Adv Log, Session 50 Onyxgleam Manor

Colding 22, 879 AFE
  Ruby and Eykit had come back from “talking to” the desk sergeant in the middle of the night, in his bedroom. After they had slept, they filled the others in on what they had found out.

  The civil patroller had given them a much longer version of the same story that he had told her in the Civil Patrol headquarters about all of the chaos that had happened in the town. In addition to the basic story that they already knew, he had added a few extra details: names of victims, names of perpetrators, a list of the people they still had under arrest, and how many were in the jailing facilities there at the headquarters. He also told them about the staff of the House of Repose getting crews together to fill in those unauthorized tunnels. He mentioned that the staff there had found out a few interesting things: five graves had been defiled, bones were scattered on the floor, disrespecting the dead, sarcophagi and burial nooks had been damaged, apparently by magic, there were six extra bodies, that hadn’t originally been interred in the catacombs, there were signs of a fight, and although there was some blood, there were no recent bodies. One of the six extra bodies had been carved up post-mortem, mostly around the eyes, although the chest and back of the neck were also flayed open, as if by an amateur butcher. The eyes were missing. In addition to all of that, some grave goods were missing. The staff was still cataloguing the missing goods, and would report that to the Civil Patrol shortly. All they knew for the moment was the missing goods included bracelets, jewelry, and maybe some weapons.

  The sergeant had also mentioned that the House of Repose catalogues everything that is buried in each sarcophagus, and explained that was why the door to the catacombs looked like a bank vault…because it sort of was one.

  The upshot of all of this was that the House of Repose and the Civil Patrol was now aware that some necromancy was going on, and that the extra dead bodies had not come from the catacombs. The desk sergeant was in charge of the new investigation into the necromantic dealings.

In addition to all of that, they also had found out that the ceramics shop was owned by someone named Hannar Onyxgleam, a local businesswoman and minor noble. And, finally, they found out a list of potentially corrupt civil patrollers. The desk sergeant may or may not fit into that category. That list of people could theoretically be bribable, with the most likely patroller being Brenn Beryleye.

When Ruby and Eykit had finished recounting the course of events of the evening, Taid turned to Almë and said, “Okay. Let’s finish this shit.” “Alright!” Almë replied, high fiving Taid.

“This shit ends today!” Taid said, whacking the end of Maggie into the hardwood floor. “I will it so!” Taid was getting tired of being frustrated at how elusive Kallia was. “I’d like to go on the theory that Hannar Onyxgleam is Kallia, and go get her. If we kill her and she’s not Kalliia, then oh well.”

Almë grinned, shouted “Hoorah!”, and chest bumped Taid. He bounced off of Taid’s breastplate with a dull thump.

“So,” Taid mused, “I’d like to go ask Malram about Hannar Onyxgleam. See if he’ll tell me anything about her.” From what Ruby and Eykit had heard, Hannar didn’t come into town very often.

And so the pair of them went. Taid actually went inside; Almë found a space at a table in the courtyard. Malram, of course, was tending bar, as he usually did, helped by a secondary barman and a pair of barmaids. It was lunch rush, and it was fairly busy. But it was towards the end of the rush, and people were finishing up their meals and going back to work. [1]

      Taid racked his weapon in the closet, then strode to the bar. “Malram!” he said heartily, with a grin. “I need some ale.”

Malram turned from serving a customer and his companion a pair of frothy ales, and turned towards the newcomer. “Hey, Taid.”

“I can see you’re busy, so I’ll cut out the small talk. There is this shit happening in town. In the catacombs. And there are necromancers running around and we want to put an end to this shit today. That’s the goal. It may not happen, but that’s the goal.”

Malram considered this, and nodded, indicating him to go on.

“So our current lead right now is that we are interested in a shop owner named Hannar Onyxgleam. Do you know anything about her?”

“Not much,” Malram replied. “Besides that she’s one of the local nobility.”

“Do you know who we could talk to about her?”

“You could probably go to the Council Curia and talk to someone there. They would know the council members.”

“Who?” Taid asked.

“The Council Curia. That’s the local ruling body, made up of the nobility and many of the wealthier members of Dwarfchat. There are 17 royal houses here in Dwarfchat; Ser Onyxgleam is one of them. Not including Baron Goldensand’s house, that is.”

Baron Goldensand was at the top of the local heap here in Dwarfchat. Beneath him were the 17 minor noble houses, each sworn as one of the Baron’s banner men. Malram continued, “The nobles also have a major or minor stake in most of the businesses in town. Those stakes act as passive income for them. It’s one of the reasons they are so rich. Dwarfchat runs on trade, and we get a lot of it, being the gatekeepers for the Dwarven Undercities and the rest of the Empire. So even so-called minor stakes can be quite lucrative.”

“Do you know where her house is?”

“Ser Onyxgleam’s house? No. I’ve never been there. Never invited.”

“But you said that the council might know?”

“They likely would, yes. They might even tell you. Maybe.”

“Alright then.” Taid finished his ale, paid Malram $10 for it and the information, and rejoined Almë outside. “Let’s go to the Hall of Records.”

They headed to the Walled City district. As they passed through the gate, one of the gate guards said, “Oh! Taid! Our hero! Good job on killing that manticore!”

Taid grinned, replying, “Fuck yeah!” They made their way to City Hall, where they kept the city’s records. They entered the lobby area, where a Dwarf sat behind a desk. “Well,” he said, “good day.”

Taid slammed a twenty mark coin onto the desk. “Hannar Onyxgleam. Where does she live?”

“In Dwarfchat.” The Dwarf looked a bit confused, which looked funny considering his beard had been dyed in a spiral pattern of green and pink.

“What is her address?”

“Do you mean where is her manor?”

“Yes,” Taid said with a smile. “Do you want to get punched?”

The Dwarf’s answer of “Um, no” was lost as Taid continued without pause.

“I have a medallion for this,” he said, wiggling Maggie. “But I don’t have a medallion for this!” He shook his fist in the other Dwarf’s face.

“This is hardly civilized,” the Dwarf complained. “I could be calling the Civil Patrol on you guys.”

Almë was a bit confused. Usually it was him popping off, not Taid. Taid was the measured, stoic one, not the hot-headed, jump into the fire type. Almë took a few steps back, not completely sure what was happening. “I, uh, I wouldn’t mess with him in this state,” he stammered. “We just need to deliver something, so just give him the address. He’s, uh, pretty pissed, and will likely kill you before the Civil Patrol gets here.”

The Dwarf clerk shook his head, a slight smile on his face at their antics. What they were asking was public knowledge. “Go west, following the road into the mountains. At the first major valley, take a right and head north. It’s built into the west side of the mountain. She lives about 15km outside of town.”

When they had hunted the manticores, they had gone south when they had reached that valley, following its snaking path as it lead deeper into the mountains until they had reached the aerie. Now they had to go the other way. Now they had a hike that would take up the better part of a day.

“Thank you, good sir,” Taid said, bowing to the clerk. “Your information is greatly appreciated.”

Almë and Taid went back to the Silver Blossom Caravanserai, where the others waited for them. As the pair of them walked by the main desk, the desk clerk said, “Are you Taid?”

“Hells yes,” Taid replied.

“You have a message.” He turned, and retrieved an envelope, holding it out to Taid.
“How was this message delivered?”

“A Civil Patroller brought it by this morning.”

Taid looked at the envelope. It was featureless, but he could tell a piece of paper was inside. Nothing was written on it; no “To” or “From” anywhere on it. The envelope hadn’t really been sealed, just folded into itself, held by friction. “Did he say who it was from?”

“Yes. The patroller said it came from his desk sergeant.”

“Right. Okay.” He opened it, saw the folded piece of parchment inside, and pulled it out, opening it.

“Taid Lasu,” it read, “a patroller reported a complaint that may be pertinent to what you had discussed. The witness said that they had seen people moving around the Dwarfchat Masonry Supply yard at night when the business should have been closed. Workers doing a long shift isn’t out of the ordinary, but they also saw moonlight glinting off of tools or weapons and heard the sound of people moving around in chainmail. At least that's what they said that they had heard. It is possible they just heard gravel on wheelbarrows. Personally, I don't think it's anything really. It's likely just a late shift completing some work. I suppose it could be theft, but you did ask me to give you any news about any odd things happening. Stealing gravel and brick from a masonry yard just isn't something that's usually done, so it sounds suspicious to me.”

Taid turned to Almë. “We’re not going to do anything about this, right?”
Almë shook his head. “No, we just go to her house and kill everybody inside.”

“Okay, sounds good.”

They made their way up the stairs to the rooms they had rented, to tell the others what they had learned, and to gather them to make a day trip out to Hannar’s manor house. They decided to leave Wilbur behind, not wanting him put in any potential danger.

Hannar’s manor was about a half day’s hike away, which meant if they hurried, they could get there before nightfall. They gathered their gear, and Taid made sure to grab the staff he’d taken from Jakora’s dead body, back when they had stopped the cannibal cult that had been worshipping the false pretender that had been masquerading as the goddess Kalshebba.

They headed out, following the road west out of town, through the forested mountainous country. They’d been on it before, when they had hunted down the manticore, and again when Elitheris and Taid went back to gather the creature’s severed head. This time, when the road forked, they went north, rather than south.

About a kilometer later, the stone paving gave out, and it became a well-used dirt track. This section of road just hadn’t become paved yet, although there were some stacks of cut stones and a small pile of gravel by the roadway where it transitioned from stone to dirt.

“Let’s discuss the plan,” Almë said, as they trudged along the roadway. “How about Ruby burns the whole place, and we cut down everybody who runs out of the building?”

“No,” Taid said, appreciating the cathartic imagery Almë had summoned up, “I actually would like to have a little information before we murder them. I would like to make sure that I’m at least doing something useful. But you’re right, we’re going to be more aggressive about it, but not burn down the house. I want to keep the house anyways, because if we take it over, then it’s our manor.”

“How about,” Elitheris inserted, “we just find out who the fuck this person is first?” There was a part of her that wasn’t really interested in burning down anything. She seriously thought about staying in town and keeping an eye on that masonry yard instead.

“Well,” Almë stated, “she knows we’re coming. She’s prepared, and if we just knock and ask, ‘Are you Kallia?’ that’s not really going to work all that well.”

“It’s not like we are going to ask her,” Taid replied. “She’s Kallia. I think we should scout it out and then we should sneak up.”

Elitheris nodded. She liked the more careful approach, and when she glanced at Eykit, he was nodding as well.

“Ruby, can you turn into anything besides the falcon?”

“No.”

“So you can’t turn into a mouse and go sneaking around and investigate?”

“Nope.”

“You gotta get on that, Ruby.”

“Yeah, probably.”

Taid chuckled. “We’ve got to get Ruby all sorts forms. Like, Ruby’s got to be a dog so she could hang out with Nori and Wiggles, and we’d have three dogs. And people would come up to pet them and Ruby could just fuck them up. That’d be great! Just having a dog fuck you over.”

“So angry today, Taid,” Elitheris said.

“I’m getting older, and Kallia’s been so slippery. I want her gone before my next birthday. As for the plan, I think we need to see what we’re up against, first. Let’s just go up and scout the place out.”

Almë shrugged, and said, “Okay.” He’d had military training and experience. He knew that sending scouts out before the main force attacked was the right way to handle it. But he was getting antsy and wanted Kallia taken care of before his own next birthday.

“And then we can figure out the plan. From afar, we can look at it, see if it’s a hundred room mansion or only two rooms? We just don’t know what we’re looking at here. Does it have four walls? How many guards does it have? We just don’t know anything.”

Actually, that wasn’t quite true. Ruby had told them after she had done her first scouting mission when they first arrived in Dwarfchat, that the manors she saw were usually built into the mountainsides. They had a facade, but most of the structure was underground, carved out of the mountain.

This kind of construction really appealed to Taid. It sounded great to him; he’d been living above ground for so long that being able to sleep in a proper Dwarven house sounded fantastic.

They continued along the dirt road. As they moved up the valley, they could tell it was sloping upwards as it went deeper into the mountains. Every now and again they would see a carved stone along the road, carved with the word “Nogrod” on it, along with the distance remaining. It was over 120 km to the entrance to Nogrod, one of the Dwarven Undercities that lay somewhere under these mountains. But they fortunately didn’t have to travel that far. Hannar’s manor was supposedly only about a dozen or so kilometers outside of town.

Elitheris noticed that there were some fresh ruts in the road they were following, signs of a caravan up ahead of them. When she paused to examine them, she figured that the caravan had left in the morning, and was several hours ahead of them.

The road snaked its way up the valley, more or less following the river’s course, crossing it several times over stone bridges, built with Dwarven skill and solid enough to be able to handle heavy wagons laden with goods.

Hours later, they came to a barely-used side road. It was wide enough for wagons, but there were a lot more weeds growing on it than on the main, well-used road. A sign at the junction, made of a boulder with a flattened side, had “Onyxgleam Manor” carved into it. They couldn’t see the manor yet; the forest blocked any view farther than about twenty meters.

They started going down the side road, but they quickly moved off of it into the neighboring forest, just in case someone came down the road. They didn’t want to be spotted. Elitheris led them through the forest, following the wagon track.

It was a little while later when Eykit said, “Uh, Elitheris? We haven’t seen the road to the manor in a while.”

Elitheris stopped short, looking around. “Fuck,” she said. “Sorry.” She turned and started off in a direction perpendicular to the one they’d just been heading. The sun had dropped past the western mountains; it would be sunset soon. It didn’t take long to fid the wagon track that supposedly led to the manor, but they’d lost about an hour or so, wandering off of the track. Elitheris felt very embarrassed. And she didn’t even have a Disorientation spell to blame, only herself. She must have gotten distracted by something.

But they were back on the track, and continued on towards the manor. The road headed upslope into the mountains to their east. There were several switchbacks as it climbed. The forest thinned, and they could see tree stumps where the area had been cleared in front of a rocky cliff.
A building was built into the cliff face, with an entry portico and a large, barn-like building sticking out in front of the steep cliff. The barn-like building had a pair of large doors. The portico had a set of large, double steel doors, engraved with images of Dwarves engaged in various manufacturing activities, such as mining, stonecutting, carpentry, masonry, fishing, pottery, farming, and logging. The group didn’t know it, but they represented the businesses that Hannar Onyxgleam had stakes in. They were three meters tall, and each was two meters wide. Above the barn-like building was a row of windows, set into the cliff face. They were the only windows visible.
The portico featured a covered porch, held up by a pair of solid columns, decoratively carved with geometric designs in a helix around the column.

