Alternate Seventeenth Adventure: "The Bugbears Cometh" by guest author, Richard M. Darling

"Boy, this is a lot of work." said Mordagin, dropping a bundle of tapestries to the ground.

"Ah, but well worth it!" replied Grumble as he unloaded the large wooden chest of its contents, then loaded the contents into the groups backpacks and sacks.  The chest was then hauled back up the ropes, so another load could be hauled out of the tomb they just plundered.

A tomb that belonged to Grak the Mighty, a bugbear of horrific strength who terrorized the Flinty Hills back in the day.  A bugbear who also amassed a great amount of wealth, which the group was now claiming as their own.  They had successfully cleared out the tomb of any undead they ran across as well as some sort of golem.

Unfortunately, while they were in the tomb, something had attacked their horses.  Two of them lay dead, while the other horses ran off to the west.  A flock of crows circled above, eager to swoop down and snatch any food they could.  What killed the horses was a mystery, Turok could not identify the tracks they found, but whatever it was, it pursued the horses.  This meant a long walk for the group.

The sun was beginning to set when they finished their task.  They piled the treasure near the valley wall and began setting up camp.  Immilarn had chosen first watch and so decided to stay in the entrance to the tomb, which was carved into the valley wall, fifty feet up.  It afforded him an excellent veiw of the valley.

Minutes later:

"Hey, something's coming!" Immilarn yelled down to the group.

The group looked up to see Immilarn pointing to the west.  The group looked in that direction, but saw nothing.

"I don't see anything, are you sure?" Bran yelled back.

Immilarn replied "Yeah, I'm sure. I can see the sunlight glinting off their armor or weapons.  I don't know what they are, but there is a lot of them.  They stretch almost all the way across the valley."

"Maybe we should get out of here" says Mordagin.

Bran says "Good idea.  Turok, you and Grumble grab one of the chests.  Immilarn and I will take the other.  Immilarn get down here, we're leaving! "

Immilarn climbed down the valley wall and helped Bran pick up one of the chests.  "We can try to go around the southern end of the lake and just bypass them, whatever they are." says Mordagin.  With that, they headed for the lake.

When the group arrived at the lake, they realized their error.  The creatures also sent some of their own around the southern end of the lake.  As the creatures got closer, the group recognized them as bugbears, an entire army of them.  There was no way they could outrun them, not with the treasure and certainly not Grumble, whose legs were short and stubby.  He could only move half as fast and would be overtaken by the bugbears.  So they found a defensible position and stood ready to face their doom.  Grumble cast a spell to soften the earth and the chests sunk into the ground, to be retrieved later, if any of them survived.

Just then, three riderless horses rode towards the group and then passed them.  It was Turok's heavy war horse and two of their riding horses.  &quotAfter the horses!" Bran yelled.  There was hope for survival yet.  They caught up to the horses, Immilarn and Mordagin got on one of the riding horses and Bran got on the other.  Turok got his war horse and turned around for Grumble who was way behind.  He scooped up the dwarf and the whole group headed back towards the tomb.  As they got back to the tomb, Bran spotted a trail at the eastern end of the valley, which they immediately headed for.  They'd been robbed of most of their treasure, but at least they might live.

Alternate Seventeenth Adventure, Part II: "Grimdizzerak"

Darkness settled around them as they rode for what seemed like hours, when they spotted some ruins just off the trail.  They decided to hold up there and get some rest.  Grumble began studying the ruins.  "This was built by dwarves, at least ...six or seven generations ago.  Look around for some writing or symbols.  Maybe we can find out what clan this belonged to."  Grumble, Mordagin, and Immilarn began looking around, while Bran and Turok remained on watch.

"Here's something." cried Immilarn.

The other two came over and saw a stone block with some writing carved into the top.  Just below the writing was the imprint of a small hand.  "Looks like dwarf runes, but I can't read it.  That however"  pointing to the hand print  "looks to be the size of my hand."  said Grumble.

"Hey!"  Bran said in a loud whisper as he came up to the group.  "The bugbears are coming up the trail.  There are already some in the woods across the trail, probably scouts.  When the rest get up here, they'll charge enmasse.  We should set up some defenses."

At that moment, Luna, the larger of the two moons that orbited Oerth, showed itself from behind some clouds.  It was only three-quarters full, but it bathed the surrounding land in a dim glow.  The hand print on the stone block began to glow, as well as the dwarf runes.  The horses in the back section of the ruins became startled and came to the front.  Turok yelled  "Here they come!"   There was all sorts of movement from down the trail and across it from the woods, everyone looked at Grumble,...he put his hand on the imprint.

The stone block began sinking slowly into the ground. There was a deep grating noise as a stone ramp opened in the floor in the rear section of the ruins.  "Everyone, down the ramp!"  Mordagin yelled.  Turok came running back.  Immilarn slapped one of the riding horses on its rump and it went golloping towards the front of the ruins.  Just then, a bugbear came charging through the doorway and got a face full of horses as it rode over him.  With everyone down the ramp, Grumble took his hand off the block and it started to rise.  He dove for the opening and made it.  The stone ramp closed with a dull thud.

The group all got out their continual light coins and looked around.  They appeared to be in a tunnel, which started here and headed north underground.  "It slopes down"  said Grumble, who as a dwarf possessed an innate ability to sense such things.

"Well, only one way to go."  said Turok as he led the remaining two horses down the tunnel.  The tunnel was fifteen feet wide and the same high, it's walls were smooth and unadorned.  Only a fine layer of dirt and dust lay on the ground.  The tunnel ran straight, not a single side passage broke its walls and after a mile, it opened to twenty feet high and twenty feet wide.  A set of large double doors blocked their way.  The doors were smooth like the walls, but made of some sort of metal.

"Mithril."  said Grumble stepping up to the door and rubbing his hand across it.

"Must have been an earthquake or something."  said Mordagin pointing to a small hole in the wall, above and to the right of the doors.

"Let's see if we can get these open."  said Bran, moving up and trying to get his fingers between the doors.  The seam was only a dagger point wide, no way to force the doors open.  The group rested here for the night.

Hours later, they were awake and ready to try and get through the door.  Immilarn was boosted up to the hole in the wall.  He grabbed for the lip, but missed and came crashing back down.  Luckily, he hit the ground and rolled, suffering only a minor bruise.  He tried again and made it.  He crawled a couple of feet into the hole and found that it opened to a room beyond the doors.  He could see another set of mithril doors on the far wall, these were smaller than the first, but no less grand.  There was also a small stone door to the right.  He lowered himself into the room and looked for a bar or something that held the doors shut, there was none, and no locks either.  He relayed this information back through the hole and the wizard said he'd try a knock spell.

He began casting and the door began glowing and hissing.  He stopped immediately, and the glow faded and the hissing stopped.  "Must be warded. Damn!, what a waste of magic!"  said Mordagin.

"Maybe it doesn't like your magic, wizard."  said Grumble.  "Step aside and let me try."  Grumble stepped in front of Mordagin and began his spell.  The door began to glow and hiss as before, but Grumble didn't stop his spell.  When he finsihed casting, the door shot some sort of energy bolt at Grumble and nailed him in the chest, knocking him to the ground.  "Ouch..."  he whispered, as he struggled to gain his breathe.  He got up slowly.

"Immilarn, see if you can find a way to open the door from your side."  yelled Mordagin through the hole in the wall.

"Alright."  he replied.

With nothing to see in this room, Immilarn proceeded to the stone door.  He pushed it open, short sword in hand.  It was a guard room with beds carved into the walls.  On the south wall, there was a metal lever.  He walked over, looked at it, shrugged his shoulders and pulled it down.  There was a slight groaning sound as the doors opened, and the group entered the room.

Immilarn rejoined the group, a smile on his face.  "I'm too good."  he said.  Everyone ignored him.

