Underground Investigation

22nd-23rd of Brynholm, 28 AoR - Abel, Darth, Spark, and Spiders explored the caverns connecting to Amalite's sewer system.

With our party gathered, we descended into Amalite’s sewers. Our goal was to explore a branch of a natural cavern that Darth, Spark, Trothar, and I had discovered previously when helping the Golden Mountain Trade Guild. As we walked, we explained what we knew of the cavern ahead to Spiders. Previously we had seen a hook horror within the cave that had set up its nest and blocked any further passage. Considering that hook horrors are not native to the surface, simply seeing this creature led me to believe that these caverns must descend far beyond its lair.
Spark showed us one of his new inventions as we travelled. He had a device that seemed similar to his flintlock, but when fired it creates a sort of barrier around us. Which would prove useful in our battle ahead. We stealthily entered the room where the hook horror nest was, and to our surprise, we saw two of them. We gathered ourselves into a tight corridor, so that there was only enough space for one of the monsters to fit at a time, and we drew their attention when we were ready to fight. We slew them with minimal damages, which I healed after our combat. And we steeled ourselves against whatever else lied in the depths of these caverns.
The tunnel we traveled through opened up into a large cavern, and we saw a barren encampment carved from stone. We didn’t see any creatures in or around it, so we moved in to investigate. The fortifications had a central tower with walls that surrounded it. It seemed that this site was abandoned during its construction as some of the structures had detailed carvings and others were merely crude stone forms. The ground floor of the tower had a large stone table that was surrounded by chairs. And to our surprise, everything in this room seemed like it was uncannily neat - and only recently deserted.
The top floor of the structure had a stone table with the following runes carved into it in dwarvish:

