New Dwarf City

Excerpt from the Journal of Elora Gisher, Sorceress, Upon Landing on the Lost Continent

**Day 133**

I have decided to accompany an expedition North to a location marked by fortress-like drawings and a red circle on the map. Will this be the fortress from my vision? Time will tell.

I asked Glimkin to do a reading for our upcoming expedition, using the question: Will we be met by enemies when we reach the fortress? It answered with the Warrior, Avenger, and Ghost. Glimkin awaits a report on what we encounter, and hopes that it will help him to better interpret the cards. Thinking that the ghost card may indicate literal ghosts, we were sure to pack some of the silver daggers we found in the temple last week.

We traveled swiftly northwards without much exploration along the way. As we crossed a wide field of sunflowers, Torva noticed that the faces of the flowers were following our party, and not the path of the sun. Torva tried to speak to them, but they had no mouths to speak. I reached out with my mind to link with the flowers, and sent a greeting. I heard in my own mind a cheerful humming in response. Others in the party felt a menacing presence from the sunflowers, and begged Torva and I to placate them. Torva brought out her flute and began to play. At first, I hummed along, trying to match the tune in my mind. Once Torva and I became accustomed to the tune, we saw a surprising response from the sunflowers. They began to sway in time with the music! I pulled out my own flute and we played together, Torva and I. As we continued through the field, the flowers continued to dance. Once we were well past the field, we ceased our playing and looked back. I’m almost sure one of them waved goodbye!

Some time later we sighted a herd of Applehooves in the distance. I’m not sure what to call the creatures other than the name given to the one encountered by Radavel previously. We decided not to pursue the creatures, as we were trying to make good time to our destination. This turned out to be a wise decision, as not too long afterwards we sighted another of the Very Large Birds flying towards us from the North. Had we been out in the open at that time, we would have been seen, but the creature overlooked us in favor of larger prey in the form of the Applehooves. It picked up one of the giant creatures in a single claw and flew away.

I hunted for our dinner and caught a small marsupial creature with antlers. The pouch of the female contained a viscous liquid that Alton turned into a fantastic dipping sauce. We have named the animals “Dunkaroos.”

I will take third watch.

**Day 134**

Close to dawn, Ekinir and I were alerted to a nearby commotion by a loud crashing sound. We woke the others and Alton used his gingerbread companion to sneak over the hill and towards the noise. As this was happening, I made sure to cast Mage Armor on myself in case we came to blows. We sighted two gigantic creatures that resembled boars, but with an abundance of tusks surrounding the face and spines upon their backs. They were rooting around what looked like an overturned cart. We decided based on their size and ferocity that we would try to sneak around the creatures.

We accidentally alerted them not once, but twice, and ultimately decided to face them down once we saw one of them rip into the fresh corpse of a dwarf. I cast Ice Knife with great success, killing the first boar.

The second boar gored Torva, nearly killing her. Ekinir came in to stab the creature, but in the process injured herself almost as badly as the boar. Radavel injected some sort of potion and his skin turned the shade and consistency of stone. I wonder if this gave him further protection from blows, but in the heat of battle I was unable to gather sufficient evidence. In the process of this transformation, all the hair fell out of his head, even his eyebrows. Alton cast Eldrich Blast, which knocked the beast down the hill and away from the party. Seeing an opening where there was low risk to my friends, I again cast Ice Knife, which proved to be the killing blow. It was indeed a deadly day.

It turned out that there were two ancient dwarves with the cart. One had been hiding in a crevasse but was overcome by his injuries and bled to death. The cart contained a large amount of gold of the variety we have seen on this continent. Muk and Alton took tusks and flesh from the dead monsters, which we have named Rhinoboars.

Following a brief rest we decide to follow the tracks of the cart to their origin point. This leads us to a fork in the road. We decided on the left fork. Radavel led the way and shortly after beginning down this left path he heard the sounds of battle. We moved to join and managed to find a strange scene indeed. A living, breathing group of these ancient dwarves were battling a horde of strange dog-beasts. The dwarves seemed to be attempting to keep the dog-beasts contained within the confines of the fortress. We gave aid and battled not only the dog-beasts but also a group of strange lizard-like creatures. When they were killed, each of these creatures exploded into a pile of grubs and worms.

After defeating all who opposed us, we paused and when it seemed that the dwarves might turn on us, Torva spoke to them. She and Muk had been making a study of the written form of this ancient dwarf language, but Torva seemed to have gained enough understanding to also speak, albeit not with complete fluency. The dwarves were loath to trust us, especially Muk. This was puzzling to me. I admit he is intimidating, but it is not as though he had not also fought against the enemies alongside the dwarves.

In any event, we were given a token and told to go down the other fork in the road and speak to one of the leaders of the dwarves. I do not have a great many details of this first exchange, as I received it only after the fact from Torva, however, once we reached the other encampment, I connected to the mind of Muk, and working together we were able to provide a kind of translation for the others in our party while Torva did the negotiating on our behalf.

Torva spoke to one of these elders by the name of Friggle. Friggle stated that she also was hesitant to trust us as we were unknown to them. In order to gain her trust, she asked that we retrieve a sceptre from within the fortress that was overrun with the strange grub-filled creatures. She warned that we should act quickly as more of the creatures would soon take the place of those we had killed, and that there were also perils other than these creatures within the fortress, which had been abandoned by their forebears one level at a time over the course of decades. We agreed to fetch the sceptre and return it to Friggle, and made haste to return to the fortress just down the road.

We proceeded first into the fortress at ground level, and then down another flight of stairs to the next floor. We came almost immediately to the throne room Friggle had described and found it empty. Wary for traps, we proceeded slowly, but with waning patience, Torva approached the throne, upon which sat the sceptre. She successfully grabbed the item, but suddenly a ten-foot tall bipedal toad came out of the adjacent room and attacked. We all attempted to retreat as quickly as possible, while Radavel bravely distracted the creature. We fled up the stairs and outside, alerting the nearby dwarves of the impending attack. Radavel led the creature up the stairs and stood staunch opposition to the creature, blocking it’s exit through the doorway. The rest of us made quick work of the creature using ranged attacks. However, Rad was scratched by the creature, and reports some sort of infection, which has left him feeling especially ill.

We returned to the dwarf base, which was situated in a nearby series of caves that was possibly a former mine. We spoke at length with Friggle, again through the translation efforts of both Torva and Muk. Here are some notes from that conversation:

* Much of the history of the ancient Dwarves is lost to this community, as they have lived in constant war with the creatures from beneath the surface for generations.
* The sickness that has befallen Radavel is the result of a parasite, and will prove fatal if we can’t find a cure within a few months.
* There may be information on healing, history, and magic within the ruins of the Dwarven city, and we have permission from these Dwarves to explore said ruins at our own peril.

Now that I am alone with my thoughts and reflecting on the events of the day, I recall a curious observation. Though we saw a great many children and the elders of the city, we did not see any adult dwarves. Of course, it could be that they have been throwing their healthier citizens at the defense of the fortress, but surely some must be held back to cook, craft and repair armor, and otherwise provide for the community? Indeed we never saw any of the dwarves at the entrance to the fortress without full armor, but it is frightening to imagine a whole population so decimated by war. Hopefully we will be able to continue our new alliance and provide assistance to this community.