The Chronicles of Mordek Vol. 024

Gameplay Date 10-14-07

Players present: Mordek, Taneus, Brynn

All hell breaks loose

Ragnat had waited for us outside the Mausoleum, and he followed along as we made our way over to the Temple of Pelor, where we were going to ask to speak to Gohla. But as we were heading across town, there was a large commotion coming from behind the High Temple. We decided to split up... Taneus & Brynn would head on to the Temple, while Ragnat & I would go check it out. I pulled out my small shield and morningstar and handed them to Ragnat in case there was trouble. When we came around the side of the High Temple, we saw that the orcs up here were killing some of the townspeople. Even as we watched, one worker was thrown off the cliffside while a second was dragged to the ground and speared. Ragnat & I didn't need more reason than that, and we gave out a dwarven war cry and charged headlong at the orcs. The responded by grabbing a few of the other workers and using them as living shields, much to my shame as my first swing at an orc was instead taken by a woman the orc pulled in front of him. Switching tactics, I reached out myself and grabbed the woman, pulling her free from the orcs grasp and yelling for her to run. As she did so, the orcs around us started slaughtering everyone they could. Ragnat & I each managed to kill an orc as the workers on the project started fighting back, ganging up on the orcs and bringing them down. The group up here at the top had better odds and put up a better fight and they managed to kill Ragnat as I was bringing down another of their number with my hammer. Then the orcs started running away, and I saw why... the workers were beginning to come up from the dock project en masse now, and the orcs would've quickly been overwhelmed if they hadn't run.

Going over to Ragnat's body, I knelt down saying "Be at peace brother!" and reached down to retrieve the morningstar, slipping it back into my belt, put the small shield on my left arm and held my hammer in my left hand for a quick grab, then picked up an orc spear. The townspeople had started chasing the orcs through town in the direction of the Scarlet Jester. I started following the crowd, but as I came around the High Temple again, there were sounds of combat coming from the front side of the Temple. Looking over I saw Brynn... and a wolf?!?... fighting Aglim, very near to the raised dais in front of the High Temple. I didn't see Taneus anywhere in sight and Brynn looked like she was having a little trouble with Aglim as both she and the wolf were a bit bloody. And she was about to be outnumbered, as 4 orcs came running out of the HIgh Temple to help Aglim. They maneuvered around the side of the dais and out of my direct sight as I headed in their direction. Racing up the steps of the dais, I saw that I had a clear shot at Aglim, about 15' away, with Brynn and her wolf off to one side, and so I took a running leap off the top of the dais in order to land right next to him. As I was coming down, I hurled the spear I had in hand at him and stuck him pretty good... but he was still standing and swinging his morningstar back at us. Brynn yelled for help, saying "We're going down fast!" as she and the wolf turned to fight off the orcs. I grabbed for my hammer as Aglim got in a damn hard strike on me... he hits pretty good for a human! Then the next few moments were a bloody dance as Brynn and I were set upon by the orcs, allowing Aglim to retreat a few steps to remove the spear that was sticking out of him. We took some hits, but we gave better than we got and soon there was only one orc left. Aglim reentered the fray and Brynn & her wolf turned to face him as I finished off the last orc. When I landed the final blow and he gave out a death gurgle, dropping to the ground, I turned to help Brynn finish off Aglim. But before I could get close enough, the combination of the wolf biting at his legs and Brynn's repeated blows from her quarterstaff finally brought Aglim down. Dammit woman! I put a lot of time and effort into being able to get close to him... I will not be denied the death blow!!! And I promptly pounded his skull flat into the ground with my hammer.

I asked Brynn where Taneus was and she said he had taken off with the clerics of Pelor, heading for the Scarlet Jester to rescue another cleric that was being held there. I asked if she was alright as she looked pretty beat up, to which she said she was still able. I told her to go and help Taneus if she could, and that I'd be along in a moment. That I wanted to check and see if Aglim had anything important on him that might be able to help us. Brynn took off with the wolf close behind as I knelt down over Aglim's body. He's got a ruined suit of plate mail, and a very nice looking belt with a money pouch hanging from it. Doesn't look like he'll be needing those any more, as I removed the belt and coin purse, putting them into my pack for the time being. There's also a bloody short spear nearby, the one I had stuck him with, and there's a heavy, blunt, well decorated morningstar lying on the ground where he had dropped it. I stuffed his morningstar into my pack as well. Then holding my hammer in my shield hand, I picked up the spear again and started off for the Scarlet Jester.

