Down the shaft they fell, wind whistling past them as they dropped into darkness. Just when the heroes started wondering if they'd made a fatal error, their fall suddenly slowed to a feather's pace. The walls of the shaft disappeared around them, exposing a large chamber, then they touched down safely on the ground. As Anaxachorus, Felix, Grayson, and Zelaran got their bearings, the warrior Sommet greeted them. Just as they'd suspected, their companion had survived the drop, and now, so had they.

"I found a tunnel leading out of the chamber," Sommet announced as they lit torches and readied for further exploration. A quick search by Grayson confirmed that many people had passed through this area recently: perhaps the elusive dragonblood community that had disappeared from the city above?

After signaling their safe arrival to the paladins still waiting above, they headed down the smooth round passageway that led from the bottom of the shaft. A short walk later, they stood before a great pair of stone doors, twenty feet high and twice as wide. The doors stood ajar, creating a space wide enough for a person to slide through. One by one, the heroes stepped through to behold the sight beyond.

An enormous cavern stretched out of sight ahead and above, faintly illuminated by fungal growths on the walls and ceiling. Ruined stone buildings rose out of the shadows to the left, while a worn path led up into stony cliffs on the right. Before the explorers lay some kind of subterranean settlement, though the condition of the structures suggested its inhabitants had abandoned it long ago.

The adventurers soon realized that "abandoned" wasn't the right word to describe the fate of the city's inhabitants. Innumerable humanoid bones littered the floors, suggesting a massacre of obscene proportions. The bones of humans, elves, and dwarves lay everywhere in sight. A lack of fresh corpses assuaged fears that their dragonblood quarry might have met a similar fate, at which point the characters realized that they could not find any dragonblood remains, old or new.

Further investigation revealed that only about half of the structures resembled those of the city far above their heads, likely built during the same time period. The characters couldn't place the architectural style of the other buildings--surely no human, dwarf, or elf had ever created such unusual constructions. The buildings had no sharp angles and no seams of masonry or brickwork. Rather, the globular structures seemed somehow shaped or extruded from the surrounding stone of the cavern. Both types of buildings displayed signs of habitation, suggesting that those who had lived in this settlement had used both types interchangeably.

During their investigations over the next several days, the explorers came across a few creatures still living in the great cavern, including monstrous spiders in the cliff dwellings and enormous rats infesting a field that showed signs of once being cultivated for fungal growths. They also found further evidence of the horrific events that had unfolded here untold centuries ago: dessicated corpses hanging from petrified trees that marked the thoroughfares of the city. Worse yet, the corpses twitched to life and uttered soul-wrenching groans as the adventurers approached,

Beyond a crumbling stone wall stood a squat stone building that seemed to invite exploration. Within, the characters encountered one more inhabitant of the city: a withered elven warrior who uttered ancient curses at Anaxachorus the sorcerer. The druid Zelaran managed to calm the warrior, convincing him that Anaxachorus was not, as the elf claimed, a "minion of Dregoth."

Once pacified, the warrior allowed Zelaran and Felix to approach, while the rest of the group waited outside, weapons at the ready in case the situation worsened. Only then did Zelaran realize that the elf standing before him was no longer alive! Bravely, the druid and the sage engaged the ancient warrior in conversation, attempting to learn what had happened here so long ago.

The elven warrior welcomed Zelaran and Felix as representatives of "the Many Peoples," and told them what he could remember of the Migration Underneath: a great exodus of the various enslaved races of Giustenal--elves, dwarves, humans, and their kin--from the surface down to this hidden cavern below. Here they built new homes, but also used pre-existing structures whose origin was unknown. Peace reigned for a time, but eventually Dregoth the Ravager-King brought an army to quell the nascent rebellion. Taraskir the Lion led the defense of the Many Peoples, but even this mighty warrior could not stop the inevitable.

The elf could not tell them how long ago this massacre had occurred, nor of any events after the attack. Since that day he had been unable to leave this very building, cursed to remain as the last witness to unthinkable horrors.

After regrouping with their friends, Zelaran and Felix related the undead elf's story. The story of escaped slaves and brutal retaliation puzzled the characters. No tales of the Age of Summer mentioned such brutalities, nor such inequities. The ancient times were days of prosperity and just-minded rulers--how could a king such as Dregoth have maintained such iron-fisted control? And why had the elf reacted so violently toward the dragonblood Anaxachorus?

