Seeing Dugan fall, Ulark said ”Joanne, get Dugan out of here.”
He then roared ”Over here you smoking bastard! Blasted...pile of forge-scrap! Fight me!”
"I'll delay him! Joanne, seize Dugan!"
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Even as Micheo strikes the dark smith again, the battle seems hopeless. However, with one last burst of adrenaline-fueled rage, Dugan sinks Glintaxe into the chained foe's shoulder - the axehead cleaving through chains and burying itself deeply in the smith's torso.
The smith and Dugan drop almost in unison.
The hound catches Inconnu in its vise-like jaws, but its teeth cannot pierce Inconnu's mail shirt before the bard breaks free of the bite.
Ulark stared for a moment in surprise. He then turned and ran at the hellhound...
Inconnu gives a half hearted swing before moving back to let Ulark at the hellhound.
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Ulark practically shoves Inconnu out of the way as he confronts the hell hound. With a mighty swing of his axe, fueled by righteous anger, Ulark cleaves the beast's head from its body in a single blow. A small plume of black, sulfurous smoke and a spray of embers bursts forth in lieu of blood, and the decapitated beast collapses to the soot-caked tunnel floor.
Micheo sees Dugan on the ground - and the smith.
He chooses to drive his rapier into the latter.
Inconnu moves over to Duggan and starts casting some restorative magic on his dwarven ally to help him recover from his wounds. "You did Ol' Glintaxe proud today Duggan."
Breathing heavily, Ulark shook his axe clean. ”I thought we were done for! Are the children alright? How is the new Glintaxe? Is he alright?”
Inconnu's healing magic flows into Dugan's unconscious form and the dwarf's hand reflexively closes around the hilt of his weapon. He takes a clumsy lunge forward with the magical axe, striking the inert form of the fel smith uselessly. Seeing his unconscious foe before him, he staggers to his feet and takes a few steps back toward where the hound was, searching for an enemy. Seeing none, he sinks back to one knee, breathing heavily.
Without looking around he asks 'The children, are they safe?'
The fall of the dark smith - sealed with a downward thrust of Micheo's needle-sharp blade - seems to cool the fires of his forge, and the smoke grows less blinding, though no less oppressive.
With his eyes more clear, Ulark watches as the hound seems to decay with unnatural speed, but it soon becomes evident that it is merely collapsing into a heap of ash.
Inconnu and Joanne feel their hearts less heavy as Dugan rises back to his feet, but the dread does not entirely vanish - especially when the thinning smoke reveals and reminds them of the bound child at the foot of the anvil.
On the sawdust-strewn roads of Falcon's Hollow, you've seen his insufferable behavior firsthand. He is quick to snarl at people, threatening to have his father's men thrash someone if they don't do as Jurin says. You've even seen him treat children his own age with the same contempt that his father would show his workers.
However, this is not the whole story.
You've learned from Jocelyn that Jurin Kreed is, in truth, very unlike his father. His bratty behavior in public is merely a facade to appease his father's expectations of him. Furthermore, in evidence of this, you've heard from Colbrin Jabbs, the town butcher and father of Mikra, that Jurin spends afternoons in their home, reading to his illiterate son.
Inconnu seems disheartened. "I recognise the remains in the forge as Jurin Kreed." Beyond that he stays silent for now, they had banished the monster but couldn't save one of the children.
Inconnu rises from leaning down into his finishing blow, the fury on his face diminished with the death of the dark smith.
"May your chain be ever silent and never binding." , Micheo utters, tension still in his voice.
Hearing Inconnu and seeing the anvil, he replies:
"A last foul trick of corrupt forge-light, Inconnu. Look again, the boy lives!"
Micheo strides over to the anvil, saying:
"Jurin, we have come to free you."
The holy warrior seeks a lock or bolt to undo.
"I could hardly tell with all this soot and inside the forge I mistook a pile of coal for him. A happy mistake to make now I know Jurin is alive."
