Secrets revealed...

The fire had burned low, and the younger children had fallen asleep in the arms of their parents. But everyone else was engrossed in the old ashik’s tale, he was spinning his web so well that even he was enjoying its telling. And so he ploughed straight on, and his audience went with him.

Scar swings the fabled Sword of Kemalok, one of the swords of the dwarven kings, and removes the head of one of the chitine. The sight of his brood siblings head bouncing away is enough to convince the other chitine to run, as he turns Balboa catches him a glancing blow with his stone mace but the creature skitters away. Inside the deserted armourers, Arthur backhand swings his maul and destroys the chest of the final chitine inside. As it collapses to the floor Miloch rushes out into the passage to help the others, but he finds that the fight has ended and all is quiet.

With the fight over, at least for now, Kank stares forlornly at his left leg. It has been severed just above the knee and while Balboa was able to heal the wound, there is no way to reattach the leg. With a resigned look on his face, Kank starts to scavenge bits of equipment from the dead chitine. He grabs belts, leather ties, and finally a couple of the chitine’s javelins. While he is engaged in his search, Scar, Miloch and Balboa check the doorways that they have already passed to make sure that there are no more chitine hiding.

In one of the rooms they discover a large fissure running back into the bedrock, the fissure is large enough for the smaller chitine to scuttle through but too small for the friends to use. As Scar moves forwards to make sure that there are no chitine hiding within the fissure, she manages to slip on some of the loose debris and lands heavily on her backside triggering another ceiling collapse. One of the large rocks slams into her temple and she falls unconscious to the floor.

Arthur crawls into the room on his belly and manages to drag Scar towards the doorway without incident, once there Balboa manages to heal her wounds and she regains consciousness. As she does, they all hear Kank shout a warning from out in the passage, he has spotted movement once again at the end of the northeast corridor. Kank, using one of the javelins as a crutch, hobbles over to the doorway and removes the gold earth ring from his finger. He holds it out to Arthur telling him that he should wear it now as he is unable to fight properly, but Arthur refuses and says that next time they stop to rest then they will discuss it.

Arthur suggests that Scar fire flame arrows into the darkness at the end of the passageway and the light from her arrows reveals that the end of the corridor has collapsed, and in the rubble of that collapse the group can see perhaps a dozen of the chitine hiding. Arthur, seeing a larger double door forty feet further along the corridor says;

Shall we run for it?

Kank looks over at him with a scowl on his face and replies;

Are you being funny?

Arthur looks over and then looks down at Kank’s missing limb and just shrugs, but he does agree that they should move as swiftly as possible in a defensive wedge to the double doors. Scar takes point with Arthur close behind, Balboa and Kank follow on holding a lantern, and Miloch brings up the rear. The floor is strewn with debris but Scar and Arthur make it to the double doors without any trouble, Scar slides in while Arthur covers the doorway. Kank’s makeshift crutch slips out from underneath him and he falls to the floor taking Balboa down with him. At that moment, three javelins fly out of the darkness behind them. Two of the javelins miss but the third strikes the ceiling and more rubble falls bouncing off of the pairs armour.

Inside, Scar finds a large room with frescos decorating the walls and a large stone altar upon a raised dais but no sign of any chitine and so she shouts the all clear. Kank and Balboa crawl into the room and Miloch steps inside and covers the doorway with Arthur. Balboa stares around at the five frescos, the largest positioned behind the altar shows dwarves in the worship of a giant and mighty blacksmith. The other panels shows dwarves at work mining, manufacturing, and making metal weapons, dwarves signing a document with humans after talks, a single panel shows pictures of both races reaping the benefits of great prosperity.

The final panel shows a war between the dwarves and humans, but the mighty blacksmith is chained in lightning and a human holding an orb has brought down the dwarf king and his bodyguard. It is clear that the group have discovered the temple and that the chitine are scared of the room, for even though they can hear them move about in the dark outside the chitine will not approach the temple. And at that moment it becomes obvious why.

