The Path of Darkness

Since it would be another day until we would have to leave for the gathering of the shepherds of the forest and Nada required some more time in her investigations to maybe give us a better picture of the forest and how it related to Kyla’s vision, we decided to spend the following day tackling the contract of clearing the mines of whatever currently was raiding and killing the workers. Thus, we descended via the central lifting platform to the lowest level of Mirabar, deep enough to find ourselves in the upper reaches of the Underdark. Upon arrival, we found ourselves in a large cave with multiple doors with heavy iron fortifications branching into surrounding tunnels. Each was guarded by soldiers of the Axe of Mirabar. Grum explained to them that we came on behest of their own organisation for the contract issued by Gruga Foehammer. We were pointed towards one of the heavy gates and strode into the dark tunnel beyond, the metal doors slowly closing behind us.
We followed the main tunnel we found ourselves in for several hours and despite us not taking any major turns into the numerous forking paths, I still was relieved to have in Grum someone with us who would have a much higher chance of finding back to the exit than any of the rest of us. Occasionally, our path was lit up by the same glowing stones we had seen during our last stint in the Underdark, every spot surrounded by clusters of mushrooms in which Teynos took a particular interest. Multiple times in tunnels and caverns we came across prospective veins of precious metals that we marked on a crude map to include in our report to the Axe. At one point, Grum yelped joyfully and directed us to three small geodes in one of the walls of a diverging tunnel. Between his knowledge regarding such objects and our combined (well, mostly Nysqwen’s) brute force, we managed to pry them open, revealing pristine peridot crystals of a surprising clarity. The treasure was gingerly placed in the bag of holding, promising a returning visit to a certain Thei Goldsmith.
Finally, we reached what seemingly was the end of the main tunnel we had been following, as it emerged into the larges cavern we had seen so far, rivalling in size the one in which we had found the kuo-toa camp. From our initial entry point we could not see the other side of the cave, yet a few hundred feet in the stone gave way to water as we found ourselves at the shore of an underground lake. Without any wind to cause turbulences, the water surface was eerily still, just as the rest of the cave, and in parts hard to spot, giving all of us wet feet as began circling the lake. There appeared to be a peninsula stretching into the pond, connected to the rest of the cave via a land bridge further to our right. With what little torchlight reached toits shore, it appeared that the area was overgrown with more of the gigantic, tree-like mushrooms we had also found around the kuo-toa camp. Suddenly, I felt Nysqwen’s incredibly strong grip on my shoulder, her other hand pointing to something amidst the trunks on the peninsula. A vague shadow seemed to amble through, its visibility at the distance we still were at an unsettling sign of something rather large. And then it emerged.
Hunched forward, one hand leaning against the stalk to its right, the oddly shaped humanoid creature still stood a good twelve or thirteen feet tall, though at the distance we found ourselves and the meagre flickering light of the torch it was hard to tell where physicality ended and shadows began. Still, the buckled back and oddly disproportioned limbs spoke of something broken, alien to the more civilised regions of the world. Further observations were interrupted by the creature lifting something from the ground next to it and the massive boulder suddenly crashing into the wall mere inches away from Grum’s nose. A second, equally massive shape came into view, followed by a second boulder crashing this time just left of where Nysqwen was standing. With a cry that might have been rage but maybe mostly more so came from joyful anticipation, she began sprinting towards the creatures, around the edge of the lake towards the connecting spit of rock. The rest of us followed, drawing weapons and readying ourselves for the ensuing fight. Before she sprinted out of range, I just managed to bolster her with some additional haste, given that she would be the primary bulwark at the frontline in what I anticipated to be mostly a melee. As she drew closer to the attackers, she seemed to wince in some sort of sourceless pain, yet whatever had befallen her did not slow her steps nor diminish the ferocity with which she drew her glaive across the closest creature’s chest when she connected. The other creature did not stop flinging rocks at our charging party, hitting both Kyla and Teynos. Within the