Alternate Eighteenth Adventure: "The Return to Grimdizzerak" by Richard M. Darling

The ten mile trip out to Paleastes' home was uneventful and smelly, not to mention damn uncomfortable, riding underneath the summer sun.  Mordagin, Grumble, Bran and Immilarn had just spent several hours crawling through the sewers of Rel Mord, fighting strange beasts, visiting an undead temple, and rolling around with a pack of wererats.   Just to retrieve an orb of some kind, stolen out of Paleastes' Tower.

And their reward, the treasure from the Tomb of Grak the Mighty.

It turns out that Paleastes had been keeping an eye on the group for some unknown reason.  A day after the group had fled from the army of bugbears, Paleastes had gone to the valley, recovered the treasure, and returned to his home.

They headed back to Rel Mord after receiving their payment.

"Hey, I've got an idea.  Let's NOT adventure in the sewers anymore."   said Mordagin, busily trying to wipe the filth from his robes.  "I think I'm going to have to burn these."

"Ah!  Quit your whining!  Grumble said, running his stumpy fingers through his blood-caked beard.  "At least you didn't get bit in the face by a ghoul."

They arrived back in Rel Mord a little while later.  The four of them met for dinner that same day at one of the many taverns that dot the bustling capital of Nyrond.   Mordagin, Grumble, Immilarn, and Bran made preperations for their return to the ruins of Grimdizzerak.  They planned to leave tomorrow morning, but later that night, they found out that Bran had been recalled to the Temple of Heironious by his superiors and that he would not be leaving in the morning with the group.  They decided to ask Fessick the half- giant if he would go.  He wasn't doing anything, so he agreed.   Grumble, Mordagin, Immilarn and Fessick left in the morning.

Two nights later, on the road to Womtham, they were attacked by a band of gnolls.   They killed several and the rest fled.  These gnolls had quite a bit of treasure on them, nearly one hundred platinum sterlings, fifty gold nobles, a handful of gems, and five magical potions.  The next morning, a contingent of men rode up on horseback and asked if the group had seen any gnolls about.  The group recounted the battle and the men rode after the few survivors.

They arrived in Womtham the next day and discovered where the gnolls had gotten their treasure.  During the night, the gnolls broke into the home of the local alchemist, who lived on the outskirts of town, and savagely killed him while he slept.  The gnolls then grabbed what treasure they could and fled south.

Mordagin had tried to gain access to the alchemist's home, but the guards wouldn't let him in.  The group, minus Fessick, got some rooms at an inn and spent the remainder of the day resting.  Fessick was not allowed in town, so he spent the night in a run-down barn outside town.  It rained all that night.

The next morning, they gathered their gear, grabbed Fessick and set out.  After two days, they passed through Schukendale, a small village that borders the southern edge of the Flinty Hills.  They continued north along the Snake Pass for a day, then turned east and followed the Ogrebolt Trail.  Along the way, they ran into some hobgoblins and a few bugbears.  On the third day along the trail, they arrived at the citadel of Glandeven.

A gnomish patrol came out to meet the group, a few words of greeting were said and the group was allowed to proceed to the citadel.

One hundred sixty feet in diameter and over one hundred feet tall, the citadel was a massive structure indeed.  It was rumored that eight thousand gnomes resided within its dark tan walls, but no one had ever confirmed it.  Mounted on the roof, facing each of the four cardinal directions, were four giant ballista.   When within twenty feet of the entrance, the group could see that the walls were smooth, no windows broke its surface.  Passing through the entrance, the group turned to the right and began their journey up along the inside of the outer wall.  All along the inner wall, arrow slits could be seen, as well as the faces of the gnomish crossbowmen behind them.   After one hundred feet up, they came to a set of doors on the inner wall.  The guards asked what their business was here, and allowed the group to enter.  They proceeded in twenty feet, when they saw an open pit directly in front of them.  The pit was fourty feet in diameter and had a ramp going down along the sides.  Looking up, revealed the open sky, a hole in the roof to allow rain and fresh air into the citadel.  The group headed down the ramp, and after one hundred thirty feet, they realized they must be underground.  The citadel continued down, but the group was not allowed past the market area.  They got some rooms and stayed the night.nbsp; While they were there, Fessick tried to hire someone to craft him a pair of giant cesti, but no one would take the job.

