I won’t ask why you want to venture into Araumycos. Your reasons are your own affair. The reason we went in, my shield brothers and I, is best told by what’s in this pocket, here.
You ever seen one of these? It’s a rock gourd-a tiny one, no bigger than a walnut. They’re usually much bigger, at least the size of your head. Shake ’em like this… and there you go. See the water dripping from the stone? That’s what makes a rock gourd so valuable. Get lost in the Labyrinth, or trapped by a cave-in-or, I suppose, get lost in one of those deserts you have up there on the surface-and you’ll at least have all the water you need until you find your way out again.
’Course, this one’s too little to be worth much. Takes half a day to fill a thimble. But you get the idea.
Sad thing is, it’s the only one I was able to bring back with me.
Rock gourds are the reason we ventured into Araumycos. A patch of Araumycos had died off, and Gamlin and Farrik-two dwarves I once counted as shield brothers-figured they’d make their fortune before it grew back again.
Gamlin was the one who knew there’d be rock gourds there. He can sense things like that. He’s spellscarred, you see. Blundered into a patch of spellplague a few years back, and came out with feet that crackle with blue fire. Turned out to be a blessing in disguise. That spellscar roots him to the earth-roots him deep. Most of the time it just lets him stand firm on stone-long as he’s barefoot-and not be pushed around. But stone whispers to stone, as they say, revealing secrets buried deep.
Anyhow, Gamlin talked his brother Farrik into venturing into Araumycos. Told him they could carry out their own weight in rock gourds several times over and be set for life. Which is where I came into the scheme.
After I came north, looking for my clan, I apprenticed as a stonemason. Swinging a mallet all day’s what gave me these arms. I was still living on the surface, in those days-still saving up for these darkvision goggles. One day, as I watched two earthmotes grind together, casting off a drift of splinters that thudded to the ground in their wake, I found myself wondering why the broken-off pieces lost their magic and fell, rather than staying aloft. I wondered if there might be some way to restore their magic.
I thought of an earth node I’d heard about-one that, if you enter it, creates an invisible, floating disk that follows you around. Handy, if you’ve got a heavy load you need to move. Trouble was, the magical energy fizzles out after about a day, so the node isn’t much use unless you live close by.
I knew the node didn’t make regular stones float, but I got to wondering what would happen if I took a broken-off chunk of earthmote and carried it into that node. It worked-beautifully. The chip of earthmote began to float as soon as I entered the node-and kept on floating for more than a month! It’s probably bobbing around somewhere near the quarry, to this day.
The next step was to find an earthmote of flint or obsidian or chert-stone that would knap into nice, thin sheets. I needed the quarrymaster’s help with that one. Once we located one that was just right, I knapped off a big piece and rounded the edges, then carried it to the node. It floated on its own, just like one of those driftdiscs the drow are so fond of. But better, because I didn’t need magic to control it. Just a simple nudge of the That’s right. You’re talking to the man who invented the motedisc. Ryordin Hammerfist is the man who took credit for it- even though all he did was help me locate an earthmote of the right type and provide the labor to mine it. Hammerfist claimed the motedisc was all his idea, but it was actually me who dreamed it up, back when I was his apprentice. And did he give me anything for it? Hah! If he did, don’t you think I’d be the one buying the drinks?
Anyway, motediscs. One day, Gamlin and Farrik came to one of my master’s floating quarries. Not to buy- Farrik always keeps his coin pouch tightly tied, and Gamlin’s purse is seldom full for long-but to offer Ryordin a deal. Said they’d cut him in on a third of the profits if he’d fund their prospecting.
Ryordin turned them down stone cold. Actually laughed at them when they told him they were from the Ironstar clan. Said he supposed they were ghosts, then, since the last of the Ironstars had vanished centuries ago.
Ironstars. The same clan that made my mace.
Their meeting with Ryordin had been behind closed doors-protective of their future claim, Farrik and Gamlin were. I blundered into the room just long enough to hear them name their clan, and hear them ask for motediscs.