To be continued...

The Chronicles of Mordek Vol. 023

Gameplay Date 10-07-07

Players present: Mordek, Taneus, Brynn

Searching the Tomb for the Tome

The secret door turned out to be a block that pushed inward 5 feet and revealed a small hallway. The floor of the hallway slanted downward as we followed it and we came across a locked door on our left after about 15 feet. Ahead though, we can see a cross corridor and decide to take a look before taking a crack at the locked door. As we neared the intersection, the spider webs were a bit thicker than in the rest of the hallway. Looking left, right and forward revealed even more webbing, along with several webbed corpses and various desiccated remains littered all over the place. Loud clicking noises began to emanate from all around us and suddenly half a dozen, watermelon sized spiders started coming after us. I started using my hammer to pound 'em flat while Brynn was using her quarterstaff to do the same. Just as we finished squishing the last of them pesky bugs, their momma showed up at the far end of the left hand passageway. She was BIG and she was not happy!! Stepping in front of the others, I managed to quickly pull out a flask of oil, threw it at her and was relieved to see it smash open, coating her in oil. Taneus took quick advantage of what I had done and sent a blast of fire over my head and down the hallway at the big spider, setting it and the nearby webbing ablaze, screeching in pain and rage, but not killing it. It began charging at us, and I was able to dive into one of the other cross corridors. Taneus & Brynn weren't as close to the intersection and had no where to go but backwards into unexplored territory. Momma spider continued her charge straight on past me as I was getting back to my feet, and began attacking Brynn & Taneus. While they kept it's attention focused on them, I came up right behind it's burning butt and buried my hammer into its backside, dropping it to the ground where the legs continued to give off a few more twitches before stopping completely.

Looking back in the direction it had come from, there is a freshly web-wrapped body lying in the passage. Going over to check, I recognized Ragnat, the dwarf I had spoken with during our "prayer meeting." He's alive, but barely... probably from the spider's paralytic venom. We got him free of the webs holding him and gave him a few draugh leaves to help with his injuries. Then we checked out where momma had come from. The left hand passage opened right out onto the cliff face with the sea below us. So... this is where the workers have been disappearing to! Snatched up by a huge spider and brought back to it's cave to feed her little ones. Well, hopefully Ragnat will be the last worker to go missing, though the possibility of more big spiders lurking about is still there. Going back over to the dead spider, I borrowed a metal flask from Taneus and started collecting some of it's venom. Never know when you might need something like that.

Satisfied that we weren't going to be set upon by anything else, for a while at least, we returned to that locked door we had passed. We told Ragnat to continue on up this hallway and he'd come out below Helgar's Mausoleum. Once he had gone, I began using my thieves tools to pick the lock. But when I opened the door and took my first step inside, the floor crumbled out from under me. Fortunately, I was able to catch myself on the door frame before I fell into the spiked pit below. Probing the floor around the hole using Brynn's quarterstaff, we didn't reveal any more pit traps, so we made our way cautiously around the hole and to the far side of the room where there were two chests. They didn't appear to be trapped and when we opened them up, we discovered a whole lot of copper coins. But there was also a copper medallion with an image of a hummingbird carved into it. Taneus grabbed it to examine it, saying that it was giving off an aura of magic. We didn't find anything else in this room, so we made our way back to the 4-way intersection and tried going straight, but the hallway ended in a dead end full of spider dinner remnants. We headed down the right hand passage and pretty soon it made a turn to the left which opened up onto a 30' x 30' room.