sudden burst of chaotic sounds, I was pretty sure to hear at least some bones crack under the impacts, yet neither combatant was thwarted for long in their run to support our dragonborn friend. Just as Teynos reached her side, a blazing light illuminated the battle scene as a wall of flames emerged amidst the two giants. Turning around, I saw Grum giving me a conspiratorial wink just as he veered into the guise of an enormous elk and charged towards the inferno. During the fierce exchange of blows between our side and the foes, Nysqwen and Teynos winced multiple times each without an actual physical blow connecting. Something else was assaulting them, less easily shrugged off then the clubs the giants were swinging. Kyla and I held back as best we could to not get in the way of our more martially adept friends and support them with both divine and arcane sorcery, immersing the scenery in an array of flashing lights and ominous cries. Teynos had decided that this was not the time for using his staff and instead relied on his fists to find weak points in the posture of the malformed enemies, eventually sending one of them to the ground which elk-Grum immediately used to trample the body further into the ground. It seemed a battle going well in our favour, until seemingly out of nowhere Nysqwen suddenly collapsed under yet another onslaught of whatever incorporeal force was besetting her. A cry almost in unison cut through the noise of battle, uttered from four throats at once as something rippled through her body, bending limbs in unnatural ways and pushing skin into bulges and lumps all over her body, then being forced back to its natural state. As the body turned limp, a sudden flash of pale light broke from something around her neck. Movement returned to our fallen comrade as with bloodlust in her eyes, Nysqwen pushed herself to her feet once more and drove her glaive into the belly of her attacker, deep enough for the point to emerge out its back. The creature lunged out for one more crushing blow towards her head, but the blow never had time to follow as the glaive twisted and was ripped out the side of the being, almost tearing the enormous body in half. Through all of that, Grum had engaged the other giant in a fierce exchange of blows and with Nysqwen finally looming victoriously over the mutilated body of her and Teynos’s adversary, I shifted my attention to Grum’s opponent. Drawing from the welling of anger over seeing my friend drop to the floor once more, even if for but an instant, I let go of some of the carefully constructed barriers, waking something deep within and beset the creature’s mind with the maleficent whispers of whatever drew my self to that horrid place again and again. Any compassion I should have felt upon the scared, pained and desperate look on the contorted face was swallowed by a hatred I had tried to keep at bay for too long that now broke loose in a maelstrom of irrationality. As the second creature sank to the ground where it stood, it took all I could muster to reign in that roaring anger and just stood there trembling as Kyla sprinted towards Nysqwen who just now seemed to began to realise the toll the waning of the haste I had granted her as well as the wounds the giant had left her with.
Silence returned. The surface of the water beside us just as undisturbed as before, as if nothing of consequence had occurred just next to its lair. Scant of breath, Nysqwen told us that under the gaze of these strange beings her mind felt suddenly flooded with pain that reached far beyond what she was used to tackling physically. Teynos agreed that he had felt the very same, some alien power seeking to distort and convulse. Kyla inspected the pendant she had given to Nysqwen, the small raven made from the oddly glowing stone we had found during our previous visit in the Underdark seemed to have fulfilled its purpose in healing Nysqwen when it was most necessary.
As there seemed no further immediate threat around, we began investigating the peninsula we were now on. Before long, we found a makeshift hut built from the trunks of the enormous mushrooms around, in dimensions suitable for the deformed giants we had just slain. The inside revealed rough, but by some standards comfortable setting. Much to our dismay, amongst what little proper furniture there was around what stood out the most was a crib for a child the size of a large dog. Thankfully, it was empty and by the look of things had been so for a while. Other than that, there were numerous items telling a tale of raids on roaming miners and soldiers, with broken pieces of armour, weapons and mining equipment being scattered along the wall on the far side of the entrance door. Amongst these was a small golden compass that still seemed to be working and some coinage that Nysqwen stowed in the bag of holding.
