Blind Luck

Once down into the First Sink, the party moved cautiously through the dark, dusty corridors. Mazahir's map showed a store-room on this level, so they investigated, discovering a room containing crates, sacks and boxes far more recent than the last orcish use of the Sinks. Sack estimated them to be no more than ten years old.

Inside were traces of various foodstuffs, all dried travel rations, but of a peculiar type never seen by any of the band before. Fae Mhor stockpiles?

Moving on, they visited one of the clearly marked docks, puzzling as they did so how each layer of the fortress could have such structures; where was the water table? Why didn't the upper ones drain? The dock itself was a wide, low cavern with a 4' drop from the quay to the water surface. At the quayside, the waterway was about 100' across, but it narrowed down opposite them and disapeared into a cylindrical tunnel 10' wide, which it filled to halfway. The water was millpond-still and a dark, oily colour.

From the dock, they went down towards the arena Mazahir had marked. As they approached it, Sack's eyes caught traces of movement from ahead. The flickering, misty forms gradually took shape, and he realized he was looking at translucent, ghostly orcish figures, drifting up and down the passage. They seemed to be trying to reach the group, but the circle of radiance of the Blade of the Sun appeared to be hurtful to them, and they wouldn't enter it.

Sack backed away, and backtracked around the corridors to approach the arena from the other direction. As he did so, Surya drew the Sword of the Dead Legions and tried to use its' power to communicate with the drifting spirits. Although the ghosts still wouldn't approach Hildraft - his instincts told him the Hedradaring was responsible - they drew nearer the Tellaran and began to communicate.

Intense feelings of loss, anger, searching, desire, desperation flowed across the link. Surya got the impression that the spirits were seeking something desperately - and that whatever it was, he, Hildraft and Sigred were not it.

Meanwhile, Sack approached the Arena from the south. Pushed before him by the intolerable light of his sword, the ghosts retreated into the high-ceilinged amphitheatre, swirling and twisting in its' centre, and glowing with a faint, pearly irridescence. Sack stood for a few moments, but it was clear nothing was going to happen while the spirits were kept at bay, so he suppressed the light of the Blade and sheathed it.

The ghosts approached, their insubstantial shapes brushing the half-orc as he stood in their midst. He felt, as Surya had, that they were desperately searching for something. He felt a faint touch on the edge of his mind. Then the ranks of spectres cleared, and a single figure approached him.

In life, this had clearly been a powerful orc, a chieftain by the look of his gear. His voice spoke deep in the caverns of Sack's mind.

"Hail, my son."

Sack goggled, then snarled. He'd never known his orc father, being as he was a child of violent assault, and had no wish to. But the ghost hadn't done speaking.

"The blood of Clan Vorzau breeds true." he said. "You and your companions slew the Dragon - the best thing that ever happened to our people." Clearly he mentally included Sack with the Orc race. "And now you are being offered great power. If you accept it, you can lead our people to truly great things." The sense was of great glory, but there was an undercurrent of brooding disaster in the offing as well.

Speaking with his thoughts, Sack expressed a lack of interest in what his father offered, to that spirit's evident bafflement. Dead or not, ghost or not, Daruk of Clan Vorzau was still just an orc, and could not understand the deeper of his offspring's motivations.

"I can leave you a gift," concluded the dead orc. Reaching up with one spectral finger, he touched Sack on the forehead. Deep within, the ranger felt ...something... change. Struck by an intuition, he stripped his glove and saw that his orcish hand had changed back, now resembling its' mate again. "At least, now, you have your choice; free will," said Daruk sadly.

Without further ado, the ghost faded from view, as did all the others.

Descending to the Third Sink, the group discovered themselves to be in the forgeworks of the orc fortress. A mighty cavern, divided into four sections, which according to Mazahir's maps were smelting, forging, weapons and armour. Sixty feet up from the ground, a high raised rail ran from the far end of each section to a central point; a three-storey tower of rusty iron. Chains dangling from the rail had evidently once carried workpieces and materials from one section to another.

At this point it occurred to Kobort (the only party member without Darkvision) that he could solve the vision problem quite easily. Polymorphing himself into a half-orc, he found to his satisfaction that he could now see as well as the others.

Ever open to the main chance, the party explored the Weapons section of the forgeworks first. They found crude smithing tools, scattered bits of cast-off metal, work anvils, rubble and bones, but no weapons. Clearly, they were not the first to think of this.

As they returned towards the centre, they spotted movement at the tower. One - no, two - large spherical objects, ten feet across, drifted out through one of the upper windows and floated across the cavern towards them. The band readied missile weapons, as it was clear that melee weapons weren't going to reach. As they drew closer, the party could see that the spheres were creatures; nightmare monsters with armoured hides, ten eye stalks on the top of their head/bodies, and a huge central eye at the front. Putting together bits of lore and passing references from the Journals of Elverandil, the adventurers concluded that they were facing the legendary beholder, a monster of Chaos thought long eradicated by the elves before the coming of Mankind.

As the creatures closed rapidly, several of the band had an uncomfortable realization. Kobort and Hildraft had had assorted Detect spells running; these had stopped. Korbort could not feel Nosebiter. Surya's Darkvision was gone. Various items that shed light were now dark. Hildraft tried a Dispel Magic, and Kobort attempted to Web the monsters. Neither produced any results at all. Clearly the creatures were generating some sort of anti-magic effect!

"Scatter!" cried Surya, and the half-orc and the Tellaran ran outwards from the main group as they loosed their first missiles. Arrows skittered from the beholders' armoured surfaces, but many - including Sack's fire arrows - struck home, wounding the creatures. The right-hand one shifted across, facing Surya as he ran outwards; the other closed its' central eye.

Suddenly, for everyone except Surya, the magic was back! Evidently the central eye was the cause of the effect, and the beholder had "blinked" in order to use its' own magic. The smaller eye stalks rotated and pointed, aiming at different people, each clearly about to launch an attack of some sort. Different coloured rays emanated from each eye and stabbed out at the adventurers as the second volley of missile slammed home.

Hildraft keeled over with a clank, fast asleep. Sack suddenly found himself siezed with an overwhelming feeling that he shouldn't be fighting these creatures, and should step aside. He retained enough of his native sense to realize that he should get out of the firing line, and he carried on walking until he was around the corner into the Weapons section and out of danger.

Sigred gave a choking cry. Before the shocked eyes of the band, the priest of Aderra turned grey, stiffening and changing. In a few seconds, he was a lifeless grey stone statue.

Kobort was siezed as if by a giant hand, and flung across the cavern. In an amazing feat of agility, he flipped around and landed on his feet, before lashing out with his Chain Lightning spell. This proved a good choice, as having struck the closed-eye beholder from the front, it bounced sideways into the other without passing through the cone of the antimagic effect. A second later, Surya put an arrow into that eye, blinding it.

The other beholder, realizing its' mistake in removing the anti-magic effect, opened its' eye again, but Surya put an arrow in that as well, and killed it - it dropped suddenly the 50' to the ground with a nasty Splat! The other, wounded and smoking, turned to flee, using an eyestalk to Disintegrate a hole in the ceiling, but before it could fly in, Kobort blasted it again, and it died.

With the monsters' deaths, the Charm wore off and Sack was back to normal. Hildraft, however, had to be shaken awake. And Sigred they could do nothing for at all.