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[Kadzar]

I wonder what's going on down in the Depths. I have been praying that Kol Sellwheel watch over the group; I hope he has not allowed any harm to come to the travelers.

What worries me more is Master Ibruk's cryptic message. He spoke of a coming storm, which is odd, because the gods usually only send messages to warn us of threats. I guess storms could be threatening to humans and elves, who live aboveground, but what sort of storm can imperil those who live below the earth?

[Fisher-Risen]

Hammer of the Gods stood at her post, as usual, Shining her warhammer once more, whilst deep in thought. "...What could possibly be coming that could threaten our God-granted home?....To add to that, there is tension brewing....No matter what, I shall protect master Ibruk and the other priests. Perhaps some members of the priesthood could join me in this holy work. Fellow paladins would be very welcome.."

[Fortis]

From the log of Fori

   Fate has been strange to me. But it has been generous too. Even trapped down here in the deepest depths of the earth, I’m feeling strangely calm. I’ve been more influenced by dwarves than I thought, as I’m finding it’s the magma that is comforting me. Missing the warmth and the light of the sun and sky, I sit here and find that the light and warmth of the sap of the mountain is a good substitute. No elf that I know of would ever be comforted by the sight of molten, bubbling rock, yet here I am. Not to mention it brings back memories of exploring the first cavern with Derm.

   Of course, it may be Derm that comforts me even while trapped down here. He always has been kind to me, and I was glad to consider him a friend. But I didn’t expect him to reveal that I have been his closest friend, favoring me even over his fellow dwarves. But then again, perhaps I should have seen it. We have been through so much together. He has always been the first among the dwarves, among anyone, to help me when I was in need.

And being given the privilege of naming the magma pool was a nice touch too. This twisted place could use a bit of hope and peace in it. I eventually decided to name the pool ‘Ramana’, the elf word for ‘friendship’.

[ProZocK]

I'm gonna get some flak for this but...

Bump?

[Fortis]

A pox upon all false updates!

um, except this one.

...just nevermind.

[Aequor]

Tarran - Sure, here you go. Obviously the cave-in didn't actually block anything, but for story purposes we'll have to imagine it did.

Spoiler: Cave-in site (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Cave-in origin (click to show/hide)

16th Hematite 676 - Morning

"Ramana." Derm echoed. He gave Fori a smile, "It's a good name, Elvish though it is."

The Dwarf and the Elf stood besides the magma pool Ramana for a few minutes, watching the interplay of globules of liquid rock jumping in and out of the surface of the lake, like tiny dolphins on a fiery sea.

"We should probably get moving." Fori said, turning round to face back the gloom of the caverns.

"The others will be waiting." Derm agreed. Fori etched another arrow in the rock to show any possibly following rescue-party where the duo had headed towards, and they set off once again.

The labyrinthine passages led them across clusters of gems, sparkling in the light, past veins glinting with untapped metals, silver and gold. Silence still roamed the caves, and no wildlife appeared at all. They passed twisted trees, the cursed blood thorns, and the nether-caps with their hoar of frost. A splash echoed through the caves,

"We must be getting near the lake." Fori whispered. It seemed wrong, or even dangerous, to break the quiet. Derm nodded, sure enough, hidden between pillar and a wall of rock they could make out the watery surface of the lake that spread out throughout the entire cave system. The two stood side-by-side on the shore of the lake, trying to get their bearings.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It was a few second after that Derm noticed the wall to the right of them.

"Fori? Look at that wall..." he said quietly. The Elf looked but could see nothing particularly remarkable.

"I don't see anything." she said. Derm moved up to the wall and placed a hand on it. A grin exploded onto his face and he let loose a joyous laugh,

"It's warm!" he exclaimed, "And it's obsidian! There's a magma pool behind this!" A smile flew onto the Elf's face too,

"A magma pool? It must be the one the group were looking for!" she exclaimed happily. The Dwarf nodded, looking back at the lake,

"Now," he said, "If we came from that direction, and we know that the original magma pool is not in that direction, since Ramana is there, then the meeting-point must be..." he waved a finger around before stopping, pointing across the lake, "over there."

