The party returns to explore the Mines of Azov. Paradoxides goes back to his books in Basi, but they are reinforced by Wilf and are joined by the dwarf Ranulf, who has a special interest in Azov where he still hopes to find a lost enclave of his people. He brings with him another dwarf called Gunnri, a tunnel scout from Dingradur.
They teleport directly to the Mines and begin exploring. They don’t find dwarves but they do find troglodytes – large, lizardly bipeds – quite a lot of them. They prove to be well armed with dwarven weaponry. Most of this weaponry is ancient but they do find a dwarf-wrought shield that appears to be no more than a decade or so old – giving Ranulf hope. One night Wilf is ambushed by a giant spider. He slays it and discovers that it is wearing a saddle – for someone light and of small stature.
As they go deeper they discover a cavern with a forest of giant mushrooms. It turns out that Grettir has been reading up on his fungi and has become quite a bore on the subject. He can identify many that are good to eat, some that are hallucinogenic and few that are downright poisonous. Beyond the mushroom cave they find a large shaft with a ramp spiralling down the outside wall. Off the ramp are several galleries. The galleries mostly prove to be troglodyte strongholds, which hold limited interest for the party. They clear out one but then continue downwards until they come to a small sandy beach at the bottom, with a sunken jetty protruding into a lake that stretches off into the dark. On the sand they find a small piece of a black cloth that Grettir identifies as fulgin – an arcane textile woven by off-plane spiders that is blacker than black in colour and much sought after by magicians. Further exploration of the lake leads to the discovery that it is guarded by a kraken. A brief hostile encounter with the party leaves the kraken sulking in the depths, minus a few tentacles. However, it is still there and they have in any case no easy means of proceeding as a group over the lake. So they trudge back up the ramp to take out their frustrations on one of the troglodyte nests they had previously ignored.
The troglodytes had rigged a sort of labyrinthine defence of makeshift walls across the entrance to a large gallery. However, Kolgrim and Ubaron were able to fly Grettir and Wilf over these and the ordinary troglodytes had no answer to warriors of this quality. Penetrating deeper they encounter the “Lizard King”. Mounted upon a fearsome giant lizard, this troglodyte is larger, stronger and more agile than the others and provides more of a contest, but the adventurers find themselves masters of the field. There are some interesting treasures, including a demon sword. However, most intriguing is a dark-skinned woman of exotic features chained with magical fetters that seem to cause her pain, drain her energy and subdue her will. She is teleported back to Sequarl, still in the chains, which prove difficult to remove, along with the loot.
Demeetha
The woman’s name is Demeetha. Once Ubaron and Grettir’s magician Kojar have managed to remove the shackles, she tells her tale. She communicates initially using some sort of telepathy spell, although she says that by trade she is an interpreter (indeed very quickly after this she begins to make startling progress in learning to speak the Common Tongue). She was born and bred a slave in the Underdark and has never before been to the Sunlit Lands. She belongs to a people called the TchGa and had been indentured to serve the Luthera Clan. They in turn had indentured her to what she described as a ronin – some sort of masterless warrior. The ronin had taken her to interpret a trade deal with the Lizard King and although it was in clear breach of the terms of her indenture, she had become part of the deal. It seems the Lizard King was interested in her breeding potential.
It is plain that she is a creature of darkness and has little tolerance for light in any form – though she can bear starlight when wearing snow-goggles. Her skin and hair pigmentation has changed several times since they found her so she seems to have some sort of chameleon ability – possibly unconsciously. However, once shorn of her restraints (which definitely were evil) she does not seem to Ubaron, Grettir or Wilf to be particularly inimical. Ubaron takes her under his wing and in effect picks up her indenture – or at least that seems to be how she sees it.
G-6
OE Date: November 694
Characters: Grettir, Ubaron, Wilf, Ranulf, Girindor NPCs: Kolgrim, Gunnri
Real World: October 2005; Where: Surbiton
See also Ubaron’s Diaries