Lost Dirlodur
The dim light of his torch cast a long shadow over the back of Balgram as he jostled the stone slab blocking the entrance into the room until it gave way, an old piece of wallstone, engraved with the half the image of a mother embracing her child crashed to the ground with a resounding dry thud that echoed off into the infinite black of the dormitory hallways.
His hand gripping the handle of his Axe, Balgram advanced into the room, his eyes scanning impotently for any signs of movement. For nearly two weeks he had stalked the corridors of the Residential Ward and his sack was full with proof. His eyes had never attuned, but his hearing had grown sharp, not nearly as sharp as the prey he was looking for, but sharp enough to know an empty room when he entered it. Balgram's contract only had him in the city for another three days. "Three days of marching through this damn darkness" he thought, "Three more days on edge, three more days of hunting them down, hunting... them...
Far beneath the towering peaks of the Vales of Horakh-Dhrum, shrouded in it's unending darkness, lies the city of Lost Dirlodur, Known also as Dirlodur, Born of Thurn, a once-great stronghold of the early Orimid Empire. The city fell to ruin in the year 339, when, following a cataclysmic tremor, the mountain rent, and twisted unnaturally and the city was lost in a terrible cave-in. In a desperate bid to reclaim the lost city, Emperor Argane Forgeborne sent his sisters, the Stoneseers of the Empire, to chart a rescue paths into the depths. For weeks, they scoured the rugged mountain range, but no paths could they find. The search stretched on for weeks longer still as the Stoneseers grew week with exhaustion. It was until, at last, the eldest of the Stoneseers, Heldraga Forgeborne, perished from her efforts that, the Emperor crestfallen at the loss of his oldest friend ordered the Stoneseers to cease, resigning Dirlodur to its fate.
Thurnboils
The Thurnboils are a mushroom found principally within Kharad-Thurn, but are most prevalent within Dirlodur. Thurnboils are famous for both their inedibility as well as the purple glow which emenates from their pores. They can be identified by their long thin pale stalks that weep blood red with pus that crest into bulbous heads of deepest purple. The heads of each festooned with strands of a dimly glowing mucus.
Scholars at the court of Oromon have speculated that the conditions that have effected the Dirlodain were made worse through generations of the consumption of the Thurnboil. It has been observed by the court physician of Nar Ulihm that repeated heavy consumption of the Thurnboil can allow the consumer to begin to perceive things which are not, however the effect wears off only about two hours or so after consumption..
Districts
As with all other cities of old Dwarfdom, Dirlordur was constructed in a series of descending Wards with each build beneath the previous with the greatest wealth concentrated into the lowest wards.
The Trade Ward
While the Guild has yet to make it as far as the Trade Ward, records recovered show of a bustling hub of Artisans who produced Gemstones, Jewlery, Brass Instruments, Tools which the realms of Man would not know for hundreds of years, bolts of Spidersilk and a hundred other goods.
The Artisans Quarter
The Artisans Quarter was a subsection of the Trade Ward where the many workshops which produced the trade goods flowing from the city were constructed. Stonemason, Fletchers, Candlemakers Beekeepers, Clothiers & Jewllers all called the Artisan Quarters home.The Upper MIlitary Ward
The ghouls of Lost Dirlodur have mostly settled in the many cramped barracks of the Upper Military Ward, so dense are they in numbers here that none sent by the Guild have made it beyond here. While the denizens are timid among the Residential Ward and the Grave Ward because of their numbers. In the Military Ward is where they are at their most bold. Stories have been told by exasperated survivors of a hundred plus Dwarves reaching out from every door, packing so tight that they move like a wall of pale flesh and engulfing any adventurers in a cage of flesh, pulling them apart and leaving nothing but iron and cloth behind.
Unlike the Residential Ward, no Thurnboils grow in the Military Ward and is therefore blanketed in darkness.
