Chapter One

[Zennshi Dormu]

The mining town of Trencham is fairly sleepy. People go through their work with practiced and precise repetition, the surrounding countryside is close to the ocean, and the grass is particularly verdant here.

Today, however, the people seemed confused and worried. Rumors abound of some kind of hold-up in the mines. Some think it's a cave-in, or an underwater lake that flooded the caves. Miners mill about aimlessly, unable to go into the mines for reasons no one seems to be able to tell them. Many fear for their jobs.

The group of four adventurers, Rathi Veken the Nomad, Eh'mera the Assassin, Reln Dervanar the Shadow Magician, and Artrius the Mage-Priest, all entered the town and noticed the well-maintained buildings. It was almost peculiar for such a remote mining village to appear so wealthy.

They were directed to the office of Supervisor Miller. Upon opening the door, however, they found his desk to be empty, and two other Empire Agents standing in the room.

"Ah, you've arrived." One of the agents said to them, "I'm Morgan, and this is Prior."

[Eiji]

Eh'mera made her way to the side of the room silently, electing to let the old men handle this. At least, they were old by her standards; the Nephilim she knew had never lived to be as old as the youngest human on the team. She stood with her arms crossed, obviously not willing to speak. Instead, she listened as she normally did, sharp gold eyes burning out of the surrounding darkness of her clothes and fur.

[Shardi]

Reln merely nodded in acknowledgement. Observing the environment...Reln felt something was amiss. True, mining villages were often a bit better off than others, but to appear downright filthy with wealth? Reln's eyes darted across the landscape, and nudged Atrius in caution.

"Something is very wrong here, Art. It's like there's a disturbance in the very soul of this town..." Reln whispered, his eyes tracking everything in the room.

Looking back at the greeters, Reln nodded again.

"I am Reln Dervenar. Might I ask where the Supervisor is?"

[Zennshi Dormu]

"Miller's waiting for us in the mines." Morgan told them. He had been leaning against the wall until then, but stood up straight. His armor was light, but his weapon, a particularly sharp-looking longsword, made it clear he was no stranger to battle, "You're probably all wondering why The Empire sent a group of mercenaries rather than a simple envoy to find out the reason for the mine's closing. The thing is, The Empire already knows what the problem is. We were sent here first, but realized the problem was much more serious than we first expected, so you were sent after us. Normally I'd just come out and tell you what's going on, but....well, I think this is something you should see for yourself. Come with us."

The Empire Agents left towards the Trencham Mine.

[Shardi]

Reln simply looked over at Artrius and grinned. Well, not that anyone could tell Reln was grinning at any rate. The mask shielded his facial expressions that didn't come from his eyes. If Artrius was any good at reading eyes, Reln was shooting a big, "I told you so" his way.

"Alright then, lead on...but for conversation's sake, give us a rough summary of the problem." Reln suggested, looking up into the sky as they exited the building for the mine.

[Zennshi Dormu]

"The entire reason we're going into the mines is because we can't talk to you about it out here." Prior told him.

Morgan nodded, "Suffice it to say, the miners dug up something and now we need you to deal with it."

[Shardi]

"Wonderful. Military can't handle it, so they call in the roughnecks. But I suppose it works out in the end. We get paid, and all your troubles disappear with us. It's one of those yin-yang things we have in the world, isn't it?" Reln responded cheekily, another grin planted on his face beneath the mask.

"Meh, it's no skin off my nose anyways. Drinks are on me when it's all over, boys."

[Dav Flamerock]

Walking silently beside—or occasionally behind—the other members of the group, Rathi focused his attention on studying the agents they followed. They were standard Empire agents, which is to say they were trained to find things and could protect themselves, probably with great skill. Rathi had not been among the Empire’s ranks long, yet he had seen agents similar to these men do their work—and they were very good at their job. That the Empire was hiring external agents to do the work that their own agents could not do spoke volumes about what they had found.

That, or the Empire was just too greedy to want to risk their own men. Rathi didn’t have enough experience to be able to say one way or the other, yet he felt inclined to give the Empire the benefit of the doubt. Either way, whatever had been found in the mines was nothing to be trifled with, and that made Rathi wary.

That, and the fact that Rathi had absolutely no experience underground.

