I was invited by a page to meet with one Aigror Longhand, Assistant Undersecretary of Operations for His Majesty's Expeditionary Force. Not quite hero status, I should think, but certainly a step up from "Incomprehensibly incompetent farmer" as an employer. It seems a prospector named Dranan Brewmaul has been bringing back cursed treasures that the Expeditionary Force has reason to believe are from Braza's Kingdom. Obviously, this is a rather significant source of concern; Braza's Kingdom was abandoned due to it becoming infested by all manner of horrid creatures centuries ago, and naturally everyone would like it if those foul things all stayed in their hole. Signs pointed to his claim having an entrance of sorts to the place, and Undersecretary Longhand wanted us to go and investigate, close the hole if possible, and bring back sufficient information to be able to close it off otherwise.
I did say "us" there, didn't I? Naturally I was one of the team, but I'm scarcely ready to handle an expedition to such a potentially dangerous place on my own. Strata, Taras, Calina, and Vallone comprised the remainder of the expedition. Calina indicated that she had some preparations she wanted to make, as did Taras, so we delayed for a bit. Taras showed up the next day with his helmet modified to specially block his ears in case of some dangerous slugs that crawl into them (the rest of us would settle for wax plugs), and Calina we had to track down to the library and insist on leaving or I think she might have spent a whole week there, if not more.
We encountered some great bears along the way. Much like my prior outing, what appeared to be a mother and her cubs, though we kept our distance so I'm not fully sure how many. It looked like at least two cubs, in any event. We kept our distance, went around, and Strata threw some apples in their direction to keep them distracted from us, and were not mauled. Perhaps a beastmaster should take a trip up this way and encourage the bears to move elsewhere, as they were not very distant from the Salt Cellar, and it would be ultimately quite bad for both the people and the bears if someone got hurt.
We arrived at the prospectors camp more by deduction than by reason of the quality of his map (it stumped pretty much all of us save Calina), and set about inspecting it. Signs were that it had been abandoned for quite some time, at least a few weeks, and Taras found a trail leading off to the north that looked a bit more recent, which we followed.
It seems Dranan must have found an old pre-scourge mine to do his prospecting from. His camp was inside the mine area (I guess some people just can't get enough of living in caves, though I for one am more than happy to live without a crushing weight of stone over my head). There were a variety of items around that looked to be ancient; a couple of cleaning brooms, assorted magical pottery, that sort of thing. We were somewhat hesitant to handle them too much, since it seemed rather improbable that a prospector would be buying such things and we knew for a fact that he was bringing back cursed objects. Probably a good thing too, since shortly after we found him and he seemed to be most of the way through the process of warping into a jehuthra, which I think we can all agree is too high a price to pay for a clean floor. There was also a sack half full of gold dust, so apparently his regular prospecting wasn't going too poorly either.
I do not like Jehuthra. It wrapped us in a web of sharp edges that slashed at us when we moved through it, then froze some of us in place while biting and clawing at us. Nasty business, for sure. Calina somehow seems to have fooled it into leaving her be (a useful trick which I should like to learn as well), which was good as we were all separated and I fear what would have happened to her had she been its target. It took a swing at me once, but couldn't get a claw past my guard; Strata and Vallone were not so lucky, as they got frozen in place by its foul tricks. I tried to free Vallone to no avail; Strata struggled a bit, but being of somewhat sterner stuff than either the Windling or I broke free after a bit, got to the center of the monster's maze, and struck it a mighty blow that left it badly wounded so that it ran away. I will say that I am quite pleased with the blow to its ego that we delivered, and it spent nearly the entire time with a pair of its legs twisted up in my Ice Mace and Chain, otherwise that might have gone much more poorly. Would that it had struck a little harder though, as the thing seemed nearly dead when my last one entwined its legs, undoubtedly causing it some frustration but ultimately not killing it.
Still, it had left us with a cadaverman to trouble us (likely some local trapper or similar) and got away temporarily as a result. We gathered together after the web finally rusted away to nothingness, regrouped (Taras had been left out of the web, but with no way to reach us, as he was guarding the rear), and tracked it back further into the mines to quite some distance. It seems highly improbable that a lone prospector had dug all this out, so it was probably all pre-scourge in origin. Perhaps it could be of some use to the Kingdom of Throal as an outpost or something, but I do not care for the place much, myself, as it lacked even the limited comforts of Throal's halls. In time, we came to a very old-looking table with some surprisingly new-looking ropes sitting on it, and a shaft leading downward nearby with a hook to attach the rope onto. Taras indicated that the tracks led into that shaft, and so down we went into it as well. several layers deep (each shaft would go for around a hundred feet, then to a small platform and another shaft; perhaps when the mine was active they had some manner of lifts or something along those lines to get up and down), and on the last layer we explored we found a hole that looked to have been breached through kaer wards or similar.
Taras, thinking quickly (and being in the lead at this time, as our most skilled climber and Scout) extinguished his light and leaned out over another shaft, and spotted our prey climbing down, outlined against the bottom. He fired once, and it fell shrieking until it crashed into the ground, and then fired a few more shots. Unsurprisingly, he seemed disinclined to go retrieve his bolts, since signs indicated we had found our entrance to the depths of Braza's Kingdom, an old air shaft with broken wards. We could not seal it up properly, but we spent a couple of days dumping what rocks and other fill we could find into the shafts to stop them up as a temporary solution, then headed back to Throal were we informed Undersecretary Aigror of the situation, and recommended perhaps that either a large crew or a more powerful Elementalist should go to seal it up properly, and they should bring someone who could put in place new kaer wards as well if at all possible. Taras I think would've liked to have also done a lot more, but there were only a few of us. When I jokingly suggested digging a channel to Death's Sea and flooding the entire complex with lava, he actually got a thoughtful look in his eye. More usefully, he also insisted (and I agree) that we should check around for other possible openings, just to be certain that there weren't more than one. I think Calina may have put together a map of the mine complex, though I'm not certain.
Anyways, the rewards of working for people who actually know what they're doing was quite nice; I acquired a healing potion that I expect will come in handy some day, as well as a nice Light Quartz Lantern, since it seems I've been stuck delving into the earth rather more often than I'd like lately and my eyes don't pierce the darkness the way some do. I look forward to working with them again (though I wouldn't like to find out that there are dozens of holes into Braza's Kingdom that need plugging).Statistics:Posted by Sharkforce — Sun Jan 03, 2021 12:36 am
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