The walk back was quiet, most of the group wasn’t wanting to ask questions to Blut and Krimson about where they had been. They decided to take the long way back, walking through the streets passing by groups of well dressed nobles, while walking a few of the conversations can be heard by the group,
“Have you heard of that Teardrop gang?”
The whispers seemed incredibly nervous, out of pure fear.
“What if they attack the rest of the city?”
Another voice asked. In a more fearful tone,
“Have you heard that those that work in the farms are becoming restless?”
These questions caused the group to walk faster, and they more quickly reached the school.
Walking down the staircase filled Frey with a familiar sense of ecstasy; opening the door revealed that Oltrox was reading one of his books, Boot stood next to him and she turned around on a dime as soon as the door left its original position. She screamed out, “Hey guys!”
This oh so familiar sight was just like when they first entered the academy, Boot walked up and her eyes were caught on the container that Frey was holding,
“Oooh what's that?”
Frey held it up, with a sense of pride in his voice he said,
“Well this is the mission that Oltrox sent us on.”
Oltrox smiled and floated over, he began to examine the container and the chalice that was within it. However as his many eyes looked over the treasure that he had yearned for, they eventually caught sight of a ring that Frey had adorned to his right ring finger. 159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy8NLXuCVfh
Oltrox’s full attention was now on this ring, and his excited, almost childlike glee turned to a look of sadness, almost anger. Frey noticed this and began to sweat furiously, he attempted to hand Oltrox the container, which he took. Oltrox quickly hovered the container over towards his desk, placing it down with almost no care, before turning his attention back over to Frey;
“Hey, Frey, that ring of yours. Where did you obtain it?”
Freys’ pride that he had just held so high quickly shattered into thousands of tiny pieces across the floor. Oltrox closely inspected the ring,
“I must ask that you remove it immediately.”
Frey had a look of mortification spread across his entire face at this point, he began taking steps back, away from Oltrox.
“Frey just take off the damned ring so we can get moving towards our next objective.”
S’kelt said, obviously irritated. Frey looked at S’kelt with a look of pure anger, and then back at Oltrox. What was once a man who was generally rather kindhearted he now seemed to be in a state of deep sorrow and anger. Frey slowly looked down towards the ring on his finger, he slowly reached for it and began to remove it; as it was slowly pulled from his finger the intense stare from Oltrox only worsened. Frey sighed as it reached the edge of his finger, and it was pulled fully off, he began to glow.
Frey’s body fully glowed, and his form went from that of a human into what appeared to be a glowing ball of light, and then quickly transformed into a blue, scaly beholder that was staring directly back at Oltrox, being only slightly smaller than him. The room went silent, everyone taking in the situation. Oltrox began to tear up,
“Son, Kraexon. You’re back!”
Frey began to roll his large eye, and said
“I told you not to call me that anymore.”
He floated the ring back over to one of his eyestalks, upon sliding over he turned back into the familiar Tiefling form. The party still stood mostly in shock, S’kelt let out a chuckle, “Well I guess we’re all full of surprises.”
Krimson retorted,
“I certainly wasn’t expecting that.”
Blut shook his head as Krimson was talking,
“I suspected something was up with him. He always seemed nervous when he was around Oltrox.”
The others nodded in agreement and Frey walked over towards them,
“Come on guys, we need to be on our way.”
Frey began walking back towards the exit, and was obviously very flustered. S’kelt rose his voice,
“Where do you plan on going? We haven’t even received our next assignment yet.”
Oltrox spoke up,
“Don’t worry you all have received your three points for this.”
EJ spoke out,
“Why three? We’ve only completed a single mission.”
Oltrox went on to tell them about how he was contacted regarding their little tussle with the gang members. Their group was now tied for third place. They were then quickly assigned their next mission; since this was their first real mission they would be teleported about fifty miles southeast of the capital and would need to investigate the mine that had recently gone inactive. They would be allowed to teleport back using a bead of recall, which would immediately transport them back to the main room, but they would only receive points if they found out the issues in the mine.