Dugan pushes himself to his feet once more, nodding at the news that the child is alive.
'Rescuing Kreed's boy will go a long way towards mending fences back in Falcon's Hollow. There's still a captured child and man somewhere down that well, I reckon.'
"Then we keep seeking them. But first, let us get Jurin to Edgrin and the others."
Micheo looks over to Dugan.
"You need to heal. Wait a short time."
Micheo apparently does nothing. Then Dugan's wounds start to close, while Micheo starts to wince.
Micheo frees Jurin, only to find that the child shows the barest sliver of consciousness. He mumbles as though in a feverish dream, and he shows no strength to stand on his own.
In a jagged crevasse within this cavern, nestled to the right of the forge, you spot a narrow fissure leading down into the natural rock beneath the monastery. It would almost certainly be a tight fit, but it could lead down into the deeper kobold warrens, where the last child and captive adventurer can be found, and serve as an alternative to the well in the previous room, presumably well guarded by the remaining kobold warriors below.
Unable to determine what was wrong with the child, Ulark put his hands on young Kreed and prayed to his ancestors to heal the child.
Dugan seems confused and slightly alarmed at feeling his body begin to mend itself so rapidly. 'Is this hurting you? I'm not sure I want to be a part of it if that's the case.'
Micheo's eyes widen with understanding, and agitation:
"The smoke has gotten to him! Get him up and out of here, into the clean air, or he will die!"
If Ulark or one of the others does not immediately start moving with Jurin up above, Micheo will move in to seize him.
Regardless, he will cut the connection to Dugan and say quickly while focused on the child: "I have ceased it and will explain once Jurin is aafe!"
Inconnu listens to Micheo's warning and starts lifting the young man to get him out of the room into cleaner air.
Micheo and Inconnu gather up the child and hustle him out of the smokey tunnels, followed closely by the rest of the party.
In the room with the deep well, you find Edgrin trying to keep Kimi from spitting down the shaft. Their wary idleness is perturbed as they see the limp Jurin carried in. Inconnu suggests setting him down beside the well, hoping the flow of air from below will help him. Though the air remains musty in these basement tunnels, it remains infinitely sharper and clearer than the sulfurous atmosphere belched forth by the forge left behind.
After several tense moments, Jurin offers a few weak coughs - ejecting small plumes of soot with each breath. Edgrin and the other children offer their own heavy sighs of relief as the boy slowly comes around.
"Let's get him back to the others before we head back."
"Edgrin, we have brought you another charge for the moment. We have found another means to reach below, so hopefully we will not keep you all waiting much longer.", he says with a slight smile.
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Dugan trudges tiredly into the well chamber. Spotting Kimi being her usual, rebellious self, he sighs to himself and grabs the girl firmly by the shoulder. 'Girl, I can't seem to get into your thick skull how dire a situation we're in.' His voice is hard and tired. He angles her head towards the worst of his wounds. 'I got these in here, worse will happen to you unless you stay sharp and be serious. I'm gonna feel real bad if I gotta carry your body back to your mama, so please, please stop treating this like it's some kind of country fair.'
"As Dugan says, it is very dangerous in here. Please, Kimi, stay put for a little while. We are working as fast as we can to save everyone and we are getting there.", Micheo says with sympathy in his eyes.
Dugan's message strikes Kimi like a well-aimed arrow. It is clear in her eyes that Dugan's wounds and burns, and especially the sight of Jurin near death, have fully reinforced the lesson. Her enthusiasm for this "adventure" has waned, and her energy is dampened into a more somber bearing.
"Hollin is still missing," the pale boy, Savram, says in a naturally quiet voice. You imagine that even his shouts would scarcely exceed anyone else's normal speaking volume. "He has frizzy red hair, and he likes to carve wooden figurines."
Edgrin also speaks up.
"As for Tyran, you'll be looking for a half-elf with pale hair and the seeming of a wizard, albeit a very dirty one. Those kobolds burned his spellbook, so he won't have any spells to sling, but if you can find Tyran, he knows some good tricks to stay in the fight."