The sun had disappeared behind the mountains on its way down to sunset. The valley the manor was in was in shadow, although there was still enough light to see easily. It was still technically daytime.

“Do we want to wait until night time and have Eykit pick the locks and go it?” Taid asked. “Or do we want to do it during the day?” “I think we should wait until nightfall,” Almë stated.

“Yes, I’m all for going ‘let’s kill this bitch’! Because she’s the only person we know of the female persuasion that is related to any part of this quest. But the other thing I’d like to do is I’d like to get some kind of evidence. Like if we can get in there and find a basement or lab or something with Shards, or a letter on the table that talks about zombies.”

“That would be good,” Elitheris said. So far, they had no proof that Hannar was Kallia, only wishful thinking. And Elitheris wasn’t sure she was comfortable just killing Hannar without proof of wrongdoing.

“Maybe we’ll find a letter from Lennerd. That kind of stuff, right? What I’d like to do is send Eykit in to do some reconnaissance.” Eykit nodded. He didn’t mind doing some recon first.

“That seems to be the fair thing to do,” Taid continued. “I’m happy to go in swinging, once we kind of know that it’s more than just a red herring. If we’re wrong, we’d screw up our reputation in Dwarfchat.” He saw Almë’s look of disappointment, and gave the tall Elf a half smile. “I’m all for rage and engage, but I want to make sure that we aren’t wasting our energies and potentially damaging ourselves for no reason.

“I think that’s a fabulous idea,” Elitheris said.

“So, I think we should stay off the road for a bit, see if there are any comings or goings, like someone coming home from doing whatever. We can see if any lights come on in the house when it gets darker. If no one seems home, so much the better. Then we can go in, check the place out. See if there is any evidence at all if this person is a necromancer. There’s got to be some evidence, right? Like a book on how to become a necromancer in 380 steps.”

No one argued. In fact, most of the others had gotten what Taid planned long before he stopped speaking. He’d made his point. They hid themselves in the forest where they could keep an eye on both the house, and what they could see of the drive leading up to it. Ruby, realizing that her staff was nearly depleted, spent the next few hours channeling her power into it, then resting, then channeling more power. Refilling the staff to full took over three hours.

It got darker as the sun set. There had been no traffic on the drive, and no lights came on inside the house. The valley floor was dark, although the twilight sky was still more blue than black. They also hadn’t seen any movement past the row of windows.

It was time for Eykit to go to work. He glanced at the large barn doors. He figured that was the stables and carriage house, and decided that those could wait. What they were looking for would be in the house proper, not the stables. He went towards the portico.

The front doors were steel, with gold, silver, and copper accents, picking out various details in the repoussé and chased decorations. They were also imposing, as each of the double doors was three meters tall and two wide. When both were open, a wagon could be driven through them. The workmanship was impeccable; the pair were likely worth more than fifty thousand marks. They were oiled, but Eykit could also see some rust in the crevices. The relative lack of rust, he knew, showed that they were well taken care of, with regular maintenance, given that they were exposed to the weather constantly.

He eased his lock picks into the lock, and felt around for the tumblers. As he picked the lock, the tumblers would reset, forcing him to start again. Eventually, he managed to get all the tumblers unlocked, although it took him over a minute of constant effort. Even with practice on this lock, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to pick it much faster. It was likely, he thought, that most thieves would give up before being able to pick that lock. One would have to be pretty determined to get in there. He eased the door open, and he could see, dimly, a marble floor. Eykit also noticed that the door didn’t squeak when it opened, despite weighing something close to a ton. Impressive, he thought. He didn’t hear anything, and there were no signs of anyone being home. He pushed the door open further, and stuck his head inside to get a look.

The room was an entry foyer, although it blended into a grand salon sort of space. The foyer part of the space was eight meters on a side, with a vaulted ceiling that was three and half meters in height. There were no lights lit, although in the dim light from the doorway and some low-level ambient light from the grand salon further in, he could see some furniture in the foyer. On the right side was a weapons rack, while on the left was a large armoire, likely used as a coat closet for up to three dozen people, maybe more. A side table sat against the wall, just past the weapons rack. The floor was marble tile, of a type that looked very similar to the kind used in the catacombs; they were likely from the same local source. Walking on it would be noisy. The walls were ashlar blocks, with a facing of limestone tile. Exposed beams went from one side of the room to the other, at the juncture of the walls and angled ceiling. They were massive, easily 30 cm on a side. Dwarves built to last. Just past the large armoire were some bar stools, set along a bar. Eykit entered the foyer.

As his eyes adjusted to the nearly utter blackness, he could tell that the ceiling of the grand salon was higher than that of the foyer. He could also tell that the ambient light coming from the grand salon area was likely from the windows on the second floor. He didn’t close the door behind him; he knew that it would likely lock itself if it did, and given the time it took to unlock it, if he needed an escape route, the door would stop him long enough for whatever he was running from to get him. He did close the door so that it was nearly closed, but not latched.

There was still no sounds of anything moving in the house, as far as he could tell, and his hearing was very good, honed over years of creeping into people’s houses. His eyes adjusted further, and he was able to make out some of the furniture in the large open space ahead of him. Couches, easy chairs with ottomans, and, off to one side, a large formal dining table that stretched off into the darkness. It looked like it could seat more than a dozen people easily.

Sitting on the side table in the foyer was a candlestick, shiny in the faint light, but it was unlit. Above him hung a chandelier, with oil lamps, similarly unlit. Damned Dwarves and their penchant for living in caves, he thought. Not enough windows to let in light. Ruby will be utterly blind in here. He shook his head, realizing that they would have to use a light source, but not really liking the idea.

He went back to the door, a mere two steps, and waved everyone to come on in. There was no way he was going to go deeper into this manor without backup.

While Eykit was dealing with the locked door and the initial scouting out of the interior, Almë meditated to calm his mind and hopefully reduce the chance of going into an uncontrollable rage. It also helped him focus, reducing the chance of him getting distracted by extraneous but interesting things. Elves had that tendency, partially because of their long lives giving them all the time in the world, and partially because they were inherently interested in aesthetics and the world around them. It was common for an Elf in a discussion to “spontaneously” go chasing after butterflies, or get fixated on a complexly beautiful piece of architecture. As a way to combat this, Elves in the past developed techniques to limit that, in order to stay focused on a task.

Ruby shapeshifted into a falcon, then flew up to look in the windows. She couldn’t see much, and raised a wing to shade her head from any outside light. She could barely make out that the row of windows looked into a hallway/balcony, that overlooked a large space just beyond it. The angle was such that she couldn’t see downward into the space. She could tell that the hallway with the balcony was about three meters wide, and that the ceiling above the balcony was almost three meters tall. She got the impression that the ceiling above the open space was higher. There wasn’t much else to see from up here, so she glided back down to the ground and changed back into a Hobbit. [2]

      Ruby didn’t feel comfortable exploring the manor with most of her mana supply unavailable. “Guys, we need to wait a bit longer.”

