon, looming over Eearwaxx and enveloping him in darkness. Eearwaxx was stifled in shadow and felt a cold that rattled his soul, and his strength rapidly draining. He cried out in psychic pain.

The shadow tried to shift back into the dark, but the light spell thwarted the attempt.

Arlington had been listening to the baloney about dragons and ‘Balors’, utterly confused, though he was glad to see Tarquin noting it all down — a quiet word later to explain what it all meant would be ideal. Good man that Bard. And now here was what looked like a shadow sucking the life out of Eearwaxx. ‘What was wrong with boars and deer!’ he cursed under his breath. Assuming it was a waste of time but not know what else to do, he pulled out his crossbow, and fired it into the nothingness that smothered Eearwaxx. Of course it missed. How can you hit a shadow!

Tarquin watched the bolt pass through the shadow and dropped his quill to quickly spit out a few words at the ethereal shape:

The shadow turned its head and pierced Tarquin’s soul, sending a cold shiver down the Bard’s spine. Maybe he should have spoken in Draconic?

Jankx fired his own crossbow, and seemed to have more success — the shadow’s arm jolted back by the bolt. It reached down again and tried to reach into Eearwaxx’s heart, but the burning heat from magical circle below the wizard caused it to flinch back before it’s cold grasp could take effect.

Eearwaxx, subsumed below the blackness, realised he needed — and more importantly, wanted — to survive. No heroics, just survival. He cast a spell which coated himself in magical armour and braced for the next attack.

Morgan stepped up to the shadow, Ezra materialising at the same time. Morgan’s sword struck true, whipping through the wispy figure dragging tendrils of shadow. Ezra was less successful with his attack, despite mirroring Morgan’s.

Octavian moved toward the shadow and prepared to shillelagh again, but he stepped on the burning stone circle and flinched back before the blow could strike.

Arlington, having noted Jankx’s attack had somewhat worked, decided to do better this time. He threaded a very fine needle, taking advantage of Octavian’s flinch to unload an unerring bolt into the shadow. Somewhat to his surprise the shadow seemed to be rent asunder in the wake of the spinning bolt, leaving only quickly fading wafts of darkness in its path.

Arlington looked over to Jankx expectantly. Jankx nodded, suitably impressed. As was Tarquin who conjured another haiku in tribute:

---

Leave no door unopened

Eearwaxx lay flat on his back. Enough was enough, he thought to himself. He ripped the beard from his face, and removed his wizard’s hat. Underneath lay a red-headed, thirteen year old elf.

“It looks like the boy has been drained — from within, not without,” Octavian warned, “I suspect he needs a priest, spiritual healing.”

Tarquin knelt down next to the young wizard. There was no physical sign of injury but he was much weakened, his chest sunken and breath shallow. Octavian was right, Tarquin decided, muttering a few words which returned the colour to Eearwaxx’s cheeks but not the strength to his bones.

Arlington stood expectantly at the northern exit from the shrine. All was quiet behind, but he needed Jankx to check it was safe. “Step to it, man,” he called. Jankx confirmed it was clear and pulled it open.

Leaning and fallen stone bookshelves filled the chamber, though a clear path connected the wooden doors on opposite walls. Torn and burnt pages, bindings, and scrolls form disordered piles in the corners, and books were scattered throughout. Some were complete, but most were damaged and torn. The room had been ransacked. Arlington scooped up a few torn pages, finding everything in languages he didn’t understand.

Octavian hovered close behind Jankx, eyes shining in anticipation of what wisdom might lie within the pages. Jankx held him back for a moment and did a quick trap check. Whatever might have protected the room in past was long since triggered, so he let the hungry scholars pass. Morgan glanced at the piles of garbage, finding it as unintelligible as Arlington. He moved to the far door to stand guard.

Octavian dived into the room, his trained eyes quickly identifying any books and papers that were still readable. Many of the volumes pertained to flora and fauna study, some tried (and failed in Octavian’s estimation) to uncover arcane secrets. He was on the verge of giving up when he reached into a cavity and felt his hands close on an intact, dragon-scaled tome. He pulled it free and blew the layers of dust free. "Lore of the Great Wyrms" was branded into the red-scaled bindings. Octavian dropped to the floor and started reading, instantly oblivious to anything but the text.

Tarquin rooted around in the piles on the floor and his eye was drawn to a small scroll-case that was crushed through the midsection but otherwise intact. Engraved in arcane runes on the surface of the bone scroll-case was a name which he read aloud: “Dzaan.”

Jankx’s ears perked up. “Dzaan? That gnome upstairs — Erky? — said Dzaan was his master in the Arcane Brotherhood.”

Tarquin nodded, impressed with Jankx’s recall. “At the very least this might be leverage should we meet him again.” Tarquin carefully opened the tube, releasing a flood of water from within. A parchment lay inside, badly water damaged, but a short message remained:

“…due east of Caer-Konig. A spire broken from Ythryn’s descent! Perhaps only rumours — Tafferac was hunting her ‘moose’ at the time — however we should explore fur…”

“Furbolds?” Tarquin pondered.

“Fur hats?” Arlington offered.

“There’s nothing West of Caer-Konig,” Morgan said, bringing some sense to the discussion. “Just a frozen lake and frozen until you reach Reghed Glacier . I’ve been living there — I know some people around town who might know.”

“And who’s Tafferac?” Arlington asked. The name rang some very vague alarm bells — a competitor in the great hunt perhaps? But he couldn’t place it.

“I don’t know anyone by that name,” Morgan shook his head.

“Someone in cahoots with Dzaan and Erky?” Tarquin guessed.

“We need to find that gnome when we get out of here. He was going to meet us in Easthaven,” Arlington recalled.

During this discussion Eearwaxx was doing his own search. His cast a spell to detect magic which revealed two spell-scrolls in the library — one of Scorching Ray, the other Melf’s Acid Arrow. He tucked them away and kept searching. Under a mound of burnt paper he felt something solid that he pulled free. and found a small, ring-sized garnet green gem that was carved in the likeness of a coiled dragon. The gem radiated no magic.

Tarquin asked to see the gem and Eearwaxx handed it over, and offered a magnifying glass besides. Tarquin studied it carefully. The dragon was exquisitely crafted, tiny scales and great detail despite the tiny size. There was no inscription that Tarquin could find, but he did notice the bottom of the gem was slightly convex. It wouldn’t sit flat on a surface, and despite being smooth he could see tiny scratch marks through the glass.

“This may be a key,” Tarquin announced.

“Or a spinning top,” Arlington offered.

“Two good guess. If it’s a spinning top, that’s less useful,” Tarquin said, giving it a spin. It spun well, the balance secure the faster it spun. But nothing happened. He snatched it back up and pocketed it. “So when we were in the statue room there were no other doors, correct? Did anyone check?”

“We didn’t check for secret doors behind the dragon if that’s what you’re asking,” Arlington sighed.

“Well that’s why they put dragon statues in places isn’t it?” Tarquin grinned. He retreated back to the statue and stared scouring it for weaknesses. Jankx and Morgan followed, tracing around the walls of the room.

Tarquin clambered up to check the empty eye-sockets first, placing the gem inside one despite there being no obvious resting point. Nothing eventuated so he continued searching the rest of the statue.

The walls revealed nothing, but Tarquin let out a sigh of satisfaction when he found a loose panel in the coiled tail of the dragon. He pulled out his dagger and carefully loosed the stonework, trusting his luck that it wouldn’t be trapped. His faith was rewarded when he prised the stone free. Inside a shallow cavity were two more of the coiled dragon gems atop a small mound of gold coins: one red carnelian, one blue azurite. “There you are,” he grinned as he held them aloft. Being a storyteller he was thinking of natural numbers, and three made perfect sense. “And now we have all of them — green, red, and blue.”

Octavian didn’t look up from his Tome. “You’re an idiot. There are two more,” he called out.

Tarquin raised a quizzical eyebrow and looked over to Eearwaxx who had his hand raised.

“I have five fingers, and those carvings make perfect rings. Easy!” He laughed and turned away, confident in his diagnosis.

Octavian scoffed, and this time looked up and at met Tarquin’s stare. “There are five—

“—Yeah there are five dragon types,” Eearwaxx interrupted, reddening slightly. “So we’re—”

“—missing two metals,” Tarquin finished, slapping his head.

“Not metal! Does it look gold to you?” Eearwaxx called from around the corner.

“No. There are five metallic colours belonging to the good dragons,” Morgan said emphatically.

“…and we’ve already encountered one of the not good ones,” Tarquin said recalling Calcryx.

“Red, blue, green, black, white. Come on people!” Eearwaxx cried, continuing his correction. “Chromatic, oh my god! I am a master magician and this is simple stuff!” His voice dropped deeper and deeper as he spoke and he felt his confidence returning in a rush.

Octavian clapped mockingly from the other room as he continued to read.

