The Flame Rekindles

After finishing our rest, we turned to investigate the corridor to our southwest, from which a faint green glow emanated. After a few strides, the tunnel partially was barred by some debris, yet all of us could pass through beneath it, albeit on our knees, at least in Nysqwen’s and my case. Behind this chokepoint, the path continued, forming a canal through a larger room the centre of which was occupied by the largest bellow-driven furnace, I have ever seen. The bellow appeared to have been operated by a waterwheel which is set in the canal we were now standing in, suggesting that once it carried a stream of water from the northern mining area towards the larger body of water we just left behind. All around the room, bodies were scattered, remnants of a fierce battle between dwarfs and orcs that once must have happened here. The whole scenery was tinted in an eerie green light. A quick glance around revealed a small skull, hovering right under the ceiling of the furnace room and engulfed in a green fire that licked along its mocking grin.
After facing a number of encounters over the last couple of weeks, this skull did not look like too much trouble to me on first glance, yet seeing the dismay on Kyla’s face accompanied by a hearty swear from Gundren quickly made me change my mind. Nysqwen quickly sprinted ahead to get in position to smite the undead head while Grum displayed a new animal form in veering into a gigantic toad that jumped from the gully. Meanwhile, Kyla touched the ring she had given me and murmured a few words. Immediately, I felt something magical wrapping around my body with a whispered promise of protection. Where she removed her hand, a faint band of golden light stretched from her fingers to the ring and she gave me a reaffirming nod.
‘Ere we could get much further, the skull uttered a noise that might have been a cruel laughter and spit a ball of red flame right between the bunch of us. The pain was excruciating. I have never felt something like this before, as every inch of my body screamed under the immense heat and malice of the attack. And worse, I could see that Kyla suffered for every bit of damage I received just as much. I realised that the attack might have hit much worse, were it not for her protection, yet at what cost?
But there was no time to think. With the laughter of the flaming head, eight of the fallen bodies seemed to reanimate, rose and came shuffling towards us while the skull was already preparing its next attack. The battle unfolded as we threw our combined forces at our opponents. Grum did not care much for the sword swinging skeletons, he simply wrapped his enormous tongue around one after the other and swallowed them whole. I don’t dare to think what happened to the creatures after that point and how my friend would deal with a pile of bones in his stomach after leaving the toad shape behind. Gundren made good use of his newly acquired crossbow, although the bolts seemed to affect the undead creatures less than would be expected on a living target. Nysqwen was in her usual space at the front line, dealing devastating blows to the animated bones, spraying white shards in her wake. She quickly identified the flaming skull as the most dangerous enemy and fought her way through to get to it. Archie threw a small metal ball from his belt in the direction of the approaching skeletons, which unfolded into trusty Ori. Both of them ceaselessly fired magical projectiles in unison at the enemies. In the meantime, Kyla had summoned her spiritual weapon which ferociously sliced into the undead while she herself resorted to her divine magic to fend off whatever came near her. Occasionally I believe I heard the chime of a bell from one of the skeletons, before it would collapse at her feet. While trying to keep moral up by supporting Grum and Archie, I reached for the staff we had found on our first visit in the lost mine to send some magical missiles towards the grinning skull. Much to my dismay however, the projectiles dissipated against a suddenly appearing blueish shield that seemed to insulate the head from any damage the blasts would have done otherwise.
While the skeletons proved no real challenge despite being at a numerical advantage, the skull very much did as it continued spitting a variety of magical attacks towards us and hovered out of our direct reach with only Nysqwen closing in. Thus, it landed some nasty hits on the dragonborn, Grum and more minor attacks on the rest of us. I decided that my skills might be of better use to Nysqwen with the skull than against the undead whom the others seemed to be doing fine with. I spotted a skeleton wearing remains of some metal armour, which I manged to heat up significantly to at least stop the foul creature from attacking Grum and sprinted towards the skull. Yet even as I arrived, my charms showed hardly any affect on it. This cave truly is not my forte… Only once all skeletons were slain, we managed to focus all our attention on the skull. And finally, Nysqwen landed a heavy hit, dislocating its jawbone and Kyla combined a fierce strike of her spiritual weapon with a bolt of holy energy to finish it off.
 
From one heartbeat to the other everything went silent. The only light in the room emanated from Nysqwen’s glaive. As I looked around, I was glad to see all my friends still standing and none too badly wounded. Still, the strain this fight had brought with it was clearly visible. Archie was the first to move, as he quickly strode to the ancient furnace to inspect it. All around its circumference, human, dwarven and gnomic runes were carved into the metal, consecrating the instrument to their respective gods of forging and crafting. Yet nothing pointed towards a location of the rest of the smithy or what exactly might once have been heated here. With this observation, we decided to return to our earlier place of rest to recover from the fight.
 
As all of us started to feel rested once more, we set out again, this time heading for the room directly south of the forge. Curiously, the skull we fought earlier was nowhere to be seen. Yet what had happened to it, we could not say. Thus, we entered the next room, which turned out to be some kind of former refectory. Just as we headed towards a flight of steps leading to a lower level of the same room, at the opposite site, seven ghouls entered the hall. Without hesitation, Grum and Nysqwen stepped in to block their way up the stairs as Kyla, Archie, Gundren and I went into position on top to attack them from range. Archie swapped his own, rather scientific looking staff for the one he obtained from the defeated black spider and in quick succession shot two large globs of sticky, grey webbing in the path of the approaching ghouls. Grum was quick to follow that up with casting a solid column of flames amidst the undead, ramming into one and setting part of the web on fire.
This coordination and clever use of terrain made the encounter less intimidating than it had seemed at first. Yet, while we were defending ourselves, through the same hallway we entered the room from a skull engulfed in green flames flew straight towards us, howling with rage. A significant cut in his jaw made it obvious: this was indeed the same bloody skull we just though to have sent to hell! Yet by whatever foul magic was embedded in the bone, it seemed to have rekindled and in no good mood. Kyla was the first to react. She cried out in a mixture of anger and maybe fear but had the presence of mind to reach for her pendant and send a quick prayer to the Raven Queen. The last word, she spoke loudly, and it almost sounded as if a second voice was entwined with her own. As the last syllable rang out, the skull stopped mid-air, turned, and moved away, even quicker than he approached. All that took no longer than a second and suddenly we were aware again of the still attacking ghouls. Three of which had managed to reach Grum and Nysqwen and others tried to climb up the sides to reach us on the top. In all the chaos, all I could manage was to project the illusion of a wooden beam right in front of the attacking ghouls to make it harder for them to hit our brave friends, before turning to the more imminent danger of climbing undead. Yet, with our combined prowess we in the end managed to fend off the creatures before long.
 
Kyla told us, she had sent the flaming skull as far away from her as possible, but the spell would only last for a short while. After that, the head might come reeling straight back to us. Hence, we decided to fortify ourselves in the storage chamber on the long corridor to the south, we explored on our first visit here. We reached it unperturbed and are now waiting for any signs of movement. If the skull does not return soon, there still is the easternmost part of the cavern to be explored. And somewhere in this mountain still is supposed to be a magical forge…