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all sortsa creatures come here to loot their old hoards. Why do ye think there’s so many orcs about? It’s a great time to be a scavenger!”
    “Aren’t you afraid for your safety?” Ghleanna asked.
    “No more’n usual.” The peddler struggled into his overstuffed pack and picked up his lantern. “A bit o’danger comes with the trade. If I wanted to play it completely safe, I’d open a borin’ little shop in Waterdeep. ‘Sides, the orcs’re some o’my best customers, so they pretty much leave me alone.”
    “Orcs aren’t the only things haunting these passageways,” Jarial said. “I’ve seen zombies and—”
    “Oh, I can handle a few zombies.” Nottle headed for the door. “Nice chattin’ with ye folks again. Let me know if ye need anythin’!” With that, he was gone.
    All five of them stared after the peddler. “He’s going to get himself killed,” Durwyn said.
    Kestrel shrugged. “Better him than us.” In a way, she envied the halfling. Were the need for stealth not so great on this misguided mission of theirs, she would have enjoyed looting these ruins right along with Nottle. But she could ill afford the noise of carrying too much plunder.
    As they filed out of the room, Kestrel heard Durwyn whisper to Jarial, “What’s an alhoon?” She’d wondered the same thing herself at Nottle’s first mention of them but hadn’t wanted to admit ignorance.
    “An undead mind flayer,” the mage said. “Horrible creatures with heads that look like an octopus. Between their psionic powers and wizard spells they’re deadly opponents.”
    “And the phaerimm?”
    “Extremely powerful magic-using creatures, nearly all teeth, claws, and tail. I saw plenty of them—and alhoon—in the time I was trapped down here, but as the peddler said, they just up and disappeared one day. It must have taken something awfully strong to drive them away.”
    Kestrel didn’t want to dwell on what that “something” might be. If it was the same creature—or creatures—responsible for creating the new Pool of Radiance, their mission was even more futile than she’d thought.
    They headed farther down the passage, ducking into rooms as they continued their search for a way up and out of the dungeons. Many of the rooms stood empty or littered with broken furniture, while others—probably the former lairs of the alhoon and phaerimm—held ransacked chests or similar signs of already having been visited by scavengers such as Nottle. As in the region where Jarial had been trapped, the torches along the wall of this new area became sparser, until they reached a zone where there were none at all. Though each of the explorers held a torch, the flames did little to illuminate their surroundings. A pall of preternatural darkness cloaked this sector of the dungeons.
    They came upon a room that seemed to serve as an antechamber to a larger complex. Several doors in the back and side walls stood open, and the party entered one to find themselves engulfed in nearly total darkness. The flames of their torches cast little more light than candles.
    “I don’t recognize this area at all,” Jarial said. “We must have made a wrong t—”
    “Hush!” Kestrel interrupted him. She held her breath, concentrating on a sound she heard echoing from the stillness. Rattle. Scrape. Rattle. The noise seemed to come from a room off to their right.
    Rattle rattle. Scrape scrape. Rattle rattle.
    “I hear it, too,” Ghleanna whispered.
    Clack. Clack. Clack clack.
    Corran’s hand drifted to his sword hilt, but suddenly stopped. He sucked in his breath. “It almost sounds like—”
    A white shape shuffled into view, its grinning head and gangly limbs a stark contrast to the blackness beyond. Clattering erupted as a sea of others appeared behind it.
    “Skeletons!” Durwyn leapt forward, swinging his battle-axe in a wide arc that shattered the skull of the nearest foe.
    “At least a dozen of them,” Corran called out as two creatures armed with swords closed in on him. He left his own sword in its sheath,