Deciding to camp in the cavern for the night, the party rests well and then continues on in the morning. They leave the large room where the scorpion beasts were and continue down a tunnel dug out of its side (the only other one in the room). This tunnel is considerably smaller, and looks like it was dug hastily and with little care for the surrounding ore. Streaks of metal can be seen on the walls, and it looks like the tunnel is descending rapidly through many layers. Indeed, it is becoming steeper and more difficult to walk through here, and is slightly warmer.
After walking for several more hours, dripping water is heard and another large cave room opens up ahead of them. This room is easily the size of the Ransburgh market, and has huge stalactites and a blue pool in the center of it. A pale light emanates from a house-sized hole in the ceiling of the cave, from which is dripping a steady stream of water. The floor in here is thick with a whitish substance, which the party recognizes as bat guano. As they step into the room a huge swarm of bats rushes past them, screeching. The bats escape through the ceiling and past the party up the tunnel they came from. Looking at this room more closely it seems that there are two other tunnels connecting to it, one to the right and one to the left. There is also an area to the rear that is clear of the guano and appears to have been a camp area.
Celeb peers into the pool near the rear of the room, and sees that it is the beginning of an underground river. He spies something at the bottom here, a piece of clothing of some sort. He disrobes and dives in to the frigid water, finding that the object is a leather shirt. From the shirt falls a reddish amulet with strange runes on it and a cross shaped marking, as well as a black stone or crystal in the center. He takes the amulet up to the other party members and Galandil is immediately interested. He tries to discover the amulet’s secret by attuning it to himself, but is unsuccessful. Elowisyl and Celeb are similarly unsuccessful. Galandil attempts to read the runes on the amulet, and he finds that they are word-sounds: NUR-AM-HARAS. When he speaks these words the amulet glows and he is able to attune with it.
Strangely, Meran recognizes the words as being from a Dark Tribe dialect, literally the incantation means “Spirit, I invoke thee.” After attuning with the amulet, Galandil realizes that its purpose is to assist a spell user in casting earth spells, especially Earth Tunnel. Galandil puts the amulet around his neck for safe keeping.
The group scouts both of the exit tunnels from this room, and finds that the one on the left has more evidence of foot traffic, where the one on the right smells of burning. They opt to go down the tunnel on the right.
While traveling down the tunnel, our heroes notice that they are descending in parallel with the underground stream. It gets very warm after a while, and the stream slows and becomes warmer itself. Eventually it can be seen that it has come to a boil, and the steam is making it even more difficult to breathe. After an hour of walking, a semi-large room is reached where lava can be seen in a small pool in the corner. Meran creeps close to the entrance and shrouds his lantern, looking for movement. He sees none except for water dripping from the ceiling.
Moving forward, Meran reaches halfway through the room when he feels the “water” dripping on to him — it seems like it is not water at all, but a thick black fluid. Disgusted, he wipes it off of him but is caught unaware as a black tentacle descends from the ceiling and strikes him, sweeping him off of his feet. Celeb dashes into the room to protect Meran, now prone, and tries to fight off the tentacle. Several more tentacles appear and the party fights them, Galandil being most successful with his rock-hurling spell.
The beast is defeated, and the thick fluid drops from the ceiling in large blobs and covers the entire floor. Several blobs hit the ground with suprising force, and it is realized that they are humanoid shapes covered in the black substance. Elowisyl approaches one of them and wipes the substance off, realizing that the man is still alive. He quickly heals him and Atentir heals the other. They are two Kaern miners.
The Kaern men are extremely grateful for the rescue, and introduce themselves as Bogder Shale and Gorn Rockfist. They explain that they were working in the mines until they were told that the job was finished and they were to leave. They were curious about what was going on, so they decided to stay along with their Arc-mage friend, Erag Stonecutter. Unfortunately Erag was caught, and the hooded men tortured him and forced him to seal the entrance to the last cave. Then they dragged him through the tunnels to drop him into the Pit, which as they explain is a 300-foot chasm nearby. They had followed to try and rescue Erag, but were attacked and enveloped by the Goo Beast.
The party expresses their intentions of returning down the passage to find the evil mages, but Bogder says that to try and do so would be impossible without Erag to help them. The party decides to help rescue Erag, and continues through the tunnels to the Pit.
