25. November 11, 2015

We leave messages for Genard (via the magic book) that we'd like some hints from Nemoriana on where, geographically, in Evangier, we should look for dwarven communities. We are hopeful that they would live near underground lakes in which magic pools (since water seems to be an easy conduit for magic). And dwarves may have come across buried First ruins.

While in town, our impression that the Evangierians dislike everyone is reinforced. They hold a grudge against Kirenweld, even though the last war was a few centuries ago. They hate the Imperial city. They hate the elves. They're pretty xenophobic. We even witness a disturbing event, in which the city brings a wagon that has what appears to be corpses in Kirenweldan attire, which they pull out for the crowd to throw rocks and rotten food at to vent their anger and frustration.

We buy cold-weather gear and supplies for mountain exploration, and travel north on the road. At each settlement, there are lots of down-and-out people buying mountaineering gear, in hopes of finding something big and making their fortune. We turn off west at the 6^th settlement, which is by a tributary that leads from the mountains down to the river, which is the first settlement where everyone says that there is zero mineral wealth left in the mountains nearby.

We learn we are being followed, by a single person wearing Evangieran garb beneath his cloak. We press on anyway...because we told the truth about what we are doing when we entered the country, even though we hedged about our motives and who we are.

We follow a stream, heading up, it's getting steeper. We find a small waterfall over the rocks, and a pool a few feet deep at the base, which looks likely. It turns out there is an underwater passage that goes about 75 feet before it opens up, an underground stream, which with Endure Elements we can traverse. There's plenty of grazing for the horses nearby. We go upstream through the underground passage...sometimes there's a ledge, sometimes we're swimming. We travel for a few hours, and come out into a very small cavern. It has bits of metal and wood debris on the floor, and what we realize is an old, deteriorated water wheel 40 feet up. We go up. And we are at the very bottom of what we realize is an old, abandoned, dwarven community. We inform Genard/Nemoriana, and start exploring.

The abandoned town is four terraces. It's small...was probably a natural cavern that they excavated. Mix of 15-20 dwellings and 20-25 workshops. A half-dozen passages at the top terrace.