Shadow War campaign In-Game: Chapter 65- Kallum's Hold

[sab39]

"They were attacked by lycanthropes as well as by each other!"

{Can I tell if it's a lycanthrope I'm familiar with, or identify if it's Pack D'Cairn?}

[Navarre]

Bedlor, you find no survivors.

T'Ning, you do not recognize any of the scents.

[sab39]

Did the lycanthropes leave down the tunnel?

[Gaumer]

"Each other?!

Sure'n they were turned by the shifters 'fore they attacked. I not be knowin' anythin' else that be puttin' dwarf 'gainst dwarf.

Ye 'ear that Warsong? Be ready fer 'em shifters. We may be needin' yer mightier force set upon 'em.


What o' the knights 'bove ready to be on us? We should be givin' 'em a meetin' an' make 'em 'ware o' what's goin' on down 'ere."

Bed presses his mind to his "work" and does his best to see past the personal horror and see the larger scope of the current war.

"I'll not be lettin' me 'ome be taken by this evil scum, an' I'll be damned if these deaths go unavenged."

{And all the dead ones are Pass Warders? I only ask because it would make sense if the Warders showed up late to the party; it would also mean the whole damned Hold could be full of were-somethings.}

[Navarre]

All of the dead are Pass Warders. It does look as if they had fought each other, with some trying to open the door into The Devil's Maw.

There is no sign that the lycanthropes ever entered or left the room. You can only detect the scent and witness the carnage of their presence.

[sab39]

Were the warders turned as far as I can tell?

I step carefully over the carnage and toward the entrance to the tunnel and see what I can tell by scent as far as how many, and what species, what went that way.

[Gaumer]

"Sure'n they 'ad some magic put on 'em to be takin' arms 'gainst each other. We be seein' it 'fore in that barn.

Let's be movin' on, but slowly and watchin'. 'Idin' if'n ye can be."

{Not sure which directions we have to go. There were no tracks, right?}

[Navarre]

The Warders were slain by each other but show no signs they were lycanthropes. The scent of your kind fades at the tunnel entrance. There is no sign the lycanthropes ever left the room.

There are a couple of bloody footprints leaving the room, going down the tunnel. They are dwarven.

[sab39]

"Bedlam, praps we should, um, see if there's anything on these bodies we can use? They're not using it, and there might be keys for doors we will need to get through, or something."

[Gaumer]

"Aye. Yer right, o' course, mate. Me 'ead be a put off by the sights."

Bed helps search the bodies.

[Navarre]

Searching the bodies reveals the eight hammers and four axes of your kin, along with the chain mail the Pass Warders wore. They were also armed with light picks. They have a dozen sets of ropes, climbing gear, pitons, and such in their backpacks.

The Warders were traveling light though. This was no standard watch.

They were outfitted to move quickly through the winding tunnels that lead into the depths of Kallum's Hold, having made their way from the Inner Reaches where the Dwarves make their homes. There, the families of the dwarven people are to be found, as well as the remainder of Kallum's finest.

But these Warders were either pursuing something...or trying to prevent something from getting past them. Either way, they died for their efforts.

Bedlor, you spy the body of Seamus McGilly, nephew of your old Trainer. You remember the time he got stuck in the crawl space during training. How hard you'd laughed.

You didn't mean too, but seeing his booted feet wiggling from the end of a passage plugged tight by his round belly, you couldn't restrain yourself. Old Trainer McGilly had you washing rock clamps for two days after laughing at his nephew.

But it wasn't the fingers puckered from soap suds that bothered you. It was poor Seamus's face as he was extracted.

Your peer was red-faced with exertion...he said...but you knew his feelings had been hurt. You'd meant no harm and a Dwarf has to have a hide tough as granite to bear the weight of duty. Your Pa had taught you that,

Still, it was a day that taught you a little about respect for others; especially the helpless. You kind of owed Seamus for that lesson though you could never be sure your stumbling apology to him hit home.

He had smiled it off and patted your shoulder. You had told yourself the matter was forgotten by him.

Seamus McGilly lay more bare before you than even that day though. His body was literally ripped in half, as if two elevator winches had drawn his apart at the waist.