"There must be passages leading round to there." Fori remarked. Derm nodded,

"Let's get going," he grinned, "we don't want to keep the others waiting."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It only took them about an hour to navigate through the tight passages back to the lakeside besides the first magma pool that had sent the expedition their separate ways. Since there was another two magma pools to the south, this had to be the magma pool of Derfori. Above them then stood the forges.

The place was deserted when they arrived. There was a still-smouldering fire, indicating that the rest of the expedition must have come back here within the last few hours, possibly to spend the night. That suggested they had either gone back to Nomekast now or-

"By the gods! There ye are!" came a happy cry. It was Muenster. Behind him trailed the rest of the expedition, along with Spartan, Urist and Helf.

"We were worried you might have died or got lost or something." Helf affirmed.

"Well? What happened?" Rion asked, leaning on his axe.

The Elf and Dwarf told them everything that had happened, the cave-in, how the lake continued through to the other side, the maze of dark passages, the flying heads, the ball-creatures and the magma pool of Ramana. When they had finished Rion frowned,

"Ye saw an eye when the cave-in happened? That confirms it. Someone from Nomekast must have done it. Delta's said it was caused with a pickaxe, and unless there's some secret tribe of Dwarves done here we're the only ones with pickaxes." Fori gave a look of sadness,

"I...feared so." she said.

"So what now?" Urist asked, "Is the expedition continuing?"

"Someone's tried to kill three of us already, I say we go back." Steve said, inspecting Derm's head wound. This was met by a chorus of agreement,

"We need ta find who tried ta kill us." Muenster nodded, "It's too dangerous ta continue."

"If we move now, we can get back to Nomekast by noon." Rion said.

"Woah, woah, woah," Bax said suddenly, "we came back to have breakfast. So let's have that first, then go."

"How can you think of food at this time?"

"Because I'm hungry, and at any rate if our friend the cave-in-er is still there now, he'll still be there after we have breakfast."

"Well...I am hungry." Fori said softly. This aroused nods from everyone, and so the group sat down by the dying embers of the fire to have breakfast, before returning to Nomekast.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Outside, in the endless bounds of the sky and the wide valley of the Swamps of Tunnelling, clouds were rolling, gathering. Black clouds pregnant with water, grey clouds, white clouds, all blocking out the rays of the sun, giving the valley a claustrophobic feeling, like it was cut off from the rest of the world by the valley's sides, and now by the dome of clouds. Cut off from the sun, shadows flooded the Swamps of Tunnelling.



A storm had come.

[AKingsQuest]

As Volrath sat there on the top of a mountain, looking at the masses of nothing on the plains below he thought of the destruction of his home and the loss of his wife.He remembered when he saw hes wife clawing at the tentacle that was choking the life out of her before her arms fell to the side and her eyes closed forever.At that moment he wanted nothing more then to charge at the nothing and kill as many as he could before he joined her but his duty stopped him and he ran with the sword in his hand and hate in his heart.He now questions that decision.Why did he  abandoned his village, his family, and every thing he ever known just for this useless hunk of steel.


As he pondered, he looked into his ration pack and sighed  when he found it empty.If he did not find food and shelter soon he would get his wish to join his beloved.With a grunt he stands up drops his ration pack, and heads too  the north east.

[Mangled]

Right we need some kind of plan. As I've said before all of us down here can trust each other more or less. So far all I can think of is to patch these two up, have a munch then get back to the fort and try and find who did this. As for how we're going to do that I got no idea.
Any suggestions guys?

[Tarran]

Right we need some kind of plan. As I've said before all of us down here can trust each other more or less. So far all I can think of is to patch these two up, have a munch then get back to the fort and try and find who did this. As for how we're going to do that I got no idea.
Any suggestions guys?

First, we need to find the tunnel that leads to the caved in section. Then we need to find which stories don't match what a lot of others say. Then we need to find a motive. We won't execute anyone until we're 100% sure it's them, but we will put them in prison if they turn out to be number 1 suspects.
This is what I propose:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Start asking people where person X was at the time of the cave-in.