We were on a ledge, the ceiling in here was 20' above us, while the floor of the room was 50' below us and covered in a yellowish mold. On the far side of the room was a raised platform about 10' higher than we were, with what looked like an altar and a sarcophagus upon it. Between us were rows and rows of wooden posts or columns spaced evenly about 4' apart from each other. The posts had flat tops about the size of a dinner plate. The row closest to our end was even with the height of our ledge, and each row farther away from us gained a little in height to form a precarious stairway up to the altar's platform. This was gonna be one hell of a balancing act, made even worse by the look of the rotting wood the pillars had become over the years. We dropped a small stone to the floor below, and the mold burst into a cloud of spores that covered about 10' in all directions... still well below us though, but not something we wanted to mess with. As we stood there, an idea sparked in my head, and I made my way back to the last room and used my tools to take the door off of it's hinges, leaving the 2 elves to discuss ways across the room. Hauling the door back to the ledge, I started taking the door apart into the planks it was made of. The elves were giving me strange looks as I laid one plank from our ledge out onto one of the nearest pillar. Grabbing another plank, I laid down on the ground and slid out onto the first one so that I could lay another plank from the first column to the second, saying to the others that I was distributing the weight across several posts. Taneus handed me a third plank as I continued to slide forward, but when I eased the far end of the 3rd plank out onto the next column in line, the column crumbled from rot and came crashing down to the floor below, setting off another cloud of spores. Ok... so maybe this wasn't the best idea!

Taneus had me crawl back to the ledge saying he had another idea. He had that copper medallion in hand and was giving it to Brynn, saying something about that it had been enchanted with "luck" and that she, as the lightest of the three of us, would probably benefit the most from it given the situation. I think Brynn was just as skeptical as I was, but she put the medallion around her neck and took a tentative step out onto the first pillar. It held, so she followed the outer edge of the room, looking for handholds along the walls by which to further lessen the pressure upon each column. Using a slow and steady pace, Brynn finally came to the platform on the far side of the room, and began telling us what she could see. She pushed open the lid of the sarcophagus and found the remains of a body buried along with a book... The Tome of Helgar? Stowing the book in her pack, Brynn retraced her steps until she was back on the ledge with us. Then we all gathered around to take a look at the book. It's written in a language I'm not familiar with. Taneus can't read it either, but he thinks it might be written in Celestial. We began making our way back above ground, taking the book with us. The priests were still there, waiting for us, as we climbed back up the rope and into the mausoleum. Taneus showed them the book, asking if either of them knew the Celestial language. They took a look. They admitted that neither of them could read the book, but there was a preface to it in a language that they were able to read. It stated that the book had to be read while within the High Temple in order to even out the religions in Nerom. The said that perhaps one of the priests of Pelor knew the Celestial language, then they mentioned a few by name that they thought might be able to help us. Odias (though apparently he had gone missing a while back), Agin, or Gohla, the current HIgh Priest of Pelor.

To be continued...

The Chronicles of Mordek Vol. 022

Gameplay Date 09-30-07

Players present: Mordek, Taneus, Brynn

Touring the construction project

After the crowd had dispersed and only my dwarven brethren remained, I asked them all to gather round close and take a knee. Once they are all close by I start reciting a prayer, but then in a quiet voice that won't carry far, I start asking them what is really going on in Nerom. I tell them that I have more friends with me and we're trying to help but we could use more information if we truly want to disrupt Aglim's ulterior plans. I get some incredulous looks from those around me, but one of them, his name is Ragnat, speaks up. He tells me that everyone is being worked all day long so that everyone is too tired to do anything. That most nights, he and the other dwarves are kept under guard on the second floor of the Scarlet Jester and that there is some High Cleric of Pelor chained up on the ground floor. The Greyfinger's are keeping him alive so long as the rest of the Temple of Pelor stays in line. He also tells me that sometimes people go missing while working the cliff face, but no one has ever seen or heard anything to figure out how. I reach out and shake Ragnat's hand in thanks for his help, and slip the halfling-sized dagger into his palm at the same time. I tell him it's not much for now, but I'll try to get them more in the future if they can keep up the pretense of coming back here for daily prayers. With our prayer meeting ended, the dwarves then headed off for food and sleep.

After they had gone, I headed back to the Inn to grab some dinner and wait to see if Taneus showed up again. After a few hours, I gave up on waiting and headed upstairs to get some sleep. The next morning, I decided to take my own little tour of the town. Heading north, I wandered near to the Temple of Erythnul, where I counted at least 6 humans with shaved heads. Then I wandered close to the Scarlet Jester... there's lots of revelry coming from inside, both male & female voices. But the windows were shut, so I couldn't get a look inside. Continuing northward, I next came to the Temple of Wee Jas and Nerom's graveyard, which stretched nearly to the cliff face. Off to the side of the temple is a mausoleum... the name "Helgar" inscribed in the stone over the doorway. A priest named Merrancore, greeted me as I drew near the graveyard, asking if I'd come to pay my respects to anyone in particular. I told him that I was just interested in taking a look at all of the construction down the cliff face from the slightly wider vantage point that the cliff here provided. He went back about his business, pulling up weeds that were growing amongst the headstones, but I'm sure he was also keeping an eye on me while I was out here.

As I neared the cliff edge, I got my first good look at the stairs that Aglim had the people of Nerom constructing. It was a massive undertaking. A great winding stair made it's way down the heavily reinforced scaffolding to the sea below. Townspeople were suspended on ropes from above and lowered up and down chiseling away at rock faces that stuck out too far and were in the way, or breaking off large pieces, which were then lowered down to the base to help shore it up from the ever present waves rolling in against it. Their are 2 orcs down at the base, keeping the people working with cracks of their whips, several more on different levels of the stairs doing the same, and a group of them right at the top overseeing the ropes to which the people are hanging from. There are also two ships moored out a ways from the cliffs. Long thick ropes stretching from them all the way to the top of the cliffs serve as a cabling system for baskets on pulleys, which are being used to transport goods to and from the ships. I began heading for the HIgh Temple, thinking that maybe Aglim would allow me to tour the construction site. As I drew near the doors, I saw Kerg grudgingly listening to Zelnus complain at him. He's going on about how his money is no longer the right color, that they were platinum and now they're just copper. Kerg doesn't really seem to care and tells Zelnus to get lost, then he looks at me as I wait my turn... "What do you want?" I tell him that I'd like to know if I can tour the construction site and was seeking Aglim's permission to do so. Kerg let out a low snarl as he went inside to fetch Aglim. While the doors are open, I can hear small bits of conversation coming from inside as Aglim finishes up to come outside. He's telling 5 orcs to get lost, muttering something about Pelor that I didn't catch. But as he drew closer to the door, I was able to make out something else. Aglim was being informed that the female companion of the dead guy on the horse had been taken to the Scarlet Jester for rehabilitation... whatever that meant... torture? slavery? prostitution? Couldn't be good, whatever it was.

Aglim came out with a look on his face that said "Unh, this guy again." "And what can I do for you today kind dwarf?" I tell him that I was merely curious to tour the construction site and see firsthand human construction techniques. Aglim seemed happy that he could get rid of me so easily and quickly agreed and let me go on my way. Heading around to the back of the High Temple, I tried to take in as many details as I could... number & location of the orcs, potential items to be used against them, the routines of the workers, etc. There are about 8 orcs watching over about 30 ropes anchored to a single control point behind the temple. It'd be really easy for the orcs to cut the ropes, sending 30 workers tumbling into the sea in the event of an uprising... gonna have to figure out a way to secure that quickly should the time come. There's also a well close by, providing water for all of the workers. I wandered down the stairs to get a look at what the workers were being put through and if there were any weak points in the construction that could maybe be exploited. The orcs didn't take kindly to my being there and not doing any work, so they promptly urged me on my way with cracks of their whips. As I was heading back up, there was a basket nearing the top of the cliff, being hauled upward from one of the two ships out in the harbor. I made my way over to the place where the basket was being unloaded, trying to get a glimpse of what it was they were receiving, but to no avail... crates and sacks hid their contents from view. So instead, I casually asked what ships those were and someone spoke up, "The Culler" and "The Limp Maiden." The orcs didn't seem to want me interfering anymore and told me to either pick up a hammer and get to work, or to get lost. I decided on the latter.