“Five metallic, and five chromatic,” Tarquin said, finally remembering. He’d studied so hard to find out more about Arveiaturace the importance of the dragon-colours had slipped his mind. Having discovered these two he had the fever and spent some time poring over the smaller carvings in the room, but found nothing more.

Arlington had settled into a comfortable pile of books in a corner, puffing his pipe while he waited for his fellows to stop squabbling. As far as he could see this was all academic stuff. Not adventuring.

Tarquin finally gave up. “We have part of the story, let’s move on.”

“What if someone recovered two of the gems, but missed these three. Maybe the other two are further ahead. Or maybe the gnome has them,” Morgan suggested. “Though if he was captured, and he had gems on him, the goblins would have taken it.”

“I think he didn’t get his far,” Tarquin said. “I think we’re ahead of him. New territory, and I think you’re right Morgan that the gems are more likely to lie ahead. Come on Octavian,” he prodded the druid who was still buried in his reading. Octavian reluctantly closed the book and nodded.

Jankx cleared the northern door and opened it. A short corridor swung to the right, dropping down below the floor level. Morgan stilled everyone while he scouted ahead, carefully testing for floor traps in the darkness. On the other side steps raised up again, and he realised this passage must run under the room where the spore-servants had been. The corridor continued and swung right again. Small alcoves were lined with dusty dragon-head carvings. Morgan poked his head around the corner — a very long corridor faded into darkness to the south, with no obvious exits.

Morgan reported this to the huddled group. “It goes further than I can see. Maybe we want to finish searching the rooms behind us before we go down there.”

“If it turns to the right, I think we’re going to end up back where we were anyway,” Tarquin declared, not wanting to go backwards.

“But I didn’t see any doors coming off that corridor.”

“That’s why I’m deferring to your better judgement, young man. If you say we should go this way, I am happy to acquiesce.”

“It will be a quick look — barring incident,” Morgan said.

Arlington laughed. “Barring incident?” He looked to Octavian. “You’re a creature of the caves, which way do you think we should go?”

Octavian narrowed his eyes at the casual racism. “These aren’t caves,” he corrected. “This is a carved, engineered dungeon.”

Arlington was not convinced. “How far away would you say the sky is?”

“Is there anyone else in charge here?” Octavian sighed, casting his eyes around the party.

Tarquin looked at Arlington and shook his head sadly. Octavian walked over to Morgan. “Let’s go back.”

A deep groan, like the sigh of an omniscient god, sounded through the dungeon as everyone reversed direction.

---

Morgan stood at the northern door of the fungi-corridor, listening. “There’s something being dragged across the floor in there, not footsteps, something else.”

“Well be better get in there and save them,” Tarquin said quickly.

“Save them? They’re dead,” Octavian corrected.

Morgan glanced back, nodded, pulled his sword and opened the door.

“Bad decision Morgan!” Octavian cried. “Everyone cover your mouths!” Inside were three of hunched skeletons and a twig blight, the skeletons wielding rakes and scythes that they were using to tend to the spore and lichen covered floor. They raised their tools as weapons and rattled toward the door.

Morgan pulled it closed. “Get in position!” he hissed, positioning himself to the north or the door. “These are the skeletons that form into the giant!” Everyone quickly repositioned — everyone except Eearwaxx who stood innocent and alone in line with the door.

Tarquin quickly blessed those closest and threw an inspirational couplet Eearwaxx’s way just as Arlington was yelling “Eearwaxx! Get the hell back!”

Too late, the skeletons pushed the door open and stepped through. Jankx immediately destroyed the first, sending bone shards shattering in all directions. “There’s a big one coming!” Morgan cried, pointing to the oscillating bone on the floor.

A skeleton pulled a shortbow and fired through the mess of combat, missing. Morgan took a swing but also missed, cursing as he summoned Ezra. The twig blight reacted quickly to this, reaching out to strike the ghostly form but it too missed.

Arlington took three steps forward to stand in between Eearwaxx and the enemy, pulling his boar spear free. He poked it with intent at the nearest skeleton sending more bone fragments flying. Tarquin ran in and finished the same skeleton, his rapier of death finishing the job once again. He frantically tried to stomp on the bone fragments, but it was no good.

The last remaining skeleton crossed it’s arms over it’s chest and pulled all the shards into a vortex of whirling bone. From it emerged the giant rattling undead beast Morgan had warned of.

Octavian thought quickly and summoned a field of grasping vines inside the skeleton room to stop the giant’s progress. He watched with dismay as the undead creature used its size and strength to tear itself free. The blight seemed unaffected, stepping freely through the field of twisting flora.

The wizard Eearwaxx Ravenfire stepped out from behind Arlington and ran into the fray, ignoring Arlington’s cries of “Noooo!”. His quarterstaff was suddenly covered in green flame as he bought it down with a crash onto the blight. The staff struck true, destroying the critter, and the green fire leapt with a flash from the shattered twigs to the giant skeleton. Eearwaxx yelled with joy — he was a mighty melee wizard!

The skeleton reacted by punching a huge bony fist through the door, missing as everyone stepped gracefully out of its way. Jankx pointed is flaming finger and shot a bolt of flame through the melee, heating Tarquin (who cast a surprised eye back at Jankx) on the journey past. Jankx grinned and nodded as the skeleton wailed under the flaming attack.

Ezra stepped forward to face the skeleton but missed with his swing again. He was still getting used to the face he existed in this world as a physical presence — as were the rest of Morgan’s companions. Morgan didn’t make any mistake, dealing a hefty blow. As he did he felt a tiny breeze ruffle his hair. Arlington, impressed by Jankx’s shot, had lowered his crossbow onto Morgan’s shoulder and fired at point blank. The giant skeleton undid itself, massive bones falling inert to the floor.

Arlington gestured for someone to check the room as he reloaded his crossbow. Octavian warned to breath lightly and cover as Jankx stepped carefully inside. The floor was covered in dirt and fungus, and he noticed scattered holes like those in the rift, but these were filled with growth. “Someone is harvesting in the holes,” he reported.

“My mind goes to a beehive,” Tarquin worried.

“Mine goes to fungus maggots,” Arlington offered, to general disgust.

“But laid by what?”

“Something we haven’t seen yet””

“All bad theories, I hate all of them,” Jankx muttered. “Do we really need to go in here?”

“Yes,” Arlington commanded. “Because in these rooms will be another dragon shrine, and that shrine will have another little trophy for Tarquin to collect.”

Octavian sighed. “Get out. Just stay out and I will investigate.” Jankx didn’t need to be asked twice. Octavian flew low around the room, careful to avoid spores, looking for anything obvious, trying to make sense of what he saw. It was more of the same — horticultural experiments with aboveground hybrids.

“Is anyone else worried his wings will spread whatever it is he’s worried about?” Arlington mused.

Octavian returned. “It’s slightly different to the other rooms, different plants, and I’m not sure about those holes. They were just farming, and there are no exits. It would not surprised me if we encounter more of these.”

“No-one likes the fungus is what I’m hearing.”

“Hideous,” Jankx shuddered.

Arlington pulled the door closed. “Let’s move.” Tarquin strode past but pulled up short when Arlington snapped “Have you forgotten something?” . The bard sighed and turned around, grabbed Eearwaxx who was standing stock still, and pulled him south toward the next door.

Morgan and Ezra flanked doorway while Jankx checked. He managed to ignore Ezra’s disconcerting gaze as he worked and gave the all–clear. Inside the hexagonal room was more of the same, though this one was empty of gardeners. The only difference was some of the plants were scorched and blackened. “Experiments that went wrong? Who knows,” Jankx mumbled.

Octavian waved everyone back and pushed through. Morgan and Ezra, seeing the empty room departed to move to the final unopened door, followed by Arlington and Tarquin.

Octavian repeated his flythrough of the room. The dead plants had clearly been burnt by flames judging by the charred husks, and there were more holes — though some were only lightly covered. Octavian hovered close over a hole at the halfway point, sensing a slight difference, when it suddenly burst open in a fiery explosion.

Erupting up from within was huge flaming snake, burning orange and red as it shot up. It clamped it’s jaws into Octavian’s thigh, sending a burning pain through the druid’s nervous system. It wrapped it’s tail around Octavian’s torso and crushed him, causing Octavian to cry out in pain as he felt the searing agony from the searing hot snake.

Jankx spun around as soon as he heard Octavian’s cry and sprinted into the room, avoiding the holes in the floor as he ran. He sunk his daggers into

Octavian didn’t waste any time. He knew that without Tarquin’s temporary inspiration he would be dead, and Jankx had nearly finished the creature, so instead of healing himself he flung a guiding bolt as quickly he could from within it’s grasping squeeze. But the snake was thrashing him around too much and the bolt crashed wildly into floor.

Arlington sprinted back as fast as his weary legs would carry him, pulling his crossbow up as he did and yelling to Tarquin to steady himself. He took a deep breath as he lowered the crossbow onto the Bard’s shoulder, hoping this wasn’t the time he stuffed up and made a fool of himself.

He loosed the bolt.

He didn’t stuff up.

