I was relaxing in Red Larch with my new found companions celebrating my heroic deeds in defeating the Necromancer of Lance Rock, regaling the locals with tales of derring-do and toying gently with some carbonised lamb, when suddenly a hue and cry went up from outside in the street.  Arielle, who had been deep in conversation with Thorg, having discovered a common interest in geology and speleology, cried out in horror, for she had forseen from the local morphology that the area might be subject to sinkholes.  When we emerged into the sunlight, we saw that Arielle’s fears for the local subsoil was justified, for there was a large sinkhole that had opened in the road near the crossroads.  I boldly led my companions forward, for a large crowd had gathered around the hole, with some village elders attempting to hold people back.  The villagers were distressed however for several children had fallen into the sinkhole, although fortunately they appeared to be unharmed, and standing on a pile of earth in the centre of the hole.  There appeared to be large chamber below that the sinkhole had opened into, so I retired to a nearby unoccupied doorstep and sat down in order to project my senses into those of Blinky my familiar.  We swooped down through the hole and around the chamber.  It appeared unoccupied although there was a door on the eastern wall and a corridor exiting to the north.  The chamber itself was roughly finished and of exceptionally large size.  I am no expert in such matters, unlike Thorg, but I am surprised that the village is still standing at all with a void of such size under it.

Returning from my trance, I heard the village elders continuing to warn the others to stay away from the hole and muttering about not disturbing the ‘delvers’ whoever they might be.  They were attempting to reassure the village that the children were unharmed and could easily wait for a while to be rescued.  The rest of the crowd did not seem to accept this advice however, and rope was rapidly thrust into our hands.  We quickly belayed it off on Thorg, whose low height and large waist eminently qualified him for the role of bollard.  The children were quickly rescued, to the relief and acclamation of the crowd.  Questioning of the elders about these ‘delvers’ provided no information, just mumbling and refusals, so we decided rapidly to investigate the hole below, even though the elders forbade it.  It seems that this village is not entirely in favour of gerontocracy.  We climbed down the rope and investigated the room.

The room itself was full of strange buffeting drafts and gusts of wind.  The door to the east turned out to be of stone, and Thorg ascertained that it slid to one side.  On the floor in front of it were two used robes and a half empty waterskin.  From behind the door we could hear the noise to birds chirping and singing.  We decided instead to investigate the corridor to the north.  This was a roughly formed corridor that sloped upwards and then came to a wooden door, sloped back between floor and ceiling.  We opened this, and discovered that the corridor continued, but lit by daylight, as it soon opened out above ground.  I snuck forward and discovered that it opened out in a discrete and hidden corner of the town quarry.  Methinks that Madame Mellikho does indeed have something to hide from us.

We returned, unseen due to my outstanding powers of concealment, to the first chamber, and opened the stone door to the east.  Beyond was a straight and well made corridor, sloping downwards initially and then flattening out.  Where it flattened out stood two large statues of dwarves with axes and shields, facing one another with their backs to the walls.  Blinky flew beyond to the far end and I saw with her own eyes that there was another stone door at the far end.  The ceiling of that far part was also strange, as it was made of an iron framework with ten-foot square panels of stone within them.  My experienced senses and rational sense of survival that only fools would call paranoia suggested to me that this might a trap.

Examining the statues, we decided that they did not appears to be traps themselves, but instead rather ornate doors that slid to one side.  There are advantages to having a dwarf around with his knowledge of stonework, as well as disadvantages.  We slid the northern dwarf to one side (a sentence one rarely writes), and saw a corridor beyond.  This ran north then east for a while, before opening into a chamber.  Blinky, scouting ahead, came back and reported that there were some people lying in it, and some rats.  The smell suggested that the people lying down were probably dead.  We advanced into the chamber, and were attacked by the rats; fortunately on this occasion, the dead did not rise but stayed conventionally motionless.  My companions made short work of the rats, and so I continued to scout down the corridor beyond.  They examined the bodies – they had been knifed to death it appeared, and each of them had a strange rune carved into their forehead, deep enough to have cut into the bone.  The corridor beyond opened into another chamber, this time we a black rock floating in the centre of it.  This seemed very curious behaviour for a rock – even Thorg was surprised, although he managed to restrain his emotion to just a brief flicker of his right eyebrow.  Investigation revealed that there was a column in the centre of the room that held anything placed in that area aloft and prevented it falling, although did not prevent us from moving things what were floating.  The amusement value of this started to pale after a while, even for Thorg, so we continued once again.

