Deep Delving

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Or were there?

For eons the Tendorin Valley was a quiet place filled with communities farming in thealluvial soils left by the river Benlaris, which comes down from lake Fenril, over the falls of Nibrolin, finding its way the valley below. Farming and hunting in this valley led to traders coming to trade for the food and furs produced here. An influx of new commerce in turn led to growth in the communities and eventually people found their way into the hills on either side of the valley where they began to log to provide these communities with the materials to build and grow; but they also discovered jewels and precious metals in the hills. First they paned them from the streams, or found them along the bank and silty areas of small rills and creeks. However, after a time prospectors came and they began to mine the hills of the valley.

As with everything human, word spread and the valley became known for its riches, it wealth of crops, trees, wildlife, and of course precious things from deep in the ground. This is when the quiet village of Tendor’s Reach began to grow. In the east of the valley closer to theheadwaters of the river Benlaris, this once sleepy village became famous for the precious jewel and metal mines where gold, silver, and emeralds, were found in large quantities. But then, a strange nodule, multi colored and very large, was discovered by Tendor at a cave entrance, where a small rivulet let out onto the land from under the mountain at the eastern end of the valley.

Tendorite the nodule was dubbed, and the small village of Tendor’s Reach, nestled near the falls of Nibrolin, were named after Tendor; a woodsman. First there in the tiny village, and then farther afield, Tendor became famous for the nodule he’d found. It had become the most sought after, as it was a multi colored, very hard, large round gem, prismatic in nature and intoxicating of allure, and very rare. Once word was out about Tendorite the mining trade in the area boomed; many prospectors staking claim to even the smallest portion of land, to dig, with the hopes of striking it rich, mining whatever mineral or precious metal they could find. Tendor himself never sold his nodule, but hoarded it lustfully until his dying day, when it was finally enshrined in the new City Hall of Tendor’s Reach for all to come and see, as his dying wish.

In one of the mines where Horin Wodmyr worked part time when not working his farm, is where this story truly begins. It is his story, a story of a families toil, story of tears, and a story of discovery, and a story of triumph and a story of loss. He’d worked in the same mine for a decade before events began to unfold with the finding of a large vein of gold. Horin was lucky enough, and shrewd enough, that he was able to fund this once small mine becoming an owner, not just a worker, while his brother took over the workings of the farm they’d grown up on as boys.

For years the mine’s owners profited from the gold vein they’d found. They delved deeper into the mountain where caverns were found, but not the elusive Tendorite. The gold vein continued to reach deeper and deeper into the roots of the hill and perhaps to the root of the mountain beyond. Delving ever more, following branching veins of gold, the minors broke into a large cavern where at long last they found Tendorite nodules deposited around on the floor; some were broken from stone falling from the walls of ceiling, while others were beautiful, oval, oblong, nodules that when light was shown on them reflected all the colors of a rainbow. There was a spring in this cavern that flowed out a small hole, away into the mountain as well; it was unknown where it went. However, the vein of gold kept running deeper, beyond the great cavern, so all of the Tendorite that could be found were collected and the mining continued along the gold vein.

Word of the find spread quickly, and the mine sold much of the Tendorite to wealthy patrons far and wide, as the digging resumed along the vein of gold. Horin became rich from his shares owned in the mine, thus was it that he left his farm to his brother and built a new home higher on the hill nearer the mine. Every day, driven with passion and by a lust to find more Tendorite, Horin pushed the workers, and his mine ever deeper along the vein of gold, which had surprisingly not lessened the deeper they delved, but in true venal fashion spread in different direction, coursing farther yet into the roots of the mountain.

With mining came more people, but also fame and desire for Tendorite nodules grew as purchase of these rare stones became legendary throughout the lands beyond the Tendorin Valley. So few nodules had been found in the first cavern, and no other mines were producing Tendorite, which was odd. Producing such a limited amount from the first find, only twenty five in all, and with a demand building as word spread, a fever pitch of speculation about finding new Tendorite deposits was driving more and more people to work Horin’s mine in hopes of another discovery.

For ten years, then fifteen, then twenty, the town grew until it became a city. The mine delved ever deeper, until at very long last one of the veins of gold the minors had followed led to an underground river, along which they mined until they broke into an enormous cavern, much larger than the previous cavern where the first Tendorite was found. However, this time, the river flowed over a very high waterfall, deep into the cavern below. The miners had pushed the mine into the top of the cavern along the west side of the river. Little could be seen within the enormous cavern, as the small light cast form the lanterns at the caverns edge succeeded only slightly in piercing the darkness below; where the sound of the water hitting a pool was muffled by the distance the water fell. Oddly though there was a small temperature change, as heat, only a degree of two, rose from the entrance.

Word spread of the new cavern find in Tendor’s Vault, bringing the city leaders and mine owners together enthusiastically; to map a path forward. Hoping to get into the hugh, deep cavern to learn what was there. Wishing with all their spirit, the cavern would prove the home of more nodules.

Tendorite fever spread throughout the city once again, everyone speculating about what would be found there at the base of the cavern. Ultimately elevators into the depth would be built, while tunnels would delve deeper through the mountain’s heart to find other ways into the lower depths of the cavern. But for now, the owners supported the minors using rope and tackle from a boom to make their way onto the cavern floor.

It took a few days to build the necessary platform and boom. While other tools were made to lower a basket designed to carry a couple of minors and equipment to search the cavern floor. In the interim, a small bucket carrying a lantern illuminating about thirty feet around the bucket was sent down. The bucket had a mirror set so that a looking glass could be used to see up close from on high within the illuminated area of the lantern. The minors had to keep adding rope to the line, fifty feet at a time until they reached the bottom, which also gave them a measurement of how far below it was to the river, or floor of the cavern. Oddly, there were small cavities in the southern cavern wall, not deep, but perhaps cave areas. All the way down along the southern wall next to the waterfall, for as far as the light was cast they could see them when using a looking glass to see through the mirror.

To everyone’s surprise, the bottom was quite far below, at about 250 feet. The bucket looked from the top, like a small dot of light. Horin leaned out farther over the beginning of a small platform made for the boom, while a mine foreman, Jundar, held him tight by a rope around his waist. Still using the looking glass, he relayed what he saw to those near enough to hear.

“The water falls to a pool below, which is too large see across with the small amount of light thrown by the lantern. There is a shore, that the bucket landed on.” He said as he lifted the rope a little and spun it to use the mirror to see in a larger arc.

“The bucket landed on a shore next to the pool where the water spray is making it hard to see much through the mirror. There is dry land around where the bucket went down, it is slightly higher than the pool itself,” he relayed as he continued his observations.

There were murmurs from those close by, but it would seem they’d have to wait until a larger basket carrying people could be built to go down into the cavern. Then they would know whether there were Tendorite nodules in the cavern or not.

A few days passed and the larger boom and long rope were installed and a expedition was arranged to go into the lower part of the cavern. It was decided that Horin would be one of the people going down to search the cavern, along with the forman of Tendor’s Vault, Jundar Norinthal. The trip down, with Horin carrying a bullseye lantern, and Jundar carrying a normal lantern, was slow but revealing. They were able to look at the walls near them, because the bullseye lantern could be aimed and shed light up to sixty feet.

They saw the cavities, like small caves in the walls, but they could not see how deep they went into the sides of the cavern walls. The air became oddly warmer as they went farther down, and there was a sulfuric smell, which was not unusual when near vulcanic areas. However, there were no indications of vulcanism in the area, though they had gone quite deep into the hills. Perhaps at this point they had even delved into the mountain itself. Tendor’s Vault was by far the deepest mine in the area.

As they made their way down into the cavern, getting closer to the bottom, the bullseye lantern revealed that there was a pool at the base of the waterfall. It was east of where he boom was lowering them, and the pool looked to go quite far east from there, almost like a small lake, and to the north as well. - it went well beyond the lanterns’s light. The shore of the water was about ten feet above the water level, sloping gradually down to the water from where the basket landed. The shore made way to beach, leaving a twenty to thirty foot strip between the waterline and the wall of the cavern. The cavern was enormous, as even with the bullseye lantern, they could not see across the lake to the other side in the east, nor could they see the end of the cavern the north.

Looking intently at the cavern floor, hoping, wishing, to find more Tendorite nodules, Horin was disappointed when he could see none on the bank. On landing he on the rope to let those above know that they were on the bottom. Leaning slightly on the slope, towards the lake, the basket set down to the the omnipresent smell of sulfur, which was much stronger at the cavern floor. It was also ten to fifteen degrees warmer at the bottom of the cavern. Odd! Horin thought to himself, as looking, he noticed Jundar wiping his brown with his forearm.

The ground was hard and stable where the basket landed, it was also partly rocky and had some sandy, silty areas on the shores edge and into the water below. Jundar, then Horin, stepped from the basket onto the ground with Jundar picking up a shovel and pick they’d brought down with them, while Horin grabbed a probing pole that was around ten feet long. They began a short walk along the lake shore to the north to see how far they could go in that direction before they reached the cavern wall, or the lake stopped them from going any farther.

The walk north took a few minutes before they saw the cavern wall rising above in a shallow arc. Now they could see a rivulet that flowed out from what Horin considered was a lake. As far as the bullseye lantern shown to the east, no shore could be discerned; water pressed up against the northern wall to where the small rivulet exited.

They would have to have a raft or boat built to cross the lake. For while testing the water’s depth along the way north, Horin found that the lake on this bank, was deeper than the ten foot pole he was using to conduct the test. Still they could not see the other side of the lake, whether there were another shore, or the lake was all the way to the other wall, whose distance was as of yet unknown.

The walk along the shore also proved to be free from Tendorite on the west side of the lake, nothing on the bottom of the lake glinted when the bullseye lantern light was shown into the water from the bank. It would take another day or so to get a boat, or materials to build a raft down into the cavern. What concerned Horin however, was the heat and sulfuric smell and where it was coming from. He could neither see, nor hear anything so far that might be the cause of neither the temperature rise, nor the smell; and the safety off his minors was on his mind.

Rumors of the caverns search and the origin of the heat and sulfuric smells were flowing around Tendor’s Reach, it’s Taverns and Inns, like the rivulet in the mine. While preparations were made to float the underground lake and map fully the cavern, the leaders were deciding how to proceed in the mines. It is possible, if the cavern floor proves not to be much more than a lake and rivulet outlet, that the leadership would opt simply to continue following the vein of gold in another direction, or perhaps create a new tunnel from the cavern floor following what might be there. It was all contingent on what they found once they made their way around the whole cavern floor and lake.

Horin was still curious about the cavities they’d found in the cavern walls, and rumors of what was in them abounded. After a day they had all the necessary material in the cavern. Minors had placed sconces along the walls on the west side of the lake, providing all the light necessary for a much clearer view of that side of the lake. They’d reinforced the boom to allow for a larger group of people and basket to be lowered into the cavern, and more material were lowered onto the cavern floor. They brought everything down for builders to make the raft, which they were building for the party to use to explore the lake. Horin and Jundar would be called for when the raft was done; they expected a message any time.

The messenger came during lunch. Jundar and Horin made their way into the lower depths of the Tendor’s Vault. Anticipation was written on both of their faces as they passed excited minors along the way. One could easily get lost in the tunnel system if they weren’t familiar with the mine, as there were many offshoot tunnels going in differing directions. It took an hour or so to make their way down to the makeshift elevator. Once there, Horin noticed the raft had already been built, and presumable tested, as it was in the water when they arrived.

The foreman, a pole, and a paddle were on the raft, with two lanterns, he was ready to depart. “We can push off whenever you’re ready,” he said looking a bit nervous and adding, “Sir.”

“Yes of course,” Jundar replied. “Is there anything we should know, or that you’ve ascertained about the lake and cavern, Carl”?

“Aaah, yes sir. We’ve tested the raft and it can ferry three, but no more. And, we’ve not explored at all yet, as we were waiting on you and Mr. Wodmyr. We did no more than test the raft,” he answered, a small hint of apprehension in his voice.

“Is it warmer down here now than yesterday,” Horin asked considering the air with a wave of his hand.

Carl nodded in affirmation, saying “A couple of degrees I’d say Sir.”

“Strange,” Jundar noted before stepping onto the raft just in front of Horin.

“Well then, let’s get to it,” Horin inhaled quickly as he stepped onto the raft, which listed a little before they all shifted more to the center to correct its weight distribution.

“Ay Sir. Where do you want to go first”? Carl asked, grabbing a lantern from one of the other minors there and handing it to Jundar before pushing off.

“Take us to the wall just the other side of the waterfall and then skirt the wall until we find something other than wall, or the river outlet over there.” Horin was pointing in an arc, which started at the waterfall and ended where the rivulet exited the cavern through a cave in the northern wall.

Carl pushed out into the dark, cobalt waters, until his pole would no longer reach the bottom. At that point he switched to a long slender pole with a paddle on the end, which he set in a groove cut in what Horin noticed was the back of the raft; then he expertly used a back and forth curling, figure eight motion, to propel the raft. The paddle worked surprisingly well, propelling them relatively quickly through the water towards the south side of the cavern. There, the waterfall churned the water forcefully from the distance it fell, more than from the volume of water, as the river was quite small.

“Shine the lantern-light over here Jundar,” Horin suggested pointing towards the wall as they neared the far side of the waterfall.

Jundar held the lantern out in front of him, where the light shown against a carved away area behind the waterfall, presumably from eons of water splashing back against the softer areas of dirt and sediment in the cavern face.

