You decide to sponsor the reconstruction of the temple. The priests praise you and hastily leave, no doubt to inform their superiors.
1148 AD, Midsummer
3
You learn that the rescue party failed to free the captives before they were killed. Few items were recovered to return them to their families.
1148 AD, Late Summer
6
You have the special honour of the being the first human Kingdom to establish contact with new species. Elves, orcs, dwarves, forget all these - it is time to meet the Ur-uk!
Apparently, a new group of soldiers decided to not abandon all hope and raid a small encampment of orcish savages in search of some survivors. Much to their surprise, they have managed to free a trio of 'Ur-uk'. They're most surely of the same kind as the old skeleton in ceremonial pit. They're taller and stockier than humans, the average height of the three being somewhere around seven feet. They have thicker shoulders and hips, and they're slightly bent forward. They have luxurious manes of black hair, one of them having an impressively long ponytail, the other had it tied them around their somewhat pointy ears.
They look and behave somewhat animalistic however; their fangs protrude from their lower jaws, and their teeth seem to be triangular rather than square, and the noises they make are both loud and guttural.
They all wore uniforms; dyed black and silver and dark blue, with intricate buttons made of bronze or some of their 'local' equivalent. Comparing the uniforms of the three shown that one of them wore a sash, indicating some higher rank or maybe immediate superiority over the two other Ur-uk.
Unfortunately that is all your soldiers gained from the first contact. The language of the Ur-uk was incomprehensible and truly alien; their guttural speech was made of simple syllables, all intoned differently, and syllables 'uk' and 'uh' seem to be dominant. Quite possibly it's the intonation and the sound that conveys information or context, not the actual syllables itself.
The Ur-Uk have parted ways with your human oldiers, exchanging some jewellery during the goodbye; a large button on the 'commander's' collar was exchanged for Methiant-made silver cloak clasp of one of your scouts. Then, the Ur-Uk were content on scavenging supplies from the raided orcish encampment and depart in southernly direction. Last thing your soldiers noted was that those Ur-Uk, for their stocky and big build, seem to be able to run hella fast.
Why Ur-Uk, you ask? When the soldiers tried to introduce themselves, making emphasis on 'hu-man', the Ur-Uk pointed at themselves, speaking those two syllables repeatedly, and there you go.
1
It seems however that your discovery won't remain a secret at all. Some scholarly-minded soldiers have already begun taking notes and exchanging thoughts, and some loudmouths have already shared the news with their friends and companions on your side of the tunnel.
A) No, noo, nooo! This is a secret operation in secret world inside a secret tunnel! We need to profit from it first! Time to make it doubly secret and punish anyone who spills the beans!
B) Then we will become pioneers in this knowledge and sell it abroad! About time all those pen-pushers go and write up some real good stuff.
C) Eh, it will become public knowledge sooner or later anyways, what's the point in trying to hide all this new world for ourselves?