The Cloakwood, so relentless in its attempts to drive us away, seemed almost peaceful as we broke camp. Our armor had been mended, our wounds tended, and Dynaheir had once again committed her spells to memory. Whatever waited beyond the mine entrance, we would face it at our best.

Charging the Iron Throne’s stronghold headlong would have been foolish.

Instead, we let patience become our greatest weapon.

Small groups of guards were lured from the entrance one at a time, separated from their companions before steel was drawn. One by one they fell. The defenders fought with surprising discipline, and among their dead we discovered correspondence from a man named Rieltar addressed to their commander, Drasus. The letter ordered him to prevent any curious adventurers from approaching the mine.

It required little imagination to realize we were the adventurers in question.

Drasus himself proved every bit the capable commander the letters suggested. His companions, Kysus and Rezdan, relied upon powerful magic rather than brute strength. Rezdan unleashed a spell that filled our warriors with terror, sending them scattering in blind panic. Before the enemy could capitalize, Imoen and Dynaheir rained arrows and spells upon the mage until he fell. Kysus answered by turning Minsc’s own mind against us, forcing several of us to flee our trusted companion until the enchantment finally released its grip.

The battle left us battered but victorious.

With the outer defenses broken, we descended into the ancient dwarven mine.

The tunnels bore little resemblance to the thriving halls they must once have been. Hobgoblin guards patrolled every passage while slaves toiled beneath their watchful eyes. Traps protected nearly every important corridor, though Imoen’s sharp eyes spared us from more than one painful mistake. We fought through mercenaries, monstrous defenders, and even an ogre mage before finally reaching the prisoners themselves.

Their stories were difficult to hear.

One miner, a former bard named Canticle, cursed Davaeorn and the unknown master who had placed him there. Others spoke only in hushed voices, their spirits nearly broken by endless labor beneath the mountain. None served willingly.

The Iron Throne had not merely corrupted the iron trade.

They had enslaved honest folk to carry out their work.

Deeper still we found Yeslick, a dwarven warrior imprisoned within his own ancestral mine. He told us of Davaeorn’s cruelty and of the corruption that had consumed these once-proud halls. His hatred for the Iron Throne burned no less fiercely than our own.

Though it was not an easy decision, Kagain chose to part ways with us. The gruff mercenary had proven himself many times in battle, but our goals had never truly been the same. With the fate of his homeland weighing heavily upon him, Yeslick offered to take up shield and axe in our cause. We gladly welcomed him into our company, and together we pressed onward into the depths.

Davaeorn awaited us in the deepest chamber of the mine.

Unlike those who had come before him, he relied almost entirely upon magic. Arcane energy filled the chamber as spell answered spell. More than once I feared we had finally met an enemy beyond our abilities. Yet Dynaheir matched his sorcery while the rest of us pressed forward whenever his defenses faltered.

At last the mage fell.

We searched his chambers carefully, and it was there that the final pieces of the puzzle came together.

Letters exchanged between Davaeorn and his superiors revealed a conspiracy far greater than poisoned iron alone. Mulahey had crippled the Nashkel mines. Tazok’s bandits had disrupted trade throughout the region. Captured Blacktalons were intended to shift suspicion toward the Zhentarim. The poisoned ore was transported in secret to Cloakwood, where Davaeorn refined and distributed it using slave labor.

Above him stood greater names.

Rieltar.

Sarevok.

The Iron Throne’s reach extended far beyond the forests and roads of the Sword Coast.

It had already reached Baldur’s Gate.

With Davaeorn dead, one surviving guard named Stephan confirmed what the letters had already implied. Davaeorn answered to powerful leaders within the Iron Throne, and their true headquarters lay within Baldur’s Gate itself.

The mine had never been the destination.

It had only been another step along the road.

Before departing, we freed every slave we could find and opened the ancient floodgates.

Water thundered through the dwarven halls, swallowing the galleries where innocent people had been forced to labor and where poisoned iron had been forged for profit. Years of planning disappeared beneath the rising waters. The Iron Throne would never use this mine again.

As we climbed back into the fresh air of Cloakwood, I found myself looking back only once.

So many answers had waited beneath that mountain.

And yet the greatest questions remained.

Who truly commanded the Iron Throne?

Why had Gorion died protecting me?

And what part was I meant to play in all of this?

Every clue now points toward a single destination.

Baldur’s Gate.

The road that began outside Candlekeep now leads to the greatest city upon the Sword Coast.

I have a feeling my true journey is only just beginning.

— Cail