Some of the Military Ward have even donned the rusted armor of old in their own awkward and cumbersome way. Even still, it offers them an extra level of protection and of those who arm themselves with old Axes and Spears, the danger is tenfold as they show surprising aptitude at the weapons.
The Residential Ward
Swarming with the terrors that inhabit the city, the Residential Ward marks the frontier of the efforts to reclaim the city. Though fighting has been relentless for nearly a century, little ground seems to give from the beasts. A mercenary band might march in and slaughter dozens to clear out a great hall and return the next day to find it crawling with evil once more while an individual might march past unassailed.
The Residential Ward is washed in a dark purple light, the result of an overgrowth of the Thurnboil Mushrooms which the city had been famous for.
The Great Hall
The Great Hall was buillt around the center of the Residental Ward. Tables stretch into the darkness for what feels like forever, the former eating hall for the thousands of Dwarves who lived here. It is now a home for spiders, echoes and ghosts.
The kitchens of the Residential Ward were at one point complex systems of adjoining rooms where livestock were slaughtered in one room, rushed to another to be skinned and prepared only to be cooked in another. As with other Dwarven Cities, the Great Halls would be open at all hours offering food and the Kitchens would move to reflect this. Mercy would have been that, over the ages the Livestock would have turned to bone then dust by now, but the weavers of fate saw other designs. The Dirlodain it seem have retained some small part of their past, and even now corpses of a most horribly mangled sort are often left behind by the skittering blind Dwarves who flee into the dark when the Guild approaches. Dwarves, still living with their entrails exposed and stuffed with Thurnboils gurgle among the rot of their severed hands and feet. The skulls of children line the floor and the elders of the mad dwarves come here to die and allow themselves to help the city as feed. The Guild has taken to torch the kitchen and much of the Great Hall, lest these abominations be allowed to persist, but with every delving the Kitchen is once again awash in gore.
The Grave Ward
Formerly a place of solemnity, quiet reflection, and where the dead were buried, the Grave Ward is now the sole point of entry into Dirlodur from the city of Nar Ulihm. When the Guild first began venturing into the city, the Grave Ward was one of the two wards accessible. Unlike the residential ward, the Grave Ward had been almost entirely abandoned by the Dwarves. While understandable for the civilized, the rabid dwarves of the Dirlodain had spread out and have been observed to make home wherever they see fit.
They were in here, Balgram knew this as sure as he knew the names of his wife, of his three children. His prey were here in the Great Hall with him. One of the Six Great Halls of the Residential Ward. His torch painting the stone pillars that stood erect and loomed off into the dark that hung overhead.
"They call me the Bane of The Dirlodain" Balgram shouted allowed, tired of stalking this game. Silence was their response and only the echo of his own voice replied a moment later. "I'm paid by the head you know? Let's get this done!" he shouted aloud, confidence present but fleeting. This time, his voice was met with the sound so rapid scurrying, and the impression of one of them, gaunt and hideous painted orange from the lick of his torch. The scurrying surrounded him, louder now and made worse by the silent prelude. The noise concentrated behind him, what sounded like half a hundred feet. Swiftly Balgram pivoted his heels, turning around to meet the noise, in one motion he cleaved the torch in a wide arc from his offhand while readying his axe in his other. There they were...
The Nobles Ward
The lowest of the settled wards, the Nobles Ward was the home to the Overseer of the City, the Nobles Ward were home to great manses which rose high to the ceilings which rose twice as high as any other of the wards. Thurnboils have overgrown much of the floors and walls here, granting the same spectral illumination of the previous wards.
The ghosts of the last sane survivors haunt the halls of the Nobles Ward, as such the Nobles Ward has often been a good place for those on expedition to begin, the danger is present but lessoned than that of the Residential Ward and some scant treasures might still be found from the bygone nobility.
The Lower Military Quarter
Unlike the cramped barracks of the Upper Military Ward, the lavish apartments of the Lower Military Ward had been home to the many Generals and Commanders who lived in Dirlodur. It was in the Lower Military Quarter where it seems the last of the sane Dwarves and withdrawn, and it is their writings from which the story of the city has been able to be pieced together.