“Why?” Taid asked.

“I need to channel more energy into my staff. All of the shapeshifting I’ve been doing has drained it.”

“I thought you did that earlier, while we waited for darkness.”

“I did. But it wasn’t enough.” [3]

“Fine,” Taid said, reluctantly.

“Besides,” Almë said, “I don’t want to go in there without Ruby being at full power.”

“Me neither,” Eykit admitted.

“I guess we are waiting, then,” Taid said.

Taid and Almë moved back out of the foyer and into the front yard. Eykit stayed behind; he wanted to look inside the armoire first. He opened one of the doors; it was four meters wide, and there were six doors offering access to the hooks inside. Hanging from most of the hooks were coats of various types, ranging from cool weather to cold weather coats with hoods. He checked behind them, but didn’t find anything. It was just an armoire, with Dwarf-sized coats in it. His keen eye noted that all of the coats were all high end coats, worthy of nobility. He nodded, then closed the armoire door and left, locking the door behind him. As he expected, pretty much as soon as he closed the door, the tumblers locked themselves.

They moved into the forest, out of sight, and found places to make themselves comfortable and unseen. Ruby started channeling power into her staff, the subliminal magenta light only mages could “see” flowing from her to her staff in pulsing ropes of power.

They decided to just camp out and explore the manor in the morning. Taid cast his Mystic Mist, and they set up a watch rotation, but nothing attacked them in the night. No one went in or out of the manor, and no lights became visible through the windows.

Colding 23, 879 AFE

At dawn, they were ready. Almë had again meditated, clearing his mind and becoming focused. Eykit went up to the door, lock picks at the ready. Even with the practice from the day before, the spring-loaded tumblers still gave him trouble—it took him over a full minute to get the door unlocked. He cracked the door open enough to enter.

Taid cast the Spell of Sensing Danger. [4] He got a sense of foreboding, which meant that danger was around somewhere. He wished the spell was a bit less ambiguous. Knowing what the danger was, or where it was, would have been useful. As it was, all he could say was, “Something’s here, somewhere, and not too far off.”

“Noted,” Almë said, and he moved up abreast Taid, in front of the others. Despite being a gardener-mage, Almë was a beast in combat. Ruby and Eykit filed in after them, and Elitheris and the dogs took up the rear. Elitheris had a pair of arrows nocked, ready to draw and shoot.

The dogs started growling. They sensed something, just like Taid had. They were looking around, trying to find whatever it was that disturbed them.

Taid frowned. His spell had indicated that danger wasn’t within a minute of being there, but the dogs were growling. “Could be a zombie,” he whispered to the others, “who walks really slowly.”

“Could also be a smell they don’t like,” Elitheris said.

“Like the smell of death,” Almë said.

There were no visible potted plants, although Taid did see furniture that was made of wood. “Almë, can you talk to wood?”

Almë frowned, “Yeah, and so can you. But the wood won’t answer. If it talked back I’d be worried.”

“So, no help there.”

“Nope.”

    To their left was the bar, effectively in the corner of the formal dining area and grand salon. The large open space ahead of them had a large banquet table, able to seat twenty people easily. A pair of couches faced each other across a coffee table, and two pairs of easy chairs with ottomans helped to define the space and form a border between the grand salon and a large, three meter wide hallway. In the far right corner, not far from the huge fireplace, was a small table and a pair of chairs. A board game lay on it, the pieces set apparently in the middle of a game.

There was a bit of light coming in through the windows above, giving a little ambient light to the grand salon. But the bar was in shadow, and the two ends of the hallways disappeared into darkness. Even the foyer was dim, the early dawn light coming in through the doorway.

The floors were all made of the light colored marble they saw so much of in the catacombs. There were two columns in the grand salon, helping to support the ceiling. They were faced in limestone, much like the walls of the foyer, carved in geometric patterns in an art deco-like motif. The column flared out when they reached the ceiling, the carvings continuing to decorate the ceiling. Several oil chandeliers hung from the ceiling, all unlit. Throw rugs lay under the couches, and the two pairs of easy chairs. The large dining table was of heavy wood construction, with a stone inlaid top, mainly in dark marble and malachite, decorated much like the Bayeux Tapestry. It showed a battle between the Dwarves and the fledgling Empire.

Taid peeked around the corner to the right, looking down the hall. Behind him, Ruby pulled out the glowing coin, letting some light filter past her fingers and illuminating part of the hall. It went about ten meters and turned to the left. There was a spiral ramp that led upstairs.     “Should we go up?” Taid asked. “Or stay on this floor first?”

“We’ll deal with the upstairs later,” Almë said.

“It doesn’t seem like a lab or anything would be on the second floor. Well, I suppose there might be. This place is as good as a cave, and a lab could be anywhere.”

They could see some doors; they were about a meter and a half wide, and two meters tall. Plenty big for a stout Dwarf to walk through without having to turn to do it. They were extra wide, but not out of the ordinary for Dwarven construction. The height was taller than usual, but this was a noble’s house, and thus had to accommodate important visitors. And there was no reason to make visitors duck down every time they moved from room to room. It wouldn’t look too good to have a house that kept damaging the guests one was trying to impress.

“I would think that the lab would be on the second or higher floors, right?” Almë said. “This floor looks like a pretty public floor, where visitors would be. Upstairs might be private.”

Taid and Almë moved down the hallway to the first door. Taid stopped there; Almë moved to look down the turn of the hallway. It stretched into the dimness, with doors on either side. He couldn’t see much. Elven vision was pretty good in the dark, but there had to be some light there to begin with. Taid was ready to open the door he was standing at, but if something charged Almë from down the hallway, he wanted to be ready for that, so he waited.

Ruby took a couple of steps up the spiraling ramp. Elitheris and the dogs waited at the entrance to the hallway. Eykit was behind Taid, but a few steps back, giving him room.       Taid opened the door, peering inside. It was dark, so Taid pulled out his short sword, which still glowed brightly from the light spell he’d cast on it days ago. No one was in the room, so he opened the door farther to get a better look. It was a library, with bookshelves along the walls, and four easy chairs with ottomans surrounding a brazier on a stand. The walls were wood paneled up to shoulder height, with marble tiles above that. The marble was pale, with brownish and cream veining. It wasn’t the same marble as the local stone that made up the floors; this came from a different quarry, likely imported. The ceiling was three meters high, painted plaster, denoting a bluish-purple sky with clouds in pinks and oranges. The bookshelves were about half filled with books, with much of the rest of the space on the shelves taken up by knickknacks and other decorative objects. Many of those objects were geological samples, including several quartz crystal clusters, pieces of ore with crystalline metals, and the occasional geode. An oil chandelier hung from the ceiling.

Taid entered. He wanted to see what kinds of books there were on the shelves. Most of the books were in Khuzdûl, the rest were in Imperial. Mainly what he saw were histories, biographies, philosophies, geological treatises, masonry, and things of that sort. He saw a three book set called “The Development and Construction of the Undercity Causeways”. He flipped through it. It seemed like a cross between a history, sociological treatise, and an engineering book, complete with diagrams and maps of the network of causeways that connected the undercities.

