Still searching for a way into the Duergar enclave, the group follows a main thoroughfare southwards and as it bends to the east a scraping sound of hundreds of grinding bones can be heard from the darkness ahead. It is a grinding, scraping, clattering sound, as if hundreds of bony feet are scraping along the ground and hundreds of bony hands claw at the fused sone.
Quickly backpedaling, they backtrack and head north.
August 18, 7762
Heading northwards along a broad avenue the Troupe encounters a pair of Duergar scouts who, at the behest of Franzahl and Wilda, have been patrolling the border of the Duergar enclave and looking for the group. After brief, terse introductions, the scouts escort them to a specific spot in the avenue. Pausing to concentrate, the strange Duergar form a hole in the stone floor that drops into an enclave inhabited by the remaining Duergar.
The Troupe is escorted though a series of worked tunnels that are filled with life: there are Duergar families cooking, cleaning, working stone implements, harvesting cave fungus but as lively as things are the Duergar themselves seem gaunt and unhealthy when seen side by side with the surface Duergar.
Ravenna and Mar’Khabazza are brought to Earthcaller Franzahl and Earthmender Wilda and are introduced to Duergar “from Below” – Warchief Thokkarn and Earthforger Krambek who are leading the surviving Duergar currently. For the last two days there has been a moot between the surface Duergar and the Duergar from Below. This is a series of conversations between duergar where each indidual “reminds” the others about his activities and skills nad prowess – the reputations – and the Duergar stablish heirarchy of place based on this reputation.
The Troupe does what it can to boost the reputation of Franzahl to ensure he is established high in the heirarchy.
Not particularly interested in playing at Duergar politics, Malacoda talks with Magnus about his history and is fascinated by the fact that he does not have a soul. She eventually seduces him, inviting him to a liaison in a frezing cold subterranean lake.
August 19, 7762
The moot adjourns and Franzahl seems content with how it went. It is agreed that the Duergar from Below will leave the enclave and join the Surface Folk to help build lives in a more stable environment of Opal. They begin to pack up for the trip and Thokkarn shows the troup the Thulmur treasury, such as it is. Apparently the Duergar spent the early years of their imprisonment dodging and fighting the animated skeletons in order to gather the wealth of Thulmur and piling it up in a room in the enclave. It is far, far greater than the 150 remaining Duergar can possibly carry, and Thokkarn is feeling grateful for the Troue creating a way out though the laen bowl.
As the Duergar muster, the Troupe decides to get a head start on the journey back to the surface. They head back to the tunnel entrance, anticipating the speed with which the Duergar can travel directly though the earth.
August 20, 7762
When the troupe arrives at the hole dug down though the laen bowl, they spot an encampment of sudaar – either a spearhead of a large effort, or a rear guard holding the exit. With fireballs and force of arms, the Troupe destroys the encampment and begins the wait for the Duergar.
August 22, 7762
The Duergar arrive by materializing out of the stone floor. They pass though the tunnel though the laen single file and then the start walk to surface.
At one point, Ravenna speaks with Krambek in Duergar about the upheaval:
“Verily, it was unexpected,” he says. Thulmur was founded and was built in the heart of a supernode- a massive earthnode located deep in the earth- and the city thrived in part due to its arcane properties. One day, out of nowhere, the supernode “detonated” with a psychic shock of chaotic energy. The dark arcane forces unleashed turn some Duergar into undead, while some Duergar went insane and some still lived, only to be killed by those very undead.
The surviving Duergar tried to flee Thulmur, only to be surprised and thwarted by the existence of the semi molten laen mesh that surrounded the city from below like a bowl. Moving upwards along one of the chimneys revealed massive tectonic activity in the crust near the surface and upon reaching the survace revealed that the ground and the very air was subject to chaotic energy, with random afflictions befalling the Duergar scouts sent to explore the surface. Scouts have reported that the surface of the Upheaval is a land of “lava, snow, change storms, acrid air” completely surrounded by the thirty-thousand foot peaks of lava-filled mountains.