You decide to proceed into the next room and walk to the north end of the room and tug on the handle for the door, at first nothing happens and then you tug harder, there is a faint grinding noise and the door starts to rise into the ceiling. You raise your torch high and approach the slowly opening door. Inside you can see a large chamber measuring some forty feet wide and stretching north beyond the twenty foot radius your torchlight sheds, you feel a faint draft much as you had in the great hall upstairs and straining your eyesight you think you can make out a stone grating set in the ceiling, although this one is not at the right height to be the underside of the one set in the floor above, possibly they are linked by a shaft.

You can see from where you are standing that the room contains at least two long stone tables, both of which seem to be bare of any contents, you can't be sure but you think there may be two more tables further back in the darkness of the room. At the very edge of your torchlight you think you can make out doors set into both the east and west walls of the chamber.

t=1002

As you pick up the blade you feel a strange tingling sensation, which whilst not unpleasant certainly feels strange. You heft the sword and it feels well balanced, you take a few swings with it and you find its weight awkward compared to the sickle you have spent your time training with recently, still it is a nice blade.

You are fairly certain that it must be magical and you take out the crystal Omar gave you in the past and try to focus your thoughts through it towards the sword, however try as you might you can't get anything more than a vague impression. Possibly the sword is not very powerful, the crystal is not a suitable focus or else its power has faded in some way.

Lacking a scabbard to put it in you wrap the sword in your bedroll and stow it back in your pack. You then approach the corpse near the anvil, remove the ring and chain, and stow them in a side pocket of your pack. Then with the strange torch in hand you leave the room and cross the great hall towards the door in the south wall.

As you cross the hall you see the strange blue light play off the paintings on the pillars in the centre of the room, the light seems to make them feel deeper and richer in hue and texture. The deep blue pillar seems deep and empty, the red and yellow pillar seems to crackle with energy and the colours seem to dance in the torchlight, the pale blue pillar feels light and empty somehow and the colours in the dark brown pillar seem to almost shine. You rap the torch on the light blue pillar and the sound of metal ringing on stone fills the chamber and assures you that the appearance may have altered somehow but the pillar remains as solid as ever, you decided that somehow the light is creating an illusion with the pillars. Slightly disconcerted and yet fascinated by the effect of the torch you continue across the room until you arrive in front of the southern doors.

You reach out and pull the handle to the left of the door with a dull grinding noise the stone starts rising into the frame above it, and once again you are amazed by the dwarven technology that is still running even after so long presumably untended. As the door opens the room beyond slowly becomes apparent in the torchlight. The first and most obvious feature of the room is the large spiral staircase sitting in the southeast corner of the room leading down and away into darkness. On the right hand wall you can see the rotted remains of what was obviously once the dwarves armoury, series of pegs and a large rack cover the wall and all seem to be long decayed and almost completely rotted down to mulch. Walking closer you can see the rusted remains of maybe half a dozen weapons including a pair of axes several spear heads and a sword. Examining them you don't think any would be worth salvaging. You look down the staircase and see that again the spiral stairs again seem too low to be comfortable for you to walk down easily. You hold the torch in front of you and ducking you head start descending underground. After walking down four full revolutions of the stairs and travelling down what you judge must be about twenty feet or so the stair case opens into a large empty room, measuring some twenty feet square carved out straight from the stone. As your light slowly illuminates it you can see the remnants of several rotting chests and crates heaped at various points around the room, leading you to believe that this must once have been a storeroom. You see another stone door leading from the room to the north of the chamber and a lever on the right hand side of the wall that must open it. You return your attention to the remains of the boxes and spend ten minutes kicking through them trying to work out what they must have once held and seeing if that there is anything still of value left. Most of the crates seem to have contained foodstuffs or other perishable goods of which noting now remains several others seem to have rusted and useless scraps of metal the original purpose of which you can't even begin to hazard a guess at. After a fairly intensive search you give up on finding anything of value.

