“A ring,” he murmured, rubbing the atrophied muscles of his calves through the fabric of his purple robes. “So much lost time over such a simple answer.” He remained absorbed in his own thoughts, an expression of regret settling onto his angular face. His musings, however, lasted but a few moments before he left the mournful thoughts behind and addressed the foursome. “My name is Jarial. Words aren’t enough to thank you for releasing me.”
Corran introduced the party, then asked how long Jarial had been trapped in the boulder.
“Since the Year of the Arch—1353 by the Dale calendar,” he said. “What year is it now? There’s no way to tell time in here.”
“The Year of the Gauntlet. 1369.” Kestrel soberly studied him. Even though Jarial was a sorcerer, she felt sorry for him wasting so much of his life trapped alone in the darkness. He appeared only twenty or so, but he had to be much older. And the riddle that had imprisoned him had become so common while he endured endless isolation—even Durwyn had known the answer! “You mean this Ozama woman just left you down here for sixteen years and never came back?”
“I believe she meant to return,” Jarial said. “Something must have happened to her. She was angry but not vindictive enough to leave me here forever. We came here in the first place seeking a magical item called the Wizard’s Torc, said to lie in the lair of a dark naga somewhere in these dungeons. I fear she continued looking for it alone and met with misfortune.”
“Or found it and left you here to rot while she kept it for herself,” Kestrel said. “How did you survive, anyway? I mean, excuse me for asking, but why didn’t you starve to death, or get killed by the creatures dwelling down here?” She noted that his jaw was not even roughened by stubble, nor his clothes frayed by sixteen years of constant wear.
“Ozama’s spell kept me safe from the ravages of time and enemies,” Jarial said. “Though I did begin to fear I would go mad. At first, of course, I pondered the riddle every waking moment. When no solution came to me, I shouted myself hoarse calling for help. That attracted the attention of some of the undercity’s more unpleasant residents, who offered no aid but found it entertaining to come in here and torment me.”
Jarial’s little-used voice sounded scratchy. The poor man was probably parched. Corran offered him some water, which the mage accepted gratefully.
“You’re a sorcerer,” Kestrel prodded. “Couldn’t you use magic to free yourself?”
“Believe me, I tried! After going through all the spells I knew, I started devising new ones.” Jarial smiled ruefully. “Though I had the satisfaction of using some of my mocking antagonists for target practice, I still couldn’t gain my freedom.” He continued kneading the muscles of his legs, trying to rub life back into them.
“After giving up on using sorcery to free myself, I spent probably another year just saying aloud every word I could possibly think of, hoping to accidentally stumble on the answer. Obviously, that strategy proved ineffective as well. Eventually, I stopped bothering to even use magic to light this room. I’d just consigned myself to spending eternity here, alone in the darkness with only my own thoughts for company.” The lonely sorcerer tried again to rise, but his legs remained too weak to support him.
“Here, drink this.” Ghleanna offered him a small vial of bluish liquid, one of the potions they had found on Athan’s band. Faeril had identified it as a healing potion made of blueglow moss, a local plant renowned for its curative properties but now in short supply. “You’ll never manage to massage away years of disuse.”
Jarial swallowed the dose and within minutes was able to walk around the chamber. When his stride had steadied, he held the foursome in his gaze. “I can’t thank you enough,” he said. “What quest brings you to these dungeons? You must let me aid you.”
Kestrel laughed humorlessly. He was welcome to take her place.
The band, now five in number, continued through the maze of passages. Jarial thought he remembered the location of a stairway that led up into the hill of the acropolis, so at his suggestion the party backtracked to a previous fork and headed down a different corridor.
A few yards down, light spilled out of a doorway. Within, they heard sounds of shuffling and sporadic muttering as if someone were talking to himself. Kestrel snuck ahead and peered inside.
Nottle the peddler bent over an open trunk, rummaging through its contents. “An’ what’s this? Ah, yes! Dwarven weapons always fetch a good price.”
Kestrel blinked. The peddler was foraging through the dungeons as casually as if he were shopping in Phlan’s marketplace. Was the little guy trying to get himself killed? She motioned to the others to join her, then entered the chamber. Engrossed in his scavenging, the halfling didn’t even notice her.
“Nottle, what are you doing here?”
“Yiaah!” The peddler jumped about a foot. The short sword he’d been holding clattered back into the chest. “Jeepers! Ye scared me!”
“Worse things than us could stroll into this room,” Kestrel said as her companions entered. “How did you get in here?”
“I saw ye folks unseal the door, and I follow’d ye in. Them elven clerics mean well an’ all, but thanks t’ them I ain’t been able to git in here fer weeks—all the good stuff’s nearly gone.”
The paladin shook his head in disbelief. “You’re telling us this whole dungeon complex has been plundered in a matter of weeks?” Corran asked. “By whom?”
“Everyone!” Nottle retrieved the short sword he’d dropped and added it to the collection of booty he evidently intended to abscond with. “Since them horrible phaerimm and alhoon have been run outta this part o’the city, all sortsa creatures come here to loot their old hoards. Why do ye think there’s so many orcs about? It’s a great time to be a scavenger!”
“Aren’t you afraid for your safety?” Ghleanna asked.
“No more’n usual.” The peddler struggled into his overstuffed pack and picked up his lantern. “A bit o’danger comes with the trade. If I wanted to play it completely safe, I’d open a borin’ little shop in Waterdeep. ’Sides, the orcs’re some o’my best customers, so they pretty much leave me alone.”
“Orcs aren’t the only things haunting these passageways,” Jarial said. “I’ve seen zombies and—”
“Oh, I can handle a few zombies.” Nottle headed for the door. “Nice chattin’ with ye folks again. Let me know if ye need anythin’!” With that, he was gone.
All five of them stared after the peddler. “He’s going to get himself killed,” Durwyn said.
Kestrel shrugged. “Better him than us.” In a way, she envied the halfling. Were the need for stealth not so great on this misguided mission of theirs, she would have enjoyed looting these ruins right along with Nottle. But she could ill afford the noise of carrying too much plunder.
As they filed out of the room, Kestrel heard Durwyn whisper to Jarial, “What’s an alhoon?” She’d wondered the same thing herself at Nottle’s first mention of them but hadn’t wanted to admit ignorance.
“An undead mind flayer,” the mage said. “Horrible creatures with heads that look like an octopus. Between their psionic powers and wizard spells they’re deadly opponents.”
“And the phaerimm?”
“Extremely powerful magic-using creatures, nearly all teeth, claws, and tail. I saw plenty of them—and alhoon—in the time I was trapped down here, but as the peddler said, they just up and disappeared one day. It must have taken something awfully strong to drive them away.”
Kestrel didn’t want to dwell on what that “something” might be. If it was the same creature—or creatures—responsible for creating the new Pool of Radiance, their mission was even more futile than she’d thought.
They headed farther down the passage, ducking into rooms as they continued their search for a way up and out of the dungeons. Many of the rooms stood empty or littered with broken furniture, while others—probably the former lairs of the alhoon and phaerimm—held ransacked chests or similar signs of already having been visited by scavengers such as Nottle. As in the region where Jarial had been trapped, the torches along the wall of this new area became sparser, until they reached a zone where there were none at all. Though each of the explorers held a torch, the flames did little to illuminate their surroundings. A pall of preternatural darkness cloaked this sector of the dungeons.