Dwarven cities are linked by “Causeways”, huge tunnels 17m wide and 13m high, with arched roofs. Down the center are two lanes of tracks (made of molded stone; see Tunneling devices, below), for mine cars and mule trains (linked cars loaded with freight, pulled by 20 mule teams; there are also small lever-powered cars for couriers and VIP travellers). Lesser Causeways are for roads of less traffic, and are only 10m wide and 8m high. Only one lane of track down the center, with pull outs for opposing traffic every few miles. Every 15km or so along their length are clusters of alcoves and rooms, used as way stations, turn-arounds, and rest stops. Privies are available, and some have station masters with rations and goods for sale (often at marked up prices). Along both sides of the causeway, about 5m high, are elevated walkways, for pedestrian traffic. This leaves the main floor for wagon/train traffic. There are lights every 20m or so (with permanent Continual Light spells cast upon them at the soft glow level). Lesser causeways have no lights; travelers must provide their own. Slopes are no more than 5°.

Dwarven freight vehicles (“trains”) use the tracks in the causeways. They are not powered (by steam or magic), but pulled by mules. There are flatcars, boxcars, orecars, passengercars. and tankercars, for hauling different materials. Typically there are only 6 cars or so, depending upon total weight; for a load of something like goosedown pillows (or something similar) it might be as much as 12 cars. Mules can only pull so much, even on a “perfect” road! Courier cars are HPVs that use a pivoting lever or leg-powered chain drive (like a recumbent bicycle) to provide motive force. Note that all mechanisms are completely enclosed; this is due not to weather (since these are dry tunnels) but due to the inherent secrecy of Dwarves. They don’t want anyone to see how they work. [5]

“Well,” Taid said, “this looks like a comfortable place to read.” He scanned the room, looking for books that stuck out from the others, hopefully as secret door openers. But no, while some books did stick out a little from the surrounding books, it was because they were bit larger than their neighbors, or hadn’t been pushed back all the way. Despite pulling on a dozen or so books, none of them opened a secret door.

Taid, not surprisingly, was disappointed.

Almë looked down the hallway. He saw three more doors. He was right next to one of them, so he opened it and popped his head in. It was a privy, complete with a sink and toilet bench. The sink was plumbed, and Almë suspected that the toilet was as well. He closed the door without going inside.

Ruby didn’t hear anything from up the ramp, so she started moving up the helical ramp to the second floor. She peeked around the corner when she got to the top of the ramp. She saw a hallway, and she could see that the balcony overlooked the grand salon below. There was a bit of light coming in through the windows, so that section of the hallway was visible. To the right, however, the hallway was dark.

From behind them, they heard the front doors go “clank” as they shut. Almë turned from the dark corridor ahead of him, and started moving closer to his companions. Taid dropped the book he was looking through and ran towards the doorway to the hall. The dogs started barking frantically, turning towards the noise.

Elitheris spun, her attention ripped from her friends and back towards the front door, drawing the arrow back as she turned. What she saw caused her to let the arrow fly.

At first, Elitheris thought two creatures had entered, and were standing side by side, blocking the exit. Two of the Sharded dead. But that wasn’t it. It was one creature, fused out of two people, awkwardly connected at the shoulders like a pair of flayed siamese twins. Even in the dim light, and the ruination of their faces, Elitheris could tell they had both been young and related when whatever foul magic had turned them into the creature they were. One side had been male, the other female. Like the Sharded dead she’d faced before, their bodies had been distorted, and the flesh rearranged. As she watched, four thick strips of muscle tissue unwrapped from their fused body, rising into the air above their heads like the heads of a hydra. Both throats moaned in unison. It started shuffling forward, its four legs not quite in unison, its arms outstretched, hands clenching almost spasmotically. [6]

The arrow buried itself in the female side’s chest. It didn’t seem fazed by it.

“Guys!” Elitheris shouted. “We’ve got company!”

Almë broke into a run, shedding his pack. Taid followed by shedding his pack in the doorway to the library. Ruby, up on the second floor at the top of the ramp, heard the commotion and bolted back down the ramp as fast as her little legs could take her. She had no idea what it was, only that Elitheris’ voice had a quaver in it that Ruby didn’t like. Elitheris was usually pretty stoic, and whatever she was seeing was messing with her mental equilibrium. Eykit drew his rondels as he turned around to face the threat. [7]

The female side moaned, its voice distorted and wavering.

Eykit shed his backpack. Growling, Mister Wiggles charged towards the thing in the doorway.

Elitheris pulled a triplet of arrows out of her quiver, fitted them to the string, She had only planned on pulling out two, but her fingers naturally fell into position to pull out three. So she did.

Taid charged out of the library. There was combat, and so Taid started laughing maniacally, his deep loud voice echoing throughout the manor.

Norolind, whining, charged into combat, leaping up into its chest. The big, 90kg dog slammed into the creature, and it reeled back, hitting the steel doors behind it with a muted gonging sound as the mastiff clamped its jaws down onto one of the its four arms. Norolind held onto the arm, weighing it down with his bulk. That arm wasn’t able to do much.

It did have other limbs, however, and the four meaty tendrils wrapped around Nori, sliding around the black dog’s body like lumpy snakes.

From the second floor came a second Sharded zombie, sliding down one of the columns that helped to support the roof. This one looked like a regular Shard zombie, probably created from a Human.

Eykit saw the new thing skitter down the column. It became his target. He ran forward.

Almë also targeted the new arrival, running toward the more Human-sized foe.

Mister Wiggles tried again to clamp onto a leg, and this time his jaws managed to close around the squirming flesh of the amalgam creature’s ankle. With the huge mastiff chomping on its arm it barely noticed the smaller dog. The flesh wiggling and moving in his teeth only made him more determined to bite down harder.

Taid took a quick glance at the new enemy appearing in the salon, but also noted that both Eykit and Almë were going after it. He stuck to his primary target, the big thing in the doorway.

Elitheris knew that the undead tended to homogenous; they didn’t seem to have any vitals. Her arrow flew into the wide body of the thing.

The tendrils wrapped around Norolind started squeezing, and they started lifting him up, over the thing’s head. Its free arms raked at the entangled dog, causing some minor damage. [8]

Eykit continued forward towards the newcomer, leading with his knives.

Almë sped past Eykit on his long legs, winding up with his staff to smack the Sharded zombie, aiming for the leg. It hopped over the sweeping staff.

Mister Wiggles worried at the creature’s leg, his teeth biting into the squirming flesh.

Taid charged towards the dual creature.

Elitheris had two more arrows drawn, she fitted both to the string, drew, and loosed. One hit the male’s chest, the other hit the female’s abdomen. Both arrows buried themselves deeply.

The creature pulled Nori off of its arm, raising the poor dog above its heads, ready to throw the dog across the room. Nori whined; he didn’t like what was happening. Ruby continued sprinting down the ramp.

After missing his swing, Almë got distracted, looking around at the expensive furniture in the salon. The fabrics were really nice, with some subtle floral patterns created simply by the weave, rather than using color.

