The Troupe enters the Duergar fortress and spends the next three days walking down the Duergar-made tunnel towards the fused laen bowl beneath the Duergar city of Thulmur. The party moved cautiously through the darkness, with Rekha Mar-Khabazza calling out in the Sudaar tongue to announce their presence as peaceful travelers. The warning echoed into the black with no response, and the rearguard – Kima and Furlbrow – kept a sharp eye behind them as the group pressed onward through the laen bowl. The night passed without incident, and the party continued their march toward the fused, blackened ruins of the laen web, a sprawling mass of melted glass fused together by the catastrophic detonation of a supernode long ago.
September 16, 7762
When the scouts examined the entrance cut into the web, the evidence was grim – easily forty to fifty sets of Sudaar tracks moved through the passage, confirming that the ruins were far from empty. Rekha Mar-Khabazza volunteered to lead the ascent through the narrow, melted tunnel, boldly declaring ownership of the ruined city before pressing ahead. Creeping to just below the lip of the fissure, he peered over the edge and spotted four Sudaar guards crouched around a flat rock being used as a table, quietly throwing dice no more than twenty feet away, positioned squarely between the party and the bridge beyond. He slipped back down into the tunnel like a ghost and described the situation to the others.
The party debated their options in hushed tones and debated several tactical possibilities – teleporting past the guards entirely, a two-pronged stealth assault, or a fireball detonation followed by a surge out of the tunnel. The decision was made swiftly: they would announce themselves with fire and fury. A battle link was established among the key fighters so that everyone shared an awareness of the enemies’ positions, and Ravenna took her place at the tunnel lip, focused on the guards above.
Her fireball erupted from the tunnel mouth with a hollow boom that rolled through the canyon like thunder, engulfing the Sudaar guard post in a roiling bloom of flame. One guard’s head caught fire, another’s arm was set ablaze, and the entire group was left stunned and reeling before a single sword had been drawn. Naisha, Lokni, Kima, and Rekha Mar-Khabazza boiled out of the hole while Ravenna melted back into the shadows. Arrows sang out of the darkness in rapid succession, and two of the burning guards crumpled with lethal wounds to the throat and cheek. When the last standing Sudaar attempted to charge Naisha, she dropped her bow and drew her blade – only for Rekha Mar-Khabazza to step in from the flank and drive his rapier through both of the enemy’s lungs. The rest climbed out of the fissure and stood on the outskirts of Thulmur amid the acrid smell of burning flesh and black smoke curling from a dead man’s head.
With Earthbinder Rayga and Earthmender Wilda now guiding the group, the party moved eastward through the ruins, following a route that wound through rough-hewn tunnels and craggy caverns far from the worked stone of the Sudaar-occupied areas. Their progress was swift with the Duergar leading the way, but the path soon brought them to a cool cavern where the air was thick with moisture – and the reason became immediately apparent. A chest-deep stream of water, barely above freezing, stretched across their path. Rayga asked if they minded getting wet, and the party pressed through without complaint, though the icy water extracted a brutal toll. Selarin and Furlbrow, both clad in chainmail, suffered worst of all, the cold metal leeching the warmth from their bodies, and Naisha too moved sluggishly by the time they reached the far shore.
The party halted on a rubble-strewn slope to the south and took stock of their situation. Ravenna conjured a sphere of warmth to take the edge off the biting cold, but the party was still soaking wet and shivering. She then called upon her power to raise a sturdy wooden structure from nothing – a guarded temple, roughly thirteen feet square, its interior completely sealed from the freezing conditions outside. She fashioned a vent in the ceiling to let campfire smoke escape, and the party piled inside, pressing together in the small space as the smell of damp wool and wet bodies filled the air. They ate hardtack, dried their clothes by the fire, and rested until the cold had been driven from their bones.
September 17, 7762
On the fourth day of their journey beneath the earth, the party resumed their march eastward, guided by Rayga through snaking passages and narrow corridors. They paused at an intersection for a brief meal before continuing northeast, skirting the edge of a small pool and moving deeper into the undercity. The freezing lake they had crossed earlier had done them an unexpected favor – it had washed away their tracks, leaving any Sudaar pursuers with no trail to follow. Eventually, Rayga paused before a section of cavern wall and revealed a secret door of fused stone, its face disguised to blend seamlessly into the rock. Beyond it lay a hidden chamber, its southern wall dominated by massive pipes belonging to the ancient Thulmur Waterworks – construction that bore a striking resemblance to the architecture the party had seen in Opal. The group posted watches at the chamber’s two entrances and settled in for the night, secure in the knowledge that, for now, no one knew where they were.