(t=1001)

As you step through the door, you immediately see a huge iron anvil measuring some five feet long by two feet wide, and four feet high, sitting on a single stone step. To the left of the anvil you can see there is a skeleton lying flat on its back. On the opposite side of the anvil you can see another skeleton propped up against the wall, this skeleton seems to be wearing the highly rusted remains of what looks like chainmail armour, by its left hand lies a short sword. Both of the skeletons seem smaller and broader than you would expect for a human, leading you to suspect they are probably the body of dwarves.

To the left of the room a large wooden water wheel stands idle and you can see holes in the ceiling and floor that whilst currently dry presumably at one time had water running through them. The shaft from the wheel passes into the wall and you can't see what it might have once been powering. In front of the wheel lies a dry stone trough that obviously once held water.

On the right side of the room you can see the forge that was obviously the heart of this room, it lies cold and barren with out any sign of fuel or work in progress. A row of hammers, tongs and other tools hangs on the wall next to the forge.

You notice that the corpse against the wall is lying in a blackened circle covering part of the floor and wall. Looking more closely you notice that the sword next to the body still twinkles in the torchlight and looks remarkably rust free considering its probable age.

It is only then that you realise that there is more light than there should be in the chamber beyond, flanking the doorway you see a two foot long metal rod set in wall sconces like a torch, at the top of the rod a flickering blue flame burns shedding light for about a twenty foot radius, illuminating the room. The light from it seems ethereal and strange, it has a dark blue tinge and seems to almost create more shadows than it dispels. The rod looks to be made of steel or some other silvery metal and is approximately one inch in diameter along its total length, the flame seems to play over the last three inches or so and extend about three inches beyond its tip. The strange metal torch seems to be merely resting in the sconce and not secured to the wall by any obvious means.

Curious you walk closer to the torch; examining it carefully you see no sign of any fuel source and presume that it must be magical in nature. You gingerly reach up and lift it carefully from its sconce, the flame does not change at all and the rod feels cool to the touch. You hold it high and it sheds its strange but steady light across the room, deciding to preserve the remnants of your normal torch you carefully stub it out on the ground and stow it on the top of your pack along with your flint and steel, where you could easily find them in the dark by touch if necessary. You shrug the pack back onto your shoulders and raise the metal torch high in your left hand to illuminate as much of the room as possible.

The strange light from the metal torch seems to make shadows pool in the corners of the room and around the corpses, that only seem to suddenly disappear as you get close to them, almost as if they were fleeing from your physical presence. You carefully begin a thorough examination of the room, firstly looking for traps and then examining each of the corpses in turn.

The skeleton to the left of the anvil as you walk in the room is completely devoid of flesh and any clothes or other organic items in its possession must have long since rotted away as there seems to be nothing present on the corpse except for a faint trace of mold under the body. Carefully examining the corpse you find a small-unmarked silver ring on its right hand and a silver chain around its neck, on the end of the chain is a miniature silver anvil with a small ruby set into it. Examining the body closely you see that at least part of the skull seems crushed as if by a heavy blow, you are no expert in healing but you would guess this was probably what killed the dwarf.

The second skeleton lies slumped against the wall as if it had been blown there by the fiery blast that has blackened the skeleton, floor and wall. Any clothing or other items that the body possessed seem to have been either destroyed in the blast or else have long ago rotted away to nothing. However the striking thing is the short sword lying next to the corpse that seems unmarked by the ravages of the years.

The blade itself seems to be just less than two feet long and sharpened at both the edge and the tip, making it useful as both a stabbing and slashing weapon. The blade edges run parallel along its entire length before sweeping together to form the point, down the centre of the blade is a large groove, carved into which near the handle are a series of dwarf runes that seem to flicker in the torchlight. The hilt is wrapped in what looks like red leather and there is a small simple gold cross guard. A simple steel ball at the bottom of the hilt acts as a counter weight for the blade.

(See the attached picture)

As you pick up the blade you feel a strange tingling sensation, which whilst not unpleasant certainly feels strange. You heft the sword and it feels well balanced, you take a few swings with it and you find its weight awkward compared to the sickle you have spent your time training with recently, still it is a nice blade.

With the sword in one hand and the strange torch in the other you begin a thorough examination of the room for any signs of secret doors. After some twenty minutes of carefully examining the room you are fairly certain that there are no secret doors off the room.

(t=1000)

The Dwarven Sword