The party decided to not rest, and to head out to the area immediately. Oltrox wished them the best of luck, and they were teleported. After the teleportation process concluded they were standing alone in an outcropping; there were a few wagons nearby, and the entrance to what seemed to be a cave, but it looked to be blocked by some rocks. The group quickly began to investigate, Boot pulled out a small urn, filled to the brim with some kind of green moss. She began to burn it and pray to her goddess, Sunne. Blut walked to one of the wagons with S’kelt, inside of it revealed nothing but looted crates, Blut kneeled to investigate the crates for any possible trace of what could’ve looted them. As he was doing so something quickly jumped out from a closed crate, and attempted to stab him, however an invisible force that was commanded by S’kelt grabbed at it by the throat, revealing it to be a Kobold, a small lizard-like race. It spat every obscenity it could think of at S’kelt who responded swiftly by breaking its neck with whatever was holding it in the air. Frey ran in,
“Are you both alright?”
Blut turned and nodded his head in assurance before tossing over a torn piece of paper, it had writing that was expertly written out with a quill and ink it read,
“You all have orders from Zarmal, we believe that there are deposits of that strange metal that this world is so enamored with. Please see to it you don’t fail him-Sc’tear”
Frey read it over, and then handed it to S’kelt who did the same. Blut looked at them,
“Looks like these Kobolds aren’t working alone.”
They both nodded in agreement and made their way out of the caravan. Krimson and EJ were looking whimsically at Boot who remained with her hands tightly intertwined with one another and eyes closed. She looked up as Frey and the others returned, she gave a sly grin and picked the urn up carefully,
“The goddess Sunne has answered my prayers!”
She calmly walked over towards the cave wall and held the urn up in the air. EJ looked on in confusion,
“Is your goddess supposed to blow the wall open or something?”
Boot turned back with a grin of pure insanity on her face,
“Ohhh I guess you could say that.”
She then stepped back and threw the urn full force at the caved in wall, causing an explosion.
She jumped away from the wall as the rocks shattered away, the rest of them looked on in awe. Frey asked,
“Was that just an excuse to use an explosive?”
Boot quickly responded,
“That was just an excuse to use an explosive…”
He sighed and they started their trek into the cave. It wasn’t small or cramped, it was a large open cave, the stalactites that hung from the ceiling constantly dripping cold water down upon their heads. Blut began walking faster,
“I’ll scout out ahead.”
He said and began to run deeper into the cave's gaping mouth, disappearing into the darkness. S’kelt walked forward,
“I’ll take the lead.”
Frey stepped forward as if to show his disagreement but almost as quickly took a step back, and looked away from him. The cave had a general layout that they followed, it looked as if minecarts would go down the length of the cave, and every one-hundred feet or so the cave would have off shoots into random directions, probably from some sort of mining trick. It was moist, and cold. Boot had been holding her hand up, keeping a constant flame up through prestidigitation, the party attempted to keep close to this as to stay in the light and as to not separate themselves from one another. After approximately twenty minutes of walking in what seemed like a straight line going deeper and deeper underground Blut returned,
“It drops.”
was all he said. The rest of them continued to stare with a look of want on their faces, as if to ask, is there anything else? Blut however said nothing else, leaving Boot to respond,
“Are you saying it just drops down like a fucking sinkhole?”
Blut gave another nod that was followed with some words of explanation,
“Yeah it looks like they decided to just blow the damn thing down with dynamite.”
He led them forward, and S’kelt brought up a very important question
“How exactly do you expect us to get down there?”
Blut gave a sigh of defeat,
“Quite frankly I’m not even sure how far down of a drop it would be.”
As they reached the drop it finally set in just how big of a hole this was, it was at least fifty feet from the side that they were standing on from the other edge, and there was no telling how far of a drop it would be down. Krimson pulled out a piece of wood from his bag and lit it ablaze, then tossed it down the chasm that was stopping them from going any further. The darkness of the hole swallowed the bright light almost instantly, as it traveled deeper and deeper into the abyss. Frey gave a groan,
“Well I guess it’ll take a minute to get down there.”
He spoke in a defeated tone, S’kelt was having none of it though and gave a harsh response, “Well you’re the beholder, why don’t you just burrow your way down there?”
Frey, upset by this remark, responded with an almost explosive voice,
“That’s not how that works! Don’t act like you know me S’kelt.”
EJ placed a finger on Frey’s chest and yelled at him,
“Hey you’re the one that ran away from your dad and didn’t expect to get caught.”
At this point the entire party began to argue with one another, a sentiment that caused annoyance within Blut, and Krimson.