  If 3 people or more say person X was in location Y(which isn't near the location of the entrance to the section caved in) at the time before the cave-in, then person X goes to level 4 suspects.

  If 3 people or more say person X was in location X(which is near the location of the entrance to the section caved in) at the time before the cave-in, then person X goes to level 2 suspects.

  If less than three people saw person X at location Y or X, then person X goes to level 3 suspects.

  If no people saw person X at all in the last 15 days before the cave-in then person X goes to level 2 suspects.

  If 3 people or more say person X grabbed a pickaxe some time near the cave-in and wasn't a miner then person X goes up one level. If they saw person X return the pickaxe after the cave-in then person X goes up another level.

  If 3 people or more say person X was trying to sneak somewhere then person X goes up another level.

  If 3 people or more say person X was acting strange recently then person X goes up another level.

Afterwards, let's see if anyone had a grudge with any of us(excluding those targeted by the cave-in[Derm, Fori and Muenster]) that went into the cave. If they do, they go up one level for each grudge. If they have a grudge with the people that had been targeted by the cave-in(Derm, Fori and Muenster), then they go up two levels each grudge. If they are friends with Derm, Fori or Muenster, then they go down a level each friend.

Then ask people if they can think of any reasons why person X would want to kill Derm, Fori or Muenster. For each positive result(they say they have no reason to), go down a level. For each negative result(they say they have a reason to), go up a level.

Now, we have our suspects. What should we do with them?

  Anyone in level 5 or lower is not a suspect, or at least don't have a motive. They are excluded from the investigation completely until evidence makes them look suspicious and thus makes their level raise.

  Anyone in level 4 is considered not to be a suspect and can go on with their normal lives with periodic check-ups until evidence makes them look suspicious and thus makes their level raise or the investigation is over.

  Anyone in level 3 is considered to be a low level suspect and are to be watched until the investigation is over or until evidence makes them look suspicious enough to be put in level 2.

  Anyone in level 2 is considered to be a medium level suspect and are to be locked in their houses and watched until the investigation is over or until evidence makes them look suspicious which puts then into level 1 suspects.

  Anyone in level 1 or higher is considered to be a high level suspect and are to be put in prison until the investigation is over. From there, we will torture the prisoners(with increasing intensity the more suspicious they are) until they break, are proven innocent, or the investigation is over. Afterwards if they are the culprits, then they are executed. If they aren't culprits, then they are released with an apology, but are to be watched for a quarter of a year.

What do you guys think?

[AKingsQuest]

After the long climb down the steep mountain Volrath was happy to have his feet on the ground.His muscles hurt all over and he wanted nothing more then a nice long nap but he figured he would just have a rest after he got some food from the town he saw in the distance.


After two miles of walking in the cold woods he got too  it but some thing was very odd about this town.It was not odd that it was destroyed, he saw that it was from the top of the mountain.What was odd was that there were no bodies but there was blood ever where.As far as Volrath knew, the nothing did not eat there victims so it cant be them who did this.As he stood there on the out side of the town thinking of his next move he started feeling dread and despair that went to his  core, as if the darkness here was eating his  soul.


Not wanting to stay in this evil place much longer he quickly started looking for the food stores but he stopped in his tracks when he heard a blood curdling scream coming from a house too his right.He immediately dropped too the ground  and started crawling too it.Barley breathing  for fear of being heard, Volrath hugged the wall at tight as he could and slowly peaked into the broken window on his right and what he saw will haunt his dreams forever.


