Aporeu chronicles Issue 40: The Mines of Morkin
Stories from the adventurers
This week
He met a Dragon, a Centaur, a beautiful female Woodelf, stepped through the gate and encountered a Shadow Demon.The Mines of Morkin by Noaz
Today I met a Dragon, a Centaur, a beautiful female Woodelf, stepped through the gate and encountered a Shadow Demon. The Adventurer’s Guild has received word that the mines near a village called Morkin are being plagued by the undead. The village has called out for help in clearing these mines. Arriving at the Guild Hall I’m met by the group of adventurers that is about to set out to fulfill the request. Aside from Quen, whom I met on my first mission as an adventurer, there are a lot of new faces. There’s Alyr, a slightly nervous looking beautiful female Woodelf with auburn hair. She wields a staff that is adorned with little flowers, her voice is soft and sweet, and a vibe of pure innocence emanates from her presence. Then there’s Heubald, a tan-skinned Elfish bard who’s playing a few notes on his flute. While doing so, butterflies fly out of the instrument and flutter around his head. Standing next to Alyr is a half-horse-half-man-man, Kalesh, who stands tall and proud, even though his attire is not very noteworthy, he emits an aura of power and calmness. And finally, there’s Quen. The dark-skinned Drow bard of Arnheim. Looking at them is as if I’ve wandered into a beautiful portrait. A ragtag team, gathered from different places all over Chronicle, now here within the Guildhall of Arnheim, ready to set out and help out others in need. How is it, these people all found their way here. Gathered to free the land and its people from the dangers the world throws at them. It’s… beautiful, almost making me cry. My mind drifts of, I’m thinking of Zera my little sister and Lyron my brother. How our ways parted so long ago. Where would they be, would they have made friends, as wonderful and colorful as the friends I now see before me? One day I will find them, find them and introduce them to my new made friends here in Arnheim. But I digress. We’re on a mission, a mission to save the inhabitants of Morkin and rid their mines of the vile undead that now roam them. We make our way to the gate to Lakastor, for there the city of Morkin lies. On the other side of the portal we meet a great and kind dragon, Malrot. I am in awe. He tells us that the miners of the silver mine of Morkin -the main source of income of the city- recently stumbled upon a crypt within the mines. He tells us that there’s legend that speaks of a crypt, filled with fallen warriors and noble fighters who, according to legend, would walk the earth once more when there would be need for them once again. But, the foul creatures who walk the crypt now, attack innocent miners and therefore can’t be the warriors foretold, thus, must be stopped. So, we make our way East. Arriving at the entrance to the mine, there are three funny looking chickens walking around. On closer inspection they seem to be three cockatrices. How do I know of them, from another life maybe? Anyhow, we quickly dispose of them and enter the mine. Not long after we enter, we’re suddenly surrounded by a bunch of skeletons. During our battle, I have a strange vision. I’m a little boy watching the guards train, I’m holding a wooden sword at my side, dreaming of one day joining those brave warriors. Then I come back to reality. We manage to defeat the undead threat, Kalesh putting down the last of them. We venture forward, into the mines when Quen warns us of there being three cultists in a chamber up ahead, performing a ritual of some sort. We sneak up to the chamber, trying to catch the cultist by surprise, but we’re spotted and they attack. I try to calm them down and yell: “We come in peace!”, but to no avail. Alyr hits one of the cultists on the head with her staff, cracking his skull, while Quen makes the second cultist fall asleep and Kalesh fights the third. I go help Kalesh, but before we manage to deal him the killing blow, he smiles at us and says: “Good luck” after which he slits his own throat. A bit confused, I regroup with the rest and we tie up the remaining living cultist, who’s still fast asleep. As we do, suddenly a Shadow Demon appears within the room. Luckily, Quen quickly manages to also put the demon to sleep. We gather around the entity and simultaneously stab him until his body, as suddenly as it appeared, again disappears. We search the cultists’ bodies and then continue to bury them, along with the bones of the skeletons we encountered closer to the entrance of the mines. Alyr placing a flower on all the graves and we take a moment of silence to mourn the dead. Then we return to Malrot, telling him the mines are safe once again, return to Arnheim via the portal and deliver our report to Lornan.The Mines of Morkin by Kalesh