Eykit struck with both daggers, but the creature twisted aside, and both attacks missed. The odd thing was that with the second attack, it felt like something was pushing the point aside.

Elitheris pulled two arrows out of her quiver, nocking them in one graceful motion.

Taid swung his halberd at the four tentacles that wrapped Nori, slicing through three of them. Norolind fell; one tentacle wasn’t strong enough to hold up the heavy dog.

The three severed tentacles fell away, twitching. Nori was strong enough to squirm out of the last ribbon of flesh, running away far enough to spin about, facing the creature again.

Ruby was swearing, running down the ramp, wishing she hadn’t gone so far from the rest of the group.

The Sharded zombie on Eykit punched him, hitting him in the arm. But Eykit’s chainmail and gambeson absorbed the damage. He’d have a bruise, but it wasn’t enough to even slow Eykit down. Eykit noticed that Almë was busy looking at the carvings on the pillar, following the design up with his eyes to the ceiling. What the hell is he doing? he thought. You dumb Elf! Help me kill this thing! Eykit took a step into Almë, head butting the tall Elf in the booty cheeks, hitting him hard enough to snap him out of whatever was making him flake out.

Almë shook his head, unsure what was happening. There was a foe ahead of him, and he wasn’t even in a defensive stance. What the hell? he thought.

Taid followed up his swing with a cut to one of the creature’s legs, the one that Mister Wiggles was chewing on. Maggie came whistling in, impacting the leg with a wet thunk, severing it just above the knee. Mister Wiggles dragged his prize off a ways, still chewing on the ankle.

Nori leapt back into the attack, attacking the female body’s throat. He was batted aside.

The second dead thing moved around Eykit, putting the Goblin between it and Almë. Almë tried to follow, but found his feet stuck to the ground.

Eykit spun to face the creature, stabbing out with both his blades. The creature dodged, and again Eykit felt one of the points of his rondels being pushed aside. Eykit was beginning to get annoyed. It must have some sort of blade ward or something, he thought.

Almë, stuck as he was, still had a two meter long staff with which to beat on the undead creature. So he did, aiming for the thing’s arm. Like Eykit’s dagger, he felt a sideways force on the end of his staff, deflecting the attack.

Elitheris loosed a pair of arrows, and both flew and embedded themselves in the chest. Both went deep into the male side’s body, and it went limp, a dead weight dragging down the female side.

Mister Wiggles ran back into the fray, again going for an ankle. After all, he had three to choose from. He clamped onto the middle leg, the left leg of the female side.

Taid struck at the thing’s arm, hoping to catch the remaining tentacle as well. He severed the arm, and the blade continued downward through the tentacle as well.

Norolind attacked, but missed, still whining.

The female side was still moving, despite only having one arm and having a huge dead weight attached to it. It clawed at the white and brown dog gnawing on its leg, but its fingers skated off of the mail that Mister Wiggles wore over his back.

The second undead moved back, away from the easy chairs and back towards the couches.

Eykit wasn’t having any of that. He followed it, staying close. He wanted to give the creature a nice, sharp hug with his rondels.

Almë pulled on his feet, trying to free them. He failed, and was still stuck.

Mister Wiggles’ teeth dug into the undead female thing’s calf. It moaned, scrabbling at the dog.

Elitheris loosed another pair of arrows, and both thwacked into the thing’s chest. It crumpled to the ground, Mister Wiggles scampering out from under it.

Taid spun, his foe down, scanning the battlefield for foes. He saw Almë standing there, struggling with his leg; Eykit and the second undead were wrestling, practically in an embrace. He started towards Almë, asking, “Why are you just standing there?!”

Ruby entered the salon, scanning the room to see what was going on. She saw Eykit and the undead wrestling; Almë standing around; Taid charging towards Almë; and the two dogs near a large, still form.

The undead struck Eykit in the face, but Eykit was quick enough to get his head out of the way of the thing’s fist.

Eykit didn’t want this thing getting away again, so he wrapped his left arm around its leg. With his right, he put the point of the rondel right into its belly, shoving it forward with all his weight. It slid into the creature’s flesh, and must have hit something important, because it reeled back, staggered, and slightly off balance.

Almë saw what Eykit managed to accomplish, and was impressed. He saw Taid coming towards him. “I’m stuck, Taid, help!”

Taid ran up to Almë, set Maggie on the marble tiled floor, and grabbed him, readying to pry him up off of the ground.

Elitheris spun about, looking around to see where the enemy was. She pulled a pair of arrows out of her quiver.

Norolind moved to Ruby, taking up a position in front of her, between her and the undead thing. He whined, and growled, and whined again, almost as if he was fighting his fear with bravado.

Ruby moved closer to the Sharded dead, preparing for a spell of Flame Jet. She just needed to be closer to it. The flame jet only had a range of a few meters.

Eykit was still holding onto the undead creature. He shivved him again, and the point got shifted about again by its invisible shield. The Goblin was disappointed, and still confused about how its shield worked.

Mister Wiggles, realizing his foe was dead, ran towards Elitheris.

Taid lifted Almë, his feet sticking to the floor for a moment, then they suddenly came free with an audible pop.

Elitheris loosed a pair of arrows. The creature was sort of hiding behind the sofa and Eykit, but Elitheris was good with a bow. It managed to dodge one of them, but the second struck its chest.

Norolind charged the undead, using the couch as a step to help him launch himself at the thing’s throat.

Ruby cast the spell of Flaming Armor on Eykit.

Eykit exploded into flame, which was surprising in that they didn’t seem to hurt. But maybe his nerves just hadn’t had time to transmit the message that he was burning up. But as soon as they appeared, they exploded outward, crisping the flayed-looking body of the thing he was grappling. Little flames remained, sizzling the fat, and Eykit’s nose was filled with the smell of roasting meat. The front of its body was on fire, and Eykit had to move back a bit to avoid the flames.

The burning undead thing punched Eykit in the face, but Eykit dropped low, out of range of its fists. That worked for Eykit, since he wanted to target the creature’s legs anyway. He stabbed his rondels into the creature’s calves, one from either side. Both knives stabbed into the legs, and neither were deflected by the invisible shield. The knife sliced through the muscle fibers, which waved about like they had a mind of their own, but it didn’t help; the left leg could no longer support its weight, and it fell over.

Almë clambered up onto Taid’s shoulders. Elitheris saw that her target had dropped behind the couch. She looked around, surveying the salon/battlefield. She found the tall Elf on the short Dwarf’s shoulders rather amusing, but didn’t laugh out loud. She did smirk, though. She heard something above her head, sounding like metal tapping on stone.

Nori used the sofa as a stepping stone to leap over the back and onto the downed foe on the other side. He came down with his forepaws onto the creature’s stomach, biting at its leg.

Ruby cast the spell of Flaming Armor on Eykit again, shouting, “Eykit, you’ll be on fire again!”

Eykit appreciated the heads-up as he was again engulfed in flames that he couldn’t feel. This time he stayed on fire, instead of having it discharge, since he wasn’t grappling his enemy.

The downed creature, pinned under a 90kg mastiff, struck at the dog with its fists, getting a strong hit to Norolind’s foreleg.