There was a necromancer standing over a table  in the middle of the room with his undead monsters next to him, there skin pealing off there bodies and spit coming out there mouths.On the table there was young girl, only 9 or 10, tide down with  her chest cut open, screaming as she was being eating aliveby the evil man.Before Volrath could react the necromancer stabs the girls beating heart with his rusty fork and brings it up too his open jaw to take a bite, smiling as the girl weakly grabs his hand before dieing a most ghastly death.Filled with rage on a level he never known before Volrath  moves too the door and kicks it down with all his might.Splinters fly every where as the raging barbarian charges in, cutting down zombies left and right.The necromancer (socked by Volraths monstrous rage) was unable to stop him before he was already about to chop him in two with blacksteel but luck was with him as a zombie moved in front of the barbarians blade before he could strike the killing blow.As he was saying a few hundred curses  Volrath pulls his weapon out of the zombies gut and jumps behind a wooding pillar just in time to doge a fire ball thrown by the necromancer.Thinking fast Volrath picks up a chopped off zombie head and tosses it at the second large fire ball the necromancer was about to use.When the head hits the fire ball it explodes and sends the bastard flying to the far wall, not missing a beat Volrath runs up, jumps over the table with a howl and skewers the necromancer with a mighty stab.


As he watched the life leave his kill, he felt energy go though his arm and into his body.A soothing  feeling washed over him and after five seconds his hunger was gone, he was no longer tired and he felt much much stronger.He had no idea how this happened, he just knew that blacksteel did it.With a chuckle he sheathed his no longer useless hunk of steel and went too work gathering food and burying the dead before setting off.

[Aequor]

16th Hematite 676 - Evening

It was not long before supper when the expedition arrived back. The first person they met was Arsethotheles. The blind Dwarf was besides the magma pool. The moment he heard them he jumped up,

"Go away! Ahm busy!" he shouted to the empty forges.

"We're not doing anything." Bax growled back. The philosopher spun round, having located where the group was now,

"Ya breathin'. Loudly!"

Unwilling to engage in a shouting match with the maddwarf, Bax continued, followed by the others. Steve stayed behind a moment,

"Arsethotheles?"

"Go away!"

"Should you really be that close to the magma?"

"Ahm blind but not stupid!" the philosopher growled, waving a hand dismissively in the direction he guessed Steve was. The crossbowdwarf shrugged, and continued after the others. Barely had they emerged on the home level that they were met by Stas shrouded as ever by his cloak,

"Ah ladies and gentledwarves, and Kobold and Goblin." he said smoothly, "You're all back just in time, refugees have been spotted or something. Meinhard's up there now with Johann, the Elf - not you miss - Loral or something, Melagius, and some others. No doubt they'd be grateful for the help."

"Let's go," Ryva growled, "I want to- to...tooo..." she fell back clutching her head. Helf had the reflexes to catch her.

"Ah dear, the lady seems too tired. Why don't you go on ahead? Bax, give me a hand, we'll take her to Reg." Stas said, the Goblin nodded, grabbing hold of Ryva, the two lugged her off towards the hospital. Once they were safely out of earshot Stas checked to make sure Ryva was unconscious before whispering to Bax,

"We'll need to delay the theft a while, until Tarran smelts all that gold and silver they mined." he whispered. The Goblin nodded at this,

"Will we get a chance to though? Someone tried to attack us in the caves, a cave-in, they'll probably be on edge, if we take too much they'll notice and we'll be screwed." he hissed back.

"Hmm..." Stas pondered, "Perhaps the best will be to strike now, and take the silver they already have, that's good enough, then later once this...incident has blown over we can start siphoning the rest, a bar at a time."

"Well in that case we'll need to move very quickly, I have a feeling things around here are about to get shaken up."

Ryva stirred, surprising Stas so much that he dropped her. She opened her eyes, slowly pulling herself to her feet,

"Are you ok?" Stas asked,

"Where- where am I? I was in the caves...we were fighting! And-"

"You've forgotten everything from when we fought the little red things?" Bax asked incredulously.

"Has anything happened since then?" The Goblin grinned at this,

"Lots." he said simply. Stas cleared his throat,

"So you don't remember anything...like - just for example - what me and Bax were just talking about?" Sandra shook her head, now back in control of her body,

"No, nothing."

"Oh good, well, bad. Why don't you go and see Reg about this? Bax and I have some business to take care of."