As I made my way away from the construction site, a familiar looking raven lands in front of me and begins hopping around, heading off in one direction, coming back again, then repeating the motions. Looks like Taneus needs my help again. I start in the direction his bird had indicated as it takes flight again leading me on. Trying to hurry without drawing too much attention, I kept the bird in sight as it led me back toward the Temple of Wee Jas and eventually to Helgar's Tomb. The mausoleum doors were open, so I went inside and found Taneus standing there calmly talking with 2 priests and that female elf I met the other day at the Inn... what was her name again? Oh right... Brynn Brya. They are gathered around a 3' x 7' hole in the floor where the altar used to be as it's currently been pushed off to the side. Brynn squatted down looking at the hole, looks at me, then turns to Taneus... "Will the dwarf fit?" Oh, so we've got a funny elf with us now. I gave her a dirty look and a small growl, then turned to Taneus. I asked him what's going on and he tells me that he managed to get into the basement of the High Temple and past the orcs trying to break into the room down there. He said the room was protected by a Wall of Force, but that he managed to get into the room using his magics and met a woman trapped inside. Her name is Miranda and she was able to shed a little light on the situation in town. She might also be able to help us figure out the map we had found in Teryll, but not while she's defending her library. She said Aglim was after a book, and that he was under the impression that she had it hidden away in her library. From what she could hear through the doors, Miranda had pieced together that Aglim was after the rumored Tome of Helgar, but she didn't know where it was. She had suggested to Taneus that perhaps Helgar's Tomb might have more answers and so he had made his way here, having bumped into Brynn somewhere along the way. They had searched until they discovered the hidden opening beneath the altar. That's when he had sent his bird to find me.

Poking my own head into the hole, I could see that it opened onto a room about 15' x 20' in size, with about 15 caskets standing vertically around all four walls with just enough space left for a small altar in the middle of one wall. Grabbing the edge of the hole, I swung myself down to dangle from the ceiling and then dropped to the floor of the room below. Looking upward at Brynn with a smile, I said, "Not afraid of the dark are ya?" She gave me a wry smile as I turned to see if there were any torches down here. I had Taneus drop me a lit torch from above and used it to light the couple of wall torches I had found. Anchoring some rope up above, Taneus & Brynn descended into the room to join me. As I searched around the altar, the two elves found a doorway hidden behind several of the caskets and began moving them out of the way. I wasn't finding anything useful at the altar, so Taneus opened the door to reveal a passageway. I took the lead to keep an eye out for traps and the elves followed behind, bringing torches along with them for light. The passage ended at a small library. Would the Tome of Helgar really be that easy to find? We began searching the shelves, but that didn't reveal the book everyone seems to be after, but we did find a secret door built into the south wall.

To be continued...

The Chronicles of Mordek Vol. 021

Gameplay Date 09-16-07

Players present: Mordek, Taneus, Brynn

More newcomers arrive in Nerom

Corna greeted me as I arrived back at her shop. I told her I'd like to send a message to Bumfor through her courier service. She handed me a small piece of parchment that would fit in the pigeon's carrying pouch and told me to start writing my message. I addressed the note to Arda, one of the priests I was familiar with back at the Grand Temple in Bumfor. Knowing that my message would be received with a "What the hell is he talking about" attitude back in Bumfor, I tried to make it as intriguing as possible, using just a few sentences, in the hopes they would send a group to investigate.

Master Arda,

Negotiations for purchase of land successful.

Groundbreaking & Temple construction to begin soon.

Nerom's leaders eager to welcome Moradin into it's fold.

Mordek, Greyheim Mountain Clan.

Corna has one of her pigeons in hand by the time I am done writing the note. She tells me it will take about 6 days for a response to arrive back from Bumfor. Once the message was secured to the bird, I tell Corna that I will also be needing some supplies... about 600 feet of string, a whole lot of wooden stakes, and a sack or two to put them all in. Corna tells me I'll have to stop by Kelper's shop if I want any stakes, but she has the other items. After paying Corna for the items and the courier service, I thank her and head out the door toward Kelper's Wagon shop. He greets me as I come into his shop, asking what he can do for me. I tell him that I'm in need of several dozen wooden stakes... most about a foot and a half tall, and one or two stakes that are about 3 or 4 feet tall. I hold open the bag I got at Corna's as Kelper loads it up with the stakes. I paid and thanked him for his help, then set off in the direction of the little plot of land I had just made a down payment on.