The fire–snake hissed in anger and death as it dropped in a smouldering heap into the hole in the floor. Tarquin rubbed his ear to remove the shock of the crossbow thwack and nodded his compliments to Arlington.

“Is there any reason to be in there?” Arlington asked Jankx.

“Not that I’ve seen.”

“Then let’s go. Bring him with you,” Arlington said pointing at Octavian.

As Jankx leant down to help Octavian up, Eearwaxx came running into the room trying to assist in any way he can, just avoiding the grasp of Arlington as he ran past. Unfortunately for the young wizard he tripped on the first hole and fell face–first into the floor. He pulled himself up and continued over to Octavian.

The druid was grievously wounded and Eearwaxx dropped to his knees. “I’ll do medicine,” he announced, but his ministrations backfired as he started to rip charred flesh from Octavian’s skin. Octavian yelled in pain and urgently healed himself to counter Eearwaxx’s assistance. He sucked in a few quick breaths. “Stop helping me, please,” Octavian whispered as he climbed weakly to his feet and staggered out.

Eearwaxx saw Octavian looking better and stood. “That was lucky. He looked bad,” he said, as he pulled out his beard and fitted it and plopped his wizard hat back on. Tarquin turned to face Arlington and raised an eyebrow.

“We’re going to have to have a talk,” Arlington muttered. “Get out of there!” he called. Jankx hustled Eearwaxx outside.

Arlington stared at the ground for a moment, then swung his piercing gaze onto the young wizard. “Eearwaxx.”

“What?”

“From now on you don’t move unless somebody else tells you to. I cannot be more clear about this. You’re going to die and someone else is going to die with you.”

“Okay.”

“I know you mean well! And I understand where you’re coming from. But just…just be a good boy.”

Jankx smirked.

“I’m not good with kids alright! What’s down here?” Arlington said as he strode purposefully to the southern door. Eearwaxx straightened his beard and followed.

Octavian slowly moved down, noticing Morgan’s sheepish look as he passed. The young warrior was feeling some guilt about what had happened, having left the scene of the attack before it even started. Octavian nodded as he passed, understanding and forgiving. He just wanted to stay away from Eearwaxx.

Jankx listened at the final door. Which was directly south of the northern equivalent. And he heard the same rasping, staggering sounds from within. “More spore creatures, I would guess,” he announced.

Morgan took a deep breath and turned to face Arlington. “Let’s just leave it. There’s just more of those spore–lopers in there.” Jankx nodded his enthusiastic agreement.

Arlington rocked back on his heels slightly. “So.” He stretched the moment out as all eyes were on him, checking to see that his scribe had his quill handy. He turned to Morgan. “So we’re leaving this one behind us, are we?”

Jankx stared at Arlington and placed a hand on the door, very willing to open it if so ordered.

Morgan turned to Octavian and raised an quizzical eyebrow.

Octavian, still badly singed, frowned. “I’m not sure. We’re in a dilemma,” he said weakly. Everyone leant in to hear the soft words. “We’re not sure where the information we need is, but it does seem like these creatures are quite mindless.” Octavian could feel his thoughts drifting, he was rambling slightly. He pulled himself together and spoke with more purpose. “I think for now we could leave it, and if we come to a dead end we could always come back.” He turned and started wandering back up the hall.

Arlington smirked. “Okay. So. I’m still learning. So the rule is ‘never leave a door behind’, unlesssssss you leave a door behind?”

Only silence answered.

“I’m just asking? No? No-one? Obviously. Well — let’s move on.” Arlington chuckled and lit his pipe, following Morgan back north.

“It does remind me of a story—” Tarquin started, trying to lighten the mood. Before he could continue Ezra vanished. “Everyone’s a critic,” Tarquin mumbled sadly.

---

Octavian walked next to Morgan as everyone ventured back through the library. “Now we have this dilemma about what rooms to go in, and seemingly nothing being in some, could Ezra…could he look in there, and tell us?”

Morgan’s head turned away from Octavian for a few moments, looking quizzically into the nether. Then he turned back. “No. He can’t go through walls, or doors unless they’re open.”

Everyone regrouped back at the long corridor, Tarquin idly checking the rough dragon busts as he waited. On Arlington’s signal Morgan and Octavian started making their way into the darkness. After only a few steps a crossbow bolt ripped into Octavian’s upper arm and another thudded into the stone wall behind.

“More Duergar!” Morgan yelled.

Jankx sprinted forward and fired blindly down the corridor, a literal shot in the dark. The only response was the crack of bolt on stone — no cries of pain. Eearwaxx quickly scooped up a shard of rock from the ground, pushed past Arlington, and hurled it. As it flew it started glowing with magical light, a moving torch. It landed sixty feet away, but not far enough to reveal whatever was at the far end.

Arlington ran forward as far as he could, diving to a prone position when he was out of puff. He poked his head up and saw two Duergar poised with crossbows in the dim light another thirty feet away. “Mogran was right — two of them!”

Morgan followed Arlington and also rolled to the floor to make himself a smaller target. As he slid he called Ezra forth. He appeared at running full tilt, like a continuation of Morgan’s spirit. Arlington gasped in surprise.

The Duergar on the other hand gasped in shock, dropping their crossbows and drawing warpicks instead. Both swung at Ezra and both missed, the ethereal form confusing their swings as Ezra dodged out of the path of the blows. Tarquin ran forward and picked up Eearwaxx’s stone, throwing it to the end of the corridor which bathed the Duergar in light.

Jankx could see the foes now so tried a more reliable attack, but his firebolt also exploded harmlessly between the grey dwarves. Eearwaxx followed suit, exploding a chromatic orb into the wall but not the Duergar. Even Octavian couldn’t hit with his magical whip, nor Morgan with his sword. The Duergar grinned in the face of the ineffective attacks, then frowned when Ezra again avoided their confident swings.

Arlington could see he needed to set an example for the others, so he rested his crossbow on the floor and launched a steady bolt to the chest of one dwarf, who grunted in response. Jankx was indeed inspired, charging forward and shooting at near point blank range into the melee. And missing. He (and Arlington behind) groaned in frustration.

Eearwaxx was the one that finally broke the jinx, his spell exploding into Ezra’s challenger. Morgan continued the streak, steadying his feet and smashing his sword into his target. The Duergar howled in anger, drawing his pick back and bringing it down too fast for Morgan to react. It ripped deep into his cheek, just missing the eye. Morgan reeled back in shock and pain.

Jankx glanced over to make sure Morgan was as okay as he could be, and also noticed something very strange: there was no spray of blood from the wound. Jankx knew that kind of wound should have drawn copious blood, but Morgan merely sported a huge gash in his cheek.

Tarquin whispered a few words to himself, then stepped into the mist and reappeared directly behind Morgan’s assailant. He slid the rapier of death directly through the Duergar’s neck, and this time there was quite a spurt of gore. All over Jankx.

Jankx grunted, took a step backwards, angled his crossbow between Morgan and Ezra, and pinned the surviving dwarf’s head to the door. Dead as a doorknob.

---

The Grove

Jankx ripped his bolt out of the dwarf’s forehead and knelt to search the body. Nothing of particular interest, but he did note that the picks the two Duergar carried weren’t designed as weapons — they were mining picks, and they were well used. He stood and listened closely at the southern door and was interested to find that it sounded somehow spacious beyond. Perhaps the picks were being put to use inside?

Jankx reported all this and moved to the northern door where Octavian and Arlington waited. “What’s happening at this door?” Jankx whispered.

“You tell me,” Arlington instructed. Jankx nodded and checked the door — locked, which was unusual, and led to a small room. Eearwaxx tried his luck too, and came to the opposite conclusion. “There’s a big empty cave behind this door,” he said with confidence. Jankx raised an eyebrow.

“Let’s find out shall we, boys?” Arlington asked, training his crossbow on the door. Eearwaxx jumped in and started trying to unlock it, breaking his lockpick as he did. He cursed silently and mended it, and the lock, which allowed Jankx to crack it with relative ease. “Game face everyone,” Jankx said and popped open the door.

---

Inside stood a hulking Duergar with a flowing white beard, scale armour, holding a massive warpick. A layer of soil covered the floor of the room, and fungus on the ceiling provided light, apparently in sufficient quantity to nourish several small bushes and pale saplings that grew in the soil. Rough wooden shelves, filled with a scattering of tomes and scrolls, lined the north and east walls, and a rough-hewn desk stood in the centre of the chamber. Atop the desk were several shards of dark crystal and a burlap sack draped over a glowing object that emitted coloured light that shifts from blue to green to red.

The dwarf scrunched a piece of paper into a ball and dropped it on the desk, quickly moving to push open a door leading south out of the room, turning and staring as he stood in the doorway. “So it is you that have been disturbing the peace down here,” he scowled.

Jankx was sure the Duergar couldn’t be addressing him, so looked over his shoulder at Arlington. Arlington straightened up and turned his crossbow on the hulking dwarf. “How about you just stand still,” he suggested firmly.

