It didn't take long to locate Smeakin. We were able to gain audience with him with a pretense of being prospective slave buyers, however when we mentioned Modra's name he began to get suspicious. This esculated into a furious row, and it took Garig concerted effort not to remove the creepers head from his shoulders. We decided to leave Smeakin's tent before things got out of hand, but I was worried he had identified our group as a threat to Sarshan's operations based on the nature of the questions we had posed.
Shortly afterwards we were met by a messenger requesting a meet up with Leena, apparently she had some new information for us. We met up with her a one to many drinking tents in the mercenary camps.
“Well again. I did not tell you everything I knew of Modra when we first met. Modra and I worked together for a time, but when he elected to go behind Sarshan’s back, I told him we were done. I heard word of him in the camps even before you started asking around. He has a plan to disrupt Sarshan’s operations by destroying the foundry, then the tower.
Sarshan has a private tunnel connecting the two, and Modra is planning on venting the foundry’s destructive energy there. A mass of mercenaries is moving out tonight. He’ll be using that as cover when he goes inside. Modra’s made his bargain with fate, and honor decrees that he die for his betrayal. He won’t get tears from me. But if Sarshan captures him, he’ll die slowly. If it’s you, I’ll hope you make it quick.”
We contemplated how we should proceed. Perhaps we should just leave Modra to carry out his sabotage and hopefully disrupt Sharshan's plans I ventured. "Modra was responsible for my sister's death - I'm not about to risk losing his trail now" retorted an emotional Reneiss. "I've a score to setle with that bastard too" added Nalklyr "he stuck me with that dagger of his, before leaving us all for dead in the cavern with the wraiths". The matter was settled we decided to head out to the foundry at dusk.
A claxon call of horns sounded out from the west. A haze of red light glimmered against the clouds as the cascade of the magma shadow rift flared. As Leena predicted, a huge force
of mercenaries is on the move, heading out along the east road. The area around the foundry was deserted; the guards at the tower and the bridge had turned eastward to watch as Sarshan’s forces moved out.
Sensing we had a window of opportunity we headed to the entrance of the Forge and Garig decided the best approach would be to kick the door off its hinges. This had the advantage that we caught Modra's team of sabateurs off guard.
Inside the foundty the red glow of the lava trench was shrouded by shifting clouds of shadow and steam. Huge stone vats with steel doors lined both sides of this massive chamber, where great arrangements of pipes and vents connected them. Two squads of what looked like hobgoblins, their bodies seemingly cloaked in shadow, were working, supervised by another cloaked figure. They worked busily at two sections of pipe that diverted and channelled the lava flow.
Closer to the door, two other shadowgoblins stood guard.
With the element of surprise we were able to quickly overpower the shadowgoblins. However, are problems were only just begining. One of the cloaked figures pulled back it's hood to reveal himself as Modra. "You! What in the Nine Hells are you doing here? This time there will be no escape." With that he pulled a lever next to one of the huge stone vats. As the door opened, it
spilled a huge mass to the ground in a fountain of viscous green fluid. Out of it rose an enormous two-headed boar, bellowing as it clawed the ground. It charged straight for us knocking Garig to the ground. Modra meanwhile dissipated in to shadows. Fortunately, Garig recovered quickly. Seizing an opportunity he bashed to huge boar knocking it back into the lava trench and pinning it in place, which inflicted horrible burns on the mutated beast. I got to work eliminating Modra's henchmen. However, Modra's shadow walking ability made for a frustrating opponent as he became temporarily visible struck and then disappeared into the shadows once more. Grogar and Nalklyr soon learned to hold their attacks until Modra attacked and then unleash them when the dark creeper emerged from the shadows. Using these tactics we quickly gained he upper hand and finished Modra and his cohorts off. No sooner were we victorious, than Nalklyr keen hearing detected voices outside. It seemed Smeakin had deemed fit to alert Sharshan's guard to our presence. Thinking quickly I stuffed Modra's corpse into my bag of holding. "Quick, to the secret door" said Reneiss urgently. Nalklyr quickly located he concealed portal and we moved into the corridor beyond as quietly as we could closing the secret door behind us.
At the end of the corridor was another secret door. It opened into a library, which was occupied by a number of Shadar Kai guards. Clearly, they were not expecting our arrival and sprung up to attack us. However, they were quickly overcome as we fought our way in to the room. A Shadar Kai witch tried to escape but one of Nalklyr's crossbow bolts between her shoulder blades cut off any chance of her raising the alarm. Fortunately, the battle was over in mere seconds and we hoped that the noise hadn't alerted any of the other inhabitants of Sharshan's tower.........
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