The Undersea & Beyond
Far below the Nobles Ward down a recently discovered crack in the floor is a pass which heads downwards for nearly half a mile until it at last opens to a subterranean shore and a body of water lit in dark blue reflections from some unseen source off in the distance. Of where the Undersea leads, it is not yet known though explorations have just begun.
History
One of the oldest and deepest of the Dwarf Holds in the mountains under Kharad-Thurn, Dirlodur was a city of splendor, a city where every wall of the many highways were bedecked in precious gems found within the mines further below the city, where many great murals were chiseled into the faces of the walls and where the proud seat of the Thane of Dirlodur, carved from prismatic opals and inlet with ruby, emerald and saphire. The throne, second only to that of the Emperor's himself.
Attempts To Locate Dirlodur (339-996)
Official efforts ended with the death of the Heldraga Forgeborne, and following the death of Emperor Argane little effort was spared as the cost to find the city had grown burdensome and the hope of saving any souls lost within the city had diminished to dream years ago. So, for nearly three centuries expeditions slowed to a trickle until at last the final expedition was disrupted by the wars of Benalon I Ulanala in the year 537.
The Rediscovery of Lost Dirlodur (997-1012)
Quick was the expansion of the Dwarven Hold of Nar Ulihm, and so in the year 997 efforts were made to begin the search for new subterranean caves to expand into. Digging took place over many months and it was in the year 999 when a miner made his first strike of the day that the ground gave way and the miner fell some hundred feet onto a the top of a building in what they would discover to be the lost city of Dirlodur.
All would not be well however as, celebrating upon the roof of their discover, they made a terrible discovery of what had happened to those who had lived in Dirlodur. The inhabitants of the city had not died, as was believed, but had lived in total darkness for nearly twelve generations. The darkness had changed them, their eyes sunken, useless and blind, the void had had changed them, gone were the tremendous muscles of Dwarven Strength and the isolation too, had changed them, gone was their sense of being as ferality overtook them and a new violent nature reigned over them.
While toasting their drinks, a group of the foul beings set upon them in a violent frenzy, unarmed and rabid, they swung mercilessly as if without thought, wild animals enraged. The Miners, though unarmored had enough of their mining tools nearby to use as makeshift weapons to protect them from the onslaught. The losses were heavy, but the surviving miners were able to beat them back and escape back towards Nar Ulihm where they could inform the Thane.
A Dwarf of Dirlodur
The Reclamation of the City (1012-1134)
By proclamation of Emperor Thonmon Forgeborne, he ordered the creation of the Guild of Reclamation to both guard the entrance of the Nar Ulihm as well as to work on the elimination of the now feral inhabitants of the city. Paid by the scalps collected, bands of adventurers of the least moral sort have for nearly over a hundred years have ventured down into the city depths. To this date, only the Grave Ward, which was seemingly avoided by the inhabitants and a small foothold into the residential wards have been cleared. To which, the court of Oromon has debated the value of the gold handed out.
The hall was silent, the task was done, Balgram had came to do what he set out to do and had finished ahead of schedule. "I'm not bad at this..." he thought. Wiping the blood from his axe, and tying the knot the tight on the sack of collected scalps. Balgram placed the sack within a second sack, filled with flowers. He ate his meal in silence and after what he felt was adequate rest, set off for the Grave Ward and the exit to this foetid city.
"It's half pay for children, but it's will enough to survive for now." he thought, bile building in his stomach as the thought came and went. Balgram never wanted to be this kind of Dwarf, but life had seen fit to make him like this. The work came easier this time for him, and he knew it would come easier for him the next time.
Later as he stopped to camp, Balgram retrieved a chisel and hammer from his ruck sack and upon his axe etched a mark. It was the fifth such mark.
RUINED SETTLEMENT
339
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