“Who me? I stand still? For what purpose would I stand still?”

“So that I don’t shoot you.”

“And why would you shoot me?”

“Because we’ve shot everyone else we’ve come across so far,” Arlington explained patiently. “And you are no different from the rest until you prove yourself otherwise.”

Eearwaxx couldn’t contain himself and pushed his way into the room. Here at last was someone who wanted to talk! “Who are you?” he cried with enthusiasm as he hustled toward the desk.

The Duergar turned his steely gaze on the young wizard. “My name is Nildar Sunblight. You may have heard of me?”

“Wow. It’s lovely to meet you!”

“And you. What brings you to these parts, might I ask? I’m curious — not many do.”

“We’re just exploring. It’s an amazing old place!”

“It is indeed,” Nildar narrowed his eyes. " And tell me, what have you discovered?”

“Umm, we saw a dragon—”

“That’ll do Eearwaxx,” Arlington interrupted, seeing the game Nildar was playing. “Why don’t you just pull that door closed, sir.” He stepped into the room and used superior eye control to indicate to Morgan to follow suit.

In the corridor Octavian and Tarquin exchanged glances. “He’s buying time,” Octavian hissed and Tarquin nodded agreement. He tilted his head to the southern door and Octavian quickly moved down and signalled to Tarquin he was ready. Tarquin held his hand up: wait. Octavian nodded.

Nildar ignored Arlington’s command, keeping his focus on Eearwaxx. “Please continue, young wizard. What were you looking for?”

Eearwaxx had made his way to the desk and pulled himself up to sit on it. “Oh we’re just wandering. I saw a dragon, and guess what? I saw an Owlbear!” While he chatted inanely, Eearwaxx concentrated on the crumpled paper Nildar had dropped. It would be too obvious to simply pick it up, but the burlap covered light gave him an idea. He reached toward the light as if to pull the cover free, watching Nildar’s response.

“Before you uncover that, let me give you a warning: Maybe don’t uncover it.” Nildar said.

“What is it? What does it do?” Eearwaxx said, holding his hand ready to yank the burlap away.

“There’s one way to find out, and I suggest you don’t.”

Seeing his ruse had worked — Nildar’s focus was all on the hidden light — Eearwaxx took his opportunity and whisked the ball of paper off the desk and into his robe. Nildar didn’t react as Eearwaxx continued his happy chatter.

Arlington had seen enough. “Sir. If you don’t mind, please close that door.”

“I don’t think I will. I think if I close this door like you suggest, that bolt you have trained on me will be in my forehead,” Nildar responded.

“I think you’ve got it the wrong way ‘round.”

“You’ll shoot me either way? I’m just trying to have a conversation with you.”

Eearwaxx wanted to give his companions a better chance, so tried to distract Nildar again. “This thing under the burlap — is that like upstairs with the dragony thing, the egg thing, and the ball things that makes you run away, and…”

Nildar wasn’t falling for it again. He glanced at Jankx and Morgan. “One, two, three, four. And two more I believe?”

Tarquin felt the tension rising. He blessed those inside the room with a quick epithet, then gave Octavian the signal. Octavian cracked the door slowly He could see Nildar standing in a doorway to the north, and a vast bramble-covered cavern opening to the south.

As the door creaked open, Nildar turned his head to see Octavian. “And that makes five. I’ve seen enough.” He vanished.

Octavian yanked his door closed, holding it fast from within. Arlington let loose a bolt which snapped harmlessly into a bookshelf, missing wildly. He glanced down at the crossbow — was the bowstring slightly frayed? No time now, he thought and rushed forward. Morgan tried to work out which way the door had moved when Nidlar disappeared, but it happened too fast. Instead he covered the other door, making sure an invisible dwarf couldn’t get past. Jankx sprinted to Nildar’s door and looked out.

Immediately outside the room was a paved area covered in piles of twigs and roots, beyond which opened into a vast sagging cavern. Luminescent fungus on the rough walls and the high roof loomed over a twilight grove of sickly briars, bushes, saplings, and other woody plants. Ruined walls and hollow towers protruded from the tangles which covered every surface. Pale, spindly briars pressed close, casting twisted shadows on the earth floor in the violet light. On the western wall, three goblins lay dead in a cleared area which seemed to be the site of recent excavation, cleared of brambles with the rock wall freshly mined.

Jankx turned back to report what he saw, then immediately fell the floor asleep. Tarquin had unleashed a desperate spell to try and trap Nildar, but succeeded only in sending Jankx into his dreams. Eearwaxx tried the same with a blinding spell, but there was no sound of stumbling or confusion.

Octavian, standing by his door, could see no sign of Nildar, but he did hear pounding footsteps run past and into the bramble-field. “He’s running south!” Octavian yelled. Eearwaxx heard and repeated the cry, shaking Jankx awake as he did. Jankx woke and groggily climbed to his feet as Arlington ran past and into the cavern. He spotted some ruins and skidded to a halt behind them, taking cover and crouching on one knee, trying to spot Nildar. He saw no-one, but he did see movement in the brambles — more twig-blights, moving this way. Jankx followed close behind, still shaking his head clear. He assumed Nildar had done this, but thought it strange only he was affected.

Morgan sprinted down to Octavian’s door and burst through, scarf pulled over his face. “Careful!” Arlington yelled pointing into the brambles. Morgan nodded as he sheltered next to Arlington, then he called Ezra forth. Ezra appeared another twenty feet ahead in the cavern.

Tarquin skidded to a halt at the barrier too, motioning Octavian forward. Octavian made a quick survey of the brambles to the south. It was almost impassable, and impossible to travel through fast. The briars were obviously the most successful aboveground plants that had been transplanted, though they appeared sickly and pale, with blighted leaves. Other common plants and bushes were also represented, though they are equally afflicted. The fastest way was going to be flight, so Octavian took to air.

Eearwaxx stepped into the cavern and picked up a pebble from the ruins which he lit up like a beacon and tossed as far as he could. It landed nearby Ezra and lit up the chamber with a brilliant light. The light illuminated the brambles, and for a moment everyone could see the brambles being pushed aside by something that wasn’t visible. “That’s him!” Eearwaxx cried.

Octavian saw what Eearwaxx had seen and cracked his whip-vine into the vicinity. He was rewarded with a grunt of pain and he felt the whip connect — a lucky shot helped by Eearwaxx’s smarts. He hauled whatever he had tagged back toward his companions, directly into the path of Morgan. “Morgan! He’s there!!” Octavian yelled. Before Morgan could react the invisible shape rushed back south, but this time it was obvious where it was moving as the brambles were crushed underfoot.

Three twig-blights emerged from the undergrowth, snapping their spindly claws as they approached. Arlington fired another wayward bolt into the trees beyond, reminding him again to check his bowstring. Morgan had to deal with a blight before he could follow Nildar, shattering it into tiny lifeless twigs. Ezra pushed further ahead trying to find Nildar. Jankx fired a bolt of flame over Morgan’s shoulder, engulfing another blight in fire and catching the nearby brambles alight.

Eearwaxx was desperate not to lose track of Nildar but couldn’t find him in the confusion. He flamed a blight instead, killing the last one and creating another blaze in the dry brambles. When this one exploded in flame Morgan and Ezra both noticed a shape right next to the inferno, an invisible shape jumping out of the way of the explosion. “There!” Morgan cried and pointed.

Octavian raced over the treetops, shooting toward Morgan’s spot. He saw the brambles being shunted aside and dive-bombed, gambling that he could somehow grapple and slow Nildar. He crashed into something, which surely was the Duergar, drawing a grunt and curse. He couldn’t keep hold, but at least everyone knew where Nildar was.

Arlington watched Octavian fly majestically over the trees and dive into the brambles at a rate of knots. “Not bad,” he muttered grudgingly. He stepped forward into the brambles and took a pot shot at Octavian’s mark. He didn’t feel very confident given his last few shots, and when he loosed the bolt he was sure it was way off the mark. But instead Nildar grunted in pain and reappeared, Arlington’s bolt wedged between his massive shoulder-blades. “Curse you!” Nildar cried as he continued running south. Arlington grinned.

Ezra was close-by and swung fast but missed, and Morgan advanced as far as he could without getting tangled. Jankx followed the newly visible Duergar with his crossbow and fired. Nildar howled as the bolt split Arlington’s and buried itself deep in Nildar’s back. He staggered as the pain shot down his spine. “My father is more powerful than any of you filthy creatures can imagine!!” Nildar yelled, followed by a string of Underdark obscenities.

Octavian paused when he heard this, reflecting that this was the kind of thing he normally yelled out. But surely Nildar’s father wasn’t a dragon? As he pondered that he saw Tarquin vanish and reappear close to Nildar, stepping through the mists and throwing his dagger as he materialised, striking true.

Nildar turned to face everyone, surging into a giant version of himself as he swung his warpick. “You don’t understand the glory of it, the power found in the ice!”

Eearwaxx tolled Nildar’s death, but the Duergar shook his head to force it away. “No! You will not stop us!”