Since this was Kalesh’s first quest, Kalesh wanted to write a report on it. Kalesh joined this quest together with four other adventurers: Alyr, Heubald, Noaz and Quen. Kalesh first met Alyr while waiting in the guild hall. Alyr worried that Kalesh had a shapeshifting accident, but Kalesh explained to Alyr that Kalesh is a centaur and is supposed to look like this. Kalesh has noticed that many of the people in Arnheim haven’t seen one of my kind before, and have asked this question. Heubald arrived shortly after, Alyr introduced him to me. Heubald mentioned something about his ancestors committing genocide against my people, which Kalesh found worrying. Heubald turned out to be a trustworthy companion, during the quest however so Kalesh forgives him. Quen was already at the guild hall. Quen initially also offended Kalesh, calling Kalesh a ‘mount’. While Quen does not directly attack our foes, Quen’s magic helped us defeat them much more easily. The last party member to arrive was Noaz, who seemed to be a little intimidated by Kalesh. Kalesh does not really know why, Noaz was wearing more than enough plate to stop Kalesh if Kalesh wanted to. With our group assembled we went to Lornan to get more information. We would have to go through the gate and help the denizens with a problem in a mine. Kalesh was interested in this gate, Kalesh had never seen anything like it. Kalesh was also a little worried whether it was safe, especially when someone mentioned the idea of the portal ending in the middle of a volcano. The guards mentioned that such a thing had not happened yet, but Quen offered to scout the other side of the portal. After a moment, Quen reassured us that there was no volcano on the other side, just a forest and some people. We went through the gate; it was a strange sensation.
Arriving at the other side, Kalesh saw that Quen was correct, a crowd of people were grouped around the gate. They all started talking to us at the same time, Kalesh could not make any sense of it. Luckily, Quen could make out what they were saying and calmed down the crowd so that they talked one at a time. They mentioned that their miners were attacked in the mine, and that Malrot would have more information. One of them also mentioned to Kalesh that there are more of his kind in the forests on this world, Kalesh might have to investigate this at some point. We decided to go to Malrot to get the full explanation.
Along the way to the village where Malrot was, Alyr mentioned that Malrot is a dragon. Kalesh has never met a friendly dragon before, let alone seen one up close! Arriving at Malrot, Malrot explains that the miners had dug into a crypt and that they were attacked by the undead within. We asked Malrot if Malrot knew more about this crypt. Using the connection Malrot has with his ancestors, Malrot told us that the warriors buried in this crypt were prophesied to awaken when the world experiences a great calamity. Quen wondered whether we should kill these undead if they awakened to save the world from a calamity. Perhaps their awakening was because of a calamity that was not yet known to them. We discussed this for a while, but since they attacked and killed a few of the miners they didn’t seem focused on a calamity. We thanked Malrot for the aid and headed off to the mine.
Arriving at the abandoned camp in front of the mine we spotted a group of three chickens. That was what Kalesh thought they were at least, the others called them Cockatrices which are more dangerous apparently. Since we wanted to avoid fighting them, we waited for Quen to finish a ritual that would allow him to speak with the animals. However, while we were waiting, the cockatrices moved closer and spotted us. They charged at us, and when they got closer, we could see that the flesh was hanging off of them, they were undead. Alyr was able to restrain all three with vines and they were also weakened by a bane spell, rendering them unable to do almost anything. We made quick work of them, Kalesh still thinks they were undead chicken as they didn’t do anything special.
Before entering the cave, we explored the camp area. Quen prepared an alarm at the entrance to make sure that we knew if we had unexpected visitors while we were inside. Kalesh saw Heubald investigate the well in the middle of the camp. Heubald started climbing in, and appeared a little later with a couple of coins that Heubald found at the bottom. The camp was abandoned and nothing special could be found. With the alarm up, we entered the mine.
