Anthology - Untold Adventures - A Dungeons and Dragons Anthology

So there we were at the bottom of the shaft, with the fungus growing back fast. There was still a gap in the growth overhead, but it would be a tight squeeze at the top. Worst of all, we’d have to leave the motediscs behind. We had a fortune right in front of us, neatly piled up-and no way to get it home.

I couldn’t believe my eyes-my future lay at the bottom of a fungus-encrusted shaft. I couldn’t return to my apprenticeship at the quarry-not without returning the missing motediscs. That wouldn’t have mattered quite so much if I’d struck it rich, of course. I would have paid for them-double their value. But now I’d be branded a thief.

It was enough to make even the stoutest dwarf weep.

While Farrik complained and I tried to shout sense into him, Gamlin searched the drow’s body, trying to figure out which of her trinkets had allowed her to levitate. He found one of those medallions the drow are so fond of, but couldn’t make it work. Little wonder; even if he had been able to speak the language, he didn’t know the command word. Meanwhile, Araumycos continued to grow. By the time Farrik sputtered to a stop, the opening at the top of the shaft was even narrower. We’d have to hack our way out.

There was one consolation, I told the twins. They could each carry a couple of rock gourds out if they emptied their packs. Enough to cover the cost of the mind-shielding rings and healing draughts Farrik had purchased for our expedition, plus a little profit for each of us on the side. Enough to keep us fed and in ale for a month or two, while we figured out what to do next.

Farrik asked what I’d be carrying. I pointed out I’d have a tough enough climb without a heavy pack on my back. My injured leg was going to give me trouble. In fact, it was already stiffening up. If they wanted to reduce my share as a result, I told them, that was just fine with me.

Farrik looked ready to agree, but Gamlin shook his head and said we’d better hurry, or none of us would get out of there with anything.

The brothers set to work, emptying their packs and filling them with rock gourds. Meanwhile, I felt around for the rock gourd I’d spotted by the light of Gamlin’s blue fire-the one we’d missed. Might as well add it to the pile, I figured. One day, if we were lucky, Araumycos might die back again. Then we could come back and collect our reward.

My hand brushed something solid. I felt holes in its smooth, rounded surface. It was lighter than it should have been, I thought, as I pulled it from the muck. It felt thin and hollow. A moment later, I saw why. It wasn’t a rock gourd I’d found, but a skull. Slimy fungus dribbled out of the eye sockets and down my arm. The jawbone hung by a thread.

I nearly dropped the skull in disgust. Then I looked a little closer. The skull had a thick forehead, broad cheekbones, and a squarish look.

He-or she-had been a dwarf. Whoever it was had died some time ago, for there wasn’t a scrap of flesh or beard clinging to the bone.

If we didn’t get moving, we’d wind up just like him.

I placed the skull on top of one of the piles of gourds while Gamlin and Farrik were busy tying their packs shut. They glanced at it, but didn’t say anything. They were too busy grunting under the load in their packs. I wondered how they’d be able to climb.

They managed it somehow, sweating under the strain. I had a harder time of it. Even without a pack, I spent my climb gritting my teeth at the pain of my wounded leg and trying not to faint.

At the top, we had to cut our way through. Having no pack to impede me, I clambered over the edge first, squeezing through what opening there was. Behind me, Gamlin and Farrik struggled, their bulging packs caught on the lattice of fungus. I looked down the corridor that led out-and saw that it was completely plugged. We were trapped!

I was starting to shout this to Gamlin and Farrik when something strange happened. The fungus that plugged the corridor quivered, then suddenly died back, leaving a gap.

Out of it stepped a drow. Black-skinned, gaunt-faced, she stared down at me with all the solemnity of a Deep Lord about to make a judgment.

I struggled to my feet, convinced for the second time that day that I was about to die. My mace was on my belt; I’d needed both hands for the climb. There was no way I’d undo the lashings in time.

Instead of attacking, however, she beckoned me forward. So startling was it, I took a step back, nearly going over the edge.

Behind me, I could hear Gamlin and Farrik sawing their way through the fungus. Getting out with their backpacks on was more important, it seemed, than hastening to my aid. Or maybe they hadn’t spotted the drow yet.

I noticed that she carried no weapons, wore no armor. And she’d still made no move to harm me. Nor did she look exactly as a drow should. Drow women are tall, but this one somehow seemed stretched thin, oddly jointed. Her white hair stood out from her head like old straw, but her hands disturbed me most. They were all wrong: only three fingers, the outer two more like hooks, the middle one straight, and all tipped with claws.

I suddenly realized what she must be. Not a drow at all. A soul, taken at the moment of death, kept warm for days or years or centuries in Bane’s chill embrace, and spawned in a new form that was wholly unlike whatever body it had inhabited before.

She nodded, as if she’d heard my thoughts. “Will you help me, Daffyd? Lay at least part of me to rest?”

I asked how she knew my name. It was one I’d left behind when I departed the Rift. Even Gamlin and Farrik didn’t know it.

She touched her chest with a claw. “Ironstar,” she whispered. Then she pointed at me. “Ironstar.”

I shivered as I realized we must have been fated to meet. Just like me, she’d been… reforged. But not by Moradin. Instead she’d been cast in the form of a race any dwarf would attack on sight.

Bane had played an even crueler joke on her than Vergadain had on me.

“Will you help me?” she repeated.

I wet my lips. Helping her would mean climbing back down that shaft. If it had been Gamlin’s or Farrik’s body lying at the bottom of it, I wouldn’t have given it a moment’s thought. But she was a stranger to me.

I stared at the revenant, wondering what kind of person she’d been as a dwarf. Had there been kin who’d mourned her, or had she been a clanless outlaw? An honest person or a rogue? Then I realized that I might as well ask the same questions of myself.

Whatever she’d been, it didn’t matter. Dwarves take care of their own.

“You deserve better,” I said. “I’ll see that you get it. By Moradin’s beard, I swear I’ll see your skull laid properly to rest.”

Her mouth stretched to a thin smile. She turned and pressed on a section of the wall. A hidden door swung open. Behind it was a staircase, leading up. The air that rushed from it smelled sweet. It was obviously a way back to the surface. One we’d missed on our way in.

I asked if she was going to lead us out.

She shook her head. “Not until the rest of my bones are recovered can I rest,” she told me. “The orcs scattered them far and wide when Delzoun fell-a final insult to my people. But one day I will find them.”

“Delzoun!” I repeated, incredulous. “But that was… How long have you been searching?”

“Too long,” she said wearily. “And yet, not long enough. The dwarf body has so many bones…” Her words trailed off in a sigh.

Behind me, I heard a shout of triumph. I turned and saw that Gamlin and Farrik had hacked their way through. If they saw me talking to a “drow,” Farrik’s suspicions would be rekindled. But I had to know one thing more. “Who-”

Rook was gone. Already, the hole she’d parted in the fungus was closing.