With how battered especially Nysqwen and Teynos were, we decided to use this as a suitable spot for a brief rest. Kyla went looking for some more of the material she had made the raven figurine from and after a short while returned successfully. In the meantime, I took to inspecting the crib a little more carefully. All around it, I noticed simple carvings that seemed to portray various chapters of a life, from birth to death of someone much more cognitive ability than I initially would have ascribed to the creatures we just battled with. There were images of individuals socialising in families and smaller groups, depicting clearly conscious, intentional actions. Much to my surprise, none of the deformations that had covered the bodies now lying at the lake shore were visible in these pictures. Whatever happened and changed them seemed to have marked them as outcasts or deprived them of these more social traits. Upon sharing my observations, Kyla and Grum took a glance into some of the books they had with themselves, where Grum eventually found a passage describing these creatures as the fomorians we had heard about earlier that were said to plague the miners recently. They were an offshoot of giant kin that long ago had developed a highly complex and highly civilised culture with a special knack for magic. Eventually, they grew bold enough to attempt to overthrow all of the Feywild, which inadvertently failed and left them cursed, robbed of their former glory, beauty and brilliancy. One more in the long line of civilisations that were unwilling to learn that pride is always the herald of grief.
When everyone felt ready to continue our journey, we collected the heads of the two falle fomorians as proof of our work and decided to head straight back to Mirabar to not have to spend the night in the Underdark. Kyla evoked a rite around the corpses which left them quickly decomposing to dust as we set out to retrace our steps back to the iron gate and into the city. Just after nightfall, we knocked on the door of the Axe, giving our report to the officer on duty as Captain Foehammer was preoccupied with other matters. We handed him the heads as well as a copy of the map we had drawn and received our promised reward. Then we returned to the Red Barrel.
Sitting around our respective drinks, tired and aching but relieved that another task was delivered, Teynos spoke up. He explained he had spent the day wrecking his head why some of the aspects of Kyla’s latest vision had sounded eerily familiar. Of the twelve items she had learned of, he had read of six before. A long time ago, long enough that only a scant few remain that have still heard if its atrocities, there was a war amongst the gods, so he described. In this war, Lolth, dissatisfied with her position and gnawed by the maws of envy rose to tear down the Seldarine, the elven pantheon from their high seats in Arvandor. A selection of artefacts was made on both sides to aid in destroying the respective other. Amongst those, the books he had read in the library of his temple spoke of the following:
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The Amulet of the Hidden Blade – a plain, black amulet with some hidden drow rune, only revealed by dark magic.
The Chain of the Shadowdome – a jet-black, gleaming chain of linked obsidian splinters, surrounded by a sinister, pulsing aura. The individual links flowing like shadow, almost as if alive.
The Blade of the Deep – a dark sword with a blade rutted by a shimmering black void, seemingly swallowing surrounding light and whispering ominously with each strike.
The Shadowcore – a crystal of pulsing black energy, riddled with swirling shadows and mystical runes.
The Cloak of the Spider Queen – a magnificent mantle of silvery spider silk, interwoven with Lolth’s symbols and studded with powerful protective talismans.
The Idol of Lolth – an unholy statue of the Spider Queen with eyes fashioned from dark, living rubies.
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The details of this war have mostly been lost to the course of time, but eventually Lolth was defeated and banned into the Nine Hells of Baator, while the artifacts allegedly were either lost or destroyed. What exact role the elves and drow had played in the conflict also is largely unknown. Teynos added that there were rumours of a legendary thirteenth artifact, an enormous, magical mushrrom, although I have my reservations as to the veracity of such a claim. What seemed certain though, was that should these items reach mortal hands, the world as we know it might be cast into chaos and disarray.
As he finished his telling, that same sense of dread I had felt during the last evening had returned, my hands now cold with sweat. Involuntarily, Kyla’s original claims from when she first met us came to mind, of a darkness looming that somehow was tied to this little band of adventurers that we had just begun forging. Lolth, the Hells, dark artifacts that possibly partially lurked in the woods around Mirabar... What does this all mean? And why can I not shake the feeling of needing to question Anataea about all of this, or maybe more precisely this new acquaintance of hers, Birel. Or perhaps the Harpers might know something? Was this Imraloth tied to everything that had a hand to play in the summoning of Lystramon through the flutist? The Black Spider? You’ve always warmed me, Camp, that venturing into the world would mean a return home would never be the same again. But I would not have imagined this prevailing notion of darkness, overshadowing such returns.