--------

Meanwhile, back on the surface, Godefroi and Ront made a discovery of their own. When they realized that they weren't alone in the supposedly abandoned encampment, they staked out a supply tent and managed to capture a lone dragonblood. The poor wretch proved deranged and barely coherent, though they managed to get some useful information out of him.

Haltingly, Therax described how one day, every dragonblood in the camp suddenly stopped whatever they were doing and marched toward the ruined palace. Therax related how he followed his campmates, despite not sharing whatever strange compulsion that led them.

Within the palace the dragonbloods discovered a long staircase that led to an open cavern. Without pausing, Therax said, the other dragonbloods walked across the cavern and dropped into a wide pit that fell away into blackness. Horrified, Therax fled, and the next thing he remembered was waking up in the abandoned camp. He'd hidden from the heroes when they arrived, fearing that they'd come to take him where his fellow dragonbloods had gone.

Clearly, the mass suicide of his fellow dragonbloods had crumbled Therax's (perhaps already weakened) grasp on sanity. But his tale matched the scant evidence uncovered so far, suggesting that he might well be telling the truth.

The two paladins knew that they had to share this information with their friends. After calming the dragonblood, they loaded their packs with as much food and supplies as they could carry, then headed to the dark shaft down which their allies had safely dropped nearly a week earlier. Taking a deep breath, the two stepped into the abyss. Seconds later, they stood safely at the bottom, having experienced the same slow drop as their comrades.

Soon the entire group had reunited in the ruined city and shared their stories. That the missing dragonbloods had come through the cavern couldn't be doubted, but they clearly weren't present any longer. A pair of demolished stone doors stood open at the far side of the cavern, indicating that something had broken through into the subterranean settlement. The six adventurers headed down the newly discovered tunnel, following the only path that lay ahead.

After several minutes, the smooth stone tunnel branched. One path led straight ahead, ending not far ahead at another shaft. But a roughly hewn spiral ramp led up out of the hallway, angling back toward the city above. Unlike the smooth, round stone passages they had trekked through so far, this appeared rather hastily and crudely cut from the earth. It also showed signs of instability, with many cracks and splits along the way.

Despite its poor state, the ramp proved safe enough for travel. At the top of the path, the characters found themselves in a small stone chamber. Oddly, the entire room was canted at a 30-degree angle, making footing slightly treacherous. A few inches of silt had collected at the bottom of the room, but it was otherwise empty.

A quick search discovered a trap door set into the stonework ceiling of the room--the only exit from the room. As soon as the door swung open, however, water poured from the opening, threatening to sweep the heroes down the ramp or, worse yet, to drown them in the room. Quick thinking and some strong arms managed to pull the entire group up through the trapdoor. A few strokes later and the characters emerged from the stagnant water into dry, stale air.

What they saw seemed beyond belief. They were in another subterranean area filled with structures, but this was no cave. Instead, the walls and ceiling appeared to be slabs of sandstone forming an enormous box, 500 feet long and half that wide. Stranger still, the walls seemed to slice right through buildings, as if the walls had come into being after the buildings, rather than the other way around. And just as the small stone room through which they had entered, the entire area sloped at a significant angle. The characters had entered at the low point, where water had pooled to fill about a fifth of the floor space.

After drying off, the characters set about exploring their new discovery. This area proved much smaller than the cavern below, but still required days to thoroughly investigate. An enormous pile of humanoid bones suggested that this location had also witnessed a horrific slaughter. Most buildings were completely ruined; unlike the subterranean city this area held only structures of familiar surface-style architecture.

One building, however, remained surprisingly intact. Its great stone doors bore an inscription in an ancient dialect of Draconic; Anaxachorus managed to decipher it: Here lies Taraskir the Lion. He dared challenge Dregoth the Ravager-King, and so rests here in eternal punishment.

Theorizing that the tomb might well hold more answers regarding the past history of Giustenal, the characters managed to open the mighty doors and enter. Once inside, they were attacked by a trio of bloodthirsty undead fiends whose powerful strikes drained the very life-force of their foes.

After overcoming these horrific creatures, the heroes discovered a stone coffin; within lay the skeleton of a gnoll, still wearing its lion-head breastplate and holding a cold iron greatsword. This then, was the legendary Taraskir the Lion, enemy of the Ravager-King. Unfortunately, Taraskir wasn't talking, and further investigation turned up no more clues--and no other exits from the sandstone box.

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