It was still fourth day of the sixth month. Ollie had just picked up a brass ring adorned with a hammer symbol. He slid it on his finger to no apparent effect.
They looked around the chamber and noted passages north and south. Urgesh was keen to try the northern passage which quickly curved around to face west into a triangular chamber perhaps thirty feet across. Metallic stars floated in the air, as did the sharp smell of human dung. A passage to the north was blocked by a cloth-covered mass. The sturdy half-orc advanced into the chamber to examine the bizarre orbs, and they drifted towards him.
A Loadstar Poked My Eye!
The stars were about two feet wide, seemingly a mass of spikes of various sizes and made of a bluish metal. They floated in the air as soft as a dandelion seed in the summer breeze. Later, they would come to know these as loadstars, a plague in deep mines known for producing heavy growths in those they stung, but at that moment, they were still ignorant. Grubbycheek, the operator of the nearby gold mine, would fill them later when asked.
One of the puny henchmen who came along with Urgesh, the calling himself Ylyndar, hurled his javelin at a metallic star. Urgesh stepped up to smash one with Vambier, his two-handled scimitar. The monster burst into a thousand spikes the tinkled as they fell to the floor. Hocuspo aimed Tienarth’s wand and blasted another of the stars. Aderian did his part with an axe blow.
Presently, a spike dug into Urgesh’s face, near his eye. Instantly, the right side of his face swelled. Over a matter of seconds, the swelling mass matched the size of his entire head. His helmet fell away as he desperately grabbed at the spike and pulled it out. Meanwhile, Saul’s lion rushed into the chamber in a rage. With more blows from Urgesh and Aderian, the loadstars were smashed to bits and made harmless.
Urgesh found it hard to hold his head up with ten pounds of soft flesh hanging from his face. By some raw instinct, Aderian offered to lance the enormous boil. Out came a viscous, orange goo. Urgesh grasped two sides and forced out a considerable volume of the goo along with a tiny blue crystal. Aderian crushed the crystal under his boot, guessing it was a parasite of some type.
When he first entered the room, Urgesh had noticed an unusual crack in the floor. Now they gave it more attention, noting a rectangular shape. Ollie found he could pry up this thin panel of rock to reveal a small hollow holding a small metal case. Inside were many irregular bits of metal. Aderian’s bag lusted for the valuable metal. They weren’t exactly coins, but would function as such in the primitive world above, being equivalent to 500 cp, 400 sp, and 1,600 gp. They were poured into the sentient bag.
The passage out of this chamber to the north was clogged with a cloth-covered mass. The strong dung smell came from this blockage. One of them plunged a blade into the blog and more orange goo spilled out. What appeared to be a shapeless sack of goo was clearly a former human once it deflated. They surmised it was the remains of an unfortunate victim of the loadstars.
Inside the chamber was a table on which two unlit candles stood. A large chest stood beside the table. Ferris began examining it for traps and felt a stinging sensation. He swiftly pulled his hands back and wiped them on his shirt. “Contact poison,” he explained. The chest contains more irregular metal tokens and a scroll tube, which he handed to Tienarth who was still in dragon form. Hocuspo packed it away for later examination. The tokens were worth 1,900 cp and 500 gp. Ollie shoveled them all into the bag despite some hesitation in saving pieces of copper.
Ankheg Battle
This chamber offered no other exit. They backtracked to the loadstars and went west to find an enormous chamber more than a hundred feet across and fifty feet tall. Mounds of soil hugged the walls of this dank, mouldy room. More soil was scattered over the entire floor. Moments after Aderian entered the room, Ankhegs burst out to attack. Though well-protected, he suffered a crushing grasp in acid-dripping pincers. Tienarth responded with a haste spell. Urgesh responded with pure, animalistic rage.
Thirteen of the insect beasts emerged from the soft mounds of soil, most of them swarming Aderian. Though magically hasted, he found he spent half of his time squeezing from their clasps before landing a blow of his axe. Ollie joined the battle, as did Nate after swallowing a potion of growth. Tienarth, in the form of a golden dragon, also waded in to claw and bite at the ankhegs. The rest stayed back, at the end of the chamber.
Unfortunately, two of the ankhegs let loose with streams of acid. One blast enveloped the inexperienced Myrdan. He dissolved into mush in moments, but his sacrifice muted the splash as it hit Saul. The acid hit him above the eye, burning off the skin and hair on his head. He fell back into the arms of Ferris, unconscious.
