4.29 Karil'Dirin

After a long, hunched-over walk that couldn’t have taken more than half a minute in actuality, Bernt emerged from the tight tunnel into a large natural cave. It was, as promised, much roomier than the entrance had been. The walls and floor bore toolmarks where miners had worked, probably decades or centuries ago.

Along the ceiling, tiny natural light crystals shone down like stars in the night sky, providing some illumination. As he caught up to the rest of the group, he lost sight of the tiny lights, their dim glow overwhelmed by Dalbrand and Magister Jesra’s light spells. Belatedly, Bernt added his own torch spell and set it hovering over his shoulder.

The rough cave floor slanted downward at an odd angle, leading to three passageways that led out and downward from this cave. There were other tunnels on the sides, but Dalbrand ignored them as he led the group straight down and into the leftmost tunnel. Loose rocks, tools, broken crystals and a damaged cartwheel littered the floor – more signs of the miners’ hasty exit.

The entrance to the Depths was easy to miss. In fact, Dalbrand walked right by it, stopping only when Xul’evareg snagged the back of his uniform jacket and tugged him to a stop in a small chamber that formed an intersection for three tunnels.

“We’re here,” she said. 

“Already?”  Dalbrand looked around, nonplussed. Meanwhile the shaman ducked down, and shuffled under a protruding rock shelf, disappearing from view. He blinked down at her.

“Oh. Did they just hack through by hand?” he wondered. “I’m not crawling through that.”

With a wave of the archmage’s hand, the rock shelf disappeared, pouring up and out of the way to layer over the walls and leaving a neat, doorway sized hole. Light shone through from the other side from large, clear light crystals – the sort that would have probably been extracted immediately ago on this side. Xul’evareg stood there, hands on her hips, scowling at Dalbrand.

“You could have said something. I’m not getting any younger, you know.” 

He rolled his eyes. “You didn’t give me the time to help. Why wasn’t it opened properly? We have geomancers on staff in the mines. Three of them, if I remember right. They could have done this the first time.”

“They didn’t want to help us,” Estrid said tiredly. “They claimed reopening the way to the goblins was asking for trouble, so we had to dig through ourselves. They would have stopped us if we hadn’t had the writ from the Adventurers’ Guild.”

Dalbrand frowned severely at that, but let it go.

Elyn, who’d been quiet so far, pushed forward eagerly, breathing in the air as if to taste it. “Do you smells that? It’s different, right?” she said to the shaman. “What do you think it is?”

“Ah, I don’t use my nose for this sort of thing,” Xul’evareg replied. “But the Karil’Dirin and their tributaries revere primarily spirits of the earth. I can hear their whispers.”

The half-elf blinked. “Of the… what? You mean like elementals? Does that work? I thought your spirits were more like little gods.”

Xul’evareg shrugged. “What is a god? A spirit is a spirit. Karil is not an elemental, but she is of the earth. Some of the others, maybe they are, maybe not. It doesn’t matter to us. If they will speak with us and work with us, the details are not so important.”

Bernt couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at that, and it didn’t look like Dalbrand, Elyn or Jesra thought these sorts of details were unimportant either. Real natural spirits were alien, each one unique and defying definition or categorization. Elementals, on the other hand, were physical beings. They could be studied, defined and catalogued according to discrete types. They made sense, in their own way.

He was trying to think of a way to ask Xul’evareg what these different kinds of “spirits” had in common when a scratchy, high pitched voice echoed up toward them in an unfamiliar language. Xul’evareg responded in the same language, the words full of throaty trills and soft nasal consonants. She signalled them to follow her and headed down the tunnel with confident steps. 

The path, if it could be called that, wound down the steep slope in a sort of irregular natural stair, the bottom of which was blocked by a barricade of loose stones that looked like it hadn’t been there more than a week or two. Behind it stood eight wary-looking goblins wielding short spears and daggers. They wore steel helms and their armored coats were made of odd, red-scaled leather that Bernt didn’t recognize.

