After the long night filled with visions and visits from the Major Eddas, we awoke the next day on Firemonth the 4th full of energy and excitement. Breaking our fast and praying, we climbed back up the mountain again to the entrance of Donnegarten and spent some time looking over the way in. There was a single screw in wheel set in the center of the double door, about 3’ wide and had 5 spokes radiating from the center out. We searched the local area for a possible chimney or air intake and found none.
The decision was made to soak the screw with oil to open it later and we brainstormed a few ideas before just trying to open the thing. It dogged out about half an inch and then froze in place. More oil and work and even Dizzy and Connal working hard with a crowbar couldn’t get more than another quarter inch in the thing. We looped the rope through the spokes radiating out to the wheel itself and tied the free end to Knox the mule and everyone tried to pull the wheel. The rope snapped and the tail end of it hit Knox in the rump, making the mule bray and then run off.
Damn it, shit.
Connal and Dizzy gave chase, and then eventually the rest of the group joined in. The mountain was no place for the mule to run and it took some time to catch up to him and calm it down. Then with more apples lead it back through the mountain until we were at the door again. Retying everything to the mule and making sure nothing was lost, we went back to the wheel again. Wilhelm had the idea with more oil to coat the central screw shaft again and then cast heat metal on it – making the shaft expand slightly and in doing so, break the rusting hold that had been stimying us to date. We worked the wheel and unlocked the door – allowing us to open Donnegarten for the first time in over 140 years.
There was a small amount of air exchange as foul stale air blew out and fresh air rushed in. There was a large entrance area here with a number of old burn and bash marks. The ceiling, 20’ tall, had caved in a few places and there were maybe 30 plus dwarven skeletons on the floor in places. Some had broken bones, others had flatbow bolts in their chest cavity. Two other passages were out of this chamber, one east the other south. Wilhelm had done a Detect snares and pits spell and Dizzy checked the place out.
Signs pointed to stables and pens south and admissions and lift east. There were some counterweights holding the doors open now and we decided to work a series of levers to keep the doors open. Three worked, 1 did not – making the right door fully openable, and the left door partial. We looked over much of the area and the call was made to head south to the stables and pens first. It was about 10:40 when we started going down the hall. More signs of orcish assault and dead dwarves. The ceiling had risen to 25’ tall and curtain webbing and dust was heavy. An old wagon had been dumped on its side here as a break but had been burned and the dwarven bodies beyond showed that they had been overrun. Wilhelm let us know that a section up ahead had a weak ceiling and we should be careful and quiet going past it.
The hall opened to a large chamber with 6 lesser chambers heading off, each acting as a pen section for a variety of animals. A central cartwright area with a 3’ step down took up the central section. The scaffolding and metal runner glides had been pretty beaten up, but we figured to check out the pens first. Starting with the northeast one, the original wood and bar pen door had been torn out and hauled away, busted old wood and metal bars everywhere. It seemed to be a horse or pony pen area based on the size of each stall and the accoutrements found around it. From there the next major pen was more for goats and we did find a small pit area under one of the stalls.
There was a cotter pin that had been set in the eye bolt, but we bent the flanges down and pulled it out before opening it up. Small area, 5’ x 5’. Two dwarven skeletons down here, thinner boned – most likely teenaged. 9 tally marks were scratched on the wall. One of them had a yellowed note in its grasp. We pulled it out and read it. Seems it was a recounting of one of the younger dwarves of the attack and his last days. We closed it up and kept looking. The next 4 pens were originally homes to griffins, hippogriffs, goats, and horses again. We did find another floor trap in the other goat area, but it was empty. At this point we went to the sunken cartwright area and looked around. More dwarven remains and lots of broken and poor condition tools (hammers, pliers, tongs, saws, and the like). We managed to put together two toolboxes filled with whatever was useful that we could find, lashing one to the mule and Dizzy taking the other one. In addition, we took a number of the 6’ metal bars from the pens and stacked them near the entrance.
It was about 1 PM when we returned to the entrance area and decided leaving it open was an invitation that we did not need. So we closed the door (after working the counterweights again) and then shoved it closed and turned the locking wheel on this end until it was closed once more. From here we went east down the hall to Admissions and the Lifts.
More broken areas and dead dwarves. A few here in platemail, but the metal had fist sized holes in it, blasted through both sides. The next hall has a portcullis blocking it, but it had been rent aside. Some kiosks in here smashed up along with guide ropes. Two doors here north and west wall. Both torn open. A few nooses made of cables hanging from a crossbeam from above dwarven skeletons piled beneath it. There were two passages on the far east end of the room – east north and east south. Signs pointed to offices and lifts. We looked over the area with slow care. The two rooms were armories once upon a time, now empty the interior covered in dust and webs. More busted rocks and ceiling areas in bad shape. We did find a single raven feather on top of a broken kiosk which Dizzy took as a sign from Odin that we were in the right place.
We went down the east, north passage. The hall was wide (again, 20’), and very unstable. A few of us stumbled as walking but made it to the admissions offices. A few metal plaques were here, desk signs that Dizzy took. Some more garbage, more signs of orcish assault and dwarven destruction. It was almost 3 PM at this point when we went back to the main hall and then the east south passage to the Lifts.
Along the way we heard a scrabbling sound and something running off ahead. Eoghan was sure it was a canine of some sort, but it did not answer him. The curtain webbing seemed to come to an end here for some reason. Beyond here was a large chamber with a 40’ square pit on the east side going down into the gloom. A set of stone steps ran along the perimeter going down into the dark. A massive dwarven made two fork chain lift was here, the bulk of it recessed into the far eastern alcove beyond the pit. The metal gantry and loading platform looked pretty wrecked and battered but was on the south wall. A sloped area went up to the west to the lift control area. There were some canine prints in the dust going to the pit and down the stairs. Eoghan called out but no answer.
We made a decision to check out the lift control room and there was a single dwarf here next to a simple wood and steel stool. The left side of his skull had been caved in. A control panel with a number of dials and gauges that were all choked with dust and there were 4 levers, 3 buttons, and two 1’ wide thumb driven wheels were on the board. Eoghan wanted to touch them, and he was begged not to. As for Dizzy and Wilhelm, they looked over the pit and lift to the alcove to the machine and the thought was the machinery was most likely steam driven but the boiler that we could see was cold.
It was about 3:15 at this point and Wilhelm’s torch had only been lit for 20 minutes and we were discussing making the jump to the alcove and working on the machine or something else for now.
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