Now, among mages and hireswords he had never met before, Rathi understood the importance of the van tajar in his sleeve, and the knives hidden all over his body in his robes. They may very well become vastly important in the days to come, and he would keep them close to his hand.

But at the moment, all he could do was walk.

[Dallas Mathews]

Artrius remained silent as the Imperial Agents led them to the mines. He was content to let the others do the talking for now. It gave him a chance to assess the situation, and to get a measure of his new comrades. He wasn't yet sure what Reln was capable of, although he bore a lethal looking set of claws that he imagined could do some damage. The other human, and the Nephil, he was unsure of. The Nephil carried a bow, but the human had no visible weapons. He wondered if they had called for more than one mage. Aside from the blow to his pride, that could mean that the problem was magical in nature.

Artrius decided that his speculation was pointless, and continued to follow the group to the mines.

[Zennshi Dormu]

Morgan produced a small key - one that was no doubt reserved for those with special access here - and opened the door to the mines.

Inside was what one would expect of a mine. A lot of winding corridors roughly about three or four yards wide. The agents led them down a very particular path, following a trail of lanterns that had not yet been snuffed out.

The path sloped subtly downward for some time until they reached a rather basic pulley lift. The lift went down about sixty feet. It was in this lower level of the mines that the others began to notice that some of the walls were not wooden like a mine should be. Some of the walls were made up of deliberately-carved stone blocks, and looked quite old.

It was here that they met Supervisor Miller.

"You're here. Maybe now we can get this operation back on track." His first sentence was cheery as springtime, and his second was sarcastic and irritated.

Now that they had met Miller, Morgan and Prior began to move back down the way they came. "We'll leave you to take care of this from here. We're not equipped to deal with this, but we're authorized to take reports and reward you if you do manage to fix this. We'll be waiting back at the town. Just follow the lanterns to find your way back. Good luck."

Miller led them deeper, until they reached a recently mined section, with freshly-abandoned tools scattered about.

"This may be a bit off-topic," Reln began, "But Trencham looks pretty rich for a little mining town."

Miller nodded, "Well, this is a fairly rich mine, but mostly we get a lot of subsidies from The Empire. I can't be bothered to remember the name of the Duke who sends them to us, but the Empire seems to want very much to keep this mine going."

They reached a section with a good bit of collapsed wall, leading into a dark chamber that bore the same bricked stone as before. It went ahead for a few meters before turning sharply to the east. The turned the corner and reached an old wooden door. Very old.

Miller put his hand on the handle, and turned back to the others, "Here it is. Ready?"

The others nodded. And he pulled it open.

The first thing they noticed was a distinct amount of light in the chamber ahead. The second thing they noticed was that the chamber ahead was enormous. It was big enough to fit a small village - probably bigger than the village above them. A glowing fungus on the walls added to the clues that made them realize where they were.

They had found a path to Avernum.

Miller spoke again once they had had time to absorb this. "As you are probably aware, routes to Avernum are heavily guarded by The Empire. So if another war ever breaks out, they'll be prepared. But now they've discovered a new one, right under their nose. This is what we need you to do. We've sent a few of our full-time guards and militia down here. Only one came back, and he had been driven mad by something. Many of them kept journals, so try and look for whatever clues you can find. If there's something dangerous down there, we need to have it gone before we can continue our operations. I can't follow you anymore. This place.....it just feels wrong. I'm a miner, but even I can't stand being this far underground." His normally scratchy voice took a surprisingly soft turn towards the end. With that, he began walking down the corridor to the village with Morgan and the others, leaving the group of four to explore the enormous cavern.

The path was long, but fairly narrow and definite. At the end of the mile-long cave, the size began to drop dramatically, as the entire cave funnelled into a small choke point. It was tough to make out, but from what they could see there was some kind of fortress inside the choke point. A gate of sorts. No doubt this would be where the lost guards would have gone, there were simply no other paths.

[Eiji]

Eh'mera snorted and strung her bow, nocking an arrow after she did so. It could never hurt to be ready. With that done, she looked back into the cavern. "Well. Just like being back home again. Can't say I'm exactly happy."

[Dallas Mathews]

Artrius stepped forward, staff creating a hollow thump that echoed around the chamber as the end touched the stone floor. He breathed in the stank, moist air. It had been a while since he had been in a dungeon. Most of his recent adventuring had been done aboveground, and never before had he been to Avernum. This would surely be an interesting challenge.

"Interesting. Despite my years of travelling, never have I been to Avernum. You say you used to live here? Anything useful that you could tell us?" Artrius debated starting towards the other side of the cavern, but he had learned from experience that it was better for the fighting types to go first.

[Eiji]

"It's dark and not a good place to make friends. The people here would sooner slit your throat than talk about the non-existent weather. Or at least, that's my experience." Eh'mera answered curtly.

[Shardi]

*Dark, huh...? That's going to come in handy.* Reln thought to himself, a frown on his masked face. Suddenly he felt a tremor creep up his spine and he threw his arms out wide, causing a halt. Reln nelt to the ground, and placed his hand into the shadows, concentrating to try and sense other presences in the giant cave system. Reln sent tendrils far into the network in an attempt to locate any living humans.

"Something is amiss here...I was unable to even scratch the surface of where the guards might've been. So either they ventured further in to try and flee something...or something's a very clean eater. Stay on your toes." Reln explained, rising up from his kneel. Even Reln felt something horrible, as he removed his mask and stuck it in his pack. His bright green eyes were usual, but the perfectly proportioned face could've been mistaken for a model's, not a mercenary.

"Get ready, the darkness beckons us forward." Reln said, a calm look on his face masking the tension inside.

[Zennshi Dormu]

The trip to the little fort took shorter time than expected. The adventurers did their best to stealthily creep up to the side of the portcullis, trying to avoid any windows where archers might be posted.

A short while later it becomes very clear that no guards or living beings of any kind are at the walls. In fact, one of the doors next to the portcullis is wide open. The fortress is much darker than the cave, the lights having gone out long ago.

[Dav Flamerock]

“An underground city,” Rathi muttered silently, “that’s interesting.”

As the group investigated the darkness, Rathi was increasingly interested in the fungus which grew on the ceiling to provide them illumination. He moved to the wall, making as if to climb the stones to the ceiling, but after a moment seemed to think better of it and change his mind. Instead, he continued along the wall, studying the stonework until he joined the other mercenaries at the portcullis. Here everyone paused, as if slightly uncertain that they really wanted to step through. With a flick of his wrist, Rathi took ahold of a curious blade that had been hidden in his sleeve. Shaking his arm, he allowed the chain wrapped around it to fall towards the ground, only at the last moment swatting the handle of the chain. His van-tajar hung from his grasp, but he coiled the links a couple times and held it just below the blade, making the metal weapon easier to carry.

“A dark passage. That’s interesting.”

Rathi closed his eyes and stepped into the darkness, using only his ears to warn himself of danger.

[Dallas Mathews]

Artrius lifted his hand, uttering an arcane word. His hand began to glow, and a solid looking ball of light formed in the palm. It floated away from his hand, to rest at a point above his shoulder. It emanated a bright glow, lighting up the passage in front of them. Artrius stepped forward, keeping his left hand aloft incase he needed to cast a quick spell.

[Eiji]

That's great. Now if there is anything here, it'll see us coming. Eh'mera thought, staying well behind Artrius. Even with the light on her, she still looked like a shadow against the wall. She inched down the passage along with the others, bow still at the ready.

[Zennshi Dormu]

They walked down a narrow corridor, and turned to a door on the right. Inside was a Mess Hall of sorts. The mess hall was connected to the barracks on one side and a few private offices on the other. Tables with plates and long-rotted food sat jumbled everywhere. No sign of the miners, but one thing did appear very disconcerting. Above on of the tables, hanging on the wall, was a flag. White on top, black on the bottom, and green and blue in the middle. The flag also had a four-tailed sun in the center. The group recognized the emblem almost immediately.

It was the flag of The Empire.

[Dallas Mathews]

"That's odd. I thought they said they just discovered this entrance. Why would the miners bother to put up a flag of the Empire? And why would anyone in Avernum want the flag up, either? We haven't even entered Avernum proper yet, and we've already come across even more questions." Artrius said, puzzled. Possibilities ran through his mind, each discarded as unlikely. As the group examined the mess hall, he drifted towards the offices off one side, meaning to search them for clues. He gripped his staff as he approached the door, ready for anything.