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, the rest of the group had made their way up to the tunnel that led to the outside world. Meinhard was waiting for them,

"Ah, hyu iz back den?" there were two Dwarves besides him, holding lightweight iron shields and wielding both a sword and a spear slung over their backs, "Hy've been training dem." Meinhard explained, "Dey's be needing ta learn 'ow ta fight proper-like."

"It's great to see you all back." Johann said, as he, Rovod and Melagius approached them. Rion nodded,

"Things aren't as great as we'd want. We still need to find who did-" the Dwarf looked shiftily at the rest of the bystanders, "-did you know what."

"We kept an eye on Ibruk, he seems agitated recently. Kadzar says he's 'had a vision'." Rovod whispered,

Standing away from them was Hammer of the Gods, the Goblin was polishing her armour. Near her was Kadzar and his priests, who were talking quietly amongst themselves. When Kadzar looked up and saw them he moved over to the group,

"It's good that you're here. There's many Nothing out there, and Master Ibruk has had a premonition of-"

"Nevermind what Ibruk has supposedly seen, open the door already." came a voice, it was Loral. The Elf stood with his Elven bow, he greeted the group briefly before turning to Kadzar, "We have the most people we could need, let's open the tunnel already." The priest frowned for a second, then nodded at one of his warrior-priests, who pulled the lever to. A cacophony of gears sounded, and the drawbridges slammed down.

"Weapons." Melagius said, pulling his sword. There was almost no sunlight filtering through the tunnel that led outside. A sound of howling wind and heavy rain was all that could be heard.

"A storm?" Fori asked.

"As predicted by Master Ibruk." Kadzar said, touching his heart in the ancient Dwarven sign of protection. The group unsheathed their respective weapons, and ventured out.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The wind immediately whipped at them like steel scourges, pushing them back, while the rain pummelled down, soaking them almost instantly.

"I can't see anything!" Melagius shouted, but his words were lost in the wind. With one hand on his warhammer and the other clutching his beard as though afraid the wind would rip it off, Johann pointed out a small dark figure,

"There!" he cried, but the wind took his words away too. The figure was moving towards them, so it must have seen them at any rate and realized that they were not Nothings. As it got closer they saw that it was another Kobold,

"It's a Kobold!" Loral shouted, surprised.

"What!?" Meinhard cried back, despite the two only being about a five feet away from each other. The Elf gave up on vocal communication, and pointed at the figure. The mutated Human nodded, and sent one of his recruits to shepherd the rodent-like creature in, deciding that the last thing it probably wanted to see after what was probably a harrowing journey through Nothing-infested lands and now through a savage storm was a giant blue-skinned mutant Human.

"Are there any more?" Rion screamed at Kadzar. The priest nodded, only just hearing what the axedwarf had said,

"One more!" he shouted back.

It was then that they arrived. Red eyes gleaming through the rain, pitch-black bodies glistening with water. The Nothing had arrived to fight. The group acted as one, without a word between them. Kadzar was driven back by one particularly resilient Nothing, and ended up trapped on the small stone bridge that connected the two sides of the valley, with two more Nothings moving in on him. He plunged his spear into the Nothing that had pushed him back, and then spun round to deal with the two others, leaping off the bridge as he did so.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The others followed his example, having dealt with the Nothing on their side, and took the oppurtunity to move to the other side of the river Squeezemunch to attack the growing Swarm of Nothing that threatened to swarm Kadzar.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"Where the hell is the other refugee!?" Steve yelled, letting loose a bolt that was blown away by the wind, missing the Nothing he'd been aiming at. He felt a hand tugging at his arm, and turned round to see Xenos. The Kobold was pointing at the foot of the valley on the other side of the river. There were several black figures there. "Is that them? There's more than one!"

Managing to get the attention of the group in spire of the raging wind and rain, the militia and priests retreated back to the tunnel. However, as they got closer to the group of refugees they could see something was wrong. The figures were all in black, with red gleaming eyes and several tentacles.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"What the hell are those?" Loral managed, but his words were taken by the wind. The group of black figures approached, and the militia could now see that they were armed with greataxes and halberds, and one with a whip.

"They're hostile!" Tarran shouted, as one of them swung its halberd towards him.

"We need to stop them before they get inside!" Rion cried, swinging his axe at one of them, but the weapon did nothing but scrape of the coating of blackness that covered the creature, revealing an iron mail shirt beneath. The creature hissed and the black-stuff closed up the hole as though it were alive. Muenster meanwhile, had managed to strike one of the things down and apparently unconscious.



With a shout most of the group piled onto the fallen creature, stabbing and slashing at it while Johann, Lora, Rovod and Steve fought the others with hammer, arrow and bolt.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It didn't take long for the other creatures to fall and die. And once they had fallen dead, the blackness hissed off them like steam, curling off like vapour and seeping into the ground, revealing;

"Goblins!" Meinhard shouted, very much surprised. Before any one else could say anything, a black tentacle fell down amongst the group, being dissipating like smoke into the mud. They all looked up to see a tall and muscular Human wielding a dark metal blade. It was the other refugee. There was more Nothing coming in behind him, intent on fighting the group.

"Let's get inside!" Melagius cried, beckoning for the refugee to follow them in.

When finally they were all inside, the drawbridge was pulled back up, and the group was safe once more from the biting winds and soaking rains.

"Goblins." Derm said simply, wringing his beard to get water out. Melagius nodded,

"They had the same black stuff the Nothing are made out of on them." he remarked.

"No doubt my kin have allied themselves with the unholy enemy." Hammer of the Gods growled,

"Allied, willingly or forcefully though? Last we heard Goblin towers were being destroyed just like Dwarven halls, Human towns and Elven forests."

"We'll wonder about it later, let's get these pilgrims down to the halls for food and warmth." Kadzar said.

"Ah. Looks like we're too late for the event." came a voice, it was Stas, with Bax besides him. Atis could be seen hiding behind the Goblin. "Ah the newcomers, allow me to introduce myself, I am Stas." he said, offering one hand up to the tall Human and another hand down to the Kobold. The Human shook it firmly,

"Volrath." he grunted.

"Bayar." the Kobold squeaked, obviously worried at being surrounded by so many who in normal times would have killed one of his kind simply for being in a Dwarven fortress.

"You're just in time for dinner." Stas continued, leading the two down the corridor, "Our resident madman - sorry, 'prophet' - will want to meet you." As he left, Kadzar and his priests followed, then Meinhard and his recruits, and then Loral and the others, leaving only the full-time militia.

"What are we gonna do?" Muenster asked.

"Go down and have dinn-" Steve began,

"About the cave-in!"

"We need to investigate anyone who might have caused the cave-in in the caves." Tarran said. Rion nodded,

"Someone's tried to kill three of us already, we need them gone before the next forgotten beast arrives or the next calamity or whatever."

"And what do we do when we find them?" Johann asked grimly, already fearing the answer. Tarran looked down at his sword, then at the hammerdwarf,

"Then we punish them."

[Tarran]

Heck yes. Time to get executin'.

[TALLPANZER]

I have been sick as a dog all day. This cheered me right up ^^
MORE Nomekast! WE HIDE FROM NOTHING!

[AKingsQuest]

Volrath Blacksteel diary entry 1:After i got ambushed by the nothing i thought for sure i was going too die,i even started the death prayer, but luck was with me because in the distance i saw a squad of dwarfs.They looked like they were in more shit then i was but they were my only hope.I cut down many a nothing to get too there raged band and when i got there i joined them in battle.It was neck and neck  but we were fighting like real warriors and by the gods and the strength of are arms we held the nothing back long enough for us too get inside.They then started leading me down a dark underground tunnel and then a dwarf said i had too meet one of there  prophets.I never much liked prophets.Oo well,the dwarfs here look like hardy folk and they saved my ass back there so i might as well.How bad can he be right?

[Aequor]

Just remembered I forgot to put up Volrath and Bayar's profiles, they're up on the first post now.