An elf like you might scoff, but I saw the hand of Moradin in it. Farrik, Gamlin, and I were fated to meet. And when I offered to slide a few motediscs their way if they told me more about my clan, they jumped at the chance.
There’s that eyebrow again. Of course you would think they were lying about being Ironstars, taking advantage of me. People often take me for a fool when I tell them my life story, but I know when someone’s tugging my beard. And they weren’t lying-not really. All dwarf are clan, when you go far enough back past the time of Bhaerynden.
What’s more important to my tale is this: I demanded a one-third share in the venture, in return for me “borrowing” as many motediscs from the quarry as I could spirit away. And I insisted on going along.
Yes, yes, I’m getting to the part where I tell you about Rook. Almost there, in fact. In the meantime, could I trouble you for just one more ale? Tale-telling’s such thirsty work.
Much obliged.
We went down into the Underchasm-Gamlin, Farrik, and I-and made our way to the spot where Araumycos had died back. We found a shaft that had, just days before, been filled to the rim with fungus. That shaft was deep, I’ll tell you, and of natural-worn stone-likely carved by a thundering waterfall long ago. A trickle of water still fell, starting from a point in mid air, just above the place where the shaft met the tunnel we’d followed in. Obviously a portal to the plane of water that had been shrinking for millennia. A portal that had all but closed by the time we found it.
As I was staring up at the spot the water fell from, I saw a flash of something black. I figured it was just one of the bats we’d stirred up earlier, on our way in. Only later did I realize it had been Rook.
What remained of Araumycos was a soggy mess at the bottom of the shaft. Foul-smelling muck. We slip- shuffled through it for the better part of a day, collecting the rock gourds Gamlin ferreted out with his spellscar.
Before I say what happened next, there’s a thing or two you should know about Farrik and Gamlin. They’re twins-that’s been commonplace, among the dwarves, since the time of the Thunder Blessing. But although Moradin cast them in the same mold, they’re different as the surface is from the Underchasm.
Both of them are black bearded and heavy browed. And both are fiercely proud of our race. But Farrik’s not the cleanest, to put it politely. You don’t want to stand downwind of him. He’s always covered in dust, even when he’s not prospecting, and his beard’s always a terrible tangle. He says he’s just too busy to tend to it. That a man who works hard should look like he works hard-dirt under the nails, and sweat stains. But you’d think he could at least take a bath, now and again.
Gamlin’s the clean one. He was the one taught me to braid my beard like this-and to develop a taste for the finer, oak-barrel ales. Gamlin’s coin pouch is pretty flat, most days, because when he has coin, he spends it. Doesn’t matter if you’re clan or not-if you’re someone he’s taken a liking to, Gamlin’s always ready to fill your cup.
He didn’t like me much at first. Nor did Farrik. I could see that. But the motediscs I got for them fixed that, soon enough.
So there we were at the bottom of the shaft, sliding around in ankle-deep rotting fungus, our noses filled with the stench, but grinning away because each stubbed toe was another prize in what turned out to be the motherlode of rock gourds. I’d been able to spirit out six motediscs from the quarry and each was heaped high with rock gourds.
The twins insisted we collect every last rock gourd, until the motediscs were sagging under the weight. I thought that was foolish, that it would slow us down-but they were the prospectors and I was the lowly apprentice, so I did as I was told.
Farrik was tying the last of the nets in place to hold the rocks down, and Gamlin was off in a fissure in the wall, relieving himself of some of the ale he’d drunk along the march. I was bending down to pick up the rock gourd I just showed you. After I got my share, I’d hang on to it as a keepsake, I figured, of our expedition.
I was tucking it into my pocket when a crossbow bolt whistled past my ear.
My first thought, I’m ashamed to say, was that the twins had betrayed me. Then I heard Farrik cry out in alarm and clasp his arm. He’d been hit by a bolt shot from above. Even though it was a shallow wound, little more
