I was in mid-sentence when the door burst open dramatically. One of Lara's knights staggered in with an arrow in his arm. He fumbled his helm open. Erose and Keef recognised him as one Bernhart. Bernhart said, "Quick! Help me bring Svalbard to the infirmary!" Keef, Erose, and Hal rushed to do so. I sensed that something interesting was up, so I followed. Svalbard was pretty messed up. Bernhart said that Svalbard had been part of Throntax's party, and that he'd found him in the woods near the mine, set up as a trap. When he went to help Svalbard, Bernhart was ambushed by six orcs, who he fought off.
We arrived at the temple, and BRB Sr. managed to revive Svalbard enough for him to tell what had happenned. He said that Throntax's party had gone down to deal with the evil guy at the bottom of the mine. There had been a trap at the bottom of the mine-- they were ambushed by a bunch of nagas, and a short, skinny, very strong red-haired man. Keef got all agitated and asked if the man fit the description of Harris. He did. Harris took them all by surprise and captured Throntax. Svalbard claimed that he'd returned to tell everybody of the trouble, although it seemed more likely that he'd run off like a 'fraidy cat.
We met up with Sanjay, and he told us that he'd seen Throntax in the crystal ball. She was tied up and sitting in a wagon, which was travelling along underground. We told him about was Svalbard said. It looked like we were going to have to go down the mine to rescue Throntax, after all.
Lord Lara agreed with this, and said that she wanted to send an official detachment of Town Guards after her. As leader of this squad, she appointed Erose. The remainder of the squad was Erose, Hal, Malthus, Keef, Udo, Schnellmaken, BRB, Svalbard (who could show us where the ambush had occurred), and two Texan dwarves: Jeb and Hank. Vrba, Sanjay, Elspeth, and I went along as consultants. I did my best to translate the Minotaur maps we'd found when we went to get the mushrooms. Fortunately, written Minotaur is very close to Greek, and I was able to figure most of it out. At the bottom level (10) was a big room labelled "Our Lord"-- clearly someplace to steer clear of, if we could.
Finally, we got to the 10th level. We came out of a staircase into a large room littered with the bodies of dead nagas, and three dead town guards. there were two large corridors leading out of the room, and one small closed door. We heard noises from behind the door. We kicked the door open, and there was a Drow. He grabbed for a fireplace poker, and I shot him with my crossbow. I didn't mean to kill him, I just overreacted. He looked like he was going to kill Sanjay. We searched the room and the body. The Drow, who appeared to be some sort of scribe, had quite a bit of jewelery on him, as well as a seal of the Drow High Council. I pocketed all of it. He also had a vial of some unidentifiable liquid on him.
The room itself was filled with tomes and scrolls and letters. Much of it was correspondance between the mine-dweller (who called himself "Draco") and the Drow High Council. We discovered that the Drow and this "Draco" person were responsible for much of the recent local troubles. One such thing was the border conflict between Greece and Steinhall. One letter indicated that the Drow had arranged for Throntax's abduction, to keep her from interfering with their plans. It said that the rest of her crew had been captured alive or "taken care of." There was mention of Malthus' kingdom to the north, which had apparently been Drow territory before Malthus took over. Older documents indicated that "Draco" had engineered the original Draco's fall from grace and power, from which we determined that the mine-"Draco" was none other than the mate of the dragon Draco had killed, and Malthus' father. Among the books was one called Let's Go ____________, which seemed to be some sort of guidebook to the local Drow kingdom. I grabbed it, thinking it might come in useful if we had to go into the Drow kingdom after Throntax.
Since it was mentioned that the survivors of Throntax's party had been captured alive, we figured that we'd better try to rescue them. The maps indicated that the dungeon was not next to "Our Lord," so we thought we might have a chance of getting in and out without being detected. Were we ever wrong. In the first room on the way to the dungeon was a stone golem in the form of Draco. Sanjay, being the terminally inquisitive chap he is, tried to climb up it. It whacked him hard, and then came after me. I shouted for help, and much fighting ensued. One of the dwarves (Jeb) was killed (Jeb's dead, babe.). I got hurt, too, and was knocked to the ground. The golem was defeated, but then a mage appeared. He yelled, "Ah! You destroyed my most brilliant creation!" and shot a lightning bolt, which hit a lot of people. He was killed. THEN, an earthquake shook the room. We all ran out.
