Come the morning we set off again. Jez and I took the lead and we soon came upon the main entrance hall. Here we saw a great trench in which most of the fighting was taking place. It was a horrible killing field that I was glad to not be involved in. We had to proceed with caution though as now we were in active enemy territory. We quickly also found one of the items we had been looking for, the heirloom axe. Unfortunately it was in the possession of an enemy who was in a large group. It was too risky to recover it at this time. We also identified a safe way forward and gathered the others to proceed.

Once we were past the main entrance hall we came upon the engineers’ section where the object of our quest was to be located. Outside it was the remains of an enemy with some kind of advanced firearm. The others examined it while Jez and I pressed forwards. In the engineers area were many buildings to explore, but we heard movement from one of them. Together we advanced and found another enemy rooting through the papers of the dwarven engineers. We approached silently and incapacitated them before they could make much noise and kept them down until the others came and Lilith could interrogate them. They gave useful info on the numbers of enemies in the hold and the kind of equipment they had. We also got some details on guards and such and what to expect further down. The enemy and myself also had a discussion on science, but it appears the dark powers have rotted whatever brain it possessed as its points were nonsensical. After we had what we needed it was dispatched. It was too dangerous to leave it alive.

We proceeded to search the area for the items we needed. Along the way I pocketed a few more books and William gathered dwarven tools for his workshop. We eventually found it and then secured building the would be easy to defend to spend the night in.

The next day we did a bit of scouting and with the help of some of the engineers schematics we located a large ventilation shaft that was impossible to spot without the plans that should be able to get us anywhere in the hold safely and relatively easily. The others took a bit of convincing, but once it was found and appeared unused by the enemy we used it to push deeper into the hold to our final objective. It wasn’t the most pleasant trip. The ventilation shafts also were mirrored to bring in natural light and the environment was dazzling, plus we had to go in single file. Eventually though we arrived at the closest exit to the great hall of the hold.

It was at the far end of a large garden from the gate to the hall we needed to pass through. The room had a number of enemies within keeping a lax watch, while one that was obviously their leader worked at trying to unlock the door. We were able to sneak down and into position to ambush them with relative ease. Jez and William charged the leader while the rest of us formed up and fought the troops. It was a tough fought affair, magic crackled in the air as steel met steel and it looked for a minute like the magic of their leader would withstand all that was used against it, till Isidore used a silvered dagger on them and broke their enchantment. With their leader dead and their numbers being whittled down it was not difficult to mop up the remainder of the enemies.

Once they were defeated we hid their bodies out of sight and turned to the door. It appeared the enemy mage had almost finished unlocking it, it did not take long to discover how as we found a machine with a brain connected to it. It seemed the brain had belonged to a Dawi who knew the secrets of the door and the machine was forcing the information out. Not a pleasant device, though I guess many would make similar comment about my raising of the dead.

Once the machine was destroyed Broken Mithril opened the door and we found the great hall. Within was the book of grudges Broken Mithril sought, and in the next chamber was the store of oath gold. It was far more than we could carry, so we loaded ourselves with as much as we could and beat a hasty retreat through the vents, closing the door behind us