The next day, the group left the citadel and traveled north.  It was an uneventful two days to the valley of Grak the Mighty.  When they arrived at the eastern end of the valley, they saw bugbear bodies scattered all about.  As the group passed through the valley, they could see a few living bugbears moving among the dead ones.  The group rode through the rest of the valley without incident.

When the group arrived within sight of the ruins, they spotted more living bugbears moving about.  At a quick glance, their was close to a score of the humanoids, more than the four of them could handle.

"Fessick smash?" the half-giant asked, swinging his club in the air.

"No Fessick, not yet." Grumble said.  Fessick's shoulders slumped a bit.

"It looks like alot of them."  said Immilarn.

"We should try to go around them to the stairway." Mordagin said, leading his horse off the trail.

An hour later, the group arrived at the other ruins.  These ruins sat atop the long stairway leading down to the city.  It started getting dark.

"We'll go down in the morning." Mordagin said.

They set up camp and posted a watch for a night.  The night passed by without incident and they entered the stairway after breakfast.  They had to use magic to reduce Fessick's size, so he could fit in the stairway.  At the bottom of the stairs, the secret door was still open, just as they left it several months ago.  Definitely a good sign, but they still proceeded with caution.  The room they exited into had a set of mithril doors at both the north and south ends.  The south doors led into the city, the north doors were a mystery.  They opened the south doors and headed in.

Halfway down the hall, they heard some noise from behind.  Their weapons already drawn, they spun to face this new menace.  Out of the darkness it came, wearing plate mail and weilding a long sword. 

It was....Bran.  "Hey guys, wait for me."  he said as he approached.

Grumble said  "Ok Fessick, now you can smash." Fessick looked somewhat confused.

Bran quickly explained that he was able to leave a day after the group had left.   He had traveled with a caravan to Mistwatch, then headed across the Flinty Hills alone.  Last night, he had camped a few miles away to the west.  He arrived at the stairs an fifteen minutes ago.  The group headed on.

They entered the massive cavern and went left.  Halfway up the plateau, they turned into the passage that Immilarn had checked the last time they were here.  It was silent, and no globe of darkness.  Heading down that passage brought them to what used to be large stone doors.  The skeletal dwarves that Immilarn had seen digging through it the last time had completed their task.  The bottom four feet of the door was gone, nothing but rubble on the floor.  But a trail of skeletons led the way in.   The group followed the bones and came to a second stone door that had suffered the same fate as the first.  The hall came to a T-intersection and the group went straight, coming to a throne room with many columns running up the sides.  They did a quick search, but there was nothing of value here, so they went back to the intersection and followed the bones.  They passed by a few small, empty rooms, but continued straight down the hall.  They came to the end of the passage and found a dead drow, surrounded by the dwarven bones and large chunks of stone.  Some of the chunks had pieces of a face carved on them.

"Those must have been golems." said Mordagin, mentally reconfiguring the chunks of stone.

"I hope there aren't any more of them." Immilarn said.

"This used to be a vault room, I think." said Grumble, walking past the remains of the stone golems and into the room they once guarded.  "They were after the vault!  There was no drow army!  Just a handful of them." He paused and looked down at the large circular hole in the floor.   Through the hole he could see the flooded level below.  "And we let them get away." he said more to himself that anyone else.

They searched the rest of what they had guessed to have been the dwarven palace and found nothing.

They left the palace and headed right, to the western street that they had got attacked on the last time they were here.  They passed over the bridge and continued south until they found a passage they didn't explore the last time.  They followed it southwest to a section of quarries.  In one of the quarries, they found a large collection of bones, not dwarven bones, but other creatures.  There was also a long tunnel, which they followed for about a half mile.  It exited into an area with alot of other passages.