Setting the bag down on the ground and consulting my sketches of the floor plan, I pounded a stake into the ground, using my nice and shiny war hammer I had recently gotten, to mark the first corner of the future temple. Walking out my estimated distances, I continued putting more and more stakes in the ground until the outline of the temple's walls had been created. Going back to the bag, I pulled out the first of several rolls of twine and began running a length of cord from one stake to the next until all of the walls and the pathway and the altar block were marked out about a foot off of the ground. Using the two longer wooden stakes, I pounded one into the ground in the center of the temple's "main room." Then I tied the other stake to it like a cross. Using some of the remaining cord, I then lashed the shiny hammer to the top of the vertical stake and hung the shield, bearing the symbol of Moradin, across the horizontal stake, so that any passerby would see that this was the beginning of a temple to Moradin.

Satisfied that I had done a good enough job, I started walking out of the town toward the stream, so that I could make a show of cleaning myself up in the river, while I was actually retrieving the gold I had buried under a rock in the stream back when we were coming into Nerom. Going back into the town, I headed for the dual Temples of Obad-Hai and Corellan Larenthian. Just wanted to check in with Luvana and see how she was doing. I find that she's back from her mission. She's with another woman as I approach. She's also bubbly with excitement as she tells me about the battle against the orcs. Then she remembers to introduce me to her companion... Terusella, a cleric of Obad-Hai that has accepted Luvana as her initiate and begun teaching her their druidish ways. Terusella apologizes, saying that she and Luvana must get back to Luvana's training, and politely escorts me back out of the Temple's entrance. At least the kid's okay.

I started heading back to The Stone's Throw Inn after that, and went up to my room. I needed to count out enough gold to give to Aglim at the town meeting this afternoon in order to conclude our deal. Once that was done, I made my way back downstairs and ordered an ale from Kaela. There weren't too many people in here at this time, so I grabbed a table for myself and sat down to think what I would be saying if Aglim had me address the crowd. While I was working on my second ale, the door of the Inn opened and in walked an elf... female by the look of her... sometimes it's hard to tell... all that long hair and their thin builds... carrying a quarterstaff and wearing leather armor. She turns back outside the door and says "stay" to someone or something, then proceeds on up to the bar where Kaela is working. She's asking for a hunk of raw meat on the bone and a plate of the house special along with a goblet of wine. Taken aback by the odd request, Kaela heads into the kitchen and comes back with shank of goat and says she'll be back in a minute with the rest of her order. The elf paid Kaela for the food, then took the leg of goat back towards the front door. She opened the door and tossed the goat leg outside, but I didn't hear it hit the ground... only some happy scarfing sounds. She said "away... but stay close" and then came back inside, closing the door behind her again.

The elf took a seat at a table nearby to wait for Kaela to come out with her food. As the only two people in here, she glanced my way and we caught eyes. I gave her a nod in acknowledgement and resumed drinking my ale, downing the last of it. She was eyeing me cautiously, and when I went up to the bar to get another refill, she decided to invite me over to her table. I was curious what she might want, so I paid Kaela for the ale and grabbed the seat opposite her at her table. She introduced herself as Brynn Brya (played by Kelly) and I introduced myself in return. Something told me that she wasn't a local, so I asked where she was from. She told me that she had journeyed here from Daegus Woods, following the trail of several orcs. I told her there's quite a few in town and that they seem to be helping the Priests of the Temple of Erythnul at the High Temple. I also told her that she might want to visit the Temple of Obad-Hai if she's looking for information on the orcs in town. She asked what I do, and I told her that I'm currently in Nerom to purchase land for the raising of a Temple to Moradin and to begin the groundwork for it's construction, and that this afternoon... pretty soon actually... it will be made official in an announcement during a town meeting.

