My father answered, "They were elven guards of Nawab Nialha's own house guard. Thanks to them we were not bothered by the beasts and bandits of the desert. Soon we were back at the mine again. Getting in was harder since we had burned down the stair scaffolding. I volunteered to go down first and my friends roped me off and lowered me down. In our first battle we butchered the cavefishers and their hatchlings.
Not that it was easy. I was roped and nearly dragged into the pit a 2nd time. After I was rescued one of our archers was dragged into the pit but we managed to save him. But soon enough Rhogar and I had a feast of raw hatchling. They are better cooked but not bad raw. A short time later we found what we believed to be the last stronghold of the cult. In that battle we defeated the half elemental woman Rolen saw in a burning building in Raam, and also her defiler servants.
With the 8 archers we won fairly easily, though I was the target of 3 defilers and was overcome by their dark magic. I could have died but my friends saved me once again. After this we decided that we should rest and bind our wounds mainly because I was exhausted and wounded. We continued searching and eventually we came to section that we had not explored before. In truth it seemed that no one had been through that section in sometime. I felt were going beyond our contract as it seemed to have nothing to do with the cult or the tareks. But curiosity kept us moving forward and eventually we entered some sort of a pyramid. Our group was attack by some sort of a living gem that fired magical rays. It was a near thing and a number of us barely escaped the battle with our lives but eventually the gem-thing was smashed and ceased to fire on us. Then we came upon a long hallway and a long blade swung out of the wall and slashed me. I asked Jorvek to take the lead after that because he had already shown that he understood traps and how to get around them safely. We started calling Jorvek "trap-monk", "trap-kestrekel" and "trap-master" after that in some good natured teasing. After that we entered a room with a statue made out of salt of all things. After the battle with gem I was half expecting it to attack us. As it turned out it did. The thing was very dangerous and I was nearly killed trying to protect the others.
But in making myself a target for the salt beast I bought time for the others to bring it down. It was a good thing I had thought to ask for the elf archers because I doubt we would have defeated the gem and the statue without them. We went only a little further and we found a room with an ash bin. Some flaming skeletons jumped out of the bin but we put them down quickly.
Then we came to a triangular room that we thought was the last floor but it was good that my friends were smarter than I am and they figured out that if they put these shields in the depressions some sort of a mechanism would open a secret door. When Javek removed the shields a tiny fire elemental attacked us that was almost comical, 12 of us against one tiny elemental. Then the others went searching for the missing shield-keys and eventually found them while I guarded the mauled archers. The shields moved an altar aside and we were able to go down another level. At the next level there were three flaming snake men that looked very powerful and opened fire on us with arrows of flame.
I called a retreat up the stairs and we held around a turn of the stairs and that took away their advantage with fire arrows and forced them to come one at a time. I still must have been exhausted from my injuries because I fought poorly but my allies were able to bring down the flaming snakemen while I blocked them on the stairs. After the battle we found some huge rubies held by statues but as we looted them we heard a mechanical sound so I said that we should leave the last ruby alone for now. Rhogar insisted on taking the last ruby so we let him do it alone. My drey friend was nearly killed when a trap released lava but we managed to slide the floor open by sheer strength.
Since the floor below us was covered in lava we saw no other option than to batter down the closed door but every time we damaged the door it hurt the elves and Rhogar. So we decided just to wait until the lava cooled and then we continued down. We went down a long way by rope and there was a room with a magical portal door thing. It was sort of a trap because it was the only way down but if you did not go through at the right time you would be sent to a place with fire and wind that did not seem to be anywhere on Athas. Rhogar understood the gate magic and was able to control it long enough for us to get through. We were attacked by an air elemental but we quickly cut it down."
"Next we came to a room with three gates that had something to do with the carving at the entrance. My allies chose the fire gate first and then they fiddled with some stuff that opened the gate. Some kind of defiler magic that I did not really understand. Jorvek used the the clues from the carving to figure that he had to burn his hands on lava in order to open the gate. Defiler magic or I am an elf! It worked just like Jorvek said it would. Not sure if that makes him stupid or a genius. Jorvek scouted the room out for us but nearly got killed by a blob of flaming blood. We ran in to rescue him and soon we were fighting for our lives. I was badly burned and passed out but the others were able to kill the fire thing. We did lose two archers though. I felt bad about that. Next we went to the "body" gate. Rhogar fiddled with something that made him start to change into a tree. If that is preserver magic then good magic is as bad as evil magic! Then we went through the gate to a place that was very strange. For one thing it seemed to be outside the pyramid. For another thing there was more water than I had ever seen in one place. Also there were more plants and trees crammed into one place than I would have thought possible. Again Jorvek scouted for us. Soon we were attacked by a lot of plant creatures, and their leader, who was some sort of evil sand spirit. And again we were fighting for our lives.
The leader appeared to be a beautiful woman but it was actually some sort of powerful elemental. Despite the mauling we received from the fire room we managed to win. Not sure how though, I thought we were done. I spent most of the battle trying to escape from some plants of all things. It was lucky for me that my allies were better fitted to battling her."
"After this my allies fiddled with the strange defiler magic of the place again. The blew on a bowl or some such and opened the door to strange magical tornado. It was wasn't even a normal tornado because it was twisted and the the wind blew in different directions at different levels. Truth to tell I was pretty useless in this battle. Like all proper dwarves I prefer to fight with my feet planted on solid earth. When I tried to follow Jorvak to protect him I just ended up spending the battle spinning in circles with my butt in the air. There was what looked like a column of solid air in the center but when I tried to grab it it just slapped my hand and sent me spinning off. Fortunately Jorvak and Rolen did not need my help and they ended the weird tornado by killing some air elementals."
"Then my friends opened the final door which opened to some sort of huge bridge. It was only a few heart beats and we set on by some flaming beasts and and winged obsidian elementals. As we fought these creatures off a powerful winged fire elemental appeared. We did not know if this fire creature was a powerful servant of the fire god or the fire god itself.
I screamed the battle cry of our people and beat my way to it. The fire thing seemed very powerful and as attacked it at close quarters I thought that this was my final battle. My allies joined in and though we were badly burned we actually defeated it. As soon as the winged fire elemental died the temple began to collapse. We ran out of the temple area as quickly as we could and then the earth began to rumble in a way that made us fear for an eruption of the volcano. We grabbed what loot we could and ran to wall where the whole thing began only to find our mounts gone. The wall was the only safe place to rest in the area that we could think of. I remember that while we bedding down for the night Jorvak showed us a pouch with magical fangs in it that he had been playing with. Once he told use what happened when he pricked himself with the fang, I realized it would make a powerful weapon for Rolen. So I set to work refitting six of his arrows with the magical fangs. As it turns out it was a good thing that I did as the arrows saved our lives a number of times in the days to come."
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