“Guys, just shut the hell up. Us arguing won’t get us down there any faster.”
Everyone was surprised, in their eyes Krimson had never even gotten mad before, of course he acted annoyed back at the party, but that was far different from his current attitude. He took a moment to calm down, and at the same time Blut began pulling rope out of his adventurer’s bag.
“Anyone else who has rope needs to give it to me, I have a plan.”
EJ and Krimson both compiled their rope together, creating an almost four hundred foot long rope. S’kelt helped Blut hammer it into the wall, and then threw the rope outwards, allowing it to come undone and fall completely into darkness.
“Well there’s only one way to go from here!”
Boot said, in a cheerful tone.
Everyone began to shimmy down the rope, enclosing themselves within the darkness. Around the three minute mark of climbing down, EJ asked a question,
“Wait, should we have all climbed down at once?”
Everything went silent, and everyone stopped moving.
“I suppose that was something I should have thought of…”
Blut said in a slightly worried voice. Yet he continued to climb down the rope, which caused everyone else to follow. They made it to the bottom after what felt like hours of climbing. They stood in what looked like a large circular room; all sides of the room were made out of the same rock that lined the rest of the cavern, all but one wall that is. On the west side of the room there was what looked like an archway shaped piece of light gold yellow, it looked to be the same metal that housed Oltroxs’ goblet that they had just collected. S’kelt walked over to the wall, and gave it a light knock, the sound echoed throughout the cave.
“Now that is not a metal that I’m familiar with.”
He looked over at the others, expecting some sort of answer from one of them.
“Don’t look at us, we don’t know what it is either.”
EJ said in a defensive tone. Boot walked up next to S’kelt and attempted to claw at the door; as her claw scratched down the door's length it made no scar markings that metal would usually gain. She gave an annoyed frown.
“What the hell kind of metal is this?”
S’kelt gave a devious grin, and then knocked on the door,
“I’m not entirely sure, but it’s strong, that's for sure.”
Everyone walked towards the door and Blut began to closely examine it; he pulled out some sort of tool with a gem embedded in it, and began to cast what looked to be a scorching ray into the door. It did nothing.
It was becoming more and more obvious that brute force wouldn’t be getting them through this door; Krimson walked away from the door and looked around.
“Wait a second! Can anyone sense the arcana around us?”
Boot gave a fast nod of the head and then closed her eyes, and began to move her hand around.
“It feels like all of the mana that flows through this room meets in its epicenter.”
Blut walked to the center, and reached his hand down, placing it on the stone floor.
“S’kelt I need you to use that power of yours to destroy the floor.”
He complied and walked over, standing directly next to the center of the room and pointed down, after mere moments the floor shattered and revealed some kind of strange control panel. Blut gave a cocky smile and began to tamper with it. EJ spoke up in confusion,
“What the hell kind of technology is this? I’ve never seen anything like it in Nyxis.”
Blut was about to speak but Frey was faster,
“Well I've read books about the ancient Dragon empire. They were incredibly advanced. It’s likely that these are ruins of one of their underground cities.”
Blut nodded in agreement and gave his own opinion,
“This is only a couple decades more advanced than the Vedalken society.”
In no time Blut was able to complete the tampering. The Door made an incredibly loud creak sound and then popped open, sliding downwards. Boot turned with a look of awe in her face,
“How did you know to do that!?”
She had an erk of childish excitement in her voice; Blut laughed,
“Well with your help of informing me that there was mana flowing down here I was able to deduce that the door must have either needed a large amount of mana usage to open the door, or by simply overloading it.”159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtz2sLdcS0E
The group walked through the door, the inside was different from the rest of the cave. It was completely metallic, probably steel. Walking through the cold hallway caused a feeling of uneasiness.
“It feels like we’re walking among the dead.”
S’kelt said. His words echoed since there was no response, Krimson held his hand against the wall as he walked,
“I don’t like the feeling that this place exudes.”
The hallway ended with another door, the group all filed through it into a small room where they all needed to stand shoulder to shoulder, or in a double file line. Frey began looking around, and quickly took notice of what looked like small windows on either side of the room going lengthway across the floor, around ankle height. They looked like they had been pushed open, not meant to be there. His eyes widened,
“Guys we need to get out of here!”
