meldrath3

The mines of Ak'Anon had long been used as a source of materials for the construction of Ak'Anons clockwork guards and servants. That changed the day the whereabouts of the missing sorcerer Meldrath and his pