The Questers pressed onto the third tower of Qorth-Azell. From a distance they could see fires from within. They gathered on the dwarfish bridge, with the silver runes glowing. They could hear dark dwarfish voices from within, discussing how they hoped reinforcements were coming soon, as the forges just weren’t working.

They came up with an elaborate plan. Rakab cast Rope Trick to hide everyone, excluding Pascal. All of the Questers hid within the portal whilst Pascal transformed into a dark dwarf. 

He went in alone. Inside the tower was a great giant forge, and the Dark Dwarves were trying to ignite the fires and make weapons. There were two stone guards with a giant white ape creature (quaggoth). Pascal proceeded to try and manipulate them, spinning lies about killing the Peryton, and that reinforcements were coming upon his orders, and from the Mind Master…

The Dark Dwarves were partly deceived. Pascal decided that he would order 3 soldiers out onto the bridge to protect it. Then the Questers improvised and struck, with a Gust of Wind coming from Rakab, pointing his new Staff of the Mountains out of the Rope Trick. The three dark dwarves fell from the bridge to their doom and the Questers attacked. Pascal was taken by a dark dwarf and swift battle ensued, with all of the dark dwarves and the quaggoth being felled with hardly a scratch upon the Questers. It was here they learned of the power of Aemaeon’s sword “Fimlär”, as Aemaeon was deadly with it, slaying three dark dwarves with three strikes. 

The Questers tampered with the forge, throwing all sorts of metals inside to slow the progress of the dark dwarves should more arrive. They took the treasure from the dark dwarves and discovered them being paid in electrum…most likely by the Carmalekians of the west. 

The Questers then decided to rest. They moved onto the next tower. The fourth tower was eerie, crowned, with whispers coming from within. The cold winds swept around it and a cold fog. The Questers trekked up to it and saw across the dwarfish bridge with silver runes, that there was a great wooden gate. They went up to it and strong-armed it open. 

Inside the tower was a spooky scene. An enormous hall, a throne room of the Mountain Giant King. In the centre of the room was a dormant pool, in the corner an enormous subterranean lizard. At the back of the room sat the skeleton of the Giant King upon his throne, still in robes. He wore a gleaming golden crown that cast light. Upon his knees rested a glittering treasure hoard which created shadows around the throne. They could hear whispers coming from the Mountain Giant King’s area. “Seize the crown.” 

The Questers discussed their plans for so long that the subterranean mountain lizard decided it would try to eat them. The Questers illuminated the room with lights upon the Wizard’s Staff and the Bard’s rapier. This attracted the shadows that were gathered at the bottom of the throne. 

The great lizard bit the dwarf Lohar, and proceeded to swallow him, but Lohar deliberately let himself be swallowed to kill it from the inside. The shadows hurt Aemaeon and Tareen, dropping them unconscious and damaging Pascal and Rakab, stealing strength from them. They killed the lizard eventually and Lohar was spat out.  The shadows were proving harder to destroy. 

Pascal and Yaeldrin concluded that the shadows were attracted to the light, and so Rakab and Pascal snuffed out their light cantrips. The remaining four shadows returned beneath the throne, basking in the golden gleam of the treasure hoard. 

The Questers were badly damaged, with Tareen and Aemaeon having to be healed by the cleric Rakab. 

They decided they needed another rest, and they waited in the lizard’s refuge corner. Rakab and Meridius watched the shadows reforming beneath the throne as the others slept. Yaeldrin then took watch and waited for everyone to be fully rested, as he had tranced. 

They awoke and Pascal had an idea. He cast many dancing lights into various parts of the room, and the shadows flocked to those lights. They proceeded to the dormant pool. 

Lohar went first. 

And was attacked and dragged under the pool by a water weird! Another formed up, with it’s snake face facing the group. The Questers attacked. 

Rakab immediately went to the rescue of his dwarf ally. The wizard/cleric thrust a deathly hand into the water and critically struck the weird that was drowning his friend. It instantly withered the weird dead. He pulled Lohar out of the pool and had saved his life. The battle went on and the other weird was slain by the Questers.

