After our fight with the giants we be thinkin’ it wise to take a long rest before we head after the duergar who left with his tail ‘tween his legs through the shaft out of the forge that headed down into the mines.
That bein’ done, we moved into the mine aimin’ to track the duergar back to his hidey-hole and, if necessary, clear out any more of them interlopers. We then come to a point where a second shaft shoots off from the main, it bein’ boarded up until recently, as two boards showed themselves to be broken out. Now, whether the duergar pulled the boards out makin’ his escape or somethin’ else breakin’ through to where we now were was blamed hard to figure. But we decided to head down that secondary shaft, as I knew it be headed to the same cavern the main shaft ended at, anyway.
Raith and Henrick be takin’ the lead, and soon enough they find trouble. Several blamed umber hulks, large monstrosities with two sets of eyes, and mandibles and claws that make you wish you chose another tunnel to travel, come burrowing up from beneath them, surprisin’ the pair. They both take their share of hits while the rest of us come rushin’ up once we hear the commotion, joinin’ in the boondoggle. Raith ended up a step away from meetin’ his maker, but I managed to bring him back. Overall four of the damned beasties come at us, and a few of us didn’t do enough to evade eye contact and fell under the power of their gaze, leadin’ Raith and me to stand around like dunces for a bit — and then the gnome actually threw hands at Raith!
Hyacinth and Torinn took down the final two (Hyacinth’s magic can be right handy), and she and the wizard began harvesting the bodies while the rest of us considered literally “chasin’ an umber hulk” and venturin’ down one of their tunnels. We gave up that idea and instead continued further into the mine.
That be when things be gettin’ strange: shadows started jumpin’ along the walls, strangely shaped and actin’ like they had a life o’ their own, though I not be sensin’ any undead. The tunnel got darker and darker, and soon the only light came from the dragonborn’s sword…
Away from that sword, Henrick, Zoltan and Raith be swallowed up by the dark, spookin’ ‘em enough to venture back to the rest of the group. Then we came to a large chamber, and as we peer into the dark we see at the edge of Torrin’s swordlight a duergar – maybe the same rat-bastard who fled us – suspended a good 15 feet in the air in the middle of the room. His body didn’t seem to have an intact bone innit, it bein’ so battered; we could tell that from where we stood. More shadows seemed to dance around the body, too.
Right curious, that be.
Even more curious be the floor in front of us, between us and the floating corpse. Hyacinth be noticin’ it didn’t look right, and when I looked I knew she was onto something – it didn’t match up with the rest of the cavern floor around it. We decided to be cautious and not move forward so much as make a circular path to where the body floated.
Before we got goin’, though, Zoltan casts a spell and the body falls to the ground with a thump. Then Raith pulls it over with a ring of telek…, well, a ring that can apparently move things. One of us then gets the idea to throw a rock at the floor, maybe to set off the trap that got to the duergar, but the blamed rock goes RIGHT THROUGH the ground!
Seein’ that, Zoltan goes right to his jibber-jabber and dispels the illusion, where we see a gapin’ pit with what looks to be a portal at its bottom: a dim light glows there while more of those damned gnomish runes line the walls of the pit.
“Those runes suggest that the portal leads to another plane,” the gnome tells us.
Well, Henrick starts pullin’ animals out of his bag, one after another, thinkin’ to maybe throw one through. Zoltan offers his owl which he says can tell him what it sees, which sounds like a better idea. (Henrick sat and sulked at that). The owl flew through and came back, tellin’ Zoltan there’s a similar cavern to the one we be standin’ in on the other side.
Then Henrick gets a wild hair (maybe to make up for the lack of hair on his chin) and says to tie a rope to him and send him through. So we tie one around his waist and send him down there. Durn fool. Almost immediately he calls for us to pull him back, as something large be approachin’ him down there.
At the moment we get him back up, a huge blackness comes flyin’ up from the pit and alights up above us.
A shadow dragon.
Runes with a purple glow adorn its body.
The same type of runes that had been on that white dragon.
“You again,” it speaks, though none of us recall ever havin’ faced such a lizard. Zoltan whispers to us that this dragon may have at one point been a metallic wyrm.
It is no longer.
“I offer you this bargain, dwarf,” it says to me as I gaze up at its dark form. “Leave me the mines, and to you and your kind I cede the complex above.”
Henrick inexplicably draws his sword and stalks toward the dragon, a look of both ecstasy and terror on his face. Torinn attempts to intercept the half-elf.
Zoltan comes to my side, whispering, “This is the same necromancer who defiled your clan’s tomb and your parents’ remains. We can’t yield now.”
My hand grips my hammer tight, and I whisper Dumathoin’s name.
“Guide me, Keeper of Secrets.”
