The Common Room!

     Everyone  except Aardvarkin,  who seems to have deserted  the  party
 tonight,  shuffles into Cyrith's Inn and pays the sum of  eleven  silver
 pieces for a room and a bath. You all receive separate rooms, all on the
 second floor of the building and all fairly close together. After taking
 your turns in the wash room,  you finally meet up with each other in the
 main  hall, refreshed yet hungry.  It is not  long  before  the  ancient
 innkeeper  starts a fire and what looks to be half the village files  in
 and  takes a seat.  The villagers all seem to be  congregating  together
 around a middle-aged warrior in full armour who is sitting at the center
 table.  Intrigued, you move your seats a bit closer to the  assembly  to
 see what all this is about.

     Soon,  you are brought a bowl of thin,  soupy stew, with little meat
 in  it.   However,  the  food  tastes  surprisingly   good,   especially
 accompanied  by the inn's fine ale,  or wine,  as the case may be.   You
 calmly eat your meal while listening to fine mandolin music courtesy  of
 a colourfully-dressed bard  who sits by the  fire.   However,  once  the
 warrior  in the middle of the room is finished his dinner,  he  abruptly
 stops  playing and moves closer to the center of  the  common  hall,  no
 doubt  to better hear this seemingly famous person.  You do not have  to
 wait long before he finally begins to speak.

     "So  what is it you people want to know?" says the  fighter,  as  he
 withdraws his sword from its sheath and calmly begins polishing it  with
 a clean scrap of clot the produces from a pouch on his belt.

     "You  know, Sol!  Tell us what was in the cave!  Did  you  find  the
 remains  of Skellor and Xath?" shouts one man,  and an entire chorus  of
 villagers murmur their agreement. "Yes, come on! You promised to tell us
 tonight.  After all,  you haven't even left your bloody room in the past
 week! What's been taking you so long?"

     "Never you mind,  Garson. I'll tell you what happened." The knightly
 man clears his throat and takes on a more stern face, and begins to tell
 his  tale, punctuating the story by nodding his sword  up  and  down  at
 various  points. "First of all,  I found out that it wasn't a cave -  it
 was  actually some sort of man-made underground construct.   It's really
 very  large, you know.  I explored much of the upper level,  but I  know
 that there  is at least one more further down in the  earth  because  I
 saw stairs leading down in this one room.

     "Anyways,  while I was holed up in my inn room this past week, I was
 diligently researching the background of your so-called cave.  From what
 I  could gather from your meager little library,  and with a little help
 from  some documentary scrolls from my late companion,  Kahlys, I  found
 out  that it was indeed Skellor and Xath who built the hideaway in  that
 cavern.  Apparantly there was another,  not-so-nice side to  the  former
 rulers of this area.

     "As  you already know,  Skellor was a fighter of great  repute,  and
 Xath  a powerful mage,  and forty-odd years ago they  joined  forces  to
 unite  the barbaric lands that we now  call  Cyrene.   They  ruled  this
 country  for nearly a decade,  when the pirates from Htron began to  get
 fed  up with the duo's restrictive import laws and seemingly  ridiculous
 bans  on certain items and  weapons.   The  pirates'  entire  livelyhood
 depended  on the trade of  some  of  these  very  items,  and  Skellor's
 military police were far too efficient for their tastes, so they stirred
 up  a revolt,  which spread to the nearby cities and towns and villages,
 until  they had over two  thousand  men  ready  to  stand  up  to  their
 oppressive  (well, to them,  anyway)  rulers  and  demand  the  laws  be
 changed--or be exiled.

     "Needless to say,  the two rulers were not blind to this revolt, and
 had  started scheming a plan long before it  had  gathered  considerable
 strength.  Apparantly they had designed this fortification as a means of
 luring their enemies into some sort of trap..."

     "Nonsense!"  cries  an old  man  sitting  at  the  bar.  "They  were
 frightened  of th'pirates an' th'revolutionaries,  so  they  built  that
 bedamned cavern t'hide out in!"

     "Well,  in a way.  The scrolls from Kahlys tell of some great tunnel
 that  stretches a thousand leagues underneath the southern plains.   The
 two  supposedly  were to flee down this  tunnel  to  escape   from   the
 country,  with intentions of returning soon after.  Meanwhile,  the  two
 thousand men who  participated in the revolt were supposedly lured  into
 the   cavern, where they were magicked away by a  spell  of  Xath's.  It
 still  puzzles me,  after  seeing what was in that place - it does  look
 more like a  hideout than  a trap..   but still,  the point is,  all two
 thousand  men vanished that day,  including  Skellor and Xath.   For the
 past  thirty years,  there  had  been  nothing  but  rumors  about  some
 mysterious  cave in which Skellor,  Rath,  and the two thousand  pirates
 and revolutionaries perished,  but it hasn't been discovered until now."
 Sol proudly pats his chest.

     "Say, that reminds me.. I have this sturdy armor to thank for saving
 my life.  All three of my comrades were slain by some unliving servants,
 who apparantly have kept guard there for the past thirty years.  I would
 have  returned their bodies for a proper burial,  but I had to exit  the
 place unexpectedly when some giant spiders chased me out. I just quickly
 gathered up what I could - mostly Kahlys's possesions - and ran.  But as
 I  said, I did manage to do quite a bit of exploring  down  there.  It's
 almost like an entire castle, but it's all underground! Unfortunately, I
 was  unable to make any maps of  the  construct,  and  I  don't  exactly
 remember  a whole lot,  other than the fact that  it  was  plagued  with
 spiders.  But it would be nice for once to put to rest all these  rumors
 we've  been hearing about your former rulers.  I, for one, would like to
 know the truth."

     "Then  why don't you go back,  Sol?" shouts someone  in  the  crowd.
 "Yes,  go back and tell us what happened to Skellor and Xath!" yells out
 another.

     The  warrior chuckles and then sighs.  "Believe me,  I'd really like
 to.  There's nothing I like better than subterranean  exploring.  But  I
 really do have to go now - I have prearranged business elsewhere, in the
 north.  However, if there's anyone else  interested  in  exploring  this
 cave--and possibly inheriting all the rumored riches contained therein--
 I certainly wouldn't mind showing them there."

     I  doesn't seem as if these simple village  folk  are  particularly
 interested  in investigating long-forgotten underground fortresses,  but
 perhaps  this is an opportunity for your party.   Besides, the sound  of
 these  "riches" is  rather interesting..  not counting the treasure  you
 just  recovered from the slavers,  you only have eight gold  crowns  and
 nine  silver pieces each.   Will you approach  this  hardy  fighter  and
 request  information on this place? Malcolm  votes  in  favor  of  this,
 indicating  that we proceeded this direction to find adventure - and  it
 didn't  necessarily have to be in Htron.  He further  assures  you  that
 Htron  can certainly wait,  since there's nothing overly  important  you
 have to do there, so your party cah perhaps proceed to Htron after doing
 a little bit of spelunking here..

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|/ungeon |  |aster

Sage's Desk AD&D