Everyone turned around and gave Frey an odd look. He spoke again, with more urgency in his voice,
“This is a trap! Look at the damned vents!”
As the words left his mouth sounds of small feet scurrying became audible on both sides of them. On both sides of the vents various items became visible, rusted spears, and crossbows that had rusted arrows tied to them. Krimson let out a belting scream,
“Damnit he was right. Take cover behind me!”
The small reptilian hands began to thrust their spears into the room, hitting Krimson directly in the legs; he fell to the ground as his shins continued to bleed. S’kelt had a strong sense of worry in his voice, and spoke out to EJ and Frey,
“You two, help me get this door open, now!”
S’kelt and EJ stood next to each other at the door, both pointing fingers at it; in a matter of moments the door earned an exorbitant amount of welts. Frey used his club like a battering ram, slamming the rod directly into the door. Krimson stood there taking rusted spear tips directly into the calves.
“Fuck guys, I need this door open now!”
Boot reacted promptly, pulling out another one of her explosive devices and throwing it directly into the wall, causing it to promptly explode and shards to fly into Frey, S’kelt and EJ.
They all quickly exited the room, on both sides of them kobolds ran out of little hatches on the ground, obviously in an attempt to escape. EJ said
“Not so fast you little lizard rats.”
causing two of them to trip and fall on the ground; S’kelt walked over to the tripped ones and pointed down, causing their heads to be crushed. Four more continued to run down the hallway, Frey reacted quickly taking one out with a wide swing from his causing it to fall prone on the ground, probably causing some form of damage to its brain. Boot and Blut both pulled out one of their ranged weapons; Boot unloaded an arrow into two of them and Blut used his rifle to exterminate the other three.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJCYON6IT4q
The group took a moment to regain their composure, Krimsons legs had been bleeding profusely,
“I’m most definitely contracting some kind of disease after that.”
Boot had begun to cast healing spells on his wounds, closing some of the stab holes. EJ and S’kelt both walked over, with S’kelt being the one to speak out
“What the hell were you thinking?”
She turned around and gave a confused frown,
“What are you talking about?”
EJ now spoke up giving some additional right to S’kelts question,
“Your little trick to get us out of the room almost sent me and S’kelt to hell with the door!”
He scoffed and crossed his arms with a look of scorn splattered all over his face. Boot attempted to defend herself, and tried to think of a usable response, but for the first time Frey was on S’kelts side,
“I agree with them, sure you got us out of the room, but now I have glass shards in my chest.”
Krimson, whose legs were now mostly healed, stood up,
“You all are showing no appreciation, Boot here probably just saved us from the wrath of those damn Kobolds.”
His voice boomed throughout the room, causing EJ to feel intimidated, and Frey to at least look sorry for saying what he did. S’kelt however was sticking to his statement, and placed a hand on EJ’s shoulder in an attempt to steel his resolve,
“While she did get us out of that room, I’m sure EJ and myself would have been able to if we were given just a little more time.”
EJ nodded and S’kelt spoke again,
“Nevertheless, I do appreciate you getting us out, just try less explosive options next time.” EJ nodded and agreed with S’kelt, and Frey apologized. After everyone began to continue down the hallway in front of them, Boot stopped Krimson by grabbing his wrist, and spoke in a thankful tone,
“Thanks for sticking up for me Leo, I really appreciate it.”
Krimson gave a nod with a smile of genuine warmth on his face, and walked forward with the rest of them.
The hallway was all made of the strange metal that the impenetrable door was made of. It was cold and everytime that the party took steps forward the echo of their feet clashing against the metal rang throughout the halls. Frey laughed a bit to himself and spoke to Blut,
“Well screw the stealthy approach am I right?”
Blut turned back to face him and spoke in a more matter of fact tone,
“It’s actually still possible for us to get in covertly. Anyone else down here probably assumes that the door was impenetrable.”
Frey frowned, and continued walking forward.
The hallway ended with a large half circle doorway, Blut gave a quiet shout,
“Wait a moment!”
He ran forward and held his hand up, he then squatted down and crouched through the door. It was like something he had never seen before, the doorway led to a large open room, it was like a small town was built underground with the ceiling's center acting as a large light bulb, giving the town light. Blut looked around for a moment and waved the rest in. S’kelt had a surprised look of awe,
“This is a work of ingenuity!”
Frey gave a nod,
“Well it is rather beautiful.”
