[Abe Sargent]

Several minutes pass. Nothing major happens. Then suddenly the cylinder begins its descent with a jerk. Stryl jumps and lets out an oath; Torkia Nuar laughs at his discomfort; Kelter admonishes him for his language.

The cylinder sways as it descends, but then the swaying gradually ceases and the ride becomes smoother.

Through the windows, you can see that the pit darkens; there are no lights outside to see how fast you're sinking. From his pack, Scupper pulls out an oil lamp and lights it before you are plunged into complete darkness. Then he grins and says, "Now we have quite a long ride. About a day's worth, in fact. Hope you brought some cards or dice. We're well stocked with food and drink, and there's a strange gnome device in the back of the car that'll serve us as an outhouse-or inhouse, in this case." He laughs at his feeble joke, as you resign yourself to a dreary journey.

The descent will continue downward hour after hour. The temperature increases, until it is barely tolerable; Scupper and the other NPCs will shed themselves of all clothes except garments constituting the bare minimum of decency. Alzar and Vix are fine (immune to elements).

From time to time, through the windows, the PCs will see one of those gnomish caterpillar-machines. Lighted from within so that their glowing front-windows look like shining eyes, these devices crawl along the shaft's walls. From time to time they stop to grind away rocky projections with their nose-cone drills, catching the debris in nets.

Every hour or so, the chain-and the PCs' cylinder-passes through a short metal tunnel attached by metal posts to the sides of the shaft. Scupper says that these tunnels stabilize the chain so that it does not swing wildly and crash into the sides of the shaft.


When asked where they are going

“Down," Scupper answers, grinning. "Way, way down. A few years back, an Alphatian sky-ship skipper named Haldemar found a place beneath the earth-a big place; bigger than. Alphatia itself. Where people lived. And Alphatia's going to own it. All of it.

"For the last several years, we've been digging this shaft down to the new world. One day, not too far in the future, we'll have cars on cables roaring up and down, carrying troops and trea*sures up to Alphatia, carrying colonists and governors down to the new world. Alphatia's already the richest empire on Mystara; with our new colonies, we're going to be twice as rich.

'' And folk like you, soldiers and retainers who get in before the truth is revealed to the world, will have a good deal coming. You'll have early choice on land to colonize, for instance. The Empire won't forget your efforts."

What's this new world like?

"Oh, no. Better if you wait and see it for yourself. Words can't do justice to it."

If the PCs have already been to the Hollow World setting in a previous adventure, it should already be obvious to them where they' re headed.

Also, if the existence of the Hollow World has already become public knowledge, then Scupper won't be so secretive about what the "new world" looks like.

What are we going to do there?

"Lots of things. Some of you will be guards and warriors. We need guards for the town and warriors to conquer the savages who surround it.

"Some of you will be sailors. We have a growing sky-ship navy down below ... but we aren't the only ones. Those evil, treacherous Heldannic Knights are down there, too, curse them. They have their own sky-ships, and plans to conquer all the primitive tribes of this world and make them slaves. Naturally, we' re try*ing to enslave them first, for the glory of Alphatia and empire!

"Some of you will be teachers. If you' re skilled with weapons and tactics, you'll be teaching the savages how to do things the Alphatian way. They' re citizens of the empire now, and they' re going to have to fight to protect it along with everybody else.

"Don't worry, young 'uns. If there's something you know how to do, we'll find you someone to do it to down below."

Who built this thing we're riding in?

"Dwarves and gnomes, mostly. The dwarves are from Denwarf*Hurgon, the dwarf capital of Stoutfellow, in Alphatia. The gnomes are from an interesting place called Serraine, a gnome city of no fixed address." He chuckles to himself, but won't make any explanations about Serraine when asked by an NPC.

"We have four chains going now. Each one has two cars on it, one at each end. A car will go from the surface world to the new world, and its mate at the other end will go from the new world to the surface world. Then, the chain's direction reverses, and the cars come back to where they started.

"Those gnomes, they're trying to engineer a new type of con*veyance. This one'll go all the time in the same direction. Each car’ll have to pass through some kind of thingy at each end to help it stay attached to the chain when the chain passes through the pulley. I don't know how it works, but the gnomes say it'll work all right. When that's done, we can have bigger cars arriv*ing every hour or so ... and then we'll really begin moving troops in and treasure out."

Why don't Alphatian wizards just teleport there?

"Don't they wish! Ha! They would if they could, but magic don't work the same down there. Some spells just won't go. And no one seems to be able to get from the world above to the new world below by means of magic. Something between the two worlds keeps it from happenin' ... and I'll describe that a little further down."