“Not this round,” Eearwaxx quipped. “Maybe this one,” Octavian retorted as he called down a bolt of radiant light, flinging Nildar backward.

“Your doom soars on dragon’s wings! My father will destroy the ten-towns!!” Nildar cried, eyes burning with rage. He took a huge swing at Ezra who stood at his feet. Nildar expected a massive crashing hit, but instead Ezra merely vanished as the pick swung through him. The giant Duergar cursed and hunted for his next target.

Octavian again wondered at what Nildar had said — a dragon? Duergar didn’t work with dragons, preferring their own nefarious ways. But there was no mistaking the threat he had made.

Arlington fired another wayward shot, the crossbow feeling somehow wrong. Tarquin meanwhile was struck by another twig-blight that had appeared, which Eearwaxx quickly set aflame. Octavian whipped a second blight, not killing it but pulling it into Morgan’s range. It crackled with energy and snapped it’s claws into Morgan’s lower leg. Morgan then destroyed it with a backhand.

Morgan summoned Ezra back into the fray. Ezra missed with his swing again as Nildar glared down, sure that he had killed whatever Ezra was. “What are you doing?!” Morgan yelled at Ezra as he threw a handaxe toward Nildar. He also missed, then immediately felt bad for his outburst.

Jankx ended the short reign of Nildar Sunblight. A headshot right between the eyes meant the giant Duergar toppled backwards into the bramble-field. “Fuck’s sake,” Arlington groaned. Once again Jankx was showing him up with his shooting. Better Nildar was dead, but still. He pushed past Jankx, giving him the stink-eye as he did, and moved down to the body of Nildar. “Let’s form up before we advance,” he called as everyone gathered.

---

A clearing lay so the south among the briars, the sixty-foot ceiling looming overhead. Several varieties of plants grew around the perimeter of the clearing, including a few suspicious-looking saplings, but their importance paled before that which stands at the courtyard’s centre. Beneath the fungal light stood an evil tree. Its blackened, twisted limbs reach upward, like a skeletal hand clawing its way out of the earth. The tree oozed dark sap and its presence was overwhelming.

Before it stood a few twig blights, a heavily armoured, young human male with a shield and black-bladed sword, and a young human woman in a robe fit for a noble. The duo stood still, unresponsive, swaying very slightly, eyes black and skin grey with the texture of bark.

Octavian glanced apprehensively at the tree and swaying humans as he settled to the ground next to Arlington. “Just so you know, I’m out of spells.”

“I hear you. Eearwaxx?”

“I’m out. Except for firebolt,” he grinned holding a hot finger up.

“I’ve got heaps, barely used a one,” Tarquin offered.

“Well you take the lead then, brother,” Arlington decided.

“Maybe this is a diplomatic moment rather than a fight?” Jankx suggested, observing the humans hadn’t advanced.

“I’m looking around for a diplomat,” Arlington scoffed.

“True, we don’t have one,” Jankx agreed.

“—Well sorry, but there is—” Octavian started. “—Well, funny you should say that—” Tarquin said simultaneously.

“Not you, psychopath, he meant me!” Octavian scowled. “Arlington, although I have no spells I don’t think we have any other options. We’ve got to move forward, and quickly. They look like they’re either chanting or preparing some kind of spell. We need to stop it, fast.”

Tarquin took Octavian at his word and moved. As he drew closer to the clearing he could just make out a shape in the trunk of the looming tree. A middle-aged, bearded human male wearing a hooded brown robe was embedded in the trunk of the tree, being slowly absorbed into its maw — just like the bugbear in the rock. One arm was clutching a staff that couldn’t move due to being grown over by the woody growth from the tree, while the other hand was free.

---

The man in the tree turned its eyes toward Tarquin and seemed to smile. “Auril’s truth will be revealed to the unbelievers! Even now her druids gather in the endless winter!” He pointed his free hand and a faerie-fire appeared, covering everyone in violet light. Tarquin, Morgan, and Jankx seemed to absorb the light under their skin, glowing brightly in the gloom. “Faerie-fire, watch out you will be easy targets!” Octavian yelled.

Arlington immediately swung his crossbow down and fired at the embedded druid. It hit, somewhat to his surprise. The man looked down at the bolt sticking from his thigh and laughed. “Those that were trapped will be free, and their reign begin anew!”

The two humans lurched into action, standing tall and stepping forward. “Kill the monsters, Tarquin,” Arlington ordered. Tarquin charged forward and swung his deadly rapier. Not so deadlily as it transpired. Maybe me leading was a bit of a silly plan, Tarquin considered, too late.

Eearwaxx rushed forward, cutting himself on the last brambles before the hearing. He shot a firebolt into the warrior, covering him in flame. The warrior didn’t react, even when Ezra incorporated beside Tarquin and also attacked, landing a true hit for what felt like the first time. Morgan watched with pride, and the distraction allowed a twig-blight to land a slicing blow on Morgan. Morgan staggered a little as the blow struck, surprising Jankx: Morgan never staggered. Two more blights attacked Tarquin, both hitting with their raking claws.

Jankx tried to retaliate against the blight, but jammed his dagger into a branch on the ground instead. Octavian sent a guiding bolt into the tree-druid, drawing hysterical howls and lighting the druid up in radiance. “The pain will only make me stronger!” He mumbled something and raised his hand, summoning a field of writhing vines from the ground below. Octavian cursed, seeing his own magic turned against his companions.

Only Tarquin ended up being entangled, everyone else using their strength to break free. Tarquin cursed under his breath — it was all falling apart. He was now glowing, trapped in vines, and being attacked by blights and a hulking warrior. Who’s bright idea was this, he rued as the black sword of the dead-eyed brute swung toward him. Somehow, someway, he missed, and Tarquin breathed a silent thanks to whatever or whoever had saved him.

The wizard stepped to the side of the warrior and flung three magic-tinged missiles. One destroyed Ezra who vanished, and the other two struck the entangled Tarquin. Not saved this time.

“We need to get Tarquin out of there!” Octavian yelled. Arlington agreed and turned his attention to the warrior, despite his hunch the tree druid was the real threat. As soon as he pulled the trigger he knew what was going to happen: the bowstring snapped with a crack as his run of unreliable shots suddenly made sense. He dropped the crossbow to the ground and hauled out his boar-spear.

Tarquin, buried beneath his adverseries, felt panic surging as he swung wildly at the blights, hitting nothing, but instinctively healing himself at the same time. Eearwaxx tolled the warrior but there didn’t seem to be any effect. Morgan parried away the blight attacking him and called Ezra back, who again hit the warrior with a telling blow. More blights appeared and attacked Jankx and Ezra, and it started to feel overwhelming. “Steady, people!” Arlington called, his voice full of authority.

Jankx heeded Arlington’s words, destroying a blight as he moved closer to Tarquin. Octavian shillelaghed another of Tarquin’s blights, giving the bard some breathing space.

“You shall never kill those that do not live!” the druid in the tree yelled as he pointed at the warrior, who seemed to swell with health. The wizard fired a dazzling array of flashing coloured lights that covered Octavian, Tarquin and Ezra. All three were instantly blinded by the brilliance.

Tarquin felt his panic reaching a crescendo - he now couldn’t see and couldn’t move. He heard the warrior raising his weapon and a moment later cried out in agony as the blade dug into his shoulder. The darkness seemed to mock Tarquin as he lashed out wildly. Such was his terror and adrenalin that he tore himself free of the vines. Small mercies, he thought to himself in his blindness, as he swung his blade hopefully. It connected with something — but it felt almost like hitting nothing. Unbeknownst to Tarquin, Ezra vanished.

Arlington threw his spear at the warrior, but he was so put-out by the accursed crossbow that he flung it too hard. It thunked harmlessly into he tree beyond, drawing a flood of black ‘blood’ from the trunk. Arlington let out a cry of rage at his ineffectiveness. This was not what he expected. Eearwaxx tried to toll the warrior again, and again it didn’t work. He grunted with frustration and then hid from sight. He had a new plan.

Morgan kick his blight away, needing to bring Ezra back instead of attacking. Ezra, having learnt his lesson from being scolded, drew his sword back and hit the warrior for the third successive time. He snarled and his eyes flared bright yellow as he sliced his blade from shoulder to hip, chopping the half-wood half-flesh creature asunder. Even in his darkness Tarquin felt the pressure lessen, even as another blight added another wound. Octavian took his chances and hit and destroyed a blight despite not being able to see.

“The tide is turning, people!” Morgan yelled.

The druid was having none of that. “If you kill my minions, I will burn you!” His free hand summoned a ball of roaring fire that materialised on top of Tarquin. Ezra disappeared, again, while Tarquin and Octavian took the brunt of the fire. The wizard impassively shot a ray of frost at Tarquin, but the flames absorbed the icy-beam and saved Tarquin.

Tarquin could finally see, and was free, and he was furious. He used every ounce of his remaining strength to bring his rapier down on the wizard, but he miscalculated the tree limbs above and only managed to jam his blade into the blackened wood, covering himself in goop that leaked from the tree. Tarquin almost wept with frustration as he let go the sword and healed his wounds as best he could. Arlington drew his last weapon, his shortsword, and also tried to strike the wizard, but missed. Again.

Eearwaxx had turned his attention to the druid in the trunk. He emerged from stealth directly in front and created a magical bonfire centred on the trunk. The fire was brilliantly effective, covering the writhing figure in flames. “Auril will revenge me! Her power knows no limit!” he laughed as the flames engulfed him.

Morgan was struck again by his persistent twig-blight, so Jankx finally finished it off, pondering how incredibly hard to kill that single twig-blight had been. Octavian flung his whip into the wizard, jerking her forward into the ball of fire. As she was hauled forward Tarquin saw a chance, shoving his dagger into her the bark of her back. The satisfaction was great.

The druid was cackling hysterically in the flames as he continued ranting. “I shall live on even in my death!” He pulled the sphere of fire onto Arlington, covering him with a burning ring of fire. “You shall not stand!” The cavern echoed with a thunderous crack as he summoned a crashing, thunderous wave that rocked the ground like it was a carpet. Ezra vanished, Tarquin was knocked back and to his knees, and Arlington stumbled as the ground rocked underfoot.

The wizard turned to Eearwaxx and let loose another frost bolt, this time hitting and covering Eearwaxx in icy frost. Arlington growled and turned on her, but he swung his weapon so hard that it was loosed from his grip and flew into the ground several feet away. He stared at it incredulously. He was now weaponless. He was so stunned that he failed to move from the ball of flame that hovered above and howled with half-pain half-annoyance as the flames burned down on him.

Tarquin ran as far from the combat as he could, threw his dagger at the tree man (and hit!), then healed himself with everything he had left. He wasn’t interested in dying just yet, this was still a story to be told.

Eearwaxx tried to bury a dagger in the wizard but missed. He scowled, but he encouraged the bonfire on the wizard ever higher, drawing cries of martyr-like wonder from the embedded figure. Ezra rematerialised and walked calmly toward the flames. He flipped his weapon downwards, gripping the cross-guard and ramming it down the druid’s throat — silencing him forever.

The ball of flame vanished when the druid died, much to Arlington’s relief. Jankx turned to the wizard who was still impassively doing her work and fired his crossbow. It sunk into her gut and she slowly collapsed to the ground. “Oh thank god,” Jankx mumbled, as he slumped in exhaustion to the ground.

One twig-blight remained and it poked Octavian with twiggy-glee. Arlington, also exhausted, strode over to it and punched it in the face.

---

The Aftermath

With its minions dead, the huge tree loomed every larger over the exhausted party, it’s long limbs seemed to be reaching ever closer, seeking fresh supplicants.

Octavian was fascinated. The victim embedded in the tree had obviously been a druid, and likely behind the experiments and mutations. Octavian knew of druids who celebrated evil trees, bred and fed over centuries. And some that could propagate themselves like this one: the twig blights were its offspring and it somehow controlled the now dead bark-skinned humans. The druid too, despite thinking he was in control, was no doubt being controlled by the tree. He had read of druidic experimentation with creating this kind of tree, but this tree was different, something more ancient and more evil. As he studied the tree, chipping and testing, the name suddenly came to him — it had been talked of in the Dragon Tome but slipped his mind in the chaos down here: “It’s a Gulthias Tree,” he announced, “I’ve never heard of one this big, nor seen one before.”

Eearwaxx too was drawn to the tree, moreso as Octavian reported his findings. He scraped through the remains of the burnt man, noting that the tendrils of the tree were grown through his ribcage and wrapped tightly around thighbone. “This man wasn’t in the tree by choice,” Eearwaxx announced. “He didn’t look happy about it, despite his bravado. Couldn’t even use his staff.” he said. He turned to the fallen wizard and searched her body, finding a spellbook locked to her belt. He carefully freed it and tucked it into his robes.

Tarquin sat wearily nearby, looking up at the tree as he pulled out a parchment and started sketching and writing. He searched his mind for stories of ‘Gulthias’ trees and quickly remembered several. Trees of legend in poem and prose, very rare and powered by necromantic ritual. “Created from a vampire staked in the tree’s heart,” he said quietly. Octavian and Eearwaxx took a step back hearing this. Tarquin dipped a finger in the dark red sap that oozed from the tree, almost black, almost blood. He recited a new poem as he scribbled into his notebook:

Arlington grimaced as he recovered his scattered weapons, stepping back from the tree’s reach to work on restringing his crossbow. Morgan scouted further into the remains of the cavern, finding nothing alive but plenty more nigh impassable thickets of thorn. “Nothing there, and no way out,” he reported to Arlington.

Jankx had barely moved. He couldn’t understand why Octavian and Eearwaxx were anywhere near a tree that appeared to have eaten three people, but he was too tired to engage that thought any further. As he crouched recovering his strength, he felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time: warmth. His back was being gently warmed and he resettled his shoulders in appreciation. Then it occurred to him that maybe this wasn’t quite right. He turned his head slowly and saw three distinct fires were burning to the north. Our spells, he whispered to himself, before spinning to face his companions. “Fire! We need to get out of here now!”

As soon as Jankx said it everyone smelled the same — smoke was starting to drift into the area and the fires were spreading. Morgan rushed to look — it didn’t look like it would be safe for long. “Octavian! Have you got anything in your spell arsenal that can put these out?”

Octavian shook his head. “I’m out, my spells are mainly offensive nothing but tricks left.” He turned to Arlington. “We won’t be able to breath soon, we have to move!” He ripped the druid’s wooden staff free of the skeletal hand and flew into the air.

Arlington already knew this was bad — he didn’t need a lizard to tell him. The air in here would be burning up before long, and smoke inhalation was deadly. But there was loot to be had first - he knelt down by the warrior and patted him down, but the only thing of value was the sword he carried. Arlington grabbed it and ran — calmly — over to Morgan.

The fires were blazing now, and two threatened to join into a larger conflagration. Morgan grabbed Arlington and pointed a path through the brambles. “If we move fast enough we can clear a path for the others,” he said tightening his grip on his shield. “Those brambles are going to hurt but I don’t see any other way. It’s time versus safety so at some point we may just have to run for it.”

“Don’t worry. I have a frontiersman sword,” Arlington said confidently as he drew the same, “So I’m right with you.” Together they pushed into the brambles and started crashing through, forging a narrow passage. The heat from the fires quickly became near overwhelming but they kept at their work, scratched and sweating, breathing hard through the smoke. Morgan looked back and nodded as Jankx, Eearwaxx, and Tarquin struggled forward. Overhead, Octavian was safe, but he monitored his companions as he flew.

Half-way home Eearwaxx stumbled on the body of Nildar Sunblight, and he couldn’t resist pausing — just for a moment, he promised — to search the body. The twin fires had just started to merge as he did, and a wave of deadly heat and smoke billowed over the crouched wizard. He closed his eyes against the sting as he felt his lungs afire and his skin blistering. He knew he wasn’t going to survive this but still his hands searched furiously. As he collapsed he found something — two things! — and closed his hands around them: another dragon ring, and a book hidden in Nildar’s breast pocket. Eearwaxx smiled to himself as he fell unconscious.

Arlington cried out as he saw Eearwaxx fall to the ground, deathly still. “Damn stupid boy!” But Eearwaxx wasn’t moving. The great hunter knelt and hauled the tiny wizard over his shoulder like a freshly killed steer, feeling his thin bones and barely developed muscle. He set himself against the flames and rushed ahead: Eearwaxx was not going to die on his watch. “Go, Morgan, go!!”

Morgan did his best to keep clearing as he rushed ahead, smashing brambles and trees almost blind in the smoke. He could feel Arlington staggering along behind. Jankx suddenly sprinted past, moving like the wind and seemingly unimpeded by the tangled undergrowth. Octavian landed on the northern edge and did his best to clear the last remaining thickets as Morgan burst through, followed closely by everyone else.

“He’s a heavy little nugget,” Arlington gasped as he carefully laid Eearwaxx down. Actually he wasn’t, but under the circumstances it was like carrying a lump of stone. Eearwaxx was barely moving as Arlington ripped the half-burnt beard from his face to free his airway, and did his best to stabilise the wizard. He sighed with relief as he saw Eearwaxx’s breathing settle into a regular rhythm, though he remained unconscious.

Jankx did a double take as Morgan emerged from the smoke. The terrible face-wound inflicted by the Duergar had vanished and Morgan’s skin was once again almost unnaturally smooth and pale. Jankx had seen the Duergar pick rip a hole in Morgan’s face, exposing dry, black skin and naked bone – but no blood — and now there was no sign. He looked stunned as Morgan’s eyes met his, so Morgan pulled his scarf up to cover his lower face.

---

Arlington hustled everyone into the study and pulled the doors closed, directing the doors be stuffed with torn papers to inhibit the smoke. “We need to get Eearwaxx to safely, and it’s not going to be safe here for long. Search this place and be quick about it.”

