Theme of the Ancient Miner

[Troya Derowyn]

Let's look at some things we know about these ancient miners:

* They were gettin' stone, apparently to smelt into StoneSheen. We've discovered StoneSheen aids in hitting skeletons and apparently holds a positive energy charge.
* They made E-tangle, Light, and Positive doo-hickeys
* They made Destructors to battle undead
* They had a lock activated by sunlight, because of scary stuff in "The Darkness"

Sooo... what were they up to? Can anyone shed some light for a simple dwarf?
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Let's kick some arse!

[Odin 241]

I wish I could. Maybe there is some way to rid me of this memory block.
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I am invincible.

[Cosimo]

Wow. Putting all the bits of information together in one place like that is really very good for seeing patterns: It seems like the whole purpose of this complex was as a production facility (and possibly a base of operations) for battling undead. Odin's full name is Odin 241 -- meaning that there were probably (at least) 240 others created before him. Goliath is 49 -- meaning there were probably 48 more of him. They were built in this facility, and to create them all, sheen their weapons, provide them with ammunition, etc. would have taken considerable time and effort, and would have required a lot of stone. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that this whole facility would have been dedicated to the doing of these tasks.

Lets follow this line of reasoning some more, and lets also add a few other bits of evidence in here:

* The Gordeshi civilization was very powerful. For them to devote such considerable resources to the fighting of undead must have meant that they were being accosted by hordes and hordes of undead critters.

* If the Gordeshi really were expending such a huge effort in battling the undead, they would have seen a defeat coming before they fell, and might have taken steps towards a doomsday scenario: some kind of extremely grand gesture meant not for the saving of the Gordeshi empire, but for the guarding of the world against the thing that wiped them out. A logical place to locate the physical manifestations of such a measure might have been in the stronghold used to create weapons against undead. This may be the mission of the Spirit possessing Barnaby.

* I think we can reasonably assume that whatever was creating the undead was sending them agains the Gordeshi, was sentient, very powerful, and really wanted the Gordeshi wiped out. (Questions: What, other than a God, could possibly be powerful enough to attempt -- and succeed!!! -- wiping out a civilization full of master magicians?) In this case, we may also assume it was capable of strategy, and might have learned about the base we are currently exploring. Then, a reasonable course of action might be to destroy the base by direct attack. There are many questions that remain now; among them, a few stand out:

- What is the relationship between The Darkness referred to in stone's message, and the force that sent hordes of undead against the Gordeshi, and then wiped almost all memory of them from the earth? Are they the same thing -- meaning that this Nasty Nasty Thing is sealed up somewhere in *this* dungeon????!!!!
- What are the undead digging for? And how long have they been digging? I don't think they could have been digging for the 100's of years that this dungeon has been sealed, since in that time they could have mined out the whole area. I think timewise it's more reasonable to believe that they have been digging for something more like a few months at most.
- What is impelling the undead to dig? For that matter, what created them? If they have existed in this dungeon for 100's of years, why did they just start digging recently? If they have only been created recently, what created them? A possible candidate that comes to mind are the chameleon-creatures we've found recently. We know from the Paladin's Detect Evil ability that they are evil; we also know from the musings of Tzanetos (may he be comfortable in Apollo's last embrace) that undead are created by evil clerics. Here's a hypothesis: Suppose you are a civilization of evil creatures, and you know of a battle a long time ago where an Empire and some kind of evil entity mutually annihilated? If I were them, I'd search for remnants -- and the possibility of resurrecting the evil entity. Perhaps they have only recently found this area, have turned the corpses of any Gordeshi they found into undead, and have been trying to find where The Darkness is imprisoned?
- What's the deal with the lone petrified miner we saw in one of the tunnels?
- How did The Executor -- a person greatly skilled with stone magic -- get overcome by a Petrification spell? Is this just an irony, or is there something more to it?
- Was the sunlight lock outside part of the original facilities? Perhaps it was put on this facility post-factum some cataclysm?

[Subius Eversio]

Well, most of that was answered, but a few things still remain that bug me: