BoH: Boots, Black Dwarves, and Broken Spears

This is the third adventure of the Band of Hatchmates.

Deeper and Deeper
The party descended deeper into the cursed mine. Sneaklock had to be ever mindful of the traps left by the kobolds before them. Luckily it appeared that whoever else had entered the mine had disengaged most of them.

A shrieking fungus let loose a terrifying yell, but Zefkak charged up and made short work of it. Other than that, the mine was terribly silent. Tunnel after tunnel, they followed the dark winding passages going deeper and deeper into the ground. This mine had to have thrived once. Broken picks and abandoned tools were strewn everywhere. Occasionally the party would find a few stray footprints but there were no other signs of life.

Their wanderings took them into an old hatchery and then later into a passage with the word, "Danger" hastily scribbled into a wall. Verveshgix stopped the party. He had heard something, something familar. The sound of pick meeting rock rung out in the darkness.Down the corridor there were a group of small dark humanoids mining! Cautiously, everyone crept closer for a better look. It appeared that the cursed mine had a duegar problem. The sneering dark dwarves were overlooking a group of slaves. The imprisioned dwarves were chained together and slowly working at gathering ore. No one saw the kobolds there.

It was silently decided that something had to be done. The party set a few complicated traps and used a ditherbomb to implode the tunnels leading from the duegar's home into the kobold's territory. Feeling accomplished they continued on looking for the boots.

The Black Ring
At long last they reached a commons area. Smashed jugs littered the ground and the strench of too much booze filled the air. A duegar was there semi-passed out. Laying close to him were also the bodies of another human and a few decaying kobolds. The party swiftly leapt into action and made short work of the dark dwarf. Searching the room they found a tunnel with a makeshift barricade.

A draconic warning shouted out. Verveshgix assured the person that they came in peace and the party was able to move past the barricade. Behind it was a chilling scene. Dead kobold priests littered the area alongside a few more human corpses. A wounded kobold limped over to them. Gix explained their quest and got an explanation of what had happened. It seemed that a few days ago, a small band of adventurers had been this way and had taken the boots. The humans had ben loud enough to alert the duegar and between the kobolds, the adventurers, and the dwarves it had been a messy fight. The wounded kobold, Zazus, was part of a holy order who was supposed to protect the black ring. He had hid during the ruckuss and was the only survivor.