They proceeded to the second set of doors.  One of the doors was slightly open, leading to another long hallway, except this one had the skeletal remains of hundreds of dwarves, strewn out in their final positions.  "These are damn duergar!"  Grumble said harshly while examining a mithril war hammer, then standing and kicking one of the skulls.  Mixed in among the duergar were the remains of other dwarves, their weapons buried deep in the duergar's long gone flesh.

"I hate the damn duergar! Haela curse them!"  Grumble said, spitting on the ground.

"Well, they don't need these anymore."  said Immilarn, picking up a mithril short sword and its scabbard.

"This one was shot in the head, from behind."  Mordagin said, picking up one of the skulls and examining the small slot in the back of it.  "Looks like he was trying to get to the doors."  Mordigan picked up a quarrel head of mithril and put it in his pocket.  Other weapons were also gathered.

"Let's move on."  said Bran, beginning to move down the hallway.

Turok came up, leading the horses.  "Hey dwarf...how deep are we?"  he asked.

"A mile down, I reckon."  Grumble replied.

The group continued down the hallway, roughly four hundred feet to its end, where it opened into a vast cavern.  Straight ahead of the opening was a solid wall ascending into the darkness that was the ceiling.  To the right of this wall, was a twenty foot high plateau, with a ramp leading up to it.  To the left was a level passage, roughly fifty feet across.  The group headed for the plateau.  Once on top, they saw small stone houses along the walls.  Also, built into the walls were doorways, that also led to living quarters of its long dead occupants.  Littered among the houses were more skeletal bodies, some were no more than children.  Several side passages were collapsed, one only being partially collapsed.

"We should explore a bit, maybe we can find some treasure."  said Immilarn, peering into the partially collapsed tunnel.

Mordagin walked over and looked down the same tunnel and said  "I'm not going in there."  The group moved on, heading north along the plateau.

Along the western wall, was a stairway leading up.  Atop the stairs was a ledge that had several more doorways that led to more living quarters.  The eastern wall had a ledge as well, but the stairs leading up to it had collapsed.  After a few minutes of walking and looking for anything of value, the party came to a dried-up riverbed, roughly fifteen feet deep and running from the northeast to the west.  There had once been a bridge across the river bed, but it was knocked out by a large boulder.  The large boulder came from the collapsed tunnel to the east, where the river was blocked off.  The sound of the river could be heard from beyond the collapse, though not very loud.

"Maybe there is another way across."  said Bran moving west, following the riverbed.

"Hey, look at that."  Immilarn said pointing down into the riverbed.  The group looked where he pointed.  Down in the riverbed was a large lizard-like creature, and it had a saddle on it's back. A large pool of dark blood had accumalated around its head.  Immilarn was lowered down into the riverbed and checked it out.  It had two large hind legs, and two very small front legs, so it probably ran on its hind legs.  It had many small suction cups along the bottom of its hind legs, which look like they had been burned somehow.  And, its long neck lay at an odd angle, probably indicating it was broken.  "Anybody know what this is?"  Immilarn said looking up at the group.  "It doesn't look like its been dead for too long."  The group looked around nervously.  "Can we go now?"  said Turok.

The group came to another bridge spanning the riverbed, this one still intact.  Across the riverbed, was a solid wall that once held a tunnel running through it, but the tunnel was collapsed.  They followed the riverbed, it came to the edge of the plateau.  There must have been a waterfall here once, that dropped down thirty feet, then ran west across the fifty foot passage and into a tunnel in the western wall.  With no way across that would allow them to bring the horses across the riverbed, the group turned around and headed south for the entrance.

When the group got back to the entrance, they headed along the western passage, which also had small houses and doorways.  They finally arrived at the bridge going across the riverbed that they had seen before.  They crossed the bridge and continued on.

"Wait....quiet, stop. Do you guys hear that?"  said Grumble.  The group stopped and listened.

From one of the doorway on the western wall came a rhythmic sound, as it went on, it got louder.  Then a creature that matched the dead lizard in the riverbed came out of the doorway, ran across the passage and proceeded to run straight up the eastern wall and disappear into the darkness that was the ceiling.  The group looked at each other.

