Last Words of the Damned (12th of Bearguard, Rose: 47)

The party retreated to Barrelborn's former residence. There they obtained clothing for Ma'yah and secured the door so they might secure a long rest. During their rest, a light source was seen moving around in the outside mine, the light shining under the door and moving across the floor, as if the light source itself was also moving. They also heard moans. Finally, at 3am on the 12th of Bearguard, the party suited up, unbarred the door, and stepped out into the mine ... only to find darkness.

Descending to the 2nd Tier of Jackal, the party explored the veins to the left and right. Both were devoid of any monstrous encounters but the party did find things of interest and value.

• The party encountered mine carts filled with unrefined ore and rock laden with uncut gemstones.

• They found hidden and stowed packs from survivors attempting to preserve their belongings. Some had gemstones and Dwarven Doubloons. Most of the food and water rations in these packs had been plundered.

• They found more traps that had been tripped and disarmed. They avoided the others.

• Eventually, they would encounter more statues of Dwarves raising their arms to their face in terror, to block their sight.

• The party also encountered statues of what must have been three Svirfneblin wearing exploring gear and packs; all three look surprised and terrified. They are all bald (males); their packs (now turned to stone) contained maps and gemstones, now all simply rock.

• They encountered a ghostly apparition again bearing a lantern, waving for others to follow him; he disappeared into the darkness of the mine.

• But in a more disturbing twist, the party began to encounter living vines with buds and leaves, thick trunks of plant, weaving itself through the stone. All alive - all white, devoid of chlorophyll, and when cut, smelled of ammonia - living vines deep within the heart of the mine, coursing through the rock as if it were fertile soil.

• They encountered the preserved corpses of dwarves that had been intentionally stripped of their flesh - potentially cannibalized.

• Finally, they encountered a final refuge. Bed rolls, packs, provisions were found here; small treasures and flowers and roses carved from the rock itself laid by various packs as remembrances. There were last words, rites, curses, epitaphs, letters to friends, lovers, families, sons and daughters and strangers, carved into the mine wall, all writ in Dwarvish tongue. Last words from those who were trapped in the mine and left to survive for possibly months in absolute darkness. And there was a poem:

Knowing.

Knowing each and every day is your last;

Knowing you die with every scratch upon the wall;

Knowing every breath poisons you further;

Knowing that you must sculk this darkness, that you must hide, and that your must prey upon your friends;

Knowing that you must harvest the meat from your brother’s bones;

Knowing what you can’t consume the cursed orange eyes will take.

Knowing that you’re buried, your voice silenced and you are forgotten;

Knowing that death is the only way out.
Fuck this knowing.

The party found a scant treasure horde in the midst of the refuge. A black opal (perhaps worth 1,000 Crowns); 1 silk robe with silver embroidery, clerical (250 Crowns); 1 corked/sealed steel vial with liquid; 1 scroll, sealed with wax and sporting the seal of Baronnar Truesilver.

Gorbash and Tamroohk spent time making rubbings of the family letters so they could eventually be read by their intended readers. They retrieved some coal sticks and parchment, and rubbed the words for taking with them.

Thoroughly bummed, the party continued the descent into the mine - to the 3rd Tier of Jackal. There, they encountered another control panel to the mine - similar to what they found on the 3rd Tier of Ram - except, this time, an access to a crawl space had been lifted from the floor and set aside. The crawl space was tiny and Gorbash volunteered to go looking within it.

Meanwhile, the party found that the combination to unlocking the control panel worked here, too. The center console ejected and revealed four stones in programming order: JACKAL, CASTLE (the Dwarves would say that the icon depicts more of a church than a castle), LOCK, PEGS (0 of 5 pegs filled).

In the crawl space, prone and armorless, Gorbash crawled under the mechanism and between large gears, taught copper cables, and very dangerous springs. He found a preserved corpse of a dwarf miner with three other control blocks in his possession: DRAKE, STARBURST, and a CIRCLE (with arrows long its parameter); in a pouch, he had three wooden pegs. He had tools and gear with him, indicating that he was trying to get to the console but may not have had the pass code to eject it.

Silently, a dreadful thing was happening near Ma'yah. A small slip of black ooze was cascading from the ceiling and spilling into the crawlspace with Gorbash. The black ooze was coalescing in the crawlspace, and the party was thrust into melee!

It was horror! Gorbash knew he was in trouble: prone, without his armor, at disadvantage and adversaries at advantage against him! Gorbash grabbed the corpse of the dwarf and threw it in front of him, in order to distract the ooze and buy him some time as he skittered five feet out of its reach! The ooze enveloped the corpse and began consuming it, all the while gaining more mass and form. Gorbash looked frantically everywhere for an exit, and looked up through the console to see Siegride's face ... completely unable to get him out!

The party was attacking the ooze! Trying to save Gorbash. Just then, Ma'yah saw it ... a cloaker from the north passage, coming towards the party! Then Tamroohk saw two more cloakers, closing in from the south passage! The party was in full swing!

Gorbash took some terrible acid damage from the ooze and it was eventually killed, but he had to wade through the remains of the ooze to climb out of the crawl space, ejecting into the corridor for healing! The battle raged! At one point or another, members of the party were wrapped in the manta ray-like wings of the cloaker, its mouth eating them alive!

Then, another ooze emerged and in a pitch battle with Siegride, its pseudopod like tentacle arm reached out to hit her. Missing, the arm passed right through into the space of her Cloak of Stars! Then, suddenly, the ooze split - detached the pseudopod - leaving a bit of itself inside of her cloak! Enraged, Siegride unleashed the tempest on the thing, blasting it back 15 feet and disintegrating the bars of the closed portcullis. Llew was nearly dead, making his death saves; Tolman was whittled down to just one hit point at a time; Ma'yah was casting as much as she could against available targets; Elan was sending arrows into everything she could shoot ...

It was a terrible battle. The player characters were severely wounded; Tolman at one point even encouraged the party to return home with him and he'd teach them farming. Still, at the end of it, the cloakers dead, the ooze dispatched, the party was victorious!

But alone. Very alone. The dark deep mine of York & Barrelborn, sealed shut 259 years ago following an unspeakable calamity, trapping the souls of tens if not a hundred dwarves, deep within the heart of the earth. And that's where we left off, around 11am on the 12th of Bearguard, Rose: 47!

Next week: THE FINAL BATTLE! AND THE EPIC CONCLUSION! ... or is it?

R