“I’m here for your coin and nothing more,” Deventry reminded, in a tone that was also reminding Bruenor that he didn’t much care for this aggressive lout. But the dwarf quickly suppressed his personal feelings toward the man. The mission was more important. He was alone out here, other than these three, and good help was hard to find in these wild lands.
“I’m bettin’ ye’ll be changin’ yer mind,” he replied, but casually, and with a wide grin. “But if not, then know that me coin’s more than ye could e’er carry.”
“Quite a hint,” Vestra remarked.
“Get me to the valley of the caves, and follow me down a tunnel for a couple o’ days, and ye’ll asked, and Catti-brie nodded. bpa’C3to understand, elf,” Bruenor replied, nodding.
“Down a tunnel?” Vestra replied, seeming none-too-thrilled with the prospect.
“Didn’t sign up for any of that,” Deventry remarked.
Bruenor merely closed his eyes, smiled, and began to whistle a little tune, mentally reciting the words to the old song, one dwarves sang of lost lands and deep mines and treasures piled high.
When he awoke the next morning, he found all three of his companions gathered together, the halfling scraping in the dirt with his dagger.
“What’d he find?” Bruenor asked.
“The caves … today,” Vestra replied.
Off they went, cutting around the south side of a hill, then across a wide vale. The flat-topped mountain loomed in the distance to the north, the sight of it taking Bruenor back across the years, to the eruption of the volcano and the destruction of Neverwinter. That event was seared into his memory, across two lifetimes now, and he could picture it again as if it had happened only the day before.
Whisper led them at a great pace. They broke for a very short midday meal and set off again through the forest. Bruenor didn’t know where they were, specifically, for nothing seemed familiar, and he finally grasped it when they came through a line of trees to the southern edge of the rocky valley.
Bruenor scanned the rim, nodding as he noted, far to the northwest, the approach he had taken on his last journey to this place.
“Well?” Deventry prompted.
The dwarf studied the valley walls, trying to picture them from the vantage point across the way. “That one,” he decided, pointing to one of the many cave openings visible from this angle.
“You said for us to take you to the valley, and now we have,” Deventry replied, holding out his hand.
“Don’t ye be a fool, boy,” said Bruenor. “Come along and hear me tale, and see a sight that’ll change yer life.”
“Ten pieces of gold,” demanded Deventry.
Bruenor nodded his hairy chin toward the distant cave. “I’ll double it,” he said. “Double it for each of ye.”
“What, twenty pieces of gold for each?” asked Vestra. “You pay up, Bonnego!” Deventry demanded.
“Sixty I just promised, and if ye knew me real name, ye’d know it ain’t but a pittance,” Bruenor answered with a chuckle, and he started away, leaving his three companions looking from one to the other.
Deventry grabbed the departing dwarf roughly by the shoulder and yanked him around. “Ten!” he demanded.
As he turned, Bruenor rolled his arm and shoulder up high, bringing it up and over Deventry’s reaching arm and down suddenly to lock the man’s wrist in his armpit. The dwarf turned and twisted fast, pulling his shoulder back, yanking Deventry into a forward lunge that crashed him up against Bruenor, who didn’t budge a step.
With his free hand, Deventry reached for his short sword, but Bruenor was quicker, grabbing him by the front of his tunic and giving him a good shake. The dwarf thrust out his arm with surprising strength, throwing Deventry back a few steps-a few steps that took him over the lip of the valley. Overbalanced, the man couldn’t!” Bruenor warned.5N3 enemieson hold his footing, and he tumbled to the ground and rolled down the grassy slope.
“Offer’s still there,” Bruenor called back, marching off for the cave entrance. The other two would hold Deventry back and talk some sense into him, Bruenor believed. And if he was wrong, he’d just lay the fool low with his axe and carry on alone.
He found out just a few moments later that he wasn’t wrong.
“What is that place?” Vestra asked breathlessly, staring across the small underground pond to the worked wall of what appeared to be a castle. A castle underground! They were in a large hall, illuminated in a greenish tint by strange glowing lichen. Natural pillars liberally pocked the large cavern, many with worked railings winding up around them. Sprouting mostly along the pond’s edge, giant mushrooms completed the strange scene, the orange underside of the huge caps catching, amplifying, and distorting the lichen glow.
“Home o’ the Delzoun dwarves,” Bruenor explained.
“Your kin are in there?” asked the elf.
“Might be some or might be empty. And might be that we won’t be goin’ deep enough to know. What I’m wanting’s just beyond that open door.”
Bruenor hoisted his axe and made for a nearby mushroom. A few swings felled it, and the dwarf began to sever the huge circular cap.
“He’s making a raft,” Vestra explained to her cohorts.
“Ye’re welcome to come in if ye’re wantin’, or might that ye’ll stay out here. I’ll not be long.”
Whisper was already by his side, helping to hollow out the mushroom cap, and from that action and the look on the halfling’s face, Bruenor knew that he wouldn’t be going into the complex alone.
Indeed, all four entered together, though it took three trips to ferry them all across the dark water.
Bruenor led the way, but his pace slowed considerably as he crossed the threshold to Gauntlgrym, his every step weighted by solemn and powerful memories. Vestra carried a torch behind him and his shadow reached out before him, wobbling in the flickering light, and somehow, that insubstantial dancing shadow seemed appropriate to him, as ethereal and unreal as this entire adventure. The burden on his shoulders only increased as they moved along the entry corridor and into the grand audience hall of Gauntlgrym. To the right, upon the dais, rested the throne of Gauntlgrym, the seat that had magically, but temporarily, imbued upon Bruenor the leadership of Moradin, the insight of Dumathoin, and the strength of Clangeddin in his battle with the balor Errtu. He remembered that vividly now, the ultimate victory to put the fire primordial back in its watery cage.
The dwarf focused on that throne as he made his way across the huge chamber. His three companions whispered impatiently behind him, but they did not cross before him.
He neared the throne and slowed to a stop, coming into view of the two rocky cairns that had been erected beyond it. He remembered the claim of Catti-brie in the magical forest and knew at once what these were, and who might be interred within: one for Bruenor, one for Thibbledorf Pwent.
The stones of one had been pushed aside, leaving an empty hole. Was that his grave, he wondered? Had his grave, his corpse, been desecrated and robbed? He looked at her curiously. o, seekingon swallowed hard in a moment of panic, at the notion that his entire purpose in coming here had just unraveled.
So caught up was he that he hardly noticed Vestra, Deventry, and Whisper moving past him, toward the throne.
“Keep yer hands off, for yer own sake!” Bruenor yelled in warning at the last moment, even as Whisper reached out to the burnished wood of the throne’s ornate arm.
“You took us here to threaten us?” Deventry came back at him angrily. “If there are treasures to be had, then they are ours as much as your own, dwarf, even if I have to cut out your throat to get my due!”
Bruenor stared hard at Deventry and moved past him. “A throne for dwarves, ye fool,” he said, and he marched up and sat down upon the great chair. Anticipations of enlightenment, assurance, and strength accompanied him, but they were shattered immediately when he felt the anger of the chair, a tangible emotional and physical rejection that launched him into the air, flying from the dais to land hard on the floor in a bouncing tumble.