We sat there talking for a while more, just killing time until in was nearly 5:00. I told her that I needed to be on hand when Aglim made his announcement, and began to excuse myself from the table, but said if she was interested, she could follow along to where the townspeople would be gathering. We left the Inn and made our way through Nerom toward the HIgh Temple. I bid Brynn well and parted from her company as we drew near and made my way toward the main doors to await Aglim. The townspeople began showing up from their homes and businesses, and then a huge group showed up, having just gotten off shift working on the stairway project. A horn blares out to grab everyone's attention and Aglim heads to the top of the dais to address the crowd. As he begins his speech praising their hard work again, Aglim gets interrupted. There is a man in full plate armor, helmet in hand, sitting astride a horse, at the back of the crowd. A woman in simpler clothes is standing beside him as he raises his voice saying "People of Nerom... Your plight is over. No longer shall you be enthralled by the forces of... ." He didn't get to finish his sentence as all of a sudden, a crossbow bolt was protruding out of his forehead, nearly between his eyes. As the man slumped to the ground from his saddle, his companion gasped in surprise and stooped down to his dead body. Behind both of them, another man with crossbow in hand, walked up until he was near the dead man's horse. He reached into the saddle bags, groping around until he pulled out an item out and held it high. It looked like a white cup. The man with the crossbow gave out a sinister laugh and threw the cup to the ground in disgust, then stalked away. The crowd nearest the spectacle began murmuring to each other and soon I was able to catch a few words as they rippled from the back to the front of the assemblage. "Alabaster Cup." "Malward." So that was Malward the Mad. I'll have to keep an eye out for him. And an alabaster cup... wasn't that the prize awarded to the winners of the Tournament of Champions held over in Straag? What would they be doing here? Had someone gotten a message out asking for help? Bloody shame... nasty way to die... and he was a sitting duck too! Did they know he was coming somehow?

Aglim quickly got the crowd's attention again and went on as if nothing had just happen, though the crowd was still a little uneasy. He motioned for me to join him atop the dais, and when I had climbed to the top, he began telling the crowd how Nerom was already prospering from their work efforts and beginning to grow with the addition of a new temple, this one to Moradin. The crowd was not as enthusiastic as I would have hoped, especially given recent events, and only gave out murmurs of approval. Stepping forward, I addressed the crowd, inviting them all to the future site of the temple upon leaving this meeting, and turning to Aglim in particular, I invited him to help me break ground to symbolize the coming together of Nerom & Moradin. He didn't look completely happy that I had put him on the spot like that, but he accepted, sent one of his orcs to bring a pair of shovels, and turned to the crowd, telling them that those who were not on the next work shift should follow along. He then turns and motions for me to lead the way. As we descend the dais, the crowd parts a bit to allow us to pass through. As nearly half of the crowd breaks off and heads toward the rear of the High Temple, the orcs surrounding the rest of the crowd start herding them along in our wake. Arriving at the array of string and stakes I had set up earlier in the day, Aglim follows me as I step over the cords and make my way to the shield & hammer I had set up in the middle of it all. Each of us had a shovel in hand as I turned and addressed the crowd. I said, "May the strength & wisdom of Moradin bring an added peace to Nerom and it's people," as I plunged my shovel into the ground. Aglim rather grudgingly followed suit. A slightly more enthusiastic applause rippled from the crowd. When it died down, Aglim turned to me and said we had some business to conclude and then he would leave me to my work. Pulling out the sack filled with the remaining portion of the gold I owed to him for the land, I handed it over, but made a final request of Aglim for tonight. I asked him if he wouldn't mind my dwarven brethren being allowed to linger for the first of many prayer sessions to follow. His eyes were on the sack now in his possession, but he said "as you wish," then left and began heading back toward the HIgh Temple. I raised my voice to the crowd again and requested my fellow dwarves to stay a moment as the crowd began to disperse. There were maybe a half dozen that lingered as everyone else left.

To be continued...

Nerom Map Update

Ok, finally got one of the Maps up and going. Look for future updates such as Tyrell, Bumfor, and probably Salaan even though only one of your number has been there.