The room where the Draco statue had been fell into a great cavern over the ocean, along with about half of the room with the up stairway. Out of the crater arose an enormous black dragon. The big black dragon said, "Malthus, I am your father. Come, let us rule the universe together as father and son." The big dragon went on to explain his Evil Plan for World Domination. About 50 years ago, he met up with Draco again, and planned to kill him. Instead, Draco proposed that they join forces to spread evil. They plotted together for a while, and then the big dragon also made an alliance with the Drow, who had received an omen from their vile goddess that the time was coming for them to once again set forth and wreak havoc upon the surface world. (Q: Did Draco know about this? Was he part of it?) Big Dragon claimed that he was still in cahoots with Draco. This all made me think that the current Draco is not, in fact, the son of the old Draco, but is that person himself.
Upon hearing all of this, Malthus went off and told the Big Dragon (BD) about his woes, and how stupid the curse was. He then said, "I'm gonna have to eat you, dad," and morphed into dragon-shape.
While the two dragons fought, a bunch of people ran off to try to get to the dungeons to see if any of the River's Enders were still alive. I figured it was time to pull out the big guns, so I dug the wand of fireballs out of the luggage. I considered using it myself, but since I have absolutely no experience with magic use, I reconsidered, and gave it to Vrba, who has some experience with the spell. BRB chanted to bring Odin's favor upon Malthus. Hal started shooting arrows at BD, and I followed suit. BD killed poor little Malthus, and turned his attention to the rest of us as Keef, Erose, etc. came back from the dungeon and joined the fray. The last I remember is shooting off an arrow as BD sprayed us all with acid. I learned later that the acid knocked most of us out of the fight, and that Erose, Svalbard, Elspeth, Vrba, and BRB managed to kill the dragon finally (Elspeth and Svalbard getting seriously injured as well). BRB did as much healing as he could, but he ran out of power before he could save Udo. (The other dwarf, Hank, was beyond help, as were two of the guards who'd escaped from the dungeon.) Erose got the idea of searching the treasure room (thoughtfully marked on the map) for some sort of healing magic. Fortunately, she found a scroll of healing which BRB employed to save Udo.
The conscious people set up a makeshift camp in the scribe's office, and Erose and Sanjay went to inspect the dragon's hoard more closely. They found a lot of fancy stuff which they brought back. There was, apparently, a veritable hill of coins, but they didn't have time to gather and sort those.
Later, Vrba and Hal went to go explore the area around our camp, to make sure there was no imminent danger. When they were going through the dungeons, they heard some people calling for help. They discovered a man and an elf, both with puffy blonde hair, both wearing spikey black leather, locked in a cell. They introduced themselves as Mike and Vido (Vido is the elf), and asked to be let out. Vrba blasted the lock. The two claimed to be bards, who were seeking a book of ancient knowledge, written centuries ago by a group of bard-mages. They believed that finding this book would validate them in the eyes of the Rock College, which would then admit them as students. It was obvious that these two were no bards.
Earlier, Vrba had discovered among the Drow scribe's books a book called Imaginos: A Random Access Myth. It spoke of a great evil which would arise when the Obsidian Mirror came into the world. The writing was even more cryptic and mysterious than the title, but certain parts were clearly recognisable as events which Keef, Erose, Hal, and Sanjay had witnessed before they met me, Vrba, Udo, and Schnellmaken. For example, there is a part where it describes the old mage/sea captain presenting his granddaughter with the black mirror on her birthday. This happenned to be the very book Vido and Mike were searching for. Vrba, being Vrba, refused to let them have it, or even look at it, until he was done studying it.
The next day, we gathered our belongings and treasure together and left the mine. We got back to River's End without incident. We reported what happenned to Lord Lara and her advisors. They said that they feared that Throntax had, by that time, been taken deep into Drow territory, and that we shouldn't risk going after her there; they would try something else to get her back. The war was going very well; Draco's forces in particular were kicking Orcish ass. To reward us for defeating the BD, we were offerred the "services of the court," which meant that they trained us for free. While that was very nice, I really feel that we should get a bit more recognition and reward for defeating one of the sources of all the ills plaguing the north of the kingdom of Steinhall.
I have started writing an epic poem in the Nordic style about Malthus. If we cannot restore him, at least I can make his name and deeds immortal.