Soromir's Journal Entry #29

After making it through the valley that is a mass grave from the Gods-Slayer War, we began our trek up the mountain pass. In the distance we spotted some wiverns and were approached by a wivern and its rider. The rider was covered in scales, and it looked almost dragon-like. The rider was also dumb as hell. He considered us an invader but didn't attack. Also, his kind didn't know the dome had fallen and seemed inclined to remain in the ignorance that the dome HADN'T fallen.

Close to where we encountered the dragon-man the mountain path forked; one path led up and toward the wiverns and dragon people and the other path led down and into a mine. We chose the mine. As we came to the entrance to the mine, the arch of the mine entrance had ancient dwarven script etched in. While I couldn't interpret it, I knew that it was dwarven.

As we ventured into the mine, it quickly became obvious that the darkness in this mine wasn't natural. Where we would normally get ample light from torches and light spells, the luminesence had been reduced to about 15'. Khalo's dark vision was also failing him. as with most tunnels and mines we've encountered so far, there were various rooms off the main tunnel shaft. One room that Khalo and Tamlin went into was strewn and the floor covered with very, very old clothing from women and girls. I will assume these were dwarven women and girls. Oddly though, there were no skeletons or corpses to be found in this room. It looked as though the people had just disappeared.

The room opposite, Zane and I went into. This room was rather plain except for what appeared to be some odd looking water moving at the back edge of the room. Looking back on it, the skittering and clacking sound I heard should have been enough to tell me it wasn't water. Zane stuck his short sword in and was immediately set upon by a flesh-eating beetle. The beetle attacked in such a way that it looked like it was peeling away the flesh on Zane's arm. We beat it off and then fled the room as it looked like the beetles were massing and coming for us. We told Khalo this and he stone-shaped the entrance to that room and probably saved our lives in doing so.

At some point, I'm not sure when (after the encounter or before, more on the encounter will be described below) we came to a larger a room and from the ceiling we could see what appeared to be flat cages with piles of something below them. We were able to see what was in the cages. Dwarves had been hung upside down in the cages, and flayed (likely alive). The piles below each cage was their skin.

Sufficiently creeped the fuck out but not enough to inspire us to turn tail and run, we move forward through the room. As we exit the room, we notice a black flame approaching us. This would be the start of the encounter I referenced above. It's a black flame because I have no other way to describe it; a black flame that gives off a purple light. As it got closer, the flame was on a white candle. And it was being held by an undead dwarf male. The undead dwarf male had a look of sheer agony and torture on its face and it was also dragging six corpses behind it. The corpses were being dragged via rope tied to I-bolts that had been sunk into the body of the undead dwarf. Luckily those corpses were lifeless. However, I can't help but assume that the corpses being dragged were the corpses of the dwarf's family. We battled the corpse and defeated it but not before being attacked by the missles that were the family, lobbed by the dead dwarf. The dwarf dropped the candle when it died again, but the candle didn't go out. After some thought, we were able to identify it as a "Candle of Darkness" and after some further consideration, we determined that Osbert would be familiar in how these candles are made.

Interestingly enough, our two fearless friends, Osbert and Orrenthal, decided to wait outside the mine discussing the merits of who gives a fuck while Khalo, Zane, Tamlin, Norris, and I pursued glory.

I hope there is some mithril in this mine.