Whitehearth, Eyre 12, 998 YK

As I write this, I’m resting so close to a dire wolf that I can reach out and stroke her fur.

K’ehleyr and I decided to use chalk to number each of the shafts as we investigated them, as they always appeared in the same doorway and looked somewhat similar. Each of the four new tunnels that our blue key lead us to had a long corridor with various passages splitting off at the far end. The first we tried had a propped open door, a metal door (closed), and an archway leading in another direction. We noticed dried blood on the floor as well. Before we could investigate, we caught the sight of a large wolf in the open doorway, so we quickly tried another passage.

The second was… pleasant. A huge laundry room, complete with piles of fresh laundry and a tub of soapy water greeted us. As we watched, more clean clothes would rise out of the tub. I took a lab jacket I found on a pile near me and a few other items— you never know when you may need a quick change of clothes.

The third passage had a huge library at the end— and absolutely nothing worth reading, unless you like looking at inventory lists. There was a dead woman in there— she looked like she’d only passed yesterday— obviously her death occurred on the Day of Mourning. She had a House Cannith signet ring, and had been reading an arcane scroll for resisting energy. I took both; the former in case we needed the seal to gain entrance anywhere else in the foundry.

The fourth passage was full of soot and ash. When we made our way to the end, we found an area that contained a pool of clear water, and a room with a ball of fire rolling around in it. The ball started to roll towards us, so we quickly shut the door on it, moments later hearing a satisfying “whump!” as it tried to pass through the doorway.

Well, none of what we’d encountered so far produced any useful results, so we decided to try the first passage again, this time prepared to fight our way through if need be.

Things got a little… odd at this point. We stepped into the passage and the large wolf was there, so I said “Hello.” The wolf said “Hello!” I asked if the wolf had been down here long and she said that she had and then politely asked what we were doing down here as well. After some more (increasingly bizarre, as I really had no idea wolves could talk) pleasantries, we came to learn that Rorsa (as she called herself) had both a blue and green key, and had, prior to the Day of Mourning, been kept in a lab of some sort, along with the rest of her pack. She is fairly certain she could not talk then, and in fact, she’s the only one of her pack mates that can talk. Sadly, she and her pack have been trapped for four years (I can only assume that this odd tunnel set up somehow prevented whatever killed all the people of Cyre kept the wolves safe) in Whitehearth, and in fact, half of her pack mates are still in their cages, guarded by a nasty stone wolf. We agreed to work together, first to find some way of quickly reviving Jin and Gib, then rescuing her pack mates. She would give us her green key once they were released, so that we could find our way to wherever the schema was located.

K’ehleyr and I looked through the room Rorsa had been waiting in. It was a large room full of bunks and foot lockers. We did some rummaging, hoping for anything to aid us, and were rewarded with a handful of coins and two vials marked “healing.” Exactly what we needed! We immediately ran back to the surface to revive our comrades, and then brought them down to meet Rorsa, who led us back to the room with the octagonal pedestal. She used her green key, and a new shaft opened up, leading to another spherical room with a square pedestal. This one accepted blue, green, yellow or orange keys. Using her green key again, she opened up the way leading to her imprisoned pack mates. We found ourselves in a new narrow passage, the sounds of growling in the distance. We rounded a corner and came face to face with a wolf covered in marble plates. The wolf snarled, revealing obsidian teeth. Rorsa and K’ehleyr attempted to attack it, but had a lot of trouble landing blows and bites on the stony hide. The stone wolf had no such problems, and repeated wounded and knocked them down, and once ensorcelled K’ehleyr, causing her to move very slowly. I attempted to trip the creature with my whip, simultaneously singing a Haunting Melody, and while I know the stone wolf was shaken by it, it still had the upper hand. Jin could only assist at keeping us on our feet, while Gib managed to squeeze past the stone wolf and begin to unlock cages in the lab where Rorsa’s pack was held. As he freed wolves, they would come to Rorsa’s aid, flanking the enemy and biting it. Eventually, K’ehleyr managed to land a killing blow on the creature, and just in time, as she and Rorsa were badly wounded and Jin had been knocked out.

Gib dug around in some debris in the lab area, and came back with another signet ring, a round metal disk, an orange key, and a bloodstone broach bearing a crescent moon. Rorsa, true to her word, gave us her green key, and a pearl pendant she had in her possession. We decided to rest for a time, until my comrades and the wolves all felt ready to quest and travel. I went up and told Failin (who wanted to know if I was ready to go) that it would likely be safer for him to rest inside with us rather than in his land cart, and for once he agreed with me.

Here’s hoping this note finds you well above ground!

Your sister,

Jak

Posted by Kristin on November 21, 2005, 15:02 | Jak’s Journal