Rumblings of Evil Beneath Rank Dwarves
Summary
Adventure: Rumblings of Evil Beneath Rank Dwarves
GM: Jon McSpadden
Season: Winter 801 WK
Night: Someday
Level: Level
- Party
- Time on adventure
- 1 Frost 801 WK to 23 Frost 801 WK
- Employer
- Drun Kin, from the Zirak Holding
- Mission
- Investigate miner disappearance
- Location
- Zirak, Southern Ranke
- Enemy
- Furcalor
- Kraken
- Renove
- Sahugin
- Key Words
- wet, cold, demons, lost children, sharks, mithral
- Original Scribe Notes
- Media:Snwi0102.zip
Scribe Notes
Drun Kin Raving about Evil in a Dwarven Mine
(Day 1)
A skilled and politically balanced group of concerned citizens of the world gathered together in crisis-station 17 to deal with the latest outbreak of trouble within our sphere1 of influence. The citizens concerned were:
- Shizane
- a male Human Fire mage and duellist (rapier & mg), of average height with red hair & blue eyes, radius of fire support 400’. Cooks well. No stated political position.
- Dramus
- a male Fey “utility Necromancer” of slender but extended proportions, blond floor-length hair, with many left-wing political connections, and a willingness to seize the high moral ground.
- Ithilmor
- a female Elven “mixed Celestial” of exquisite appearance, with long black hair, a strong centre-right moral position and starry ideals. With her beauty and stubbornness, she was the obvious pick for our leader.
- Mebh
- a female Human Air mage of doughty build, with a range of very pointed equipment. She has strong right-wing opinions, though no active party membership.
- Eric 2
- a male Dwarven Namer, somewhat diminutive, but of immense experience and capacity for violence. and with lapsed liberal left-wing links and a tendency to think from odd (shark, eagle, weasel) viewpoints.
- Myself, Kryan
- a were-mer plant Thaumaturge of apparently normal if variable human appearance, with a penchant for destroying left-wing extremists, and the typical skills & talents of my race.
Our informant was Drun Kin, an excitable dwarf holding no official position, from the Zirak Holding in central Ranke. He claimed that on Day minus Fourteen, a mining crew of 12 had disappeared from the active face of their deepest mine shaft.
This had not happened before in living memory. An investigating crew went down the next day, and found the bottom of the mine shaft filled with salty water. Worse still, over the next few days, many of the crew’s children and a few other individuals had disappeared. Drun left his clan on Day minus Ten to walk to our Base of Operations to seek help.
We quickly gathered the minimum comforts of home, and flew on the wings of night3 to Zirak. The entrance to the stronghold is at approximately 4,000’, and sits in a mountain range nearly 50 miles due north of the mouth of the Ranke River and 25 miles north of Baxt.
Once inside, we descended a long spiral stair past many passages to a large amphitheatre, where professional politicians discussed whether they needed outside assistance. In a masterstroke of timing, Drun introduced us, and swayed many of the undecided, and those doubtful help could be found. We withdrew to allow them to complete their deliberations, and acclimatised ourselves to the setting. Several hours later, the Senate Majority Whip, Morthrin, came calling, and announced that the clan would accept our offer of help on a provisional basis, with the implicit understanding that approval for the usual friendly-fire ratio, collateral damage budget and freedom of activity clauses were consigned to the same sub-committee as our alleged requests for cost reimbursement.
We found out that the remainder of the missing crew’s children had been put under active guard, and had been taken on approximately Day minus Eight, using a Colleged sleep Spell. The guards remembered nothing. A few other children and one of the crew’s spouses had also gone missing.
There were no other known races nearby, although a couple of rock spirits, water spirits and magical zones of rocks were known.
Our impression of the dwarves over dinner was one of a quiet, insular, anti-magical clan, willingly cut off from other dwarves and the events of the outside world. Our good humour faded somewhat over dinner, through the atmosphere of dourness, gloom and fatalism.
We gladly retired to a tower that Dramus owned a couple of thousand feet into the complex. The coveys of magical researchers, the friendly eyeball, the mithral-eating butler Granite and infinite corridors of changing rooms brought a welcome feeling of normality and homeliness to the party.
1 More of an anguished oblate spheroid really, like an apple with a dozen bites taken out of it. 2 Not initially present – found under a bar in Dramus’ tower on 2 nd Frost. 3 Actually, the coat-tails of the afternoon.