Their leader, an old warrior whose green skin was pocked with burn scars, hailed them in the same language as before, waving to the shaman as they approached. 

She waved back and responded, pointing to each of the non-goblins one after another and introducing them. At least, she used their names – Bernt couldn’t understand a word of the rest.

“What kind of armor is that?” he asked, leaning over toward Nirlig.

“It’s kobold hide,” Ina responded before Nirlig could say anything. “There are a couple of red dragon lairs in the Phoenix Reaches. Their kobolds are active under most of the entire Sunset Range. Their hide is supposed to be great against fire.”

Bernt took another look, unsure whether to be impressed or unnerved. He wasn’t sure what he thought of skinning intelligent creatures to make armor out of their hides. Sure, he’d killed his fair share of them, but somehow he couldn’t help but picture someone doing that to Gnugg, Jori’s little kobold “intern” back in Halfbridge. How long would he still be at the orphanage? Kobolds grew up quickly – much faster than humans. What would happen to him then?

After some more back and forth, the goblins parted to let the group through. One, a younger woman, led the way with a light crystal in hand. She wore a belt over one shoulder with several fist-sized metal capsules attached. There were no runes or other visible markings on them, but the way she was carrying them in easy reach suggested they were weapons of some kind.

They hiked through crystal-lit tunnels for a few more minutes before the character of the surrounding rock changed, transitioning to a more uniform brown color. Then they reached an intersection, took the right fork and kept hiking. On it went, ever further down, through intersection after intersection until there was no way to tell which way they were going or how far they’d gone.

This didn’t seem to surprise anyone, though Bernt had expected to at least see some signs of goblins – there was nothing here. They reached no caverns, no carved chambers, nothing. There wasn’t even any garbage to suggest anyone had been here recently.

“Where are all the goblins?” Bernt asked after about an hour of this. “We’re in their territory, right? I thought we would see… something. A town, or at least more warriors.”

“We are skirting around the caverns that they inhabit,” Estrid explained from behind him. “I was guided around this way the first time we came. They don’t trust you… us. Humans, I mean. They spent generations fighting us, so they don’t want us near where they keep their children. But don’t worry, I recognize this part. It’s not much farther now.”

“Oh.” It probably didn’t help that they had three mages here. At least the tunnels and natural passageways here weren’t too tight – they’d probably gone out of their way to find a route that was comfortable for humans to use.

A few minutes later, they reached their destination – the first sign that this place was actually inhabited. The cavern was only about ten feet high at its tallest point, but it was large. Three beautifully carved archways marked other entrances, and two of those hosted streams of goblins going in and out. They were all armed and armored, though they didn’t have anything like a uniform. Kobold hide featured heavily, especially on the arms and legs, but each person’s gear was unique, as if they’d all used the same materials, but then designed and made their own gear.

The strangest thing, though, was the cavern’s infrastructure. Most of it was simple stone constructions – rough walls had been built to partition and organize the space. Most didn’t even have proper doors, leaving storage, work and sleeping areas open and visible to any passersby. 

In stark contrast to this crude sort of construction were the people themselves. Goblin smiths wearing finely made protective lenses over their eyes heated steel in some sort of smokeless magical furnace made of finely worked stone. Others carefully cleaned bits of rock off of crystals on an odd, noisy grinding contraption that spat little puffs of steam into the air in a steady rhythm as the grinding wheel spun. It looked out of place – more like something you’d see in the Underworks. Since when did goblins have artificers?

As they passed by, many of the goblins present stopped to stare at them, some more warily than others. Still, nobody stopped them until they reached the far side of the chamber where several goblins stood in front of the third archway. No one went in or out of this one, though the way appeared to be open. While most of the waiting group was wearing armor, one serious-looking elder wore a long tunic made of green silk, belted tight with red-scaled kobold hide. He stepped forward and inclined his head at the group, saying something that Bernt assumed was a greeting.