Octavian rapidly scanning the bookshelves, looking for anything that caught his eye. Most were hand-written accounts of the druidic experimentation he had witnessed: fungus, spores, propagation, infection, and more. It was all horribly brilliant, the work of a madman who sought to bend the natural world to his own devices. Being entangled in the tree was a fitting end to such a life, he mused. Octavian grabbed a few of the early journals, and the last, regretting that there was not time to take them all.

Tarquin followed Octavian’s lead, finding several spell-scrolls buried in the shelves, and also a druidic tome On the Cycle of Life and Death. He pondered not telling Octavian for a moment then thought that was a little too cruel. He tossed it over with a call, noting Octavian’s thanks.

Morgan studied the cloth-shrouded object on the desk. The low lights glowed softly underneath, shifting from blue to green to red. He recalled Nildar warning not to uncover whatever this was, but also suspected the Duergar was using it as a distraction whilst he made his escape. He placed his hands on the hessian cover and felt the shape beneath. It was roughly a foot high, and seemed to have a hexagonal shape, six panels running around a circular top and bottom. “It feels like a lantern,” he muttered, “But there is no warmth. Maybe we should leave it covered and take it—”

Morgan suddenly stopped talking as his face lit up. “Ohh! I know what it is!” He carefully lifted the cover half-off, then smiled as he drew it fully clear. “It’s a lantern. I need to take this back to the people who own it.”

“It’s not a lantern,” Arlington frowned. This was no ordinary lantern, not with that glow.

“Well it’s a magic lantern,” Morgan corrected.

“It belongs to the innkeepers in my home-town, the Northern Light. This is the Northern Light,” Morgan said staring hard at Arlington, “And it’s going back to them.” A statement, not a question.

“What’s it doing here?” Octavian asked.

“It got stolen.”

“Why didn’t he want us to take the cover off?” Arlington asked. Morgan shrugged. “It’s harmless.”

Octavian had scanned the desk during this discussion and found two more shards of the strange rock that wrapped the hobgoblin and some of the Duergar had carried. He scooped them up. “What about searching the rest of the desk?” Octavian pointed to the still closed draws. Arlington nodded and looked at Jankx.

Jankx sighed and started checking the desk. His heart wasn’t in this. He tried the first draw and found it wedged closed. For fuck’s sake, he thought to himself. He was suddenly tired and fed up. He rested against the desk and shook his head, glancing at the tendril’s of smoke starting to creep under the door. “There’s a book on top,” he said to Arlington, pointing to the only thing he’d noticed. “Written in Draconic.”

Morgan hustled over to have a look. A weighty red leather book emblazoned with a title on the spine: “Treasures of the Fire Lords,” he said. “Should I open this?” he asked Jankx. Jankx shook his head. Now that he considered it, this book was a little too obviously sitting atop the desk, and the draconic worried him.

Arlington noted Jankx’s hesitation. “Why don’t you just hold off.” Morgan carefully placed the book down and stepped away to the door. “Why don’t we wait for Eearwaxx to be awake.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Arlington agreed. “Anything else in the desk?”

Jankx flushed as he answered. “Uh. No. Well. I…I couldn’t open all the draws.”

Arlington stared at Jankx. “Really?”

Jankx shrank slightly. What the fuck did I just say, he groaned to himself. “Yeahhh, now that you mention it—”

Arlington turned with a raised eyebrow to Morgan, who stepped back over to the desk and ripped the jammed door open, followed by all the rest. Inside were coins and gems which he shuffled into a pouch.

“More loose change,” Arlington sighed.

“Well it’s hardly loose change,” Morgan said. “More money than some of us have ever seen.”

“Speak for yourself. Mind you I don’t deal in coin.”

While Jankx was busy scuffing the floor he noticed the smoke was now billowing strongly into the room. “Time to go,” he announced, and no-one needed to be told twice.

---

A brief rest in the arrival chamber allowed Eearwaxx time to recover enough to continue. The boy-wizard had been through a lot — he was physically drained, mentally taxed, and his beard was in tatters. The first thing he did on rousing was mend the beard.

Eearwaxx showed everyone the ring he had found as he fell, this time white. “Only the black is missing,” Morgan observed, wondering if it was still down here somewhere. Too bad, he thought to himself, it was time to leave.

Eearwaxx also laid down the leather bound book he had grabbed. It was another journal, but written in Dwarven rather than common. He handed it to Tarquin who took it carefully. There was nothing written on the outside and the first page had a single word: CHARDALYN. Tarquin paged through the notes and realised ‘chardalyn’ was a mineral or rock of some kind.

As Tarquin paused on a page of sketches and Octavian pulled out his samples. They were a perfect match. So now he had a name for this new substance.

The journal was thick with notes and sketches. Tarquin and Octavian ignored the more technical Duergar details (they loved their rock, that was for certain) and together nutted out some salient facts about chardalyn:

• a nonmagical, crystalline substance as strong as metal, though considerably easier to work with than steel;
• created from a fusion of ancient magic and ice;
• cold to the touch and readily accepts magical enchantment, making it an ideal substance for wands, staffs, and other magic items;
• the only known deposits of chardalyn have been found across Icewind Dale (which explained why Octavian had never seen it before in his druidic studies)

“I dub this area the Tunnels of Chardalyn,” Tarquin quipped as he read on. Toward the end of the journal, one of the more recent entries page had a series of freshly scribbled notes which Tarquin read aloud:

Copper Knobberknocker (pathetic gnomes and their absurd names!) in Bryn Shander swears his friend (Macreadus) has found a source. Tracking.

Macreadus has gone to ground. Still tracking.

Located Macreadus. Slightly mad. Unwilling to share. Convinced him otherwise.

Not chardalyn, just a lump of rock - ‘space rock’ he claimed — sourced on the black market. Ignore.

Jankx’s ears pricked at ‘space rock’. Could it be, he wondered, filing this thought for later.

“Who knows about Bryn Shander?” Tarquin asked.

“Bryn Shander is the capital of Icewind Dale,” Morgan explained.

“Sure, but I mean, who’s hanging around there?”

Jankx raised his hand.

“Why are we looking for these people?” Arlington asked,

“We think they have something. Some sort of magic, or special rock,” Octavian explained patiently.

“Or they’re looking for this,” Tarquin said, pointing to Octavian’s small pile of chardalyn. “Friends! We found some treasure — now we have the names of a buyer!”

“But weren’t we going to chase down this gnome? Erky Timbers?” Arlington protested.

“Look I’m not saying we rush to Bryn Shander now,” Octavian sighed, “But it’s another piece of information. There are a few things to look into.”

“Remind me, where was Erky to be found?” Tarquin asked.

“Easthaven,” Arlington answered, “Which is a better town than Bryn Shander on any day.”

Eearwaxx recalled he had another treasure to reveal. He pulled out the crumpled note he had swiped off the desk. It was also Dwarven, and Tarquin translated:

Brother,
You will find me on the frozen ferry in Easthaven.

“Well perhaps we should go to Easthaven after all,” Tarquin grinned as he continued reading.

From this new base, the search for chardalyn continues. Long may our father reign over this dark land!
Durth

“Sorry, what now?” Arlington spluttered.

“That last sentence certainly took a turn,” Jankx agreed.

“I think the value of Octavian’s rocks have just gone up!” Tarquin smiled.

“Wait a minute,” Octavian said, “Nildar was also talking about his father. So this ‘Durth’ must be Nildar’s brother?”

“There’s a lot going on here,” Morgan said, “We’ve got Erky, the Duergar, this new rock, Calcryx. And didn’t the druid in the tree rant about Auril too? Auril and her druids?”

Everyone had heard the name — many Ten–Towners believe the endless night is Auril’s doing, and offerings and sacrifices (food, warmth, and worse) are made to try and quell her anger. As the winter has deepened, the desperation of the people of Ten–Towns has led to greater sacrifices, hoping to appease Auril so that summer can return to Icewind Dale.

Octavian knew of Auril, a respected but feared god, but until he arrived in Ten–Towns he did not realise the ferocity of her power and how she was using it to curse the frozen north to darkness. South of the Spine, everyone knew it was cold, but only he had experienced the intensity of the freeze did he realise that something needed to be done. Auril needed to be reigned in, and he vowed to bring this news to the druidic councils on his return — especially if evil druids were working at her side.

“Might be time to go south I reckon,” Arlington sighed. “You can come and join me at my summer palace — there’s plenty of room.” Octavian might have to stay in the barn, he mused, chuckling to himself. Lucky he can’t hear my thoughts, he thought. He can’t. Right?

---

Everyone climbed the shaft and emerged back on the upper level with a surge of energy. Time to get home, and to rest. But before taking more than a few steps a grinning kobold appeared in the doorway: Meepo!

“Friend back! I hear coming! Octavian the Winged back! Meepo love!” He sprinted over and leapt onto Octavian.

