In the early afternoon, an immaculately dressed northman appears at the front door of the Salt House looking for Magnus. Feeling ambivalent and vaguely aware of the threat of violence, Magnus has Lotwil Veriatus, their new butler of the Salt House, send him away.
September 15, 7761
At the same time the nxt day, the northman appears again.
“I am here to extended an invitation for Magnus Strange. I am to accompany him to a destination to be revealed in due time.”
This time Magnus goes with him, but the recent violence is still top of mind so he invites Ravenna and Mar’Khabazza along. The carriage takes them to a looming and battered structure in the lower city that turns out to be a theater called the Rose. The building is dark and seemingly empty but a knock on the scarred door summons the Lady von Indi’s doorman. He tells Magnus to go up to the top floor and down the hall to the last booth near the stage, where he sees Catriona dressed in dark clothes. They embrace.
After their lovemaking, sprawled in the pile of their clothes, Magnus senses that Catriona is melancholic and asks what he can do for her. She says simply, “Kill my husband.”
With the threat of assassination fading, Ravenna and MK decide to walk back to the Salt House. Along the way, Mar’Khabazza is attacked by a random passer-by wielding a butcher knife. The woman is no match for Mar’Khabazza’s blades and she is quickly dispatched. Before she dies, she gives a strange small smirk to Mar’Khabazza.
September 16, 7761
There is some debate in the Salt House weighing the benifits and risks of killing the lord of one of the biggest merchant houses in Opal.
Ravenna visits the Crow Club and meets with Drelna the Sage. She wants him to set up a meeting for her with House Terilaen and House Tesper, two houses ruined by House Rinji and House Bates, to discuss an alliance.
Shortly afterwards, a runner sent by Muriel Trueheart and Senator Redstone delivers an Imperial writ, making the bearer of the note an “inspector plenipotentiary” of the mines of Opal.
September 17, 7761
Meet with House Terilaen and House Tesper in the back of the Crow Club. Lady Ardala Terilaen and Lord Balthus Terilaen and Lianne Tesper, the matron of the House and her grandson Ambrose Tesper. Mar’Khabazza proposes an alliance, suggesting that the three groups could pool resources and rebuild. The two houses are interested, but without concrete assurances or a plan of action the meeting doesn’t go anywhere past that.
Magnus, interested in the comings and goings of House Bates and fearing more strange attacks on MK, gathers urchins to watch House Bates as well as keep an eye on the Salt House for any strange folk lurking about.
September 18, 7761
With the Imperial Writ delivered and in Mar’Khabazza’s hands they begin to think about fulfilling their mission for Earthbinder Franzahl. Opal’s underground mines contain nickel, copper, palladium, platinum, cobalt, gold and other rare materials. The depth of the mines range from 450 to 2050 meters below the surface and extend to the north and south in a system of branches across eight levels. The map provided by Franzahl specifies a route to a spot on the fifth level on the eighteenth branch on the right-hand side.
The trio moves through the antechamber at the mouth of the mines and present their papers. After hat they are left alone to explore the mines. Very quickly they leave the active mines behind and are utterly alone hundreds of feet below the surface following the directions detailed in the map blindly in the cramped dark. Before long they come to a wood door set in the path of one of the mine tunnels with a glimmer of dim light visible through a barred portal. Ravenna tosses a small crystal through the door and uses it as a focus to create a portal big enough for her to pass through to the other side where she can unlock and unbar the passage.
They advance north into the Duergar Lair and are set upon by a Duergar, a man dressed in miner’s clothing, and a city guardsman. Slay the two humans, while the Duergar flees deeper into the complex. The trio gives chase, passing through a dark cavern that is full of ropy glass-like strands as thick as a man’s arm that emerge from every surface to loop and twist in random shapes. They move quickly though theis cavern into a chamber of worked stone and are set upon by the naked, battered forms of emaciated humans. But these humans have large open wounds at the small of their backs and as they engage they shapeshift: some growing additional mouths in their faces, sprouting vestigial wings, others growing additional arms, or having limbs extend to unnatural lengths. It is a close battle, with the “shapeless ones” proving to be tough opponents. Mar’Khabazza and Ravenna are both gravely wounded and are forced to use healing weaves to recover and press on. Eventually they arrive into a chamber with a dead human chained spread-eagled to a stone altar.
In this room they face three duergar, Earthbinder Tavgren, Earthcaller Halmgar, Earthmender Gorboto, who use a latent power of earth to fling small boulders and summon ropey tendrils of earth to grapple and bludgeon. When the dust settles, Tavgren and Halmgar are slain and Gorboto avoids a grim end by merging with the stone floor and escaping into the ground.
Their task completed, they continue to explore the complex. The group discovers a squat and ornate chamber called Chamber of Stars for it contains a slab of grey stone set into an archway, the stone itself spitting sparks and balls of light that float lazily into the room before fading into nothingness.
Further examination reveals this stone to be of the same material as the large boulder in the center of the blighted landscape north of the river valley that the troupe explored some months ago. The archway stone is discovered to be a portal into nothingness, the Void itself, a realm of literal nothingness: no light, no dark, no color, no sound, no matter, no vacuum. As they enter to do some further exploring, Ravenna and MK are disoriented and overwhelmed by the place but Magnus proves to be quite comfortable in the alien environment
The troupe retreats from that maelstrom to loot and plunder, Ravenna recovering four books and two bound stacks of parchment written in Duergar and another language.
During their exploration, they come across a bound prisoner, a Chati woman named Naisha who hails from the northern ice flows. She reveals that recently-released Indentures such as herself are approached by a duo, a city guard and a miner, about a job opportunity that offers a quick payment. As Indentures are released completely penniless it is an opportunity for her to get back on her feet and re-equip before heading back north to her people.
Instead she was taken into the mines, knocked unconscious, waking up in a small underground room with several others. One by one, the prisoners are strapped to a strange altar and tortured in a ritual that involves embedding a fist-sized diamond into the small of their back. “Not every effort was successful. The successful ones were hauled off to the Star Chamber, never to be seen again. The unsuccessful ones had the diamond removed and were kept here and are known as the Shapeless Ones.”
Ravenna: “Wait. So the one’s we fought and nearly killed me were the unsuccessful ones?”
Ravenna collects the stone helmets of Earthbinder Tavgren and Earthcaller Halmgar as proof of the deed to bring back to Earthcaller Franzahl.