Disturbance in Deepriver

29th May 2023

## Adventurers Attending

* Skamos
* Creed
* Grrder
* Seymour Shanchi
* Bearhugger

## Mission Notes

Our adventuring party arrived at the guildhouse and received their new paperwork to fill out for mission payments from Samuel, one of the head clerks at the guild. He also began briefing our party on the mission requirements, but the mention of Deepriver and missing miners was more than enough information, before the party began leaving, dismissing any additional or extraneous details. Forgoing Hamer and his slow, one-way cart, the party marshalled some horses and a cart from the guild stables and set off for Deepriver. Approaching the tunnel pass at the Pinsborough peaks on their way to the west ridings, they encountered a lone crow sat atop the tunnel entrance and Creed hunted it down and exploded it into shadowy smoke using his bow from his broom. Travelling through the tunnel and nearly out the other side a couple of Dwarven looking semi physical humanoids wrapped in swirling black cloth exited from the mountain wall and began babbling and whispering, while wracked with pain, about doors, the balance, and the secrets in the place. After some attempt to converse with the figures combat ensued and the entities began using psychic attacks on the party, before the party set about destroying the creatures, leaving streaks of black marks fading in the air.

Confused, but headed forward, the party briefly visited Deepriver before being directed to Haggar the foreman at the mine, where nearly all the men of Deepriver were to be currently found, as they were behind on production. Arriving at the mine and finding Haggar, they were informed that having closed the mine in the past, and reopened it, only to have become wrapped up in Dragonash problems, they were now behind on silver mining once again and it was likely to have a catastrophic impact on the town’s economy. It appeared that those who went furthest into the deep mines to try and tap the larger silver veins were going missing, but returning, often without having completed any work for the day. This drop in production meant more workers working less productive veins and a real drop in production. Haggar called over Gamran, a mining dwarf and instructed him to guide the party through to the deep mines where those who would work usually went missing. After a long journey a number of lifts and some exposition about rock, silver and mining techniques, the party came across a group of spectral dwarves, that seemed confused, detached from reality and unable to hold coherent conversation. There was no aggression it seems, until the party began casting spells and inevitably attacked the spectral dwarves, before destroying them all outright.

It was at this point that Skamos heard large construction works occurring deeper into the mine. Stealthing in, the party revealed a larger cavern, with ongoing construction works in a room full of dwarves and tiny spider like creatures as well as two rather large beetle like creatures all of which were aiding the construction of some kind of temple complex that surrounded a rift or tear in space that emanated darkness. As combat began, all creatures, except the group of dwarven miners turned on our party, while the dwarven miners, continued construction oblivious. The battle was fierce and many party members were knocked unconscious, meanwhile it seemed that each spider like creature that was killed seemed to release the stupor on one of the dwarves aiding construction. Some strange entities escaped from the rift and began inhabiting some dwarven corpses, leading them to attack alongside what looked like a demonically possessed male dwarf and a maniacal female dwarf, who later took strange interest in Grrder. There were points when things looked woeful for the party, Bearhugger incapacitated, Skamos unconscious, Creed unconscious, Grrder surrounded and Seymour hidden and hiding, but a well timed and implemented balm of peace combined with mass healing word, seemed to the turn the tide of the battle, as bearhugger rousing from his own stupor was able to summon a pack of velociraptors to the field. As the demonically possessed dwarf was killed and a number of creatures were slain, the maniacal female dwarf, surveying the field, rushed to the male dwarf and both disappeared in a quick black flash. As the party finally cleared the field and regained their lost composure, Bearhugger and Grrder set to using dispel magic on the rift and closed the passage to some dark realm, but not before the four entities inhabiting the dwarven corpses could escape back through it.

Returning the mine back to working condition and releasing the dwarven miners from their servitude without casualty, Haggar thanked the party for their work, before the guild returned home with both their lives and their pride.

## Rumours

* Who was the maniacal female dwarf and why did she take interest in Grrder?
* The portal/rift to the abyssal realm has been sealed, but where did it come from and why were they constructing a building around it?
* A bunch of neogi got away, that can't be a problem for mining can it?