“That’s good Meepo,” Octavian said gently. Jankx smiled — he’d missed their small friend. And he was somewhat amazed to see he had survived. He was a tough little unit, but Calcryx was a dragon.

“What happen to? You look all sore tired?”

“We vanquished all of the foes,” Tarquin said with a bow.

“Everyone is dead,” Arlington added.

“There is nothing left,” Octavian nailed home the point.

“All? Kobold safe?”

Tarquin held his hand out, offering the entire fortress to Meepo. “This place is clean.”

Meepo’s eyes widened and sparkled with excitement. “Kobold’s go down?”

“You might want to just wait a moment,” Tarquin laughed.

“Meepo, there’s a tree down there you should probably avoid,” Octavian said sternly.

“He’s a kobold, he’ll probably worship it for god’s sake,” Arlington scoffed.

“No, no, we don’t want anyone to worship it, or feed it, or anything. Just stay away from it.”

“Meepo understand. Where is?”

“I will make a map,” Octavian said.

“Meepo know map!”

“Meepo is the mapmaster,” Octavian agreed. Meepo was bouncing from toe-to-toe, obviously bursting to say something. “Ok, ok, Meepo — what’s new with you?”

A flood of words burst from the tiny kobold. “Meepo did good thing! Octavian trained Meepo and Meepo do! We find GOBLIN! We find all escaped goblin! They not run, they here!” Meepo spun and jumped as he continued. “Octavian tell Meepo not kill Goblin, Yusdrayl say kill Goblin, Meepo say not, Yusdrayl say do, Meepo convince not!”

“Oh oh,” Eearwaxx whispered.

“And where are they now?” Octavian asked warily.

“I show! Follow Meepo!” He scurried ahead and led the party back to the Goblin stockade where Erky Timbers had been detained.

“This is going to be something horrendous,” Morgan groaned.

“We not kill goblin!” Meepo said as he pushed the door open. The floor, walls, and ceiling of the erstwhile prison room were now iced over, and locked inside that ice were dozens of frozen goblin corpses, faces forever screaming. In one corner of the room was a crude ice-lair.

“Calcryx do! Calcryx kill goblin, make food, then Calcryx grow!!” Meepo said with obvious pride and joy.

Arlington started to laugh. This was too good. He laughed and laughed.

Octavian grimaced at the spectacle, though he had to admit it was a clever solution. He crouched down and peered into the lair: a moulted dragon skin lay within. “How much bigger has he got?”

Meepo eyes were wide with wonder. “He grow wings, big wings. And now he fly.”

“Where is he?” Arlington said, suddenly serious.

“He go out. But he say he return, tell Meepo guard food.”

Eearwaxx crept inside the lair and bundled up the shed skin. Meepo looked on nervously. “Maybe not touch? Not touch skin?”

“He doesn’t need it anymore,” Eearwaxx explained. “He won’t use this, he’s finished with it. He’ll grow and there will be another skin soon.”

“Boy sure?” Meepo looked to Octavian who nodded approval. He wondered if Arlington knew what they had just recovered — this was almost invaluable.

Tarquin knew. He elbowed Arlington. “We might want to tally that one up,” he whispered. “I don’t think we’re telling anyone about the chardalyn, but that’s got to go straight out on the market.”

“Definitely,” Arlington whispered back as he watched Eearwaxx struggle to drag the skin out. He felt uncomfortable with this whole scenario. “We can’t be involved with this,” he announced, waving his hand at the frozen room of goblins. “This is kobolds creating a larder for an evil dragon. We do not want to be implicated in this.”

Octavian agreed. “Sure. We’re going to go, anyway.”

“Evil dragon? Not evil dragon — Calcryx,” Meepo protested.

“That’s right, he’s our friend,” Eearwaxx said encouragingly. “And the goblins are already dead, they’re not frozen alive.”

Arlington was about to speak again when Tarquin pulled him aside. He lifted Calcryx’s whistle from the chain around his neck. “I think it’s best we leave. We’ve got what we need.”

“This is going to come back and bite us,” Arlington hissed.

“So long as we’ve got the whistle it won’t.”

“Tarquin,” Arlington whispered, “We should be killing every single one of these evil little fucks.”

Tarquin looked Arlington in the eye, deadly serious. “You’re the boss…”

Arlington paused for what felt like an eternity, then relaxed. “I don’t think we have the votes,” he grinned.

“Hey boss, it’s your game, I’m fine either way,” Tarquin nodded.

“And I need some wings to get me out of here.”

Tarquin flourished the whistle. “Again I say — we’ve got some wings, when we need them.” Arlington nodded and turned back to the room.

“Meepo you’ve done a good job,” Octavian was saying. “When did Calcryx go?”

“Last night. He return and feed soon.”

“Has he ever left before and come back?”

“Not never. We have in cage. Now he big and have wings. Fly.”

“We need to be going, after we rest.”

“Oh! Meepo do other good thing. Meepo get goblin and cut thigh off, as Octavian say. Meepo cook thigh, eat, Octavian right! Much nice! Meepo bring more for friends to eat,” Meepo said, clapping his hands.

“Goblin thigh. Hm. Yes,” Jankx deadpanned. Arlington stared at Octavian.

Octavian cleared his throat. “That’s ok. We just need sleep, no need for food.”

“Sleep and eat. Eat to get strong! Meepo bring goblin.”

“It is good,” Octavian agreed, then pointed to his companions and switched to draconic-Kobold, “They won’t eat it. You know humans —- stupid.”

Meepo nodded his understanding. “I bring for Octavian,” he winked. Octavian smiled weakly.

---

Sad farewells were said to Meepo and respects paid to Yusdrayl. Despite his bond with Octavian, Meepo had accepted his new role as dragon-carer and vowed to stay. “Octavian and friends visit, Meepo wait and grow strong, like Calcryx!”

“Meepo — do you know a way up and out onto the snow again?” Morgan asked.

“To Underdark? Yes. To snow, no, not know. How you get here?”

“We fell,” Tarquin said much to Meepo’s amusement.

Standing under the crevice again, everyone was reminded of just how unpleasant it was aboveground. It had been nigh a week underground, and whilst it was extremely cold, it was protected from the howling wind and snow. But there was nothing for it, and everyone rugged up and emerged once more into the endless gales of Icewind.

The journey back to Ten-Towns was slow and cold. Very cold. Stomping one foot in front of another on autopilot, edging ever closer. Eearwaxx was relieved — and a little disappointed — not to encounter the Owlbear on the walk to the foot of the Spine.

The snow howled in near-blizzard conditions as the ground started to level out. It was day two of the struggle, and Arlington was using all his outdoorsman nous to direct his battling companions through the snowfields. In a trance he saw a large snow-covered hillock ahead. He squinted to find a way around, then noticed something unusual. Atop the rise was a figure sitting alone in a chair, resting in the cold. He called a halt. “Correct me if I’m wrong gentlemen,” he yelled into the wind, “But is that a chair?”

Several muffled nods agreed with his observation. “If we sat for more than ten minutes like that we’d be dead,” Arlington mused. “Let’s take a closer look.” He led unerringly through the deep snow, avoiding quicksnow and unstable drifts. It was definitely a seat. And a frozen figure sitting very still. Eearwaxx waved, as he was wont, but there was no response, and Tarquin gently lowered his wizard friend’s arm. “I don’t think that ones answering,” he said.

“He’s resting,” Eearwaxx suggested, causing Tarquin to shake his head and turn away. He studied the hill, noting it was standing alone, not part of a range.

Arlington stepped up the slope toward the figure. As he walked he noticed the ground beneath his feet was more solid than he expected. It should have been thick snow, but seemed to only be a thinnish layer, too hard-packed. He called a halt again. “To me everybody. Something is not right,” he called.

“I can go take a look if you like,” Morgan offered.

“I don’t think splitting up is a good idea,” Jankx said.

“Let me go look,” Octavian said, lifting into the air. He had to use all his strength to resist the howling winds, but he slowly flapped his way toward the icy statue. It was a human, covered in frost and snow, dressed in wizards garb, utterly frozen, sitting on — sitting on — sitting on a riding saddle?!

Arlington had a sudden flash of intuition. Hadn’t Yusdrayl said something about a dragon ‘flying high, with her rider’. He felt his stomach drop as he quickly used his primeval awareness to sense…

“DRAGON!!!” Octavian and Arlington screamed in unison.

The ground around the hillock started to rumble and shake as the hill transformed into a giant white wyrm. Sheets of snow and ice fell from its back as it rose, the frozen wizard rising with it. Everyone was flung onto their backs as the dragon lazily beat its wings and lifted gracefully into the air and flew into the stormwinds.

---

Everyone lay stunned in the snow, eyes locked on the rapidly disappearing dragon.

“Arveiaturace,” Tarquin whispered.

“Oh my gosh,” Eearwaxx cried with a tear of wonder in his eye, “That’s amazing!”

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Sessions played: Apr 5, 19, 26, May 2, 23, Jun 6, 13 2022