
The Caves

     One thousand years ago there was a mighty city of learning and magic.  There were wonders
beyond comprehension in the peaceful lives of the citizens.  Eventually it was bound to happen.
A highly learned scholar by the name of Malichai became obsessed with learning all there was
to learn, and was not satisfied with the limited knowledge in the nearly limitless libraries of the
city.  He craved knowledge of things that were very dangerous.  No knowledge or learning was
forbidded in the city, and this was one of its wonders, but Malichai was warned by many of his
colleages that what he saught was extremely dangerous.  Heedless of their warnings, he
proceeded, and eventually came up to the very limits of human learning.  Still not satisfied, he
plumbed the depths of the blackest arts available to mortal minds and came across what he
saw as his last avenue to proceed on his quest for ultimate knowledge.  Malichai prepared for
the ceremony very carefully and in what he thought was complete secrecy.  Unknown to him, the
citys historian had watched his every move and carefullly catalogued his every action.
     On a dark night when he thought he was alone, Malichai performed a dark ritual intended to
summon and bind a very powerful and ancient demon who he thought would be the key to
continuing his quest for learning.  Unknown to Malichai, the historian watched in horror as the
ritual proceeded.  Once the purpose of the ritual was clear to the historian, he steped out of his
hiding hole and confronted Malichai, pleading with him to stop and banish the demon before it
became solid in this world.  The ritual to summon the demon completed, and the ritual of
binding only partially begun, the demon was fully in the world and free.  Malichai never had time
to finish the ritual of binding or even respond to the historian.  With the ritual halted, the demon
took full advantage of the break, killing Malichai and devouring his soul in one foul stroke.  The
historian, terrified at what he had just witnessed and nearly frozen in fear, barely had time to
escape before the demon began twisting and destroying everything around him.
     The historian quickly went to the guardians of the city, the smartest, wisest and most
powerful mages known, and revealed what he had witnessed.  They immediately set upon a
plan to trap the demon before it could do any more damage.  They gathered outside the twisted
ruins of the tower that Malichai had used to summon the demon and began to weave their spell.
Before the spell could be completed, the demon attacked them, killing several and mortally
wounding many others.  With only four of their original twenty, the mages fell back to a protected
tower and there found an ancient wizard whose powers were only known in legend.  They began
to tell him of what happened, but he cut them off, saying only that he knew what he had to do
and that they should begin preparations for evacuating the citizens of the city.  He took his staff
and a small gem and went to the tower.
     Of the battle that followed, only two things were ever really known.  The first was that it
resulted in the city sinking several hundred feet below the earth.  The second was that while the
demon was defeated and imprisoned, it also killed the wizard before he could banish it.  The
wizards staff was returned to his tower, along with all of his other possesions, and a powerful
guardian was placed at its entrance.  The remaining mages of the city opened a great portal in
the center of the city, and the city was abandoned.
     Centuries passed.  A mountain rose, and all memories of the city were reduced to legends.
A band of Dwarven settlers found this mountain and discovered that it was rich in ores and rare
gems.  They began mining the mountain for its riches and finally decied to settle within its
depths.  They spend a long time, nearly a century, mining there, and they found that the deeper
their mines went, the richer the ore became.  Finally, one day, the dwarves disapeared, nearly
overnight.  Again, a long time passed, and again the disaster fell into the realm of legend.
     All that remains now is a series of caves, inhabited mostly by orcs and gobilns.  While they
may occasionally attack passersby, they seem to keep to the caves.
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