Deurg was a Dwarven miner who met a mysterious end in the Dunwarrs.
Many centuries ago, during the Dwarves’ initial explorations into the Dunwarr Mountains, a team from the Miners’ Guild made the fateful decision to follow an unusual seam of ore toward the surface of the mountain. The seam ran through a mass of black, obsidian-like stone, and the Smiths' Guild determined that the ore, when smelted, created a shining metal of unparalleled strength and resilience. After meeting with the guild elders, Master Miner Deurg redoubled the miners' efforts.
It wasn’t long into the excavation that the miners began to question the dig. They were having trouble tracking their progress within the mountain—an entirely new phenomena for the Dwarves and their abilities to determine their location underground. They would dig for days but feel as if they hadn’t moved. They would turn to follow the seam but swear they were still pointed in the same direction. They would feel as if the seam were about to thin or end, but instead find the largest deposits to date. Eventually they started breaking into unexpected caves and chambers, all covered with razorsharp outcroppings of the black stone, and shot through with strands of the strange metal.
Then, the whispering started.
The miners had been hearing it for weeks before they realized that it was more than just the building excitement in their own heads. “Dig,” the voices urged them. “The most valuable lodes lie just ahead. Dig up toward me…”
Reports of the whispers were the last things to leave these mines. Search parties sent from Thelgrim found the entrances to the tunnels caved in. The dwarves dug through the cave in, only to find no trace of the miners inside. When word reached the Deeplord, she ruled that all ingots of the strange metal be returned to the mine, which was to be sealed forever behind runes of warding and binding. All exploration of the workings the Dwarves now refer to as the Labyrinth of Deurg was forbidden on pain of death.
References[]
- Realms of Terrinoth