Duergar

• There is an alert that rings out in Dwarven as we pass through the locked door and head downstairs.
• Another door, this one with the face of a glowering Dwarf, but we do not pause.
• A large long room greets us, lined with pillars covered with carvings of giants and dragons. Tiled walls have been smashed, and a dais holds a throne.
• A voice greets us telling us to turn around, in Dwarvish.
• Ms. Lendiel and Mr. Darkfoot explain that we come in peace, looking for Durgeddon, that we are looking to hire him to repair work he had previously done.
• He has been dead a long while, but the voice seems interested in speaking further about our skills.
• A Duergar woman and a few guards step into view, taking Ms. Lendiel, Mr. Darkfoot, and Shohei away to speak with their leader.
• They return a short time later with a woman named Nimiria and eight more guards.

History Lesson

• The orcs, after being repelled by the Dwarven fortification, burrowed in beneath the defenses.
• Durgeddon died in the chapel to the north of the main forge.
• The northern area, however, due to this and other horrors of the battles, is full of the undead.
• These Duergar came up past the Black Lake below where a young black dragon lives.
• Durgeddon’s notes may be where the ghosts and such horrors are, and the dragon may be guarding the Orachalcum.
• They will show us where to go if we share the information in his journal and half the Orachalcum.

Hauntings

• Through a large barricade we find a silent room with a brackish well.
• We head to the right to clear out the living quarters before heading to the chapel.
• The second room we checked had a Rug of Smothering that tried to devour me, but most are ransacked.
• In an empty armory, the armor wakes and attempts to smash Ms. Lendiel and Shohei to death.
• At the end of this hall is a larger room with many corpses, but thankfully, they do not rise.
• A ghost takes possession of Ember, though, despondent that it can no longer fix the mistakes it made in life.
• It asks us to set right the wrongs of the shaman and kin who are cursed in the chapel and to lay Durgeddon to his proper rest.
• This sends us back the other direction towards the chapel. Most of the rooms this way have also been destroyed.
• But in a barracks we are attacked by a few skeletons.
• The chapel smells of death, it reminds me of memories that are not my own.
• We are confronted by Orge Skeletons, ghasts, and an Orcish wight.
• I feel the curse releasing it’s hold as the wight falls, but there more to do, so I perform a cleansing ceremony that would have made my elders back home proud.
• The journal is not here, so we take Durgeddon back to the ghost and lay all the dead to a proper rest.
• We find a Library through one of the doors, and a succubus masquerading as a captive researcher.
• Undead are not the only things haunting this place.
• She has found the book we need and tempts Ms. Rosewood and Shohei into attacking the party when #13 figures out she’s lying to us.
• Axel tries to negotiate with her after she goes ethereal so we can’t hurt her, but there’s some magic from the desk and #13 helps me find a summoning circle and spellbook.
• She says the book will go with her if we break the circle, she wants to talk to me alone, but the others won’t allow it.
• I copy down the magic circle with Axel and take the book, but it will have to be translated from Dwarven.
• We get tired or her threats and decide to break the circle. The book stays behind, so we pick it and other interesting books up before heading back to the Duergar.

Black Dragon

• Nightscale is a young adult black dragon who lives on his hoard in the center of an underground lake.
• The Duergar paid it so that they could work the forge undisturbed.
• The group decides we need a boat to get across the lake, so #13 gathers materials from the rooms we explored, and I learn how to build boats. It’s small, but good enough.
• We put it in the Hole to get down the stairs and then quietly get in the lake. Ms. Rosewood takes Ms. Lendiel on Seahorse-back and #13 pushes the boat.
• Everything is working well, until I try to stand up in the boat to get out onto the hoard and fall on my face. Must work on boating skills if this is going to be a thing. .
• The battle is fierce at first, but then the dragon dives into the lake, leaving us to cast about for it.
• Mr. Darkfoot and Shohei start looting the treasure, and I keep tossing heals as people surface with grievous wounds.
• After a short time, it becomes clear the dragon has left entirely, so we finish looting and swim back to shore and make our way, boatless, up the stairs.
• We split the 100lbs of Orichalcum with the Duergar and head back up through the orcs.

Oozes and Orcs

• We check through the last of the dwarven area and find a storeroom of rotten food.
• And several oozes which attack #13. Ms. Rosewood and Mr. Darkfoot destroy them.
• The only other things left on this middle level are corpses and water.
• And a cavern with a Roper that we smash and then cut open for the treasure it has eaten.
• There is also a small jail with a dwarf corpse that I am able to speak to. She was put here by the orcs to die.
• After laying her to rest in they crypts in the main room, we head upward.
• We find a room full of orcs and after Mr. Trisfir destroyed them with fire, the entire orc encampment came charging down the corridor.
• We were forced to destroy all but one who ran away so that we could leave this place.