"The kobolds shouldn't be as much danger as the things we just fought as long as we don't let them bring their numbers to bare. I'm happy to go looking for them." Inconnu looks tired but determined at this point.
"We know whom we seek and we have a safer way to reach them than that well. Let us go.", intones Micheo.
You leave the four children in the care of Edgrin, who takes up one of the felled kobolds' weapons to better protect them. Then, you brace yourselves to again brave the smokey, acrid forge cavern.
The soot-lined, narrow fissure plunges downward like a jagged knife into the lower reaches of this dungeon. It will be a tight fit, and you will need to take care as you descend, lest you slip and fall to the unknown depths below.
Dugan, seeing the descent, and not quite used to moving in his new armor, retrieves his rope and begins knotting it every couple of feet. 'I don't fancy a climb without a rope right now.'
Inconnu stows his shield and starts taking out a rope. "We could have one person go at a time if the other end isn't crawling with kobolds. The second rope around there waists in case someone slips, I'll feed the rope slowly. When everyone else is down I'll go." Inconnu loops the rope around the anvil to act as a pulley.
Micheo withdraws a length of hemp rope and begins affixing it to himself.
"I volunteer to go first."
Micheo will do just that unless someone disagrees.
"Wait!" Ulark yelled, but it was too late, everyone was already climbing. Not willing to injure himself for no reason, he pulled out fifty feet of silk rope. "Here, catch. Tie it to something. It will make climbing up and down much easier."
"A fine idea!" , responds Micheo.
At one point during his descent, Dugan finds himself and his new armor wedged among the rocks. He is able to free himself, albeit with some struggle, sending much dust and fragments of rock tumbling down before him.
With several lengths of rope now dangling down from the fissure above, you find yourselves in an arching, oblong cavern. It is rather humid, and drips of moisture periodically fall from the shadowed ceiling above.
The floor of this yawning cavern is filled with gigantic stalagmites, some standing six feet in height. The sight of these makes you all the more glad that you had lengths of rope to ease your climb down. The smashed remains of a grotesque stone statue also litters the cavern floor.
A narrow, twisting tunnel leads off from this otherwise dead-end of a cavern.
Inconnu moves over to the statue and starts examining it trying to figure out what it depicted when whole.
Micheo will do likewise, desiring to know what evils might be found here.
Dugan moves between the statue and the opening that winds deeper into the cave system, prepared for rushing Kobolds.
The statue once depicted some manner of winged beast, although you can only wonder what brought it into such a rough, natural cavern.
Micheo examines the broken shards of granite, and he judges that it was some sculptor's interpretation of an imp or demon.
The soft grind and clink of his armor keeps Dugan from hearing anything down the winding passage.
"A curious thing but we should move down this tunnel and focus on dealing with these kobolds while we still have them off balance."
"Aye Inconnu. You speak sense. Let us proceed."
”Thought they worshiped dragons? Suppose this lot is eviler than most.”
"Even more reason to destroy them utterly.", Micheo says.
Dugan nods his agreement and cautiously makes his way down the passageway, keeping an eye out for kobold tricks.
As you proceed down the tunnel, the sound of tools striking rocks can be heard, echoing off the walls. The cramped passageway opens to a large cavern filled with rocky overhangs and jutting boulders.
A half dozen kobolds, wearing only scraps of clothing if even that, struggle to swing mining picks to dig away at the walls or crack upon large boulders. Even compared to the wiry kobold warriors, these miners appear emaciated.
Another kobold - short even for their species - marches throughout this mine area, plodding along on spindly chicken legs that are far too small for his surprisingly muscled upper body. A steel helmet totters on his reptilian head, and he wears a creaking suit of studded leather armor.
One of the miners trips and falls, and when he proves too weak to rise again, the foreman stomps over and begins kicking the fallen miner in the ribs. He berates him in a barking tongue.