BRB and Hal arrived, and looked at Luke. He was not dead, just severely mauled. BRB fixed him up enough so that he could talk. He told us that Throntax had left early that morning to go to the mine. During her fight with Goebels, she somehow discovered the identity of the person supporting him-- he lived in the bottom of the mine. Luke gasped that we needed to tell Draco. He lapsed back into unconsciousness, so we left to take him to the Temple of Odin. We came across another apprentice, trapped under the collapsed wreck of one of the outbuildings. He told us that Throntax had left, and set up some defenses to fake out Goebels. Apparently, G. got suspicious and sent the weres to check it out, and they caused the explosion. Anyway, Throntax had discovered that the being at the bottom of the mine was the mate of the dragon that had plagued the region a century ago, and who Draco had killed. Throntax had taken a party of mages and guardsmen down the mine to investigate and to defeat the dragon. We gathered this guy up, as well, and brought him to the temple.
Next, we went to see Lord Lara. She was meeting with Draco and Lisbon (Draco's captain, who abandoned us in Evilheim). Erose whacked Lisbon. We delivered Malthus' note to Lara (we'd left Malthus with Elspeth and BRB at the temple). The letter said that Malthus wanted to apologise for his mother's rampage through the area a hundred years ago, and proffered an explanation. For the last 80 years, Malthus had been seeking the person who'd killed his mama. When the shit hit the fan those many years ago, Malthus had lain in wait at the old Draco's castle. A bunch of angry villagers stormed the castle, and Malthus killed them all. Malthus left for some reason, and returned, and found the castle destroyed and everybody dead, and a weird curse on the castle. Whoever "returned" to the castle was cursed to wander the hills for a hundred years. Poor baby Malthus was thus cursed to wander the hills, and he eventually found himself in the northern mountains, where he became the ruler of a small area. According to Draco, Draco Sr. also wandered, had it on with some hill woman, and produced Draco Jr. He eventually died. According to Draco.
Lord Lara told us that she and Draco had formed an alliance to fight the orc army which was causing all the problems, and which was under the control of the Dweller in the mine. In addition to allying with each other, they'd formed an alliance with the dwarves of Texas. There were three emissaries visiting from Texas, and they were going to return there to coordinate the war. Lara wanted us to go along, to bring back any messages. We all agreed to go. We met the emissaries. They were named Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill, and Frank Beard. Dusty and Billy had the longest beards I've ever seen on anybody, even a dwarf. The Texans were actually staying at the Velvet Glove, and were living it up with the doxies. They were musicians, so Keef and I got along with them quite well; we showed them the amps, and our Fender guitars, and we all jammed all night long.
The next morning, we left for Texas. Malthus told us he'd joined the Town Guard and was going to Texas with us. We went to the mine (where else). The dwarves had an odd kind of pulley-and-rope contraption connected to a platform, which they used to descend to the bottom of the mine shaft. When we came to the 8th level, we saw three dead town guards; Keef said they were guys who had gone on Throntax's mission. We investigated quickly; it looked like there'd been a fight with some sort of snake creatures. The snake tracks led off in one direction, the people tracks in another. At this point, we couldn't do anything, so we hoped that everybody was okay, and continued on to Texas.
At the bottom of the mine shaft was a huge underground ocean, and a boat. According to Vrba (who'd decended first, magically), it was filled with island-sized creatures. The dwarves told us that they wouldn't attack unless we provoked them with bright light. These beasts are hunted by the dwarves; they are the source of the oil for which Texas is so famous.
After a few days of travel, we finally came to a dock. It was the famous Texas seaport, Corpus Christi-- the self-proclaimed oil capital of the world. We travelled over(under?)land for about half a day, to San Antonio, where the Texan High Command was organising the war effort. We delivered the documents, and went off to see the sights. We saw the Alamo, and the temple of the Dwarven Goddess of Ugliness (who is far from ugly for any red-blooded elf or man). I got an amazing souvenir pen with the Goddess' image on it. When the pen is inverted, her robes vanish!
We also had the opportunity to play a gig for Texans. It was very popular, and great fun.
We saw herds of fire lizards. They look like grey dragons, and the dwarves ride them. We rode a Dwarf war galleon back to the mine shaft, went up, and brought the return messages to Lord Lara. There were many signs of fighting. Apparently the humans and the dwarves had the upper hand.