The temperature in the room drops to the point where the friends can see their breath in the air, and then a red cloud appears in front of the altar. It slowly begins to coalesce in front of their eyes into the form of a red glowing dwarf, the friends watch on frozen in place. Once it has fully formed everyone is gripped by a crippling pain, Arthur and Balboa manage to shrug it off but the others find their spiritual presence diminished. A second later and they feel the pain once again. Scar draws the Sword of Kemalok and uses its inherent power to magically sharpen its edge.

As soon as Scar uses the power of the sword everything changes. The red, ethereal dwarf bows deeply to Scar and then slowly dissipates. As he disappears the pressure that was building up in the room lifts and everyone feels a sense of calm wash over them and their magical reserves are refreshed. There is a sense of utter safety within the temple and the group agree to rest up within its walls. Balboa uses the last of his power to heal everyone before he settles down to sleep.

While Balboa sleeps, Kank and Scar use the items scavenged from the dead chitine to fashion a reasonable peg leg for Kank. Scar then proceeds to help Arthur search around the altar, she finds a hidden door in the back of the altar and once opened she discovers two large candlesticks made from gold as well as a clay tablet covered in a writing that she does not understand. Kank approaches Arthur once more with regards to the earth ring, and finally Arthur agrees to accept it. There is a glint in his eye as he slides it onto his finger.

When he wakes, Balboa has a look at the tablet and believing it to be magic he atunes to it. After a few moments he tells everyone that it has the ability to cast a powerful spell that enhances the force of blunt and crushing weapons, but that it can only be cast once. Kank evaluates the candlesticks and declares that he believes them to be worth at least ten gold coins each. Once everyone has rested the group head back out into the passage looking for a right hand turn, but knowing that it may well be under the collapse.

As they edge forwards, Arthur and Scar at the front with Kank and Balboa swinging their slings and Miloch at the rear, Arthur notices that there is something odd about the right hand wall. He takes a closer look and realises that a doorway has been plastered over, as he realises this a chitine steps out from a doorway behind the group and throws a javelin at the ceiling above them causing more rocks to tumble. But this time they harmlessly clatter off of the groups armour and the chitine runs away. Arthur swings his maul at the false wall, there is a hollow thump and a hole starts to open up, Arthur believes that he can hear the sound of something scuttling away on the other side.

Arthur swings once again and smashes a hole big enough to climb through. Once he steps through he finds himself in a short corridor with the other end also blocked off, but from this side he is able to see that it is clearly chitine web. The group all step into the corridor and discover a small room that was clearly being used as the chitines lair, it also looks like they have left in a hurry. Arthur, Balboa and Scar search it and find three silver pieces amid the gnawed bones. Arthur then breaks through the plug of chitine web at the other end and they find themselves in a large tunnel running north to south. The Great Dwarven Trade Route.

Four miles south and they discover that a large fissure has split the tunnel in twain. The far side of the tunnel is now across a twenty foot gap and a drop of fifteen foot, Arthur suggests that he teleport across and we can throw a rope to him. He stands staring at the opposite side but nothing happens. He looks frustrated. Scar, remembering that the last time he did it he was in jeopardy asks;

Would it help if we dangled you over the edge?

Arthur grumpily replies;

No it would not!

But when he tries once more to teleport, he disappears and reappears on the other side of the fissure. Scar throws a rope across and Balboa moulds stone mooring spars on either side of the fissure to tie the rope to. Everyone navigates the drop and they leave the rope in place just in case they require it in a hurry on their way back. After another mile and a half the large passageway narrows down to a single doorway, the other side of the doorway is a fifty foot square plaza that is clearly a major intersection. The group stare in and can just make out three large statues, two to the west and one to the east. The statue to the east is clearly of the dwarf king that they had seen in the temple frescos, with Scar leading the way they step into the plaza.