Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

The darkened wood loomed around him, eerie silence surrounding it unbroken by the savage lizardmen that haunted it. By chance he'd not encountered any, while they don't pose much threat to him Kraegar would rather avoid the possible expenditure of supplies. He finished tightening and securing his load, ensuring vials of potent and expensive potions that would be his lifeline, the heavy weight of bandages, and of course his arms; an enchanted dwarven waraxe he'd gotten a good price on and one of the Angurvadal blades from Rasheman. Though he found he was clumsier than he'd like with a longsword and he doubted he would encounter trolls below it comforted him knowing it was there as a trusty sidearm.

He sighed, seeing his breath in the cool night air before the mouth of the old mine it too letting off a slight haze suggesting the air within was warm and so too that the mine would be deep. Kraegar intended to find out just how. It had all happened so fast from the first time he entered the place and found himself intrigued by the walkways and ties – a former carpenter he knew dwarven woodwork when he'd seen it. This was a place for dwarves now filled with goblinkin, deep goblinkin like those that assailed his own clan's fortress keep decades ago when he was but a youth in the eyes of his elders and sent off with the refugees.

Without thinking of it he was on his way into the gloom, into the dark, into the ground...


First level: Goblin resistance fierce. Proximity to the surface probable cause; the goblins guard the first layer from lizardfolk expansion – holding them at bay here. Usual cave dwellers also present spiders nesting here, cloakwood is known for them among the humans, goblins seem to tolerate them likely culling them when necessary but otherwise using them as a natural defence. Unsentimental as they are it's unlikely goblins mind a few of their kin going missing to spiders once and a while.

More intriguingly this was clearly a dwarven staging area. The oldest layer of the settlement, this is where they broke ground and began. The wood holds but is old and tired. The scaffolds creek in an unsettling manner with every step but they've a decade, maybe two, left before they give out provided the ceiling doesn't collapse on them first. The wooden support ties less promising here – they show sign of pressure fracture and would need replacing as they're not fit for the weight they're bearing, parts of the ceiling already fallen in some areas.

Scattered artifacts of little value here and there, most trampled beyond recognition by the coming and going of goblins and time itself, others picked up and carried off no doubt. Human remains among debris, goblin hunting party victims no doubt. No sign of clan identification here, my kind have not stalked this halls as a people in a long time.

Found service shaft and elevator. Machinery functional and well used. Conceivable the goblins while not understanding it have maintained the workings of it with oil, simple as they may be they're cunning enough to recognize the value of being able to move efficiently among their lair here. Four levels indicated. Might as well do it linear.


Scribbling his entry, he took one last look around the area before heading down. It was humbling to think people once lived in this now inhospitable place, his people, and that once it was a functional if spartan entry way to their home and their lively hood. Their story was probably like so many before them; the home they came from grew too crowded or the veins ran dry and so bravely they set off as an expedition to break new ground and found a new clan in hopes their colony would be a worthy venture and give way to a new fortress kingdom, attracting migrants and creating an atmosphere of security and prosperity for family building.

Among Men it is said one success accounts for countless failures. It was an undeniably true statement, but a touch sad to think how many places failed like this for every Mithral Hall. A painful thought, all the more so knowing his own clan was among the list of casualties. This one though was a mystery to him though, why had they not sealed their passages, inconceivable that dwarves would surrender ground or that goblins would take it so thoroughly the defenders had not the chance to prepare. Something was amiss.

The old machinery moved smoothly with only a quiet steady thrum as the lift descended...

Second level: Tight corridors and small chambers, this was not an area where the efficiency of space and storage was kept in mind but the closeness of kin. These small rooms were living quarters for the dwarves who once held sway here. The walls and ceilings here more stable than above. Believe the soil layer ended somewhere above and so the rock itself is more sturdy. Area's still a danger to collapse however, shifting of the earth and time have seen to it dwarf work is undone in some places – some dwarvfs would be unhappy to find their beds awash in dirt and fallen stone if they yet lived.

Goblins thicker here. Where once dwarvfs lay only goblins remain. Some artifacts of my people remain intact here in spite of them. Tools, cutlery, and pitchers, tankards, and the like sturdy enough to do work or bear food or water yet last. Dwarf built lockers and chests abound, good work like my father's and mine, locks tricky from complexity but tumblers work well and little corrosion evident – finely made it is satisfying to open them. Lo that their contents depress – some of the more cunning goblins have figured the locks the chests are filled with their spoils and not the treasures of my people. I should not be surprised – time has ravaged much.

Some rooms of note; a dwarven workshop remains intriguingly intact. Nothing of particular value remains but the room is remarkably intact as though the goblins dread to enter it. Clearly a room for metal fabrication and care, tongs, pliers, sledges, hammers and more stay neatly organized upon the walls as though it were used yesterday by an attentive master only the layer of dust betrays its age. I wonder if the goblins do not enter here for fear it is a holy place. The god of Moradin presides over smith works and is particularly disliking of goblins – it is possible this place was consecrated by a residing or visiting priest. Praise unto them then, their faith was True.

A water filled room is cordoned off by a sealed door. Seems the dwarven population was growing and they meant to expand their living quarters but struck water. Wisely they repaired the breach and abandoned progress in that direction. The goblins avoid it, perhaps their keen ears hear the water running against the rocks beyond. Feral as they may seem goblins are a people and they strong survival instincts and dig as often and as deep as we. They know the danger here. Still some brave it's use for storage clearly. A chest was found in the murky shallow pool, not long before I felt the crunch of bone beneath my feet. A skeleton of who I can not tell but that it was humanoid. My theory is it is perhaps the loser in a goblin loot dispute – found a small gem where the stomach would be. A common tactic for petty thieves, the goblin likely stole here on one of his compatriots and swallowed a gem he favoured from his companion's stash to avoid implication and have his prize later. It worked not – seems he was discovered and his confused enraged attacker killed him where he stood.

Some other denizens of the deep making appearances. Carrion crawlers haunt the furthest wings of the living quarters. Myconids to, vast walking fungal colonies that actively hunt and prey when necessary but prefer carrion. The goblins avoid this wing and it is probable they dump the bodies of those they don't eat, for whatever reason here, thus promoting the growth of these creatures. More spiders as well, sturdy subterranean specimens that lay in torpid slumbers sometimes for years before food wanders by.

Returning to lift to explore deeper.


Finishing the entry Kraegar made his way back through the halls, goblin corpses littering them. He paused once, being stared down by a particularly large carrion crawler that set the hair on the back of his neck on edge – one so old would be a terrible foe. Before long it went about its business ignoring or in spite of the living dwarf, instead wrapping it's tendrils around the legs of a sturdy goblin warrior's corpse and dragging it away into the dark. Kraegar watched as its unsettling yellow luminous eyes faded into the gloom, watching with covetous and cruel patience that would remind even the haughtiest of men or beast their place. Eat you alive or wait 'til you lie, all of us food that hasn't died.

The remainder of the back tracking was mercifully uneventful and less harrowing on the nerves. Filling a dwarf with melancholy silence rather than fear. Their fate still a mystery it was clear this clan had won some success and wrung from this earth a living perhaps thriving community. Now gone, only shadows in the gloom forgotten to memory. The lift waited patiently as a stoic witness to the rise and fall of this community as sure as the rise and fall of its platform and weights.

The lever dutifully made no protest as it was shifted to its third notch.