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-- 8/15/6526 --
A week of rest had not only allowed Aristo's wounds to heal further,
it had also allowed him the opportunity to conduct a detailed examination
of the room he had inherited from the werewolf, which had turned out to be
a most valuable source of general information upon this subterranean
realm. In his search of the belongings of Novrissen, the werewolf, Aristo
had found that she had been a collector of various books and tomes of
lore, though few of these volumes related to this underworld.
However, amongst the books here, he had also discovered Novrissen's
journal. Even though it had served Novrissen mainly as a means of
exploring her disheartening existence as a werewolf, it had also contained
a fair bit of information upon these tunnels.
Novrissen had begun her journal some time after she had been living
down in this world. Some years past -- there were no dates recorded in
the journal, Aristo could only perceive the occasional reference to the
length of her stay -- Novrissen had been employed by some clerics, along
with a number of other seasoned warriors, to assist in the recovery of a
holy talisman.
The renegade who had made off with the talisman, one Astomach, had
descended into this warren of caverns. Along with a couple of members of
the sect -- who were along to exact their rightful retribution upon this
renegade from their sect -- the troop of adventurers had followed
Astomach's trail deep into the tunnels. It was a complex and dangerous
track he followed, showing that he had obviously held a great familiarity
with this place.
In the course of their search for their quarry, Novrissen and her
comrades had been assaulted by a werewolf. All of her companions had been
slain by the werewolf because none of their number carried any enchanted
weapons which could wound their assailant. The last member of the party
to remain on her feet, Novrissen had only just been able to slay the beast
with a silver dagger she had always carried with her as a good-luck token,
and in this instance it had served her very well.
However, in the course of fending off the werewolf, Novrissen had
been bitten several times. Suspecting herself to be afflicted with the
dread curse of the werebeast, Novrissen had wandered aimlessly through
countless tunnels, fearful of returning to the world above and discovering
what affect the light of the moon might have upon her.
And then one day she had been ambushed by a troop of hobgoblins.
Wounded and losing control of her anger, Novrissen had found herself
turning into the werebeast that she so greatly feared she might become.
Although she remembered little of what happened after that, she had found
the remains of the hobgoblins, half devoured has if by a ferocious animal,
just as her companions had been mauled by the werewolf who had laid this
curse upon her.
Fearing a repetition of this experience, and now having proof that
she was truly a werewolf, Novrissen had secluded herself in this room
where Aristobulus had eventually encountered her. Being far out of the
way of normal dungeon traffic, she hoped that this room would suffice to
leave her unassailed by this loathsome thing she had become. She had
hoped to never again allow herself to be provoked into the shape change
that the hobgoblins had forced upon her.
Going to a dwarven colony she had stumbled upon during her
wanderings, Novrissen had employed a dwarf she knew to reinforce the door
to her chamber, putting in a lock that would keep out all but the most
intent of intruders, as well as doing the same to the secret panel in one
wall. Secret panel? Ari had immediately leaped up and searched the room
upon reading about this. He had found the panel she spoke of with little
trouble, and further searches revealed no other surprises.
Novrissen had explored some of these dungeons when she felt most in
control, buying what she needed from the dwarves and other of the more
civilized of the local denizens. She had learned much about this stony
realm, and had recorded her impressions in her journal. Thus, the journal
was of use to Aristobulus. He did not mind that its information only
spoke of general places and details, as it was not so boringly revealing
as a map.
However, Novrissen's explorations had been tempered by the fact that
there were times when she would change into her beast form without any
provocation. When not in her chambers, this would inevitably result in
her hunting down some innocent inhabitant of these dungeons, even if they
were innocent only in not having given her any cause to slaughter them.
Therefore, whenever she had felt as if she might lose control of herself,
Novrissen had made certain that she would remain in her chamber, avoiding
any form of stimulus which might cause her to undergo the abominable
transformation.
This had resulted in Novrissen having only visited the less dangerous
portions of the dungeon. In her journal, she only made vague references
to areas that were rumored to be dangerous, noting that she would have to
make certain that she avoided them. So Aristobulus was only able to
garner knowledge about the safer areas of this world of hewn stone. Such
areas were of little interest to him, as they were unlikely to contain
anything that would be useful in his quest. Unless, perchance, he could
pick up a few rumors that would be able to direct him to places which
would contain some of the hidden lore he sought down here.
Novrissen had hated to change into her wereshape, loathing the way it
made her lose control of her actions, causing her to commit unreasoning
violence of a degree that thoroughly appalled her. To have no control
over what she did had caused Novrissen a great deal of emotional tumult.
And her journal had served as a way for her to explore her feelings. She
had even sought out hints of how to remove her lycanthropic curse, but to
no avail. She could not bring herself to commit suicide, nor could she
stand this change which had overcome her, and thus she remained as she
was, a virtual prisoner in her own body, trapped by what she had become.
