A stormy, blustery dawn finds the group ascending the road to Beryl and, by forcing their way though the storm, they arrive at the upper city to the southwest of Beryl itself.
Having explored Beryl since the winter elf assault, Joktuk instructs the team to a set of building they’d previously occupied last November. From this camp they create a plan of attack in which a scouting party will follow the path previously explored into the mines and follow it to the dark chasm in which they assume the bone lord will have made its abode. While that foray is underway, the bulk of the troops will remain behind with an intent to capture the two remaining winter elves.
The goal is to have a alarm system: when the bone lord is slain, all winter elves under its influence will be temporarily disoriented and immobilized including the captured winter elves. When these winter elves become immobilized, that will be the signal for the bulk of the force to invade the mines and slaughter all of the winter elves they can and freeing any prisoners found.
As the day warms up and avalanches tumble from the towering peaks of the Barrier Mountains, Lokni, Kina, Ravenna, Naisha, Mar’Khabazza, Savenia Loresong and Magnus, along with two soldiers, Sentinels Stillwater and Solorin, as lantern carriers depart on their mission to locate and slay the bone lord.
Once underway, Magnus reminds Ravenna that she might be able to know a better route since there are humans alive deep in the mines who also know the route. Concentrating, Ravenna manages to know, because others already know it, that there is a faster, more direct route to the dark chasm and the dive into the mines and from there into the narrow and crudely hewn passages of the cold ore mines of the winter elves. In the narrow darkness, the nine of them proceed past twisty passages and crude intersections deep under the earth.
As the group struggles though the frozen passages, they pass by the frozen and frost-bitten corpses of prisoners left where they died, eventually scouting an intersection currently occupied by a half dozen human slaves sitting a circle while eating a meal and their winter elf captors standing guard.
Mar’Khabazza leaps into action, springing among the winter elves and stabbing two of them through the lungs with his blades. Magnus shoots the remaining one in the chest with an arrow to drop it and, as quickly as it began, the attack is over. Seizing the opportunity, most of the slaves promptly flee into the maze of tunnels, but one remains behind. He is a Chutki man by the name of Amaruq who remains behind to describe the situation in return for freeing him.
When the troupe introduce themselves and explain their mission, Amaruq explains that prisoners who have outlasted their usefulness are brought to “the door” and are never seen again. While he has seen plenty of winter elves and greater winter elves, he has not seen any especially unique-looking creatures, so presumably the bone lord resides past this door.
Amaruq is able to lead them though claustrophobic passages and tunnels and brings them to a stone door whose seamless fused stone Ravenna recognizes as Duergar work. As they approach it, Amaruq goes no further and slinks away wishing the group luck.
They enter the inner complex and as they make their way forward along a rough-hewn tunnel, they come to an intersection, with one tunnel constructed of fused stone that surely is Duergar construction. They sneak their way though this enclave and surprise a Duergar stepping though a stone door in a wall. There is a brief skirmish between Magnus, Mar’Khabazza and the Duergar and it goes hard against it, but it then summon spike stones that erupt from the floor, making footing treacherous. It then flees by merging with the earth underfoot and disappears. Feeling a sense of urgency, the group presses forward, leaving the stone door for later.
The passageway continues, emerging into a large chamber of rough hewn stone that contains several winter elves, black sudaar and a vaguely humanoid creature of horror moving slightly in a fetid pool of gelatinous organic slurry.
Without hesitating, the group attacks, Ravenna launching a fireball at the sudaar, Mar’Khabazza disappearing from view in order to ambush the winter elves. The two soldiers move to engage the winter elves as well as Magnus pulls a sack of his black powder and throws it onto the bone lord. Ravenna casts a fireball against the creature and it detonates the black powder, destroying the head and torso of the creature which then is absorbed back into the primordial soup.
As battles break out across the cave, a half-dozen gelatinous tentacles erupt from the pool, one grappling Sentinel Stillwater. The tentacle drips acid and some of it drops into his hear, corroding his brain and driving him insane. Another pair of tentacles slams into Magnus, breaking his arm and slamming him into the rocky wall. He shifts his grip and engages the tentacles with his claymore wielded one-handed.
Eventually, the troupe perseveres and the bone lord is slain, causing the winter elves to spasm and become catatonic. Seeing that the winter elves are vulnerable, the troupe rushes into the dark chasm and sees that the slaves are rising up against their winter elf and sudaar captors. Magnus, having had his arm healed by Savenia Loresong, wades back into the fray and as the battle is joined across the cave, they see that they are joined by trios of skirmishers that they recognize as some of Joktuk’s troops.
In the end the troupe liberates 167 citizens of Beryl and eight of Joktuk’s men were slain in the process. In the confusion of the liberation, Mar’Khabazza stands on a rock and announces their freedom and that healing would be provided to those suffering from the extreme frostbite that occurs as a result of mining cold ore.
Ravenna and Savenia Loresong get to work healing the liberated citizens of Opal with spells and Joktuk’s soldiers begin escorting those healed up to the surface. Ravenna and Savenia spend three days healing all of the wounded and frostbite. Joktuk and Magnus and Rangers and Miners escort prisoners to surface to the enclave that contains the Speaker’s House and the Quartermaster’s house.
When all are at the surface, Ravenna begins ferrying laen “baseball bats” back to the Salt House via teleport. The first trip she takes Savenia who notifies the Sept of the Serpent of their progress, but Truerheart quizzes her – she is anticipating that the Overseer only wants the mines of Beryl open again.
In the end Ravenna brings 60 baseball bats of laen back to the Salt House and the troupe recovers a bunch of jewelry from Earthmender Gorboto, who was creating a blend of styles from Razzik and Duergar.
She also collects three handwritten journals from his shelves:
– list of names (of dead duergar in the lost city below Opal
– journal of his history since the upheaval – wishing for death and the end of everything
– book of spell research (including laen)
While she does that, Mar’Khabazza consolidates and reinforces his position as Speaker of Beryl and the savior of the people.
March 15, 7762
The original overseer of the mines of Beryl survived and pays Mar’Khabazza a visit in the house of Mordant Grimsby that he has appropriated. The Overseer make a soft inquiry into the status of the mines, and Mar’Khabazza pays him to go away after being shown the the list of indentures and the reports on mine production for the last 50 years.
They loot the merchant’s guild vault to pay off the soldiers and the overseer (who starts putting together an expedition to Khazdu City in the Kasdushiz Empire). MK then delivers a big speech in the city hall where he frees the indentures and bans the practice. He then throws the book if indentures into the bonfire and throws money to the crowd to the surprise and delight of the remaining citizens of Beryl. He announces the construction of a memorial to the honored dead. It will be a large raven over the gate to the inner city.
During the speech, Magnus sets fire to the merchants guild and burns the wood portions to the ground in order to hide the fact that they’d robbed the vault in order to pay everyone.