The mine was very dark, Kalesh had trouble seeing and so did Noaz. Noaz lit a torch to light the way. Quen commented that Quen could just conjure up some spheres of light so that Noaz did not waste a torch. Quen did not wait for a response and the spheres appeared. Noaz realized that his torch was not needed and extinguished it. Looking to his left Noaz got startled by a skeleton standing right beside him ready to attack. Several more were visible in the tunnel straight ahead. Noaz decided to fight the skeletons straight ahead, with Kalesh taking care of the ones to the left. Quen gave Kalesh some extra protection, but that did make the light spheres disappear which left Noaz and Kalesh unable to see. Noaz decided to light his torch again, which also gave Kalesh some light to see. Alyr was shooting magical stones to the skeletons and Heubald was magically mocking them. Kalesh decided to get closer to the skeletons in the left tunnel and disappeared from sight of the group. Kalesh received more hits than Kalesh would like, because Kalesh isn’t equipped for close combat. Luckily Alyr appeared behind Kalesh in the tunnel and healed Kalesh. When the first skeletons went down, zombies appeared behind them. These zombies hurt more than the skeletons, but Kalesh was able to hit them easier too. Noaz appeared behind Alyr and Kalesh, they had killed the ones in the other tunnel already. Noaz took out a trident and threw it to the zombie, skewering it. The zombie tried to retreat but Kalesh was able strike it down before it could get away.
All the undead that we could see were defeated. Noaz saw that Kalesh’s armor was in a poor state, Noaz had a spare suit of studded armor which Noaz offered to trade. Kalesh was very grateful for this, as it would protect Kalesh much better in these mines. Before moving deeper into the mine, Alyr wanted to bury the undead outside. We collected their remains and went outside. We found some shovels at the camp and started digging. When we finished burying one zombie, Quen came out of the mine. Apparently, Quen had been scouting the rest of the mine network, and had found some suspicious people further in that seemed to be performing a ritual. We wanted to first try to talk to them, since they could be doing something good. Alyr changed into a cat to try and talk to them without looking dangerous. There were two tunnels leading to the chamber where the cultists were in, so we decided to split up so that we could trap them if they were doing something bad. Noaz gave Kalesh a spare potion of healing to keep Kalesh safe. While Alyr was making her way towards the cultists we all prepared for the alternative. One of the cultists spotted Kalesh before Alyr could get to them and shouted ‘attack!’ There were three cultists in total, one was left crippled by fear. The other two split up into the two tunnels. During the battle, Quen was able to put the panicking cultist to sleep. The other two cultists died, though the one that attacked Kalesh took his own life, warning us that the summoning was complete. We tied up the sleeping cultist and woke him up to get some answers. Though before we could get any answers out of him a shadowy creature appeared. It asked who had summoned it, the tied-up cultist responded that they did, and that we were the sacrifice. Before the creature could attack, Heubald corrected the cultist, saying that the cultist was actually the sacrifice since it was tied up. Kalesh thinks the creature accepted that logic, since it started attacking the cultist, though not very successfully. The creature seemed weakened by light which was hindering its attacks. We all expected the creature to turn on us after it was done so we started attacking it. Kalesh’s arrows didn’t seem to impact it as much as expected, but slowly it seemed to get weaker. Eventually the creature was able to kill the cultist and attacked us. Quen tried to put the creature to sleep and actually succeeded! Since we had some time to prepare, we lit up some more torches and made ready to attack it all at once. This all-out attack was enough to defeat the creature, banishing it to where it came from.
Having cleared the mine, we headed back to Malrot to collect our pay and went back through the gate to Arnheim. Kalesh gave Noaz a portion of his earnings to thank Noaz for the armor and the potion. Kalesh also told Noaz that Kalesh is in Noaz’s debt and if Noaz needs anything, Noaz need only ask.
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