Suddenly, Grumble was swallowed up by a globe of darkness.  Tiny quarrels rained down on the group from above.  More globes of darkness began appearing, arcane words could be heard from the doorway that the lizard had come through.  It could only be a wizard.  Turok started to feel sleepy, but fought it off.  "Run!"  yelled Mordagin, already halfway across the bridge.  The rest of the group turned and ran for the bridge.  More spellcasting could be heard as the group ran for their lives.  The air became very dry then and the crackle of electricity could be heard as a lightning bolt flew right between Bran and Grumble.  They were both singed, but continued running.  The group ran all the way back to the mithril doors and spiked them from the other side, to prevent anyone coming through from the other side.

The group, huffing and puffing, collapsed on the floor.  "Drow....I think those were drow."  said Mordagin.

"Yeah, I'd say so."  Bran said, pulling out a tiny quarrel from his shoulder.

"Now, what do we do?"  asked Immilarn.

"Maybe we should go back to where we came in.  Find a way out through there."  said Mordagin.

"No! We have to go straight through this dwarven city to get out, I know it!"  Grumble said.

Ignoring the dwarf, the group was already moving back up the tunnel to the way they came.  When they arrived, they found no way of opening the ramp from this side.  They told Grumble that he should stone shape an opening for them to go through, he agreed.  What they didn't know was that Grumble went through the motions of casting the spell, but never actually cast it.  His heart was set on going through the dwarven city.  They began searching for secret doors, and they continued searching the tunnel walls until they arrived back at the mithril doors.  Then they searched the walls between the sets of mithril doors.  Paydirt!  They found a secret door in the western wall, directly across from the guard room.  They managed to open it and saw a spiraling stone stairway leading upward.  The left the horses and proceeded up.  After a few minutes, they came to an end.  The stairway was blocked by large amounts of stone and earth.  Disappointed, they turned and went back down.  They found the horses where they left them, and decided now was as good a time for a meal.

Halfway into their meal, there was a loud tapping on the set of mithril doors that led into the dwarven city.  Startled, everyone drew their weapons.  A few seconds passed.....nothing.

The tapping came again.  Turok very cautiously removed the spike and opened the door, just in time to see a figure disappear into the darkness.  "Rivvin!"  a voice called out from the darkness.  "Phuul dos noga?"  The group looked at each other in confusion, not understanding what the voice was saying.  "Rivvin, z'hin lil colbauth rath ulu lil dar lueth dro."  Silence followed.  Turok closed the door and respiked it.

"So,...who can translate?"  asked Mordigan sarcastically, knowing no one here could.

A little while later, there was more tapping.  Turok cautiously opened the door.  "Humans!"  said the voice in common with a heavy accent.  "I speak your language.  Why you here?  Why you come Grimdizzerak?"

"We are looking for a way back to the surface."  said Bran, hoping no one would notice the small yellow pool of urine gathering at his feet.

"Go the way you came in."  said the voice in the darkness.

"We cannot go back.  The way is blocked."  said Grumble, eager to go into the city and try and see what these drow were up to.  Silence followed....the group waited for a reply.

Eventually, the drow answered.  "I feel generous.  You may pass through, stay the eastern side of the cavern, or you die.  Understand?"

"Yes, we understand."  said Bran.  The door was shut and the group looked at each other.  Grumble said  "They're letting us go!?  There can't be more than a handful of them, otherwise, they would have killed us by now."

"They still can.  By letting us go out into the open city, we would be a better target.  They can't get us behind these doors."  Immilarn voiced.

"It could be a trap.  But whether it is or isn't, we need to get out of here.  Our food and water will eventually run out.  I for one, would like to take my chances out there, then wait for death in here."  said Mordagin.  Everyone looked at the shadowmage, somewhat stunned by what he said.  Maybe it was the lack of air that addled his brain.