Minister Jesra cleared her throat and stepped forward. “On behalf of the kingdom of Besermark, 

I greet you and offer our thanks for your willingness to open a diplomatic channel.”

The old goblin raised a thick eyebrow at her and looked over at Xul’evareg. The shaman jerked her thumb at the diplomat, explaining what she’d said in a much more casual tone, if Bernt was any judge. The goblin leader snorted, then he pointed right at Bernt and asked a question.

Xul’evareg nodded in confirmation and the goblin gave an exaggerated sigh of relief. Then he placed his hand on the stone archway and recited something with a metered sort of rhythm to it.

“What’s going on?” Bernt asked uneasily, looking around for someone to explain.

“He’s one of their shamans,” Nirlig said. “He recognized your face, and wanted to know if you were ready to appease the great fire spirit to reopen their trade route. Now he’s asking Karil, their patron spirit, for protection in the tunnel. I guess it’s dangerous in there.”

“What, now?” Bernt asked, shocked. He wasn’t ready. He hadn’t even decided what he’d say to the elemental when he saw it again, much less prepared in any concrete way for what to do if it wasn’t as friendly as it had been last time. He’d only learned about all this yesterday. There hadn’t been time! 

When he’d first met it, the creature had just barely entered the material plane. It had no idea where it was, or what to make of this place. What if it had decided that it didn’t like this place, and blamed Bernt for summoning it here? Bernt was effectively part fire-elemental himself, now, if he understood what had happened to him correctly, and he was totally immune to heat. But he’d seen what an elemental as powerful as this one could do to a flame sprite – it had casually destroyed and reshaped its spirit using nothing more than its will. Would he be any safer if it took a hostile interest in him?

Nirlig shrugged, not noticing Bernt’s distress. “We have to. The Karil’Dirin aren’t going to let us stay in their territory. I mean, maybe Xul’evareg – she’s a legend – but certainly not any humans. And if we want to be able to leave this way we should get to the Duergar Empire as fast as we can. Who knows how long the Duke is still going to hold the mine?”

“Right, I know that. I’m just worried about the elemental,” Bernt said as he tried to sort through his feelings. He did know that they were in a hurry. But this all still felt… rushed. He’d been working on Dalbrand’s burnouts this morning, and now he was here. It was disorienting. Besides, wasn’t it late? He was exhausted. He hadn’t even managed to contact Jori since before he’d been arrested. Did she even know what was happening? This was all so sudden. 

“Are you going to ask it how to make more sorcerers?”

Bernt’s head snapped around to look at Estrid – he hadn’t realized she was listening in.

“I… I don’t know. I’m not sure it even understands what a sorcerer is. How could it? Besides, Song said I shouldn’t try to do this sort of thing myself.”

The druid shrugged and pulled a small notebook from her pocket. “You should still ask. I’m not a mage, but I still managed to learn a few useful things from you and Uriah.” She opened it, showing him a copy of a rune circle. “See? Do you have any idea how much potential this has for someone like me? If I can master this, I’m going to be unstoppable!”

Bernt peered at the page. He recognized enough of it to tell that it was some kind of kinetic ward – the same sort that were often put up around buildings.

“Estrid,” he said carefully, “there’s a reason we don’t use these to fight.” At least, no one except abjurers used them – but they had specialized investitures to help them. “It would take an hour of drawing just to encircle yourself. And someone could easily ruin a single, unprotected ward like that with magic. It’s still useful, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a reason most people don’t go to the trouble of learning all this stuff.”

The druid rolled her eyes and waved his objections away. “I’m not going to fight an army, and I’m not going to painstakingly draw them out by hand like a mage. At least, not if I can make it work the way I want. Don’t worry about me, worry about what I said! Ask the elemental. Even if you won’t use it directly, you might learn something.”

Bernt gave her a long look, but then nodded. It wasn’t really his business how she used warding – if she could make it work for her, then great. And she was right. Any knowledge he could gain might turn out to be important later.