Pascal and Rakab cast mage hands into the water and dragged out the treasure within, including a magical elven bow. Yaeldrin looked at it eagerly. He did not grab it however, and Rakab did. This summoned a banshee from behind the throne, whom the bow belonged to in times yore. 

She tried to parlay with the Questers, but rather threateningly. Rakab was having none of that, and threatened back. The Elven Banshee screamed and dropped Meridius, Aemaeon and Tareen instantly. 

A short battle happened, with normal weapons not harming the creature, and the spear of Pascal being particularly effective, as it was forged to harm elves. The Banshee was dropped but not killed and Pascal held his goblin spear to the Banshee, and she recoiled, crawling along the floor. 

They parlay with her. She said her name is Melraya, and she was a valley elf who liaised with the last Mountain Giants in the Genus Wars, but she failed, and King Balthazek of the Black Goblins came to kill them. He did so, and raised Melraya with his Skullstaff, a most dreadful necromantic artefact. 

They cannot kill Melraya and let her rest…until Rakab remembers that he has a Scroll of Exorcism in his bag. He reads the words and Melraya fades away, her last words were “beware the beast, thank you.” 

Pascal ensured the shadows were still entranced by the dancing lights. The Questers used magic to seize the crown, and expected the Mountain King to rise. But he did not. The crown shrunk and Rakab put it in his backpack. 

The Mountain Giant King merely bowed his skeletal head and said with a booming echo; “Kill the beast, seize the horn.” 

The Questers moved onto the fifth tower. Across the silver-rune bridges of the dwarves and through the icy valleys of Qorth-Azell. They rose and rose until they could see a temple buried into the mountains, with a tower rising from it. Pillars lined the way. The entrance to the tower was guarded by lounging white bears. 

They sauntered to the ice bears with their white fur, who still lounged, and were non-combative towards the Questers. They allowed them into the main hall, a great mountain giant temple devoted to Tas Cesur, the god of the mountains, the god of ice and fires in the cold. Two staircases, one went up, the other down, and one great gate led out onto the dwarfish bridge. 

They converse with the ice bears who can speak dwarfish and giant. The Ice Bear King Odrahm was forthcoming, if a little blunt. The bears are guarding the temple below, but allowed the Questers to see it. The Questers went to look. 

Below was a dark gate-chamber, with twelve gargoyles in a walkway, six opposing the other six, all in different formations. Bodies of dark dwarves are charred to a crisp. A great gate stands at the back of the chamber, past the 12 gargoyles. 

The gate is exactly as Rakab saw in his candle vision. A gate with three symbols deeply carved into it. One of a red sun, that was filled with a red talisman, one of a red moon (empty), and one of a red star (empty). Yaeldrin spotted a white cloak around one of the charred corpses that had not burnt, and he took it and garbed himself. Rakab identified it as a Cloak of Cold Resistance, made by the dark dwarves. Lohar recognised the symbol he saw in his candle vision, carved onto the gate. The symbol of the Crafters, a chained hammer with three rings above it that glow, an amber-gold ring, a pale-gold ring, and a scarlet-gold ring. 

The Questers took note, and decided that the beast may be holding the other talismans…

They went to the Ice Bears once more and questioned them further. The Ice Bears would not help them face the Pale Beast, they would continue to guard the temple. 

The Questers seven went out into the cold and onto the sixth tower… the lair of the Pale Beast. 

The dwarf bridge was icy, frozen over, the snow and the ice storms battered the mountain hall and tower attached. The clouds froze and broke apart around the lair. The bridge was slippy to walk about and the breath of the Questers frosted and melted in front of their very eyes. They saw only one opening into the tower, a broken crack, with spiky icicles hanging down from it. 

And there the Questers heard a draconic voice emanating from the tower. They now knew what they must face…

So ends the sixth chapter of the First Book of Azarak.