"I don't think this is still part of the ruins." said Bran.

"Quiet!" Immilarn said.  "Something's coming."

The group listened.  From down two of the passages came some noise.  Then, into the light emerged eight flailing appendages, the rest of the creature remained hidden in the darkness.  The other creature did the same as the first.  Then they rushed the group.  They looked like large centipedes that had eight tentacles stuck to the front of its head.  "Carrion crawlers." someone said.   A combination of spells and arrows killed one and Fessick smashed the other with his club.   They turned around and headed back the way they came.

They passed back through the quarries and took a side passage, going northwest.  A hundred feet up the passage, the group came to a bridge.  It was the riverbed.   The smell of old blood was strong here.  Looking down, the group saw a large pool of dried blood.  Blood trails ran in both directions of the riverbed.  The group lowered themselves into the riverbed and followed the blood trail leading east.   It led out to the huge cavern that held the main city, and right under the only crossable bridge in the cavern, where it stopped.  There were no bodies.  The group headed back the other way.

They traveled down the riverbed and came to another large cavern.  Its size was undeterminable due to the webs spanning it.  The floor sloped down into the center where there was a twenty foot hole in the ground.

"Light them up." said Mordagin.

They wrapped an oil soaked cloth around one of Immilarn's arrows, lit it, and he fired it into the darkness.  As the steaking arrow flew through the air, any webs it passed through, immediately caught fire and began burning.  An arrow shot back down out of the darkness.  The burning webs revealed the size of the cavern as well as a fat drow elf riding a spider, who was reloading his bow.  The blaze also showed six huge spiders moving towards the groups position, four from above and two from the hole in the floor.  When the cavern was fully lit, the group saw the drow in full.  It was actually a drider, a creature that had the upper torso of a bloated, sexless drow elf and the lower torso of a spider.  It continued to fire its bow.

Mordagin cast a spell and ten shadowy little demons appeared around the drider's head, causing his next volley of arrows to miss.  The rest of the group fought off the huge spiders, although Bran had been bitten several times and almost died from the poisons they injected into him.  Burning egg sacs fell from the ceiling and hit the ground with a wet thud.  Hundreds of tarantula-sized baby spiders poured from them and scattered in all directions.  Only a few escaped the burning webs.  The drider jumped from his perch on the wall and right into the hole in the floor, the shadow demons followed.   The rest of the huge spiders were killed, after which Fessick began throwing their bodies into the hole.  After the fires died out, the group poked through whatever was left.  They found the remains of some drow, presumably the ones they had encountered here months ago, but only a few of their weapons could be salvaged.   The drider did not return.

They rested for a bit, then began searching the ruins again, finding only one place they didn't go yet, the partially collapsed tunnel they saw when they first came here.   Fessick remained in the main cavern while the rest of the group crawled into the tunnel.  When they exited the tunnel, they all felt somewhat at ease and relaxed.

"This looks like a temple, but to many gods." said Grumble. "This one" as he walked towards the first one on the right "is to Clangeddin Silverbeard, dwarven god of battle."  The shrine consisted of many statues of dwarven warriors on either side and a huge granite block, stained blood-red, served as the altar.  Clangeddin's symbol, two crossed battle axes, was mounted on the wall above the altar.

Directly across from Clangeddin's shrine was a section with multi-sized fountains, long dried up, along the walls.  Unlit candles also decorated the walls.  On the floor was a skeleton, dressed in robes.   Underneath the skeleton was the shattered remains of stone slabs, probably religious records.  The symbol of a flame rising from a steel needle was on the back wall.  "That is a shrine to Sharindlar, the Lady of Mercy and Life."

Next to Sharindlar's shrine, was a plain looking shrine.  In the center was a boulder with several veins of mithril running through it.  The walls were pock-marked and the symbol on the back was a cut, faceted gem inside a mountain.  "That one is to Dumathoin, the Keeper of Secrets under the Mountain."