Eykit, aflame, stepped to one side to avoid Nori, then simply fell onto it, grappling its head. That caused the Flaming Armor spell to suddenly discharge, crisping the thing’s head. It screamed, but it was still a threat.

Almë was perched on Taid’s shoulders, and he readied his staff. “Giddy up!” he said.

Taid, weighed down by a tall Elf, squatted down to grab Maggie. He didn’t want to leave her behind.

Nori continued to chew on the thing’s leg.

Ruby, reeling from the exhaustion caused by her spellcasting, channeled some of the stored mana in her staff back into herself. Her labored breathing became much more calm and quiet.

The creature clawed at Eykit’s face, and while Eykit tried to avoid the scrabbling claws, one did manage to cause a slight scratch. His enchanted armor saved his face. [9]

Something slammed into Elitheris’ shoulders, pushing her to the ground. Something raked the back of her head, twice. The first one cut through the gambeson helmet, slicing into her scalp. It bled, but it was a minor wound. The second slash she felt, but it didn’t seem to hurt. Then she felt a sharp prick on the back of her neck, beneath the helmet but above the collar of her gambeson jacket. Then the weight on her back disappeared. She couldn’t see what it was.

Eykit stabbed into the creature’s face with both knives. One came in straight down, the other came in from the side. The first one he felt the tip shudder a bit, but not enough to deflect the attack. The second one came in smoothly. Both daggers cut into the flesh of the creature’s face, but it wasn’t enough to get it to stop attacking.

Almë heard Elitheris cry out, and looked around, seeing her prone, on the ground. He didn’t see why she was on the ground, however.

Taid turned, looking back towards Elitheris, looking for whatever had dropped her. He couldn’t see anything either.

Mister Wiggles, in a defensive, territorial stance at Elitheris’s side, was growling, his head snapping first in one direction, then the other, looking for whatever had attacked his Elf companion.

Norolind tried to bite the undead thing, but it put its arm up under the dog’s neck, and the huge mastiff couldn’t get a purchase on anything.

Ruby moved towards the fallen undead, staff ready to strike. As she got close, she swung, connecting with its chin. The crack of the staff on its bony jaw snapped its head back, bouncing it off of the marble floor tile. It ceased movement, going as limp as a Sharded dead could. It was inert; the ropy flesh still squirming like drunk worms.

The last visible foe was down, finally killed. There didn’t seem to be any other combatant.

Elitheris stood, although she seemed to be having trouble with coordination. She seemed a bit shaky.

There was something still out there, though. Waiting for them.

Elitheris looked around, and said, “There is something upstairs. I heard something.” She rubbed the back of her head, feeling the torn up gambeson fabric.

“Oh?” Taid said.

“Yeah. It attacked me.”

“Are you injured?”

Elitheris felt the wound; her gloved hand had blood on it. “A minor cut, I think.”

“There is blood on the back of your neck, too,” Taid noted. “How do you feel? You seem a bit wobbly.”

“Having some trouble with dizziness. Or the shakes. Or something.”

“Have you been poisoned?”

“Possibly.”

Something struck Taid’s arm. His enchanted gambeson armor absorbed the damage, but he felt it.

“We shouldn’t stay out here in the open,” Almë said, looking around, wary for whatever had attacked Elitheris. “This position isn’t very defensible. Upstairs, or the library would be better.”

“It’s like we’re battling a ghost or something,” Eykit said.

“There’s two doors in the library,” Taid said, “I noticed that when I was in there. So we’d still have two points to protect. The privy is too small to fit us, so I think maybe the ramp. That gives us plenty of room to move, and we won’t get boxed in.”

“Yep,” Almë said, starting to move. “Let’s go to the ramp.”

They gathered together, making their way towards the ramp that spiraled up to the second floor, trying to watch in all directions as they did so. Whatever it was seemed to be invisible, but maybe they could catch a telltale sign of it before it attacked again. At least, they hoped so.

Mister Wiggles yelped. He stumbled around a little bit, then flopped over, before getting back up again. He whined, confused and disoriented. His legs shook, but supported him. Elitheris had a pair of arrows nocked on the bowstring, ready to draw and release as soon as she found a target. If, as she thought likely, Mister Wiggles had been hit by the same thing she had, she knew he was feeling uncoordinated and woozy. And the sooner they could get to a more defensible position the better. “Come,” she commanded to him, and he stepped closer to her heels. His movements almost made him seem drunk.

They moved into the shelter of the spiral ramp that led to the second floor. Now they could only be attacked from downslope, or upslope. The ceiling was only two and a half meters tall, so nothing could really get them from directly above, either.

But they weren’t being attacked at the moment, so Taid took the time to cast a healing spell on Norolind, who was hobbling along on three legs. The torn muscle wasn’t completely healed, but Nori could at least use the leg again. There was still a bit of a limp, but it didn’t slow him down too much.

Taid moved to the bottom of the ramp, acting as rearguard. Almë’s feet became unstuck, and he slid off of Taid’s shoulders, moving up to guard from attacks from the top of the ramp. Elitheris’s sense of balance had come back as well. Whatever the toxin injected into her did, it didn’t seem to last too long. Mister Wiggles, however, still seemed to be under its effects.

“Come on,” Almë urged.

“Shouldn’t we rest a bit?” Taid asked.

“What, and give them more time to prepare? No. I don’t like that.”

“Well, let’s just go upstairs, then. Lead the way.”

They went up the spiral ramp, two and a half full turns before emerging onto a hallway. It matched the one the floor below; same width, same position relative to the rest of the manor house. They could see the balcony overlooking the salon, and the row of windows. In the meager light provided by those windows, they could see that the hallway turned ninety degrees at both ends.

Almë peeked out from the ramp way, checking both directions. He didn’t see any foes, just the hallway, and some doors. “Should we go left? Yeah, we should go left. We want to go left.” And he went to the left, walking past the balcony towards the door just past another ramp, straight this time, that went down. As he passed it, he could see, dimly in the darkness, what appeared to be a table and chairs. Elitheris followed the other Elf; Taid was acting as rear guard, which was usually her position. She felt sort of strange being close to the front. Eykit, Ruby, and Norolind followed, and Mister Wiggles was tagging along just ahead of Taid. Both dogs were sniffing, and growling. There was still the invisible thing somewhere. They could smell it, but they couldn’t locate it. Elitheris looked back, worried about her dog. He was still a little wobbly on his feet; whatever had hit her had gotten the dog worse. Her debilitation had worn off within a couple of minutes, his was still going. She hoped he would recover soon.

Taid heard something behind him that sounded like metal being tapped on stone. He spun about, Maggie at the ready, but saw nothing in the dim hallway. They were abreast of the windows, so the dark part of the hallway seemed darker still. “Heard a noise,” he said to the others.

Almë had his hand on the door handle, just about to open it, when he heard Taid’s warning. He stopped, looking back towards the Dwarf. He didn’t see anything, but there were several bodies between him and the end of the hallway anyway.

“I heard something behind us: metal on stone,” Taid elaborated.

“What noise?” Almë asked in a whisper.

“I don’t know,” Taid replied, with an exasperated tone. He held his halberd out, waving it back and forth. If there was something there, in range, he’d at least bump up against it. At least he’d have an idea of where it was. So far, though, Maggie swung only through empty air. As far as he could tell, the sound had come from the Grand Salon somewhere.

