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their weapons drawn. The battle cry also awakens the
guards sleeping in area 19b, who collect their weapons
and investigate. If her gorgon mount is killed or she is
taking too much damage as a duergar, Stalagma uses
her next action to revert to her true form. Other duergar
who see Stalagma in her true form flee unless Valtagar
is present to reassure them that the dragon is their ally.
Stalagma controls the xorn by feeding them treasure
from the broken-down mine cart. In addition to Dwar-
vish and Draconic, she speaks Terran, so the xorn can
understand her.
Xorn. The xorn are initially hostile toward Stalagma's
enemies. They quickly become indifferent toward char-
acters who offer them gems as food, preferring such del-
icacies to the coins that Stalagma usually feeds them.
Treasure. The mine cart has two broken axles. It con-
tains 2,000 sp and 3,200 gp.- OUTPOST
These chambers guard the stairs to level 22. The ceil-
ings are 20 feet high throughout.19A. WAY TO LEVEL 22
Debris. In the west side of the room lie the crumbling
remains of a stone table and four stone stools.
Pillars. Three stone pillars in the east side of the
room are streaked with glittering mithral veins that
look like lightning bolts shooting up from the floor.
(Any attempt to extract the mithral from the pillars
proves futile.)
Xindulus. An invisible ultr oloth named Xindulus
guards a secret door leading to a 10-foot-wide spi-
ral staircase that descends to level 22 (see "Secret
Door" below).
If anyone opens the secret door, the ultroloth appears
and tries to slay them. It ignores those who leave these-
cret door alone, allowing them to move through the area
unmolested. If threatened by three or more enemies, it
tries to summon ld6 mezzoloths, ld4 nycaloths, or an-
other ultroloth (see the "Variant: Yugoloth Summoning"
sidebar in the "Yugoloths" entry in the Monster Manual).
Xindulus won't negotiate with adventurers unless they
offer it something immensely valuable, such as a legend-
ary magic item or an artifact.
Secre t Door. A fresco that depicts dwarves battling
a black pudding conceals the secret door in the north
wall. Bloodstains mar the carving, making the dwarves
look horribly wounded and giving the ooze a disgust-
ingly realistic sheen. The secret door stands in a section
of wall that bears the image of a dwarf wizard wielding
a staff. The staff is made of real iron and is partially em-
bedded in the stone.
An arcane lock has been cast on the secret door. A
knock spell causes the door to swing inward, revealing
a dusty tunnel that ends at a downward-spiraling stair-
case. Forcing open the magically locked door requires a
successful DC 25 Strength (Athletics) check. Touching
an iron object to the iron staff in the fresco suppresses
the arcane lock spell for 1 minute.19B. EMPTY BARRACKS
This room is empty.LEVEL 21 I TERMINUS LEVEL20. POISO N OUS MINE
These chambers have 15-foot-high ceilings, with 10 - foot-
high tunnels connecting them. The sounds of picks
s.triking stone echo throughout, becoming louder as one
approaches areas 20b and 20c.
Noxious gas seeps into this mine through small fis-
sures in the walls, filling areas east of the door to area
19a and south of the door at area 20d, except for area- The gas is invisible, but characters can smell the
toxic fumes and hear a faint hissing. It takes 1 minute
for the gas to build up in a creature's system, after which
the creature must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution sav-
ing throw or become poisoned. A creature that holds its
breath for the whole minute has advantage on the saving
throw, while a creature that doesn't need to breathe au-
tomatically succeeds. A creature can end the gas's effect
on itself by finishing a short rest in a location with clean
air. A lesser restoration spell or similar magic also ends
the effect on a creature.
20A. HALASTER'S WATCHING!
The characters encounter one of Halaster's scrying
eyes (see "Halaster's Lair," page 311) in this otherwise
empty cave. The scrying sensor watches them until they
leave, then disappears.20B. POISONED MINERS
Three poisoned duergar (two males and one female) use
picks to chip iron ore from the walls of this cave. If out-
numbered, they turn invisible and join their fellows in
area 20c. Otherwise, they attack. The males a re named
Orn and Thumrok. The female is named Durundra.20C. POISONED MINERS
Eight poisoned duergar (six males and two females)
lethargically swing their picks, working iron veins in
the cavern walls. They are hostile toward non-duergar.
They're bold if they outnumber their foes but flee to area
21 if that situation changes. The males are named Hrok,
Jarazk, Krod, Mraginar, Nori, and Rok. The females are
named Bralith and Sunmerva.
The cave is strewn with old mining equipment: shov-
els, broken picks, rusty iron sleds for dragging ore, and
so forth. A casual search also yields a pair of empty
water skins, a shattered wooden ale cask, and a 20-foot-
long coil of hempen rope too old to be of much use.20D. EMPTY ROOM
Dwarves dug through the south wall of this room, hop-
ing to find rich veins of mithral. Instead, they found iron
and poisonous gas. The room is empty, though charac-
ters can hear the miners working in areas 20b and 20c.2 1. CLEAN AI R STATIO N
The duergar come here to shake off the effects of the
poison gas. Runes are chiseled into the smooth gray
walls. A character who studies the runes and succeeds
on a DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check realizes they are
part of an ancient spell that continually and perpetually
freshens the air in this room while hedging out poison-
ous gases and similar effects, magical or otherwise.