Nearing the wall, Horin could see there were, as he’d noticed when he initially went into the cavern, many, many more, perhaps hundreds of small cave like areas in the cavern wall - as far as the lantern could illuminate. There were no obvious gems or gold, or other precious metal veins noticeable in the wall near them.

“Shine the light that way Jundar, and Carl send us in that direction along the wall,” Horin directed pointing to the east.

As they headed east along the wall, they’d gone a hundred feet or so, Jundar pointed asking, ”is that a shore over there?”

As the party neared what did certainly seem to be another shore, they saw large stones that had fallen from the cavern wall above, and some silty dirt and smaller rocks that created the shore. Still they couldn’t see the eastern wall of the cavern, but it must be close, as the larger rock would have fallen from it. But, perhaps they fell and rolled, they just didn’t know yet. The shore was prodigiously lacking more Tendorite nodules.

Horin commented, “Well I guess not every cavern is going to have Tendorite in it!” Showing obvious disappointment, he quipped somewhat jovially.

Carl set aside the paddle and took up the pole again when he pushed the paddle deep and hit the lake surface, around twenty feet from the shore. Pushing them the rest of the way to the shore, Carl motioned for the others to disembark so he could shove the raft a little farther onto the shallow bank before he also stepped ashore, where he secured the raft. He then light the bullseye lantern, and gave it to Horin to use, leaving Judar carrying the other lantern, which Carl retrieved from him.

“Shall we,” Horin said scanning the shore and farther in towards what should be the cavern’s east wall. He was sweating now.

Had it gotten warmer still on this side of the lake? Horin thought to himself as the started off. No. It’s just my imagination, I’m sure of it. Why would it be warmer over here...just my imagination!

There was a shore similar to the other side, just more rocky. The rocks were bigger and there were boulders as well, but the cavern wall was still outside of the bullseye lanterns sixty foot range. Carl and Jundar began following Horin who was interested in finding the eastern cavern wall before searching the rest of the beach. He began walking east and finally after a couple of minutes saw the cavern’s east wall rising up into the darkness. They’d gone a couple of hundred feet from the the waters edge, making their way through large boulders and rocky terrain before reaching that side of the cavern.

“This place is massive,” Horin blurted out, a slight echo, bouncing off the cavern wall, which wasn’t apparent on the other side of the lake, likely because of the noise from the waterfall.

“Shhhh, Listen!” Jundar said quietly shushing the others, though they weren’t saying a lot, especially Carl, wide eyed and silent already.

They all stood still for a moment; listening.

There was a very slight murmuring sound, almost like a humming coming from the cavern wall farther north. Horin listened intently, but could not make out anything familiar about the noise.

Horin asked the others, “Do you hear a humming or murmur, or something like that?”

Jundar nodded affirmatively, but Carl was still listening, head tilted like a robin looking or listening for worms; Horin could never quite figure out which one it was the bird was doing when making that motion.

“Let’s walk up a bit more and see if we can find the source of the noise,” Horin suggested.

Mines have the strangest things happen in them, and the longer you are a minor, the more unusual occurrences one will have. Most of the time it’s just ones mind playing trick on them, but sometime, the weirdest thing happen. It is impossible to know when or where they will occur, but work long enough in the mines and you’ll have stories to tell the will keep the listeners awake long into the night...Thinking!

A moment later Carl righted his head, like a swivel, looked straight forward down the wall and motioned for us to continue on. We walked another hundred feet or so, about were the north wall loomed on the other side of the cavern. Expecting the north wall, we were greeted with only darkness out to the edge of the lantern-light.

Walking another sixty feet there was a dark space in the east wall, as if there were a cave entrance there. The three walked to the point where they indeed found another cave entrance in the cavern wall. It was large, thirty feet across and at least twenty feet tall, shaped in a half circle, edged uncannily smooth. All three of the explorers stepped out from the wall about twenty-five feet and centered themselves on the opening before Horin leveled the bullseye lantern on the center of the cave mouth. The noise they’d heard before was louder, a distinct humming, or flapping, or...BREATHING?

As the light from the lantern reached the center of the cave, sweat dripping from the brow of all three men, they saw shaped, dark stone, light reflecting rainbow colors from specs in octagonal overlapping stone plates shaped like a simulacrum of a giant reptiles head with large flaring nostrils, NO, REALLY FLARING!

That’s when the light of the lantern sown off a now widening crack on either side of the stone at the same level; exposing the now moving, opening lids of enormous...EYES!

Wanting to turn and flee, but paralyzed with fear, all three yelled out at the same time, #

DRAAAGOOOON!