Seeing the congealed fat seeping from where his round stomach had once been, you feel a wave of something worse than nausea hit you as the thought of that training day in nook-crawling rushes back to you.

There are a set of keys on a ring, lying in that fat. You recognize them as the keys to the Inner Reaches.

Seamus must have made a good accounting of himself since your departure, having been chosen as the Key Bearer for this Warder party. Seeing his upper half, still gripping his hammer as fiercely as a dead man can, you can only hope he knew his death came with honor too.

[Gaumer]

Bed takes the keys

"I be knowin' these dwarfs. This be a sad day, indeed. Steel yer feelin's...

I be findin' keys that'll be gettin' us further."

[Navarre]

The light streaming from the outer door begins to fade by the time you enter the tunnel. Bedlor, you know The Devil's Maw is an isolated area, even for Carrigan's Pass.

The Inner Reaches, the home cave of your people, is some thirty miles deeper into the mountains. But the tunnel you are in is the only access route so perhaps the lycanthropes are even now stalking the dwarves after killing the Warders you just discovered.

Using your darkvision, and the others their masks, you begin to make your way into the depths of Kallum's Hold. You had never forgotten, even for a day, how different the outside world is from here, your home.

The quiet echoes on itself, like the ocean you have only recently seen. But where the ocean rumbles and murmurs of things within, the air here is the epitome of calm.

You feel the walls speaking to you, great art of the world itself. The vastness of it all may make the others feel lost or even insignificant. To you, however, it is like being nestled in a cool blanket by a loving mother.

A momentary thought of your Ma creeps unbidden to your mind, bringing memories of your Pa rushing behind. Your life has always been a bit harder than the other Dwarves, you'd felt.

You always felt there was something that needed done; something more than the Dwarves accomplished with their endless sculpting and mining. Even guarding the Pass, the most honorable of duties, seemed more hollow than the caverns that surrounded you.

You never quite knew what that "something" was that needed done. You certainly didn't think it was you that was to be doing it. You only knew it needed done; the ticking of that clawing at the back of your mind.

But now, this day, as you make your way into your homeland, you realize your "home" is much larger than Kallum's Hold and that you understand what it is that needs done. There are people suffering in this world; people who cannot defend themselves.

And there are people who choose to look away from that. You never thought it would be the dwarves, with their keen darkvision, who would be among the blind.

But if the Dwarves have truly let the ages pass, seeing the unchallenged Empire rise to the west and the slaughter of innocents to the east, and done nothing then someone needs to open their eyes. Of all the horrors you have seen, perhaps nothing is quite so dangerous as Apathy.

Warsong hums slightly in your hand, ready to crush not only the bodies of the enemy but the dark things that seethe within them. You can only hope your people will be more than this.

Still, thirty miles is a long trek through these caves, especially with the impending arrival of the two forces in the Maw behind you. You know there was no place closer to enter with the Chamber of the Sun and Moon but you also know you will not make it to the Inner Reaches in time.

You are relieved then, less than a mile in, to see an oval box of copper protruding at head-height just ahead to your right. You recognize the shoutcaster, the means of long-distance communication among your people.

Sending ones voice channeling through dozens of miles of copper pipe, resonating boards within, maintains the voice of the speaker to be heard at the other end. The Gnomes often dismissed such inventions as rudimentary as compared to their infusion of metal and magic. But the Gnomes weren't patient like the Dwarves and couldn't understand the satisfaction in a construction spanning dozens of square miles.

You had thought this end of the shoutcaster to have been closed down, as The Devil's Maw itself had been. But here it was, waiting for someone to stick their head into the box to hear and be heard.

The tunnel also continues along its course northward. There is no sign anyone has passed this way in weeks, save for the Warders you recently discovered. Following the tunnel will soon lead you into The Complex, the massive series of caves that comprise the Hold south of the Inner Reaches.

[sab39]

{What can I tell by scent about who has come this way recently?}

[Navarre]

You only smell the scent of Dwarves within the last hour. With a bit of effort you connect that scent to the team found massacred far behind you now at the entrance.

Then you catch the scent of lycanthropes. It is faint, coming from ahead of you down the tunnel.

Yet the scent does not pass through this section.