Saul’s lion joined the battle, intent on protecting his friend, the druid. With the dragon now in the battle, the ankhegs became most aggressive against it and the many mirror images. These illusions were quickly dispelled, and the dragon suffered an acid attack. However, the beast could not survive long against the great forces of Tienarth’s Raiders. A few minutes later, they were all dead. Unfortunately, rage still filled Urgesh’s eyes, and he turned to the dragon to continue the fighting. Aderian, Ollie and Nate all grabbed him, punching and squeezing him to deprive the barbarian of strength. He soon fell unconscious.
Buried in the mounds of soil were fourteen urns made of a light metal. Though on sight Ollie did not recognize the metal, he announced it was aluminum upon touching it. He could not explain how he knew this. It was as if the knowledge was suddenly placed in his mind.
Most of the urns were empty. One of them contained a tangle of fine copper wire, probably worth 1,400 cp. Mixed in were 28 tiny jewels worth 10 gp each. Another urn contained a strange totem of a two-headed beast with a long neck and and scroll covered in indecipherable text. When they were back at Grubbycheek’s mine, Tienarth determined it was a holy text of an unknown faith with three potent prayers. Nate considered them profane, in as much as they called on the powers of gods that were not Nebro.
Ollie Faces a Troll Alone
The party was tired and hurt. Saul was unconscious, but fortunately the lion still considered him a friend and didn’t turn on the party. Urgesh woke with a headache and weak limbs. The rest of them had suffered various blows, and so they agreed to return to the surface. They climbed up the tunnel to the first level, but met a bright light coming down the tunnel after walking for an hour. It approached slowly, and they were able to turn around and get back to the room with the smashed knight before whatever it was faced them.
A machine on four wheels rolled into the chamber. A single light shown from its front. A conical hat sat atop its body. As it entered the chamber the light dimmed and the body lowered down over the wheels. It seemed to sleep.
Relieved that they weren’t having to fight an iron golem, they all turned to resume the journey up to the surface. All but Ollie. He was curious to inspect the machine. While examining two dials on the back of the machine, he tried twisting them, and when the let go the machine rose to life again. The conical hat hinged down and begin spinning. The machine began digging downward into the rock, grinding it down into sand. It made slow progress, digging a four-foot tunnel downward at a 45 degree angle.
The rest of them were eager to go. Ollie told them he’d be fifteen minutes behind them. Shrugging, they hustled up the tunnel. He watched it until he guessed a quarter hour had passed and then tried one last experiment before heading up the tunnel. He found the troll toe he’d kept for several months. It never rotted nor grew over this time. As he brought it forth, though, it instantly grew into a full-sized troll. “I’ll have my revenge on you, dwarf!” it cried as the slashed with its claws.
Ollie now faced a troll alone. The other were too far away to hear the fight. He could think of nothing but to fight, and he did. The troll landed many savage blows, but he countered them with his own. In the end, just as his luck was running out, Ollie struck the troll with a killing blow. Before it could once again revive, he lit an oil fire over its corpse. And then he ran up the tunnel, hoping he’d meet no other dangers along the way.
The others were on the verge of given up Ollie for dead, for he was much later then fifteen minutes as he came gasping out of the pit. They limped back to the mine where Grubbycheek offered them roasted worm and explained the dangers of loadstars.
End Notes
- Time
- 6/4 — In the dungeon
- Saul is in a coma for 14 weeks (until 9/10)
- Downtime in the mine from 6/5 to 7/7
- Treasure
- Irregular metal bits equivalent to 500 cp, 400 sp, and 1,600 gp
- Magic-User Scroll with the following spells: massmorph, polymorph other, cloudkill, hold monster
- Irregular metal bits equivalent to 1,900 cp and 500 gp
- Tangle of copper wire equivalent to 1,400 cp
- 28 ornamental stones worth 10 gp each
- A totem of a two-headed beast with a long neck
- Cleric Scroll with three spells: speak with dead, create water, create food
- Combat
- 5 loadstars 500 XP
- 13 Ahkhegs 5,265 XP
- Troll defeated by Ollie alone 555 XP
- 11 Characters 524 XP each
- Aderian (fight, lead) 587 XP
- Ferris 576 XP
- Hocuspo 576 XP
- Jack (fight) 582 XP
- Myrdan (died) 0 XP
- Nate (fight) 582 XP
- Ollie (rugged, underground, fight) 1111 XP
- Saul and Lion 576 XP
- Tienarth (collect magic) 529 XP
- Urgesh (prefers action, fight, rages) 540 XP
- Ylyndar (fight) 529 XP