The group agreed to go.  They opened the door and headed out cautiously, their continual light coins in one hand and their weapons in the other.  Bran was the first to exit the passageway and headed towards the side of the cavern that had the plateau.  The sound of small pebbles hitting the ground caused him to look over, then up the wall, to see a cloaked rider in the saddle of a lizard steed.  The rider lifted its black lance and pointed towards the northeastern part of the cavern with it, then turned the steed towards the ceiling and rode into the darkness.  The rest of the group entered the cavern and they proceeded towards the collapsed bridge they had seen earlier.  They had left the two remaining horses in the room between the mithril doors, feeling there was no way for them to cross the riverbed without breaking their legs.  Carefully and cautiously, they arrived at the bridge.  They headed to the right, where the river could barely be heard behind the tons of rock that had collapsed so long ago, effectively blocking the flow of the river from the cavern.  They crossed the collapse and went down a ramp, leading them off the plataeu.  They were passing by a side tunnel, when they heard the sound of metal hitting stone coming from it.  They didn't see any drow, but that didn't mean they weren't around.  Immilarn, moving quickly, stepped into the side tunnel and moved down it, while the rest of the group moved on.  Moving as quietly as possible, which wasn't that hard considering the sound of metal hitting stone masked his footsteps, he came to an area that had a globe of darkness in it.  He moved through it carefully and found the origins of the noises.  About fifty feet down the tunnel were dwarven miners, skeletal dwarven miners, using picks and shovels to dig at something beyond his sight.  He quickly caught up with the rest of the group and relayed this info.  Grumble quietly argued that this was intolerable, but the group convinced him that they should leave and come back another time.  They found a passage in the northern wall, similar to the one in the south wall that entered into this cavern.  They went down it, passed the inner set of mithril doors and found that this side was exactly the same as the other.  They found the secret door in the western wall and climbed the stairway to freedom.

The stairs exited above ground into more ruins, these smaller than the first.  At first light, they headed west, towards a keep they had stayed at on the trip to the bugbear tomb.  Marigold Keep was its name, and they warned the commander of the keep, about the massive amount of bugbears gathered in the valley.  He thanked them and they continued on their way, towards Mistwatch, another military keep controlled by the Kingdom of Nyrond.

Upon arriving there, the group learned that it wasn't only the bugbears that were active, the ogres of the Flinty Hills were also stirring things up a bit.  Mistwatch lost two of their wizards and a score of soldiers to ogre attacks. Mordagin traded some spells with one of the surviving wizards while they aided the keep on patrols.

The commander of Mistwatch, a dwarf by the name of Flandeld Soughdriver, had asked Bran to take a message to the palace at Rel Mord.  He couldn't spare any of his men to deliver the message, but knew Bran would do his best to see the task through.  Then they headed south, down the Snake Pass towards Schukendale.  On the way, they came across a gruesome massacre of what used to be miners.  Their carts smashed and overturned, the silver once inside those carts, gone, taken by what looked like ogres, from the tracks left behind.  The patrol they were with went after the ogres, Mordagin, Immilarn, Bran, Grumble and Turok continued south.

Several days later, they arrived in Rel Mord, tired and dirty.  Bran delivered the message to the palace, its contents unknown.  They divided what treasure they had and went their seperate ways.  Mordagin immediately began researching spells.  He had worked out a deal with Gheldar the Transmuter.  Immilarn headed to Trigol, his hometown to go see his folks.  Grumble, Bran, and Turok headed south to Prosperity.  Grumble to visit the dwarves, Bran to work on a church dedicated to Heironeous. Turok, the ever-faithful lackey went cause he had nowhere else to go.

Two weeks later, the festival of Richfest began.  Gheldar had invited many wizards, that were visiting the city, to his tower for a presentation.  The presentation was by Mordagin, the Shadow Weaver, and it was about the selling of unique spells created by Mordagin to whomever was interested.  It went well.

Immilarn returned for the festival and rented an apartment above a lockshop.  He partied with the rest of the city and had an overall good time.  But, he was eager to get out on the road.

Grumble and Bran returned after the festival.  Apparently, they partied as well, but also heard the call of the road.  A day or so later, the group received a letter from a wizard called Paleastes who wanted to hire them to do a job.

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