Aristobulus could partially understand why Novrissen hated the way it
made her feel when she was dominated by the beast of her curse. In a way,
when Aristo lost control of his own emotions, he too would become as a
beast out of control, giving in to every malicious thought and murderous
intent. If he were to perform such acts, he would rather do so when in
control of his emotions, doing so for his own reasons instead of from pure
emotional passions. In his own way, Ari could sympathize with how
Novrissen felt when the beast within revealed itself.
But such things aside, Aristo did find some things in the journal
which could be useful to him. For instance, the mention of a dwarf colony
hereabouts could be of some import. Dwarves cared little for the flighty
nature of elves, but perchance they could furnish something of value to
Aristobulus. Their knowledge of underground ways was extensive, perchance
greater than that of any other race. If there were any who would know
much of these tunnels and where Ari would likely find the wisdom he
sought, it would be the dwarves who lived here.
He only hoped they would not ask a price for the knowledge that was
as exorbitant as those they drove for their high quality wares. Aristo
had found some nice treasures and coinage in Novrissen's room, but even
these might not even be enough for the dwarves, greedy misers that they
were. No doubt there was some truth in the ancient tales which spoke of
how some extremely greedy dwarves who hoarded their treasures would, in
time, turn into dragons.
Such is the way dwarves were. They would bargain their prices to the
last copper. And those who bought the wares of a dwarf would frequently
walk away asking themselves if their newly-acquired treasure was worth the
price they had paid. This was a good contributor to the way those who
owned something of dwarven make would highly treasure it, and also why
dwarf-crafted items were such a rarity.
Also in his week of rest, Aristo had taken the time to examine
Jimar's spellbook. For all of its massive size, it had only contained a
handful of spells. Jimar must have been exceedingly optimistic if she
believed she would be able to fill her book with spells. To Aristo's joy,
the spellbook contained three spells he had heretofore not known. Magic
was one of his few true loves in existence, because with magic, he was able
to alter his surroundings to his own liking. Long ago there had been a
time when he had dreamed of becoming a powerful mage, capable of using his
powers to serve his every whim. However, that was a dream he had long
since pushed to the back of his mind.
For now, magic was only a small tool he used only rarely, even though
he gladly used his magic as often as possible where it benefitted him. As
such, he copied these three new spells to those in his own spellbook,
since his was nowhere near as weighty as Jimar's. Hopefully, some of
these spells would prove to be highly useful to him, especially that charm
spell. It would be one good way of stopping an aggressive opponent and
avoiding a few of the pointless battles such as he had previously fought.
After having spent what he guessed to be a week in this chamber,
since he had slept and woke seven times, Ari was yearning to be back at
his explorations. So he turned to the secret exit. This panel opened
into a pair of passages, both stretching off past the range of his
infravision. However, when he had first learned of the secret passage, he
had made a brief recce to find out where it went, and had thus learned
that one passage had long ago been sealed off by a cave-in.
The other passage ended at a second secret door, which was of
excellent workmanship. He admired it since he had almost been unable to
find it, even with all of his excellent skill in that area. This secret
door opened up on another series of corridors and chambers, in which Ari
set about his further explorations of these dungeons.
He wound his way cautiously though the tunnels and chambers he
discovered. Most were out of the way of heavy travel, although he did
have to hide himself from a pack of primitive, foul-smelling lizard-like
humanoids. Perchance they had been trogs. He could not be certain,
knowing nothing of them other that what was contained in old stories.
But for all his care, Aristobulus was unable to avoid being cornered
in one room by a minotaur out for a spot of sport. Ari had been quite
surprised when the bull-headed humanoid had charged at him from out of one
passage. For all of its size and power, the minotaur quickly showed
itself to be a slow opponent, especially since its huge, double-bitted
battleaxe was slow to recover from a swing, even with the minotaur's
exceptional strength.
Thus, the minotaur was too slow to avoid Ari's skillfully wielded
blade. Aristo succeeded in making short work of his massive assailant.
The roll of prey instead of hunter had not appealed to Ari. Perhaps he
had only been fortunate, but he knew that without his protective wards he
would surely have had his head parted from his shoulders by the minotaur's
one solid blow with its battleaxe. As it was, Aristobulus' wards had
taken the brunt of the blow.
Later on, Aristo stumbled upon some of the same beings who had slain
the two friends of Merikaht. Taking some heed of what they had done to
the two humans, Aristo placed the horde under his spell of sleep before
they had finished their gibbering charge. Besides, he was more interested
in exploring these fascinating caverns than leading the lot of them on a
merry chase. Therefore, he relieved them of the burden of life. After
all, he knew that if he left them alive, they would likely hunt him down
and force him to kill them later on. So he was merely avoiding putting
off an otherwise annoying situation.