The corridor beyond opened out into a much larger chamber, more of a size with that by which we had first entered the labyrinth.  The centre was dominated by a life-sized stone statue of a dwarf, again with axe.  The statue appeared broken and repaired, and was supported by a wooden frame.  Around it was a circle of pebbles, within which were some coins and gems, and an ornate dagger.  As we circled to the front of the statue, we saw that the frame had some writing on it saying ‘Petrified iron(?) dwarf, found broken in Red Larch West Quarrel DR 1556’.  As we were pondering upon this strange label, and the idea of an underground museum in a village like Red Larch, and why anyone would collect broken petrified dwarfs, the previously unmentioned in this account door on the east wall (there was also one on the west wall) slid open and three men rushed in, in feather masks and with the same strange rune heretofore mentioned emblazoned on their leather armour.  They were brandishing scimitars in a manner which implied that they were not soliciting donations for good causes or inviting us for a cup of tea, and the leader shouted something in a rather cliched evil-villain manner.  We drew our weapons in return and Sorrel, in a rather surprising move, suddenly turned into a brown bear, although our surprise at this was as nothing compared to that of the villains.  Despite this, three more of them piled in and joined the fray, although two did so by shooting from beside the door.  The distance did not help them because bears are quite fast across the ground, so they rapidly found themselves up close and personal with Sorrel.  The fight was quickly over.  During it, one of the villains had crossed the line of pebbles, so we assumed that it was safe to do so, and recovered some gems, gold and silver pieces and the rather nice dagger, which I tucked into my sash for safe keeping.  We also tied up the last fanatic, whom Arielle had knocked unconscious with her staff.

The door through which they had come proved to open into another corridor, with a door at the far end and an old man sitting on a stool in front of it whittling on some wood.  He appeared not to have heard the fight, and was obviously scared to see us, partially because we were armed and bloody, and possibly also because we were accompanied by a brown bear.  We questioned him, which was rather strange, and he assured us that he knew little of what was happening, save that Larrakh was beyond the door, and that he was a wise and powerful man who led the Howling Hatred, as the acolytes we had just slaughtered were called.  The room beyond was the abode/tomb of the delvers which we had heard mentioned above.  The Hatred used these tunnels – he was unsure of their relationship with the delvers.  He did know that Larrakh had great control of the spirits of the air.  It was since he had come that the birds had gathered and the strange gusts of wind appeared.

We decided to tie this irritating old man up, but as we moved to do so, he shouted a brief warning before we could restrain him.  Irritated we bound him tighter and burst into the room beyond.  This was another large, although higher ceilinged chamber.  There were a number of strange edifices on the walls, and in the centre various monoliths and triliths, some standing and some fallen on the floor.  It was lit by a single lantern on the floor in the centre,  I advanced into the room,  keeping to the side walls, to scan for Severin or any of his allies.  Fayabelle dashed in to take cover behind one of the monoliths.  Arielle ran over the other side and took cover behind some monoliths there.  It was only as Thorg stomped into the room directly towards the lantern in the centre that a figure appeared from behind another monolith on the far side of the room, muttering an incantation, which seemed to have little effect.  Sorrel bounded into the room in bear form and launched herself across the fallen monoliths towards the lone cultist.  I whipped out my wand and used three charges to power a flight of five missiles towards him, but he spoke another incantations and the missiles flamed out before they reached him.  Fayabelle shot him with an arrow, but that too bounced off before it hit him, and Arielle’s attacked were similarly ineffective, as was Thorg’s axe.  He then waved his arms again and a great gust of wind blew forth from him,. rocking Arielle and Thorg on their feet.  Sorrel as a bear tried to grapple him to the ground, but he writhed out of her grasp.  I again used my wand, and again the missiles were stopped by an invisible barrier.  This time though, Fayabelle’s arrow struck true.  Arielle kept her footing to whack him with her staff, and the blast of wind stopped as he reeled back.  Thorg then stepped forward to deliver the death blow.  Larrakh collapsed and melodramatically muttered ‘Aerisi’ as he breathed his last.