Never forget

We were forsaken by our kind

Seek to reclaim

Seek to conquer

Through fire and war

For the Dread King Harakoth

We later learned that the duergar, a race of exclusively underground dwarves, believed that they were betrayed by their own kind - the surface dwarves - and were abandoned to exist among the dangers of the underdark. I believe that this is the exchange that the runes must be referring to. None of us had ever heard any mention of this ‘Dread King Harakoth’ before either.
Spiders went to investigate a well that was just outside of the encampment’s walls. And as I walked through this empty encampment, something made me feel uneasy. I opened up my divine senses to see if there was an area near here that was consecrated or desecrated. And as I did so, my senses drew me to the well that Spiders was just then standing next to. I called out to Spiders to warn him. Something about the well, or something within it was making me feel uneasy. Spark and I gathered closer to the well to investigate. I grabbed a small stone, casted light on it, and dropped it down the well. And it fell for way too long. As I peered over the side to see what may be at the bottom, I saw the faint glow of my light, and a pair of glowing eyes peering back up at me.
I shared what I saw with the people around me, and when I looked back into the well, the light and eyes had vanished. This made us all uneasy, and Spark casted alarm around the well so that he would be alerted if something came out of it. We identified three tunnels that connected to this cavern, and as we moved to leave through the left tunnel, Spark’s alarm went off. We all immediately turned around, and saw nothing at the well. Spark and I hesitantly moved back to the well to investigate it. I looked down the well, and this time I could see the bottom of it. It was only thirty feet deep, opposed to seemingly bottomless as it was before. I saw a dark figure huddled at the base of the well, and as I blinked, it disappeared. Spiders urged us to return the surface, but the rest of us wanted to continue our search.
Spark set up his alarm at the entrance of the left tunnel that we prepared to enter. We wanted to ensure that we were alerted if anyone began following us. As Spark finished casting his spell, we saw the creature that had been haunting us. It was a shorter skeleton figure with a long tattered beard. The creature didn’t even have eyes, but glowing orbs nested within its sockets instead. And the longer we looked at it, the more figures began to appear within the encampment we were just standing in. And all they did was silently stare at us unmoving. And with that we travelled down the left tunnel to get away from them.
The tunnel continued for some time, and Spark’s alarm did not go off. It seemed that whatever creatures had been watching us may have been restrained to that desecrated area. We followed a branching tunnel where Darth heard the sounds of mining. As we were anxious to see if there were other kinds of life in these depths.
As we travelled we heard a voice from behind, and we were met by four svirfneblin, or deep gnomes. Spark was the only one who could communicate with them. And while they were initially aggressive, they were merely being cautious. And when Spark assured them of our good intentions, they relaxed their guard and one of them led us to their village to speak with their shaman.
We arrived at the svirfneblin settlement. They had some tents carved from the leathers of some subterranean creatures, and numerous glowing gems that they used for lights in their cavern. Upon speaking to the svirfneblin shaman, Bralturs, we learned that his people once lived deeper within the underdark, but they were pushed out of their city by the duergar. He explained that the gray dwarves hailed from the underground city of Harask. They were once led by the Dread King Harakoth, who ruled the duergar almost a millennia ago, but now rumors spread that he had been revived by some form of necromancy and is once again leading them.
The assault of the gray dwarves was so overwhelming that these svirfneblin have been pushed to the brink of extinction. This current camp has been cornered and they were preparing to flee or to fight for their lives. The deep gnomes said that they were aware of the haunted cavern that we were just in. And although there were more tunnels branching off of it, anytime they travelled through that cavern, people have gone missing. So they wished to avoid it by any means.
Bralturs asked us if we could fight off the duergar to buy them time or perhaps even make them reconsider pursuing the deep gnomes altogether. He offered to find a way to pay us, but as they were refugees they had nothing to offer but items of great sentimental value. Because of this we declined taking payment from them, but instead asked that they consider paying us in the future under more fortunate circumstances. Spark taught Bralturs about gunpowder, its uses and how to make it. He told us that they would seek out its ingredients as it may help them out in the future against the duergar.
When we finished our discussion, we travelled down the tunnels towards the duergar to take one of their outposts. As we walked, we discussed how we were supposed to take on an outpost full of duergar. We found a junction with a smaller tunnel that cut sharply to the left. Darth spotted something move in the shadows of the left tunnel, and as headed into the tunnel to investigate. As the tunnel rounded sharply, we found some robed humanoid figure in the darkness. It stood ahead of us unmoving. It was tall enough to not be a duergar, so I stood up and tried to speak to the figure.
As I approached, I saw that it was an old man with a graying beard. He carried a jagged wooden staff and had wrappings over his face and his eyes. Despite seemingly being blind, he watched me silently. He motioned me to remain quiet, and then he slowly pointed deeper down the tunnel. And then with a blink, he vanished.
We moved down the corridor where the old figure indicated, and as he advanced we heard the faint echo of pickaxes and the chatter of dwarven speech. We rounded a corner and found that this passageway came to a dead end. There was a large stone double door that faintly glowed, and one of the duergar striked it continuously with its pickaxe. They muttered among themselves about this door. They seemed to not know what it was, but one of them cautioned that they should return to their outpost before too long. We counted four duergar in this patrol, and with our targets in sight we moved in to attack.
The fight continued without much of an issue. We learned that duergar have an innate ability to temporarily enlarge themselves or turn invisible. When all but one of them were slain, I warned the remaining duergar to lay down his weapons, but instead he turned invisible and ran away. We knew that if he were to reach his outpost and warn his companions, we would lose any advantage that we would've had. The others tried to find him within the cavern. And as I had no solution to finding an invisible creature, I sprinted down the tunnel where we came from until I reached a tight choke point. I guarded the passageway to prevent anything from sneaking by me. By the time the fleeing duergar neared me, his invisibility faded and we were able to finish him off.
Darth investigated the door as the rest of us chased after the duergar, and the uncanny old man appeared to him. By the time the rest of us arrived, we found the two of them talking. The old man mostly seemed to be taunting Darth about what might be on the other side of the door. Spark and I thanked him for pointing out the duergar before. I investigated the area with my divine sense, and nothing noteworthy appeared. As people spoke to him, all he provided was an abundance of non-answers and witty remarks. I watched as my companions battered this old man with questions, and how he kept talking about his door and how we weren't prepared to go inside. It became obvious to me that he just wanted to make fun of us, and I just sat up against a rock and listened to their banter. The thing that frustrated me the most was how much this old man must have enjoyed making fun of my companions and wasting time.
The door and the surrounding walls were ornately carved from some kind of sandstone, and Spark identified strong abjuration magic in the area that protected it from any damage or changes in the stone. As he identified the door, there was some kind of unknown school of magic that severed his spell.
After the old man vanished and everyone decided that the tunnel was sufficiently explored, we continued down the main passage towards the duergar's outpost. Spiders tried to sneak ahead and investigate the camp. The cavernous area opened up a little bit, and there were palisades built up around a central stone pillar that barricaded any further passage. I think Spiders might've alerted them when he investigated, because the duergar's activity greatly increased as people discussed plans of action. Some of us heard creatures approaching, and I warned my companions that we had no more time for planning - we needed to prepare to fight.
A spider-like creature appeared ahead of us, and combat ensued. Spark lit one of the palisades on fire to create a single choke point, and then casted grease ahead of us to hinder any attacks. Because the duergar were alerted, they had time to enlarge themselves before they engaged us. This proved to make the fight exceedingly difficult. We fought direly as the immense figures of duergar closed in on us. Because they were enlarged, they did an outstanding amount of damage to Darth and I who were holding our front line. But our position was fortified enough that they began to pull back and call for an earth elemental to aid them in their fight. As they pulled back, we moved out of our corner and began to retreat from the outpost.
While we did not slay them all, we killed one of their spiders, a duergar, and gravely injured a few other dwarves. As our resources were expended, we returned to the svirfneblin village and rested. Considering the scouts that we had killed before, we slayed about half of the nearby duergar. So if nothing else, I think we may have bought the deep gnomes some time. After a night's rest, we left the village to return to the surface.
There is undoubtedly more to do underneath the sewers of Amalite. These deep gnomes are faced with calamity, and there is much mystery surrounding this Dread King Harakoth. The underdark is undoubtedly dangerous, and had we misjudged the situation, any of us involved could've easily died. I urge anyone else who travels into the underdark to be careful, and I wish you luck on your adventures.
-Abel Holgaard