The group moved up to the next shrine, across from Dumathoin's and next to Clangeddin's.  That shrine was a forge with broken weapons scattered all about it.   On the back wall was the symbol of a crossbow bolt on a shield.  Grumble scratched his head.  "Who's shrine is this of?" asked Immilarn.   Grumble was slow to answer.  "I don't know.  It looks like Laduguer's symbol, the duergar god, but the bolt is intact."

The remaining two shrines were to Moradin, the All-Father of the dwarves, and to Berronar Truesilver, Matron of Home and Hearth and Moradin's wife.  Berronar's shrine had a carpet of petrified blue fungus on the ground and her symbol of two interlocking rings was on the back wall.  Moradin's shrine was resembled a smithy shop, with six anvils along the walls, and a massive and exquisite forge in the center.    Moradin's symbol of an anvil and hammer was carved into the back wall.

There was a collapsed passage on the north wall.  Partially buried beneath the rubble was something metal.  Bran began digging it out.  It was a large, thick tome with mithril covers.  Only the sides of the pages, which were gold, could be seen.  Engraved on the cover were the six symbols of the shrines here in the temple.   Grumble tried to open the tome, but it was sealed by two thin bands wrapped around it.  Bran also found a small hammer with a stone head, which he kept.

The group then headed to the entrance of the city.  Passing through the hallway of the dead, they reached the mithril doors.  They opened them up and saw a pool of dried blood, all that remained of Turok's war horse and the other riding horse.  On the western wall, there was a collapsed hole.  Apparently, something dug its way into the room, killed the horses and dragged their corpses back through the hole, collapsing it as it went.  After feeling that they had gone everywhere they could and that there was nothing else for them here, they decided to leave.  They left the way they had come in.

Two days later, they arrived back at Glandeven. 

Within sight of the citadel, they were passed by a single rider on horseback, heading north.  The group watched him as he went by and continued to watch for a few seconds more, just in case it was some kind of ambush.  One hundred yards away, the rider stopped and turned back towards the group.  Fessick, Bran, Grumble, Mordagin, and Immilarn readied themselves for a fight.  The rider rode up to them, no weapons in hand and said,  "Yer'n odd group, ainchya?  What'r yer names?"

Mordagin was about to answer, when Fessick bellowed out "Me Fessick!" thumping his thumb into his own chest.  The rest of the group gave their names as well.

"Good, I gots a message here from a man named Chultron.  I's bin rid'n round these hills, fer days on end, goin from town t'town, looking fer yuz." Mordagin started to say something, but the man kept talking. "Yeah, he sayz, yuul knowz'm when ya seez'm.  A trioz o'men, a dwurf, and a haf'gyint.   Then I sayz, I'll find'em fer yaz, if'n it takes me a few yearz, even if....."

"Can we have the message?!" Mordagin interrupted.

" Huh, oh, right, the message..." The rider pulled out a scroll tube, uncorked the top and pulled out a rolled up piece of parchment.  He handed it over to Mordagin, who then broke the wax seal and read it, to himself.  Mordagin thanked the rider and resumed the trip to Glandeven, the rest of the group rode to catch up to him.   The messenger rode off.  Once the messenger was gone, Immilarn asked "Well? What did it say?"   Everyone listened intently as Mordagin reread the message, this time out loud.

"Ogburg!" Bran said.  He didn't sound very happy.

Having fulfilled his promise to help Grumble clear Grimdizzerak of drow, Mordagin anounced that he intended to join up with Y'Ranwelun, T'Rojan, Turok, and Chultron in Ogburg.  They should be there waiting for him and anyone else who was interested in searching for the Moon Gate and the mystery of Damascus.  Seeing as Ogburg was a few dangerous days away, they all decided to accompany Mordagin to Ogburg before heading back to Rel Mord.  They stayed the night at Glandeven and set out the next morning.

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