Easthaven Town Speaker Danneth Waylen approached the adventurers with ominous news: duergar had infiltrated the Ten-Towns in search of chardalyn, a strange metal easily imbued with magic. With it they were building a magical construct that will destroy the Ten Towns if it is not stopped. Waylen pled with the group to assault the dark dwarves’ fortress, named for its master Xardorok Sunblight, 12 miles to the south hidden in the Spine of the World mountains. To aid the adventurers’ way, he offered sleds, provisions, and most importantly a map to the dark stronghold, taken from a captured (now dead) duergar. The group, in hopes that ending this threat might lead to more information about ending the Everlasting Rime (or at least offer them a way out of this frozen hell) accepted the call.
The journey across the tundra led to a sighting of a herd of mammoths early on, to which the group wisely gave a large berth. The massive beasts numbered at least 30 and perhaps were roaming in search of better feeding grounds. Then an attack! Hawlkrin espied a group of figures approaching from the mountains, and drunkenly called out to them (they had decided to take a keg of ale with them for the trip). The band of orc raiders responded with spears, and soon the tundra was wet with blood: orc, dwarf, and elf. Thoradaen, more than likely targeted out of orcish hatred for his kin, bore the brunt of the attacks, and for once Haryk evaded harm entirely. The elf’s luck would prove not to last.
After a few more hours of travel and searching, the party arrived at the fortress. An imposing black structure, the group ascended a set of narrow stairs and arrived at a massive set of doors, barred from the inside. How to get in? Talion noticed an arrow slit nearby and wild shaped into a lizard to investigate inside. There he found a lever and a winch, the lever opening the doors and the winch raising a portcullis just inside the gate. Upon transforming back to his elven form to lift the lever, Talion noticed puffs of mist appearing in one corner, almost as if someone (or something) was breathing. He then unveiled the lantern of revealing, illuminating a duergar who only put his fingers to his lips and remained in the far corner of the room. Not wanting to be a murder hobo, Talion decided to trust that the duergar remained unaggressive for a reason.
The others who came in the front gate received a much different welcome. Nine hostile duergar poured from a doorway to north, already enlarged to their giant forms and the melee began. As the members fought for their lives, Thoradaen and Haryk fell to the dark dwarves’ war picks and all seemed lost until two of the nine duergar inexplicably turned on their comrades. Perhaps Ferus had charmed one? But no, the wizard could only continue casting his firebolts, amazed at the fortuitous turn of events.
With the unexpected help (the duergar Talion had encountered also aided the party), the tide of the battle soon shifted. When seven dark dwarves lay dead, and Haryk and Thoradaen were healed, the other duergar spoke brusquely to Thoradaen demanding the group come with them. Arriving at a dining hall, they were introduced to Grandolpha Muzgardt, a duergar who had been invited to Sunblight by Xardorok in hopes that she would become his fourth wife. She explained that Xardorok was mad, and she had no interest in aiding his plans to destroy the Icewind Dale settlements. It seemed a number of Xardorok’s duergar, tiring of his chardalyn-induced paranoia and temperament swings, had already pledged their fealty to Grandolpha who now saw this group as an opportunity to take him out, allowing her to keep her hands clean. She told them that the construct Xardorok created was near completion, perhaps a day away, and Xardorok remained in the lowest level (the forge) overseeing the final details and “encouraging” his duergar smiths to work faster.
The duergar matron suggested that yelling out “Darklake Stout!” to dark dwarves the party encountered would serve as a signal to those who were loyal to her, and might lead to those duergar aiding them in battle (or, at the very least, lead them not to fight against the party). She also suggested closing the upper gates through which the construct would exit the keep if it was given the command to commence the attack. At the very least, doing so would slow the thing down.
The party explored the rest of the level (locating Xardorok’s war room showing the intended flight path of the construct, a chardalyn dragon, the model of which Haryk relieved the room of; and his private quarters, where they found his private treasured possessions, a poison gas trap, and a statue of Deep Duerra, a dark dwarf goddess, in that order). Deciding to close the ice gate on the upper level, the troop did so with little trouble and took a rest before heading down to the forge to stop Xardorok and his mad plan to destroy the towns. Will they make it in time?