Additional Notes

Here are some miscellaneous notes that may help others that explore the underdark in the future.

• Any future party going into the underdark should have someone that can speak terran or gnomish if you wish to communicate with the deep gnomes.
• Someone who can read or speak dwarven would be helpful in any party's endeavers into the underdark. Although the duergar use an uncommen dialect of dwarven, knowing the common dwarven langauge was enough for Spark to identify their chatter and writings.

Here is a map that shows explored areas from our expedition as well as what the svirfneblin said were in certain directions.

*The article is followed by newer text in the same handwriting*
But as we moved to leave the underdark, I had one more matter that I wanted to investigate. I wanted to gather more information on the cursed well so that I could work towards cleansing the area. If the curse was removed, we could move through unhindered and help keep the svirfneblin safe from its sinister influence. I peered into the well once again to see what it would show me this time. As I looked within the depths, I spotted an unnatural red glow. I looked to Spark, and he read my mind. He knew that I wanted to go down there and he offered to help me.
When Spiders heard our intention, he was appalled and moved a safe distance the well. Spark, Darth and I prepared for my descent into the well. Spark set up an array of pitons to create leverage when it came time to hoist me out. With Darth and Spark holding one end of the rope and the other tied around my waist, I climbed down into the well.
As soon as I dived below the surface of the well's water, a ghostly cold enveloped me and I immediately felt like I was being watched. As I swam deeper, the bottom of the well seemed to pull itself away from me. I persisted in my descent, and I finally reached the bottom of the well. I saw a small glass orb that was filled with a sinister red mist. I channeled my divine senses, and determined that it was undoubtedly cursed. I could not do anything to halt its effects here, so I grabbed the orb and put it in my bag.
I looked above me, and the surface of the well seemed nearly a thousand feet away. I pulled on the rope I was tied to - to signal Spark and Darth to pull me out - and I kicked against the bottom of the well to propel myself upward. But as I touched the bottom of the well, multiple arms reached out to grab me. I deterred them with magic and Darth and Spark pulled me out of the depths. When I climbed out, the others asked me how I was doing and what I had found, but I was quite uncertain myself. I looked at the well, and at the orb in my bag - both were cursed. Interesting. Spark suggested that we move away from here, and the rest of us anxiously agreed. There was no need to linger here more than we needed to.
When we reached the tunnels closer to Amalite's sewers, I showed the orb to my companions, and Spark was able to identify it. It was called the Reliquary of the Damned, and it contained countless evil souls. Anyone who touched the orb became slowly twisted by the darkness harbored within. When an unknown amount of time passes, someone cursed by this would be transformed into a fiend. Spark also determined that placing the orb in an 'equally cursed' location would halt the transformation. And finally, someone cursed by this object could open magical seals in Vexen ruins - hence the next adventure that I went on.
I chose to keep the reliquary with me so that I could research more about it and find a way to cure myself. I learned that Vexen emperors created orbs much like this one, and enchanted them with various boons of great power. It was uncommon - almost unheard of - for one of these orbs of power to be cursed as this one was. As I alluded some previously, the well and the orb were under two independent curses. Spark and I assumed that the orb was placed within the well to halt its transformation on someone else.
I didn't write this before because I did not want to drag more people into this problem than I needed to. As of writing this now on the 25th of Simdis, the curse has been removed from the orb. When the curse was halted, the orb seems to have become mundane. I honestly doubt that it can open Vexen seals anymore. The swirling mist held within now has a dull white tone. With one curse halted, I now must find a way to halt the effects of the abandoned outpost below the surface.