Ellu'kha and her group had waltzed straight into the grey dwarves den — housed in an ancient temple devoted to Shar — and convinced them to mutiny against the True Soul Nere.
Once the battle was over, she chopped off his head and brandished it at the mushroom village, not menacingly of course, but in tribute as that is what their sovereign desired.
With the grey dwarves and Nere no longer a threat to the mushroom people, Ellu'kha and her people had an adamantite forge to discover and then... the way to Moonrise Towers.
First, however, in their search for treasure, they got waylaid by a few mimics. Woops.
Back through the ancient temple of Shar, with a bit of fancy footwork and leaping potions while one person navigated an archaic lever system, they made it to the forge.
There were a couple of mithril veins here and there, which was very important as the notes stated that the adamantine was forged from mithril. Before they went to the forge, they would dig up some mithril! It seemed the logical thing to do.
Carefully hot-footing it over the rivers of lava, they were about to jump over to where a few bookshelves stood beside a mithril vein, when flaming magma bats flew out of the lava and took them by surprise.
Thankfully the beasts didn't have much health, but they were strong, very strong, and when they died they exploded in a burst of fire that spread out and burnt Ellu'kha and her people.
When all the magma bats lay dead in their fiery graves, the party grew stronger. Feeling as though they could take on the world, they continued on towards the adamantine forge.
They had picked up several weapon and armour moulds around the forge and had found two mithril deposits. Unless they found more mithril, they could only craft two things.
Ellu'kha thought that a mace and a chestpiece would be the best things to craft.
They placed the mould in the device, they inserted the ore, and once it was all set, they introduced the lava to the forge.
It turned out there wasn't just lava swelling behind the flow gates...
The guardian that had been in the notes suddenly barged out and loomed overhead. Made of pure adamantine, the creation was resistant to everything. They could do no damage to it. They had to think fast.
The creation strode through the lava, softening its shell. It focused on people who dared damage it. The forge hammer could be released...
With the utmost haste and desire to live, they lured the creation into the centre of the forge and released the hammer. It took two great swings of the hammer, but it soon lay dead.
Unfortunately Gale had been the one fixated by the creation as the hammer went down. The hammer hit Gale, too.
They were just about to revivify him with Shadowheart's cleric magic, when Gale took things into his own — ghostly — hands.
He appeared before them — at least, a magical image of him appeared before them — and gave them intricate instructions on how to resurrect him. Ellu'kha waved the apparition away and told Shadowheart to just revive the silly mage. And she did. And Gale was back.
...and was unaware that they didn't use his overly elaborate instructions to perform the resurrection. He was exceptionally happy though, and alive, and that was all that mattered.
With that nonsense out of the way, they returned to the more pressing issue of crafting with this adamantine forge. The mace they crafted was useless, but the armour... it was very nice indeed. If they found more mithril veins, Ellu'kha decided that she would have a couple more armour pieces crafted and everyone could wear it.
They would be as unstoppable as that damnable creation had been.
They didn't find any more mithril veins, but they did find an adamantine chest across the lava... and inside was an amulet.
Taking it carefully in her hands, Ellu'kha investigated the amulet and then felt the sudden urge to laugh. To laugh and laugh. To cry out in hysterics and be one with her mirth forevermore.
With great willpower she forced away the urge to fall into the lava in a wave of hysterics. As the urges slipped away, a ghost manifested from the amulet and congratulated her on her strength. She was the chosen one! She who could withstand the power of this amulet was the one destined to take it, and him, to his granddaughter.
They must find her in Wyrm's Crossing and they would be richly rewarded.
Now that they had braved the Underdark and survived, they could go onwards to finding Moonrise Towers or they could go back and try one last thing to get the parasites out of their heads.
The mindflayer in the Underdark hadn't been able to, but Lae'zel was certain that her fellow gith could do it. Their people were the long-time enemies of the mindflayers, after all.
Ellu'kha didn't really want to see any more gith — they were far too brutal for her tastes — but a chance was a chance and this was likely their last one. They headed for the mountain pass to find Lae'zel's people.
Hopefully they weren't as antsy as the ones they had come across at the bridge a few days prior.
They went into the mountains and were quickly stopped by a woman. She seemed quite friendly. Overly friendly. And they soon discovered why...
She was trying to obtain a gith egg. There was a creche nearby and she needed an egg, in excellent condition, and instead of accepting payment for an egg they had attacked her. She managed to get away, but perhaps Ellu'kha and her group could obtain an egg for her. It was for the Society of Brilliance, they wished to see if a gith could be raised to be a proper member of society instead of a bloodthirsty beast.
While the idea was novel, Ellu'kha was not in the habit of kidnapping children and declined the woman... who then attacked them, fruitlessly for they bested her with ease.
High up in the mountains with the knowledge the gith creche was most assuredly nearby, they prepared themselves to face more of Lae'zel's brutal kin.
Hopefully with Lae'zel at their side, they could get in and out, try and get the damnable parasites removed — or not, more as like considering a mindflayer itself was repelled by their special parasites — and continue on to Moonrise Towers.
Until next time! 😊