Session 023

## The Dwarven Mines are Recovered

**Age of the Wolf, Year 5, Summer, Aerlun Toil 2 day 3**

*The party faces a fearsome underwater foe. Heida is mentally manipulated and Esbjorn narrowly avoids catastrophe with the help of the dwarven princess Heedi. The crag drake is slain. The party encounters an unusual prisoner, and Esbjorn and Heida both acquire new servants.*

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## Player Characters Involved

* Nygäär the Dark the Fey Blooded Rogue/Fighter played by Dana
* Heiða the Seer the Dökkálfar Blooded Dread Necromancer played by Justin
* Esbjörn Sigvardson the Giant Blooded Barbarian/Cleric/Surtr's Chosen played by Greg
* Brydd Hjarta the Jörmung Human Sorcerer/Marshal/Sand Shaper played by Jason

## A Hidden Threat Emerges From the Depths

Having finally found the mines, the party moved forward boldly to seek out the crag drake. Coming upon the remains of an old mining camp, Nygaar was the first to enter the cavern:

*This room looks like the remains of a mining camp, probably used by the miners for breaks and shift changes. There are burned out torches in the sconces that adorn the walls, and overturned tables and chairs with empty ale barrels skewed about.  On the west side of the cave is a clear pool of water, only partially frozen and slowly swirling. You see the glitter of coins and jewels at the bottom of this pool, which is about five feet deep.*

Nygaar felt a strange pull, almost as if some alien intelligence was attempting to affect his mind. Not long after, Esbjorn felt something similar, but like Nygaar he was able to resist this alien communication. Unfortunately, all was not what it seemed to be, and Heida proved susceptible to the pull of this dark voice. The pool of water was an illusion, and it held a dangerous beast known as an aboleth, a revolting fish-like amphibian found primarily in subterranean lakes and rivers. With Heida in thrall to it through mental domination, the loathsome creature rose up out of the pool and attacked!

Four pulsating blue-black tentacles lashed out at Esbjorn, while Heida summoned an undead ogre she immediately commanded to attack Nygaar. The undead humanoid rushed Nygaar knocking him backward; the parties rogue teetered dangerously close to the pool's edge but somehow maintained his footing and avoided plunging into the water and within range of the creatures yawning maw. Meanwhile, Esbjorn was struck by a number of the creature's slimy tentacles, and as this strange slime entered his bloodstream the giant blooded warrior felt a wave of nausea wash over him. Esbjorn and the others fought on, and the killing blow was performed by Nygaar as the creature tried and failed to descend back into the depths from whence it slithered. Unfortunately, all was not well with Esbjorn.

## Heedi for the Win

Esbjorn immediately fell ill following the battle with the aboleth; his companions watched with equal parts horror and fascination as his skin began to transform, quickly taking on a transparent and sickly pallor. Luckily, Brydd was familiar with aboleth slime from his studies and knew this was a disease that needed to be dealt with swiftly. Esbjorn plunged himself into the icy pool, which Nygaar had learned was hundreds of feet deep by dropping a rock with a light spell upon it into the depths. Rushing back to the surface, Brydd and Nygaar sought Heedi's aid, hoping against hope that she had something to treat the disease.

Luckily for Esbjorn, Heedi had come well prepared. Handing over her last potion, she told Brydd and Nygaar to quickly administer the cure, and they sprinted back to the depths to do so. The potion was delivered in the knick of time; Esbjorn was only minutes away from a foul transformation that would have taken very powerful magic to undo. Counting their blessings, the party decided to venture onwards in search of the crag drake they had come to find.

## Traps,Traps Everywhere

Venturing into the next cavern, the party found the collection of traps the xorns had told them about. This room left little doubt that the crag drakes lair was not far beyond:

*Carvings of ancient dwarven mythology featuring Volund and Odin adorn the eastern cavern wall. Large iron traps are strewn about this room, connected to the floor by heavy chains. On the west side of the cavern beyond the traps, you see a wall of iron blocking off the cavern passageway.*

 Nygaar set about searching the room for hidden traps, while Brydd formed a staff made of stone to trigger the iron traps the party could see. Leaving the iron wall for later, the party ventured northwards into an adjoining chamber:

*The walls and floor of this area are littered with misused and long-abandoned mine equipment, including shovels, picks, wheel barrels, and bent and misshapen iron tracks. Large piles of stone and unprocessed ore reach to the ceiling in many places. The echoes of the quivering earth rumble through the yawning cavern, glittering iron ore lies just below the surface of rough stone on the walls, and the hiss and spew of pressurized steam and gasses seep through slow-splitting fissures. The ceiling of this cavern is approximately twenty-five feet high.*

As Nygaar and Heida entered this room, a voice boomed out, echoing throughout the caverns. Speaking in draconic, the voice warned the party to leave at once. Brydd was the only one who understood and quietly translated for the others. It seemed they had found the long sought after crag drake. Ignoring the beast's warning, the party maintained their ground. A stone-made predatory beast with thick limbs ending in jagged metallic claws, powerful jaws filled with chipped stone teeth, and rocky protrusions marking its durable hide, lashed its tail wickedly as it squeezed out from behind a rock and proceeded to attack the heroes.

## The Crag Drake Vanquished

Rushing into the high cavern, Esbjorn fell victim to a spinning blade that swung from the ceiling, the purple poison upon the rusty blade sapping his strength. It had been a rough day for the giant blooded warrior, to say the least. Meanwhile, the drake spewed acid from its rocky maw, covering Nygaar and Heida in terrible and caustic bile. Fortunately for the heroes, Nygaar was armed with the enchanted silver dagger the party had recovered from a pit, which had been ensorcelled to release Brydd's empowered combust spell upon a successful strike. With little fanfare, the party destroyed the beast, the spell leaving its rocky hide covered in a sheet of ice and its bones mashed to a pulp. Nygaar cut off the beasts head and the party stored it in Brydd's magical sack. Shrugging at each other over the ease with which the beast had been dispatched, the party decided to explore the mines further.

## A Curious Prisoner

Finding a hidden door in the iron wall they had spotted earlier, the party ventured westward into the mines. They found a deep pit in the adjoining chamber which they cautiously peered into. Seeing nothing of interest other than a deep hole, they moved on and next encountered a strange iron cage:

*This cavern looks like a rough cut mining area little used. The ceiling is very high (perhaps fifty feet) and there are huge iron walls forming a box before you, sixty feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty feet high. There are a number of small perfectly round holes about six inches in diameter within the iron walls.*

While Brydd and Esbjorn ventured onward, Nygaar and Heida took a look through the holes in the iron walls. What they saw surprised them; a lovely but disheveled dark elf maiden was trapped inside and pleaded with Heida to be released. Claiming that there was a connection between Midgard and Svartalfheim, the maiden said that she had become trapped when her dark elf sorceress mistress had been killed in a demon summoning gone wrong. Heida and Nygaar weren't convinced, and moved on, figuring the elf was safely locked away for the time being. They next entered a room with large forges, and Nygaar's fey blooded instincts led him to search deep inside the filthy forge, revealing a hidden magical hammer that aided one in forging magical weapons and armor. Excited at the prospect of such a find, Heida and Nygaar went in search of Brydd and Esbjorn to tell them the good news.

## A Narrow Entrance and a New Servant

Traveling further west, Brydd and Esbjorn came to what looked to be an entrance to yet another level of the mines:

*The iron ore veins shine in the walls and ceiling of this cavern. To the west, there is a large tunnel perhaps fifteen feet wide that has collapsed. Within the rubble, you see parts of a strange and broken contraption along with a narrow entrance (too small for a man to squeeze through) to a vertical shaft that leads further down into the earth. This area is crisscrossed with rusted but still functional metal tracks that would have once carried ore to and from the mine-face.*

Peering at the ruined contraption, Brydd was unsure what it was used for, but both he and Esbjorn realized that they were seeing a partially collapsed mine shaft to a lower level of the complex. While they waited for Nygaar and Heida, they looked to the north and saw another cavern where the walls were covered in a strange phosphorescent fungus that glowed with a dull green light. Quickly searching this cavern, they soon came across a tiny statue made of black marble that looked demonic in nature. Curious, Esbjorn touched the statue and was surprised when the tiny mouth closed, piercing one of his large fingers. Esbjorn watched as the blood from this small wound seemed to be drawn inside the statue's mouth. Suddenly, the statue came to life and the black marble statue transformed into a tiny humanoid (known as a quasit) that was very much alive! The creature had grey-green skin, a tail covered in barbs, and bat-like wings. Going down on one tiny knee, the creature swore its allegiance to Esbjorn, proclaiming its name to be Droog.

## Another Follower is Acquired

After reuniting, the party questioned the quasit sharply, demanding to know what it was doing there. Droog meekly answered all questions posed to it, saying that it came from Svartalfheim as part of a summoning ritual performed by the dark elves. Droog went on to warn the party that the dark elf maiden in the cage was actually a Marilith named Abraxia, a fearsome demon from Svartalfheim and an honored servant of the demon lord Graz'zt that wouldn't hesitate to kill anyone who released it. At the objections of the seer's advice to rid them of the creature, the rest of the party thought the creature might prove useful, particularly if it were to squeeze into the tight passage to the west and explore the lower level of the mining complex. Looking the way she does when her advice is ignored, Heida turned away from the group and then seemed to peer around the room as if noticing something amiss.

Looking up towards the ceiling Heida saw the outline of a strange ghostly visage peering at her from out of the gloom. A minor undead spirit similar to a ghost, this incorporeal creature appeared to be little more than a puff of smoke about one foot in diameter. Sensing this spirit had come to serve her, and recognizing it for what it was, Heida invited it to merge its body with her corporeal form. Only the sharp eagle eye of Nygaar, who was standing guard, noticed this strange interaction. The boundary beyond the veil was momentarily laid bare before the volva, and Heida knew instinctively that this spirit, once known as Imra Aratoris, was a former dark elf sorceress who had been struck down within these very caverns. While the party contemplated sending the quasit Droog further into the depths, Heida made ready to commune with this long-dead sorceress.

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