Almë didn’t like the noise. It worried him. He opened the door. It looked like a bedroom, for two people. Two beds, two chests, two desks with chairs. The beds were neatly made. Besides the furniture, there was nothing else in the room. It wasn’t luxurious, unlike the furnishings in the more public areas of the manor. The room looked like it was for staff, furnished in a utilitarian fashion, although the bedspreads looked very nice. Almë shrugged, and quietly closed the door.

The rest of the group moved closer to Almë. The Elf looked around the corner. The hallway had a bunch of doors, about a dozen. “I’m thinking this is the staff area on this side,” he said. “I say we go around this corner and check only a single room to make sure this is the staff wing. And then go to the door at the end.”

“For all we know, these could be guest quarters, too,” Elitheris said.

“Yeah, something like that,” Almë agreed.

Almë opened the closest of the doors in the hallway. Inside were five beds, each with a small dresser. It looked very much like a communal dormitory room.

Taid was looking down the ramp. “We aren’t going down this ramp, right? You want to go all the way down the hallway to the other end?”

“Yes,” Almë answered.

“All right, let’s do it.”

They moved down the hallway, passing a myriad of doors, headed for the one at the end of the hall. Almë opened the door. It was a sitting room, simply a comfortable room to just sit and talk, read, or just unwind. There was a fireplace in one corner, and a bar cart, with some bottles of alcohol, some bar tools, and some glasses. There were a pair of sofas, facing each other across a coffee table. They were smaller than the ones in the Grand Salon. In one corner were a pair of comfortable chairs with ottomans. The floor was marble tile, but there was an area rug that filled most of the room, done in reds, oranges, yellows, black, and green. The walls were painted plaster, so that the room looked like it was in the middle of a series of fanciful caverns, all done like tromp l'oleil. There were several kinds of mushrooms, and there were a few cave animals hidden in the fungal growths here and there. The ceiling was a nice two and half meters tall, plenty of space for Dwarves, although Almë could reach up and touch the ceiling. Taid would have trouble with his halberd in there. The room was dark, although there were oil sconce lamps on the walls. They were unlit. The only light source was Ruby’s coin. Her companions’ bodies sent dancing shadows that obscured parts of the room as they moved about. [10]

The room was just furniture. They turned around, and went back down the hallway, turned the corner, and went past the windows and the balcony. They walked past the straight ramp, and the spiral ramp. Taid checked the door on the right, at the end of the corridor. He expected it to be a privy, as the room directly below it was one. He wasn’t disappointed. He didn’t do much besides peek in. [11]

  Something pierced Almë’s gambeson near the back of his neck. “Ow!” he yelled. He felt a bit woozy and unsteady. But nothing he couldn’t handle.

The group crowded forward, farther into the hallway, away from the open Grand Salon, which seemed to have something in it that kept attacking them.

“I stand by my first statement about this place,” Almë muttered. “Let’s burn the whole place down.”

“So, what is that thing that’s flying around?” Taid asked. “We need to figure it out.”

“No,” Almë countered.

Taid looked at him askance, but shrugged. “We keep getting attacked, and it seems to have some kind of poison. But fine.”

“The reason why I don’t want to try to figure out what it is is that we have no tools to do it,” Almë explained. “I don’t know of any tool to figure it out. If you’ve got an idea, yeah, make a suggestion. But I don’t know any, so I don’t know what we can do.”

“He’s got a point,” Elitheris said.

“Yeah,” Taid said, resigned.

Taid opened the door closest to the privy. It was a bedroom, designed for two people, and decently large at four meters by six meters. A large bed, two dressers, a table, and a chair. The appointments were pretty luxurious; definitely not a room for staff. They noticed that the furnishings weren’t personalized; it seemed as personal as a hotel room. They checked the first door on the other side of the hallway. It too was a bedroom. Again, luxury furnishings, but instead of a single chair at a desk, it had a round table with four chairs around it, and was larger at five meters by six meters. There were wall hangings as well, which made this room feel more luxurious than the room across the hall. The bed, like the other room, was made. It looked ready for guests. Or like it had been cleaned up and made ready, and then sealed away. They moved on up the corridor, peeking into the rooms as they went. They were all bedrooms like the first two. There were four of the larger rooms, and six of the smaller ones. This wing of the manor could house up to two dozen guests simultaneously in relative luxury.

There were also a pair of privies at the end of the hall, one on each side. Soon, only the door at the end of the hall remained.

Taid opened the door. It was a game room. There was a billiards table, and a large cards table with eight chairs around it. The billiard table had a rack for the billiard cues and balls, and the card table had a cabinet set nearby. There was a bar cart in here as well, like in the sitting room. The floor was hardwood, rather than the ubiquitous marble tile. There was wood paneling up to the chair rail. Above the chair rail the wall was rosy marble, and the ceiling was white marble with violet traceries. There were no billiard balls on the table, or cards on the card table. Everything had been put away.

They left, moving back down the hallway. It was time, finally, to go down the straight ramp, to see where it led. When Taid was almost at the corner, he suddenly got an itch between his shoulderblades. It was maddening; he couldn’t scratch it, and it wasn’t going away like a normal itch. It just kept going, and didn’t feel like a normal itch at all.

Then something made his hand spasm open, and Maggie dropped to the floor with a clang.

“Fuck!” Taid said. “What the fuck was that?” He bent down and picked up Maggie. He held the polearm in both hands. He still felt the itch. It wasn’t going away.

“If this is as high as we go,” Elitheris said, “then the only thing to do is go down. This place has got to have a basement or some shit like a hidden cavern or something.” Eykit remembered something he’d read in one of Kallia’s letters they had found. In it, she had joked about being able to see Donnington from her porch. This manor was on the far side of a mountain from Donnington’s direction. “Guys?” he said. “This may not be Kallia’s place. It’s facing the wrong way.”

“Huh,” Taid mused. “It could be Lennerd’s, though.”

“Maybe. He definitely wants a piece of us.”

“I want to get this guy out of the picture. I want to get all of the information out of the place.”

“I wonder if there are more letters here somewhere?” Eykit asked.

“No,” Almë said, shaking his head. “It’s not his place. Not his place. I don’t think so.”

“We’ll take it over anyways,” Taid said. “I could use a good Dwarfchat manor.”

“Chances are quite high that we just killed the owner, right? The woman part of that thing?”

“You think she somehow became like that? Could be why no one’s seen her in a while. Because Lennerd turned her into a twin person thing.”

“Probably Kallia, or Lennerd, I suppose. Probably.”

“Lennerd was able to make those Sharded zombies as well,” Elitheris said.

“So, maybe Lennerd. Maybe you’re right.” Almë still thought it was Kallia, and not Lennerd. He didn’t have much respect for Lennerd.

“Too bad we didn’t say ‘Hannar?’ to the woman half of the thing,” Taid said, “to see if there was any emotional reaction. It this is Hannar’s place, and we killed her, then we definitely take this place over. I’m going to tell them that this is the second time Taid has rid the area of an evil being, and this time I’m getting rewarded, bitches! We’re getting another manor…in Dwarfchat. Hell yeah!”