The party gives the corpses a wide berth as they circumnavigate the center of the hall and make their way towards the throne and the staircases. The halfling, ever vigilante for profitable opportunity, catches a glint from one of the skeletons. The corpse itself, disintegrating and caked with dust and grime, is in bad shape. Its ragged leather armor hasn’t held up well over the centuries and Hob can barely make out the tattered remains of a once-vivid red cloak. A short sword made of what looks suspiciously like gold is a foot or so away from the fallen dwarf’s hand. As far as the halfling can tell the others in the party haven’t noticed it yet.
Dur’dan is impressed by the sheer size of the hall: Goldhelm is itself a marvel of dwarven engineering but this place is something else. The time it would have taken to carve such a place into the very rock is unthinkable. As he nears the stairs at the head of the party, he can hear the sound of gently lapping water from below. He slowly descends the shattered steps, each step crunching underfoot loose debris. Once near the bottom he verifies that the two stairs indeed meet at the same point. The rest of the party (perhaps minus Hob) gathers around him and peers off into the next area, which goes without fungal illumination and plunges the party back into utter darkness save for the fires they carry.
This is a hall about twenty feet high and only about ten feet wide. It extends north, bisected by a stream of gurgling water pouring from a wide fissure in the western wall. The water flows south, towards the party, before seeping into a patch of cracked tile in the floor, streaming to some unknown point below. The hall itself extends about forty yards before ending abruptly at the site of a cave-in.
Dur’dan pushes onward, splashing through the ankle-deep water and towards the point of collapse to investigate. It looks as if the cave-in is composed of many small chunks of rock as opposed to a few large pieces. Dur’dan runs his hand along it before rubbing his fingers together, detecting a residue. He sniffs at the black muck on his fingers and identifies it: Blast powder. Very rare, very difficult to successfully manufacture. Legends say that dwarves once used blast powder to fuel an army’s worth of portable projectile weapons. Nowadays it’s primarily used in mining. He returns his attention to the collapse itself, nudging at what appears to be a weak point with the head of his axe. The debris gives way a half an inch or so: The wall of rubble itself seems thin and, with effort, could perhaps be cleared.
John Fredrickson keeps by his master’s side but stops in the water, something catching his eye in the light of his torch. He crouches, running his hand through the water and catching a handful of muck: Dirt and gravel, perhaps from the fissures along the walls, lines the waterbed here. He pulls his hand free with a splash to investigate the mud. Several specks of brilliant silvery metal stand out in the palm of his hand.
Before he can decide what to do with his find there is a groan and a crack from beside him, where Karikhan is passing through the water. The ground beneath the shaman’s feet suddenly gives way and falls out of sight, the Shelic behemoth lashing out with his hands, desperately clawing for a hold as the stream changes direction to flow into the hole created. Within a moment he has found himself struggling to hang on in the center of a waterfall.
Several members of the party cry out but it is Jikhal who reaches him first, diving towards his ward and splashing headfirst into the water and onto the ground. Oshro is second to react, waddling towards the tribals and offering out the handle of his axe. With it and Jikhal the shaman slowly pulls himself free, finally yanking himself up onto the edge with a monumental effort and a roar.
The excitement temporarily abated, the party gathers round the hole. A chasm stretching off endlessly in all directions spans beneath them.
“Why would they build a delve in such a dangerous place? This entire place is right over a huge pit.” Jonathan kicks a stone down the hole and the group watches it plummet out of sight.
“We’re not in the delve yet.” Oshro turns to Dur’dan, who nods in understanding. “We’re still in the entrance.” The two Ironbeards gaze at one another in awe before turning to the party.