Editing Kazak's Follies (section)

===The Secrets Below the Earth===
Entering the ruined city, they were quickly met with a large number of earth cultists and a handful of tamed bulettes. Battling their way past their foes, they came across a room filled with lifelike statues of figures recoiling in fear and guarded by a shadow demon. The bedroom beyond was uninhabited, though, and they found only a wardrobe filled with fine clothes and a collection of hideous masks. Continuing through the Temple of the Black Earth, they found a bound svirfneblin about to be fed to a giant black ooze. After they rescued her, she explained her name was [[Rukhelmoth Glitterstone|Rukh]] and that she was an explorer from the [[Underdark]]; she was captured while trying to sneak through the caverns below. She told them that the cultists had created some sort of powerful earth node down there, and led them to the stairs descending into the caves.

Rukh led them past the tomb of an ancient dwarven hero, where Kazak took the time to say a few reverent words. Rukh pointed out a narrow passageway hidden in a cluster of purple gemstones, then asked for an escort to the passage back to the Underdark. Their path took them past both earth and fire cultists, and then to a massive stone ziggurat topped with an evil-looking black altar. A dozen earth cultists stood on and around the ziggurat, and when Kazak stepped into the cavern one of the cultists conjured a wall of stone across the tunnel to separate him from his companions. They soon discovered that they had not trapped the dwarf with them, but rather trapped themselves with the dwarf; by the time his companions managed to break through the wall, Kazak had slain a third of the cultists single-handedly. Once the rest were dead, Kazak used ''Orcsplitter'' to shatter the altar. In the next cave, they found a sarcophagus with the evil symbol of the [[Elder Elemental Eye]] carved upon its lid. After destroying the sigil, they opened the sarcophagus and scattered the bone dust of whatever had been buried within.

As they reached the abandoned mineshaft marking the entrance to the Underdark, the spirit of the entombed dwarven hero appeared and directed Kazak to a pile of rubble in the corner. Digging through it, he found a magical dwarven hammer. After bidding Rukh farewell, the group took some time to rest before continuing deeper into the earth cultists' lair. When Kazak jokingly lamented the mess he had gotten himself into by signing on to search for the dwarven king, his companions just as jokingly called themselves Kazak's Follies. As they talked it became less of a joke, and they began calling themselves that from then on.

Descending below, they found themselves in a network of caves lined with veins of luminous purple crystals, and guarded by yet more earth cultists who identified the caves as the Black Geode. Fighting their way past even more cultists and earth elementals, they eventually found a skeleton clutching a steel helmet with a golden crown. When they picked it up, a duergar ghost appeared. The ghost told them that he and his companions had been searching for the tomb of King Torvald Flameforge. Following a lead of his own, he had located the king's crown in the possession of the Cult of the Black Earth but was killed before he could escape. His soul was now bound to it, unable to rest until the crown could be laid to rest with its owner. When Kazak revealed that Torvald's tomb had been destroyed, and he intended to lay his bones to rest in a new tomb in Korthaz, the ghost resigned himself to follow them until their task was completed.

After fighting their way through a canyon full of hook horrors, the band attempted to rest within a large fissure in the wall but where interrupted by an umber hulk. After slaying it, they moved to another fissure but encountered two more umber hulks and an earthquake that buried Honeysuckle in a small rockslide. After digging her out, they eventually managed to find safety long enough to patch their wounds and restore their magic. Battling past still more cultists and elementals, they discovered a large cavern that had been turned into a makeshift foundry, where cultists watched over a dwarven slave who forged weapons and armor for them out of enchanted stone. The group quickly killed them and freed the smith, who had been part of a caravan from Korthaz several months ago that was attacked by cultists. The smith confirmed sorrowfully that [[Marlos Urnrayle]], Prophet of the Black Earth, had indeed succeeded in summoning [[Ogrémoch]] several days ago, and he had personally seen the towering primordial stride past the foundry. Following the massive earthquake, however, Ogrémoch had returned looking badly wounded; the smith had not seen the elder elemental since, but heard the other cultists saying that the Black Earth was gathering his strength after driving back the water cult, which had summoned their own primordial, [[Olhydra]]. Honeysuckle scouted ahead, and found a massive cavern containing a portal into the Elemental Plane of Earth. The group quickly determined that they had no hope of winning in a battle against a being that was nearly a god. Flynn, however, knew who might: the Brightstone Heroes. Keiraleina teleported them all to Silverstone to request their aid.