Along with me continued the brothers Thunk and Drunk, all of us hailing from the famous Millwork-Key mine. I had met Drunk when we were brewer's apprentices; the brothers being eager, alright - the only, members of my congregation. However, let us remember that Hanseath is present wherever there is booze and a fight and with the brothers I might run out of the first, but never the second.
We were joined this time by a reticent young dwarf, who requested I not reveal his name until a Statue of Limitations had expired. This intrigues me greatly as it implies that stone, which I was taught alone of living things does not perish, actually can die. But I digress, this dwarf we believe to have been raised in a city rather than a mine, because he wears leather rather than honest chain, and is given to outlandish phrases such as "Whoops", "I meant to do that" and frequently "Ouch, that hurt". For such cause, we shall refer to him as 'Slick'.
We spent a few days searching for the ruins that were marked on the map supplied to us by our employers. Thunk amused himself by stepping on a scorpion and searching a corpse we had found. At this point we discovered just how sick and twisted young Slick became by being raised outside of a good dwarf mine - instead of opening doors like a normal dwarf with a few lusty blows of his axe, he spends much time looking at and, he claims, listening to the doors. I have used doors all of my life and I never heard one speak in the mine - perhaps doors are different in the Lands Above.
At the third door, his strange rituals were proven inferior to common practice, as he uttered one of his strange oaths and turned an interesting shade of mirhow in my dark vision, while claiming a feeling of weakness had come over him after pricking himself on a needle. We treated the poor lad for poisoning and determined to see what was guarded in such a manner. We found a large room with a bas relief of a human holding a gong. The gong I should make clear was real, the human being the bas relief. Thunk sounded the gong several times while I watched the door, sadly nothing came to fight.
Thunk watched Slick perform his ritual at a door at the far end of the room, afterwards, Slick opened the door and a large net fell on them. Also two skeletons came out, I prevailed upon Hanseath to drive such abominations, unable to drink ale, back into their room. Whereupon Drunk and Thunk re-slew them. We found a small hole in one wall of the skeleton's room. A careful search of the gong room ended with Drunk finding a secret door. Five more skeletons tried to come out, Drunk re-killed one; I invoked Hanseath against the Undrinkers and they fled from my righteous wrath. The others followed them, Thunk re-slew them all, but not before one of them clawed up Slick. Honest chainmail is your friend in these situations, it's a shame the notions city folk come up with. We found a fancy glove some human had dropped and a spinel. This wasn't the room that the peephole looked into, so we went back and levered a block out of the wall with the peephole. It turned out that it was just a hollow wall. What's the point of building a hiding place like that and not hiding any treasure in it?
We found another door, Slick performed his ritual and opened it. Four kolbolds tried to stick Thunk with their spears. That made Thunk angry, too angry, he couldn't hit them he was so mad. I ran in and killed three, Drunk killed the other. We found one hundred and fifty two gold pieces and a potion - cerulean blue, with a buttery taste and a sort of watery, phosphorescent appearance. Definitely necromatic magic, I felt a flow of negative energy. Maybe it's Undead Control or Inflict Wounds? I must remember to try when we next encounter Undrinkers.
There was another door in the room, Slick performed his ritual, opened it and found a pit trap. He didn't fall in, but I heard a female tree hugger warn us not to enter, but we did anyway. She asked us about baths, I had heard elves were pretty fussy, but you would think that she would have expected to get dirty in a dungeon. After she left, Drunk went to the obvious loose stone in the floor and pulled up a sack with four hundred silver pieces. The elf had been in the room for a day and a half, afraid of four little kobolds and never noticed. Elves shouldn't be allowed to adventure without some sensible dwarves around.
We found another door, it turned out to be the last one in this dungeon. Slick did his ritual, opened the door and found another pit trap. He didn't fall in but two of the skeletons that came out did. After the other two came out, I used the power of Hanseath to force them into the pit, too. We found forty five gold pieces and a bundle of fifty arrows. When we get back to town, I'm going to buy a crossbow. I forgot to try the potion.
We searched and found another dungeon on the map. When Slick opened the first door, we found a grassy gnoll or maybe it was just gassy. The gnoll whacked Thunk hard, Thunk whacked the gnoll harder. We took the gnoll's axe, but it's not as good as mine. We found a human sized set of plate mail, when Thunk and Drunk went to carry it out to the wagon, it fell apart and we found six hundred silver pieces and a pearl.
This room had alot of doors, Slick opened the first and a big cat yowled at him, while it did it's face peeled back so we could see it's skull and bones and everything. That was pretty cool, usually things have to be dead before you can peel their skin back. Drunk and Slick ran away. I killed it with my ax. Afterward, someone asked if this was the sort of creature we were supposed to capture for our employers. I said, "Oh, right, I forgot." And that I'd try to remember next time, but they will take the bodies too. We found a fancy coffer with gold hinges and ivory inlay, it held one hundred and ten gold pieces.
Slick opened the next door, another one of those cats yowled at him and he ran away again. This time we clubbed it and tied it up so we could take it out to the cage on the wagon. We found one hundred gold pieces and another potion. This one is steely grey, with a meaty taste and a phosphorescent appearance. Abjuration, maybe blur or mirror image? I'll give it to Slick, he gets hurt a lot.
We didn't find anything else interesting other than the hooker throne for a long time, although Thunk claimed he had a vision of spinning straw into gold. That's foolish, you mine for gold. I told him to cut back on the water he's drinking, it's giving him hallucinations. The hooker throne had a corpse in it held up by a hook. We took the hook, we didn't take the corpse.
Finally we found the dragon, he's only a little dragon, brass colored. Thunk played twenty questions with him, Thunk lost. He told us not to go through the next door, so we did. He tagged along to see the fun. We wandered through some hallways, but didn't see anything. Then it got dark, like the time I fell asleep in the brewery and old Torbin put a bucket over my head, so I couldn't see anything when I woke up. Then something fell on Thunk's head, I helped him pull it off and carried it out to where it wasn't dark, so we could stick in Slick's sack. It got dark again, but we stuffed it in the sack anyway. I never did see it, but it felt soft to me, no bones. Thunk said it had tentacles at his end. We put it on the wagon to take o our employers, but the cat kept trying to eat it, so we tied the sack under the wagon.
I thought that anyone who could beat Thunk at twenty questions would be good to have around, so I asked the dragon to join us for an equal share. He agreed, so we gave him the fancy coffer and it's gold to help start his hoard. He won't tell us his name, I wonder if he's waiting for the Statue of Limitations to die too? I suggested we call him Spunky, but he said no.
We took the wagon to meet some guys our employers sent to collect the cats and the thing in the sack. They didn't like the cat, but were impressed by the dragon. They gave us more supplies, but not enough ale.
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