After walking for another hour or so, the party comes upon the Pit. Apparently the underground river used to flow through here, and dug a chasm several hundred feet deep. Lava can be seen glowing at the bottom. Bogder leans over the lip of the chasm and calls out to Erag. Erag answers by groaning loudly. Elowisyl spots him about 150 feet down, lying on a ledge. It is decided that there is not enough rope to rescue Erag, so they return to the room with the Goo Beast to recover the Kaern’s equipment. Elowisyl bathes their ropes and picks in the boiling underground river, washing them mostly clean of the goo.
They return to the Pit a while later, and Elowisyl puts on the harness to be lowered down. The ropes are knotted together and Meran takes the brunt of the weight. Luckily Elowisyl is very light, so lowering him down is not too daunting a task. After a few moments Elowisyl reaches Erag’s position, and sees that he landed on a ledge and is pinned down by a large rock. He immediately heals the man, and tries to lift the rock off of him. Finding it too heavy, he activates his Beast Belt and uses its strength to move the rock. He then heals Erag again and straps him into the harness to be lifted up.
Meran masterfully pulls the Kaern to the surface, and drops the harness back down the pit to retrieve Elowisyl. As he starts climbing he gets a bad handhold and slips off the ledge, bruising himself badly. Luckily Meran is able to stabilize the rope and quickly pulls Elowisyl out of the pit.
Erag seems dazed but relieved, and thanks the party for saving him. After everyone has rested for a few moments, Galandil approaches Erag and asks him what happened to him (careful to keep the Arc-miner amulet out of sight). Erag says that five or six hooded men wearing skull-shaped amulets had captured him and forced him to use his magic to seal the tunnel to the last room. After that they dragged him to the Pit and hurled him in. He was able to slow his descent by grabbing onto the sides, but still broke his leg on the way down.
He says to Galandil that if he is to help the party get through the stone wall he created, he will need “the amulet that is around your neck.” He seems to have felt its presence. Galandil grudgingly returns the amulet to him.
Erag explains that all Kaern Arc-miners have a similar amulet to this one, which holds an earth elemental in its black crystal. The elemental can be summoned to assist with earth spells. He says that Galandil may be able to learn how to use it, one day. Presently Erag notices that Galandil was able to use it, and seems impressed that he figured it out by himself.
When everyone is rested, they travel back down to the room where the river begins. While here, Atentir studies the form of several of the bats in the area. He casts a spell on himself and turns into a bat. He flies up through the hole in the ceiling and sees the mountains above him for thousands of feet.
After spending another night here, the party decides that it is time to go through the tunnel. They descend down and walk approximately two miles, where they see the rock wall that Erag was forced to make. He uses the amulet to cut through it, and then turns to Galandil. He tells Galandil that he is of little use during a battle, so he should use the amulet for the time being. Galandil accepts it.
Looking and listening at the hole, the party sees that the cave opens up into a large cavern some 500 feet past the rock wall. They hear muffled voices speaking from the cavern. It is decided that they will attempt to lure the people in the room to them so they can kill them one by one. Erag creates two rock walls that they may hide behind while their victims are approaching. A rock is thrown at the entrance, but no one comes up the tunnel. Galandil calls out loudly, yelling expletives at the people in the room. A few moments later two men come walking up the tunnel, human miners carrying picks. The party ambushes them and they are swiftly killed.
A few moments later Galandil sees a robed shape at the mouth of the tunnel. He sees him gesticulate in the party’s direction and suddenly a cloud of poisionous gas appears above them. Galandil gets a mouthful and begins coughing violently, and Elowisyl vomits.
It is decided that since the spellcaster was well out of the range of the party’s spells but could still cast on them, that they are dealing with a much more powerful magic user and cannot win — they must retreat. Erag is asked to seal up the door once more.
Returning to the room with the waterfall, they contemplate on what to do. Celeb suggests that they divert the course of the water to flow down the tunnel, filling it up until the water pressure breaks through the rock door and floods the entire room. Everyone agrees on this and the work begins on diverting the waterfall.
Erag uses his earth shaping spells to divert the water, and it begins flowing down the hallway. A few hours later, the water has nearly reached the ceiling of the tunnel. A loud noise echoes through the floor, and suddenly the water level drops dramatically — apparently the rock wall gave way.
The party waits about 20 minutes for any survivors to try and come up the tunnel. Atentir turns into his bat form and flies down the tunnel, seeing that three people are approaching. Two are mages and one seems to be the mining foreman. The party takes positions to surprise them, and easily dispatches all three in a few moments. Meran nearly decapitates one of the mages with his axe, and Elowisyl spills the guts of the other with his sword.