They made their way to what looked like a more advanced version of a mining elevator, it took them about a hundred and twenty feet down to the town's floor. Everything was made of the same strange metal, EJ assumed this could be a cause for the region to not look weathered at all. The town's buildings were all abandoned. With no sign of life being anywhere, Frey pushed himself into a house much to the dismay of S’kelt,
“Breaking into a deceased man's house? Abhorrent!”
Boot pushed past him and helped Frey push a door open.
Frey and Boot were the only two that entered and the inside seemed to be abandoned. They both stopped in their tracks, there looked to be a skeleton laying on the floor, it was probably a more reptilian species like a skinny lizard, it was incredibly lanky, so not a kobold, but what else could it be? It was impossible that it was a dragonborn since it was such a lanky skeleton and the bones appeared to be brittle. Frey had read many books back in Oltrox’s dungeon but he had never seen something like this described. They both decided to leave, after Frey wrote down some of its defining details.
“Whoever lived in this town has been dead for a while.”
Boot said this in a sorrowful tone as her and Frey exited the house. The party gave a nod and made their way to the larger building at the town's center.159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9JYGKAnyyE
As they approached the town center, they became more aware of the sound of talking, Blut listened closely,
“It’s Draconic…”
He said. Blut was able to listen and translate the Kobolds words as they spoke them, the Kobolds seemed to be in the towns center roads, as the party was hiding behind a building. “They appeared to have killed some kind of guards.”
Frey gave a bewildered look,
“How the hell are there guards alive?”
Blut responded with nothing more than a shrug and then he quickly popped over and pointed his Big Iron at the two Kobolds that were standing over the soldiers bodies. The Kobolds looked to be holding more of those rusted spears, and also had bolas that were used to trip and restrain the now deceased soldiers.
“Don’t move!”
Blut shouted at them. One Kobold immediately turned to face Blut, dropping his weapons and holding his hands high up in the air; the other Kobold immediately got on all fours and attempted to run, earning one of Boots' crossbow bolts directly in its leg. It fell to the ground, directly outside the large central building's door.
From the building walked out a dragonborn, it wore clothing that was akin to a jester, its scales however were prismatic, and pristine. They glowed like that of a rainbow and it was almost hard to look at directly, they wore a crown that had five chromatic dragon heads sticking out of it, one for each type of dragon. The Dragonborn gave an eerie grin, “Why hello there.”
The Kobold with its hands in the air immediately took to all fours and ran behind the dragonborn. He then leaned down and told a riddle to the kobold that had been shot in the leg,
“Hello my friend, who is it that has a head, and no neck?”
The kobold looked on with a look of yearning, and the dragonborn spoke again,
“A shirt!”
The Kobold began to laugh and its wound healed. The Dragonborn stood back up and opened his arms,
“So our new friends here have yet to be greeted eh?”
Upon uttering this a group of fourteen kobolds ran out of the building, each armed with weapons; they all looked incredibly invigorated, like they were ready to fight the world. Frey walked forward in the attempt to be the diplomat to the situation
“Listen, we just came here in search of some lost miners.”
The Dragonborn looked around,
“Don’t speak to a noble in such a way, I would spit on you, but you’re so filthy that no one would be able to discern any difference.”
Frey felt hurt from this comment, like his mind itself had been insulted. The Dragonborn pushed past the party, using kobolds like a phalanx,
“Your miners were being held inside that building, we’ve obtained the information that we came for so we’ll be leaving.”
They then walked thirty paces away and some kind of spell was cast, immediately teleporting them away.
The party was incredibly confused,
“What kind of information could he have wanted down here?”
Frey asked. EJ responded in a condescending tone, 159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTE3HjNpzDI
“Were you not listening to a word I was saying earlier? This place was home to the ancient dragons-”
Blut finished the sentence,
“-and that dragonborn was wearing a crown that resembled Tiamat…”
Frey was taken aback,
“Tiamat? Like the goddess of chromatic dragons? The one that was imprisoned, in her own circle of hell!?”
EJ nodded, 159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLjALX01oRj
“The very same…”
Boot and Krimson had both entered the building and taken the miners out; they were safe. With their first mission complete the party decided to recall themselves and the miners both out of the mine, they had just uncovered an incredibly strange group…
159Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIz8R4jzeSx
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