Some time later, Aristo stumbled upon a massive, circular chamber
with a huge hole in the floor. A howling, galeforce wind blasted through
the chamber and down the shaft, swirling down into the depths of the
earth. There were many smaller shafts drilled into the ceiling of the
chamber, high above Ari's head, and it was from these that the gusting
wind came. There was a faint filtering of light from some of the shafts
above, indicating to Aristo that they probably opened up into the world
above. And that meant what he was seeing was sunlight. He shuddered at
the thought, not caring for this reminder of his life under the baleful
gaze of that glowing orb in the sky.
His eyes could not make out the bottom of the forty-foot wide shaft
in the floor, but the force of the wind hinted at a great depth. He could
perceive a myriad of shafts bored into the sides of the main shaft. With
all of the air gusting down into that seemingly bottomless hole, it nearly
pulled Ari off of his feet and down into that darkness for a personal
investigation on just how bottomless the really shaft was. He did not
care to take the wind up on that invitation just yet. Thus he moved back
away from the hole to lean against the circular wall of the chamber,
listening to the howling of the air rushing through the chamber. It was
beauty to his ears: a wonderful, moaning aria.
This must serve as a ventilation shaft for the colossal network of
caves, one of many that fed the numerous smaller ventilation shafts Ari
had observed in many of the chambers and tunnels he had seen. It would
explain not only how these rooms were kept filled with breathable air, but
also why there was a faint and distant howling that would be heard at many
of those ventilation shafts. Luckily, there were still plenty of rooms
and passages that were not fed with fresh air, and thus they retained
the stale mustiness that appealed to Aristo.
However, there was still the question of how was the air forced down
into these shafts? What great magic was at work here? It was yet another
thing Aristobulus would have to look into one of these days.
After some time of rest in this intriguing chamber, Ari pressed on in
his investigations, soon stumbling across a quartet of shambling corpses:
rotted, maggot-ridden, pale bodies bloated with death and kept in their
semblance of life by the force of magic alone. These zombies gave Aristo
a start, but his previous encounter with animated skeletons had left him
with the knowledge that undead do indeed exist, even these mindless bodies
mobilized by a simple spell. For all of their horrific appearance, Ari
perceived that they were none too fast on their feet, so he quickly exited
their room, his own leisurely stride leaving them far behind.
Aristo's investigations eventually led him into a fair-sized chamber
with only two passages exiting it, each directly opposite the other. When
Ari heard a noise from down one passage, he decided it might be wise to
take a stroll down the other passage. However, he noticed light
approaching from down the opposite tunnel.
Trapped between the two approaching groups, Aristo tried to hide
himself in one corner of the room so that if the group with the torches
arrived first, he would be concealed in the shadows those torches would
cast. However, if the group without the torches arrived first, they would
likely see him, since Aristo assumed that they possessed infrared-
sensitive eyes much as he did.
Both of the groups arrived about the same time, hailing each other in
a friendly fashion. Both groups were gnomes: those with the torches were
heavily armed warriors, whilst the other group was much larger in number
and consisted not only of warriors, but of a sizable contingent of gnomes
in lighter armor carrying heavy packs and crates suspended from poles for
ease of carrying.
The second group of gnomes was obviously a supply caravan, for want
of a better word, since there were no draft animals or wagons, as neither
would fit through many of these tunnels. Well, that explained one thing.
Aristo had been wondering how the denizens of these caverns were able to
keep themselves supplied with food and such. Obviously, the larger groups
of inhabitants kept themselves supplied via caravans, while the smaller
groups likely stole from the larger ones.
However, that still left one more question: from where did they
obtain their supplies? Aristo doubted it was from the upper world, since
if that were the case, then it would be known to as least some people that
their foods were being shipped into the bowels of the world. So therefore
it must be that their food was grown down here. But how did they do so
when there was no sunlight? It was yet another question to which Aristo
would hopefully someday learn the answer.
With their greetings completed, all of the gnomes returned the way
those with the torches had come, taking no notice of the elf hiding in one
corner. Aristo followed unobtrusively at a distance. The caravan of
gnomes travelled down a couple more passages until they reached a door.
Most of their number passed through the door, except for a pair who were
left on guard. Since they had no torches, Aristo was not able to spy upon
the guards from around a corner without being seen by them. Why couldn't
more races be like humans and not have infravision?
From were he had observed them, Aristo had been unable to see what
lay beyond the door. But he assumed it was either a lair or at least an
outpost. In any case, he knew that there was a group of gnomes there.
It would likely be useful to try and get some information from them.
Gnomes were a decent enough lot, and generally tolerated elves, though he
doubted if they would trust an unknown elf who came out of nowhere. He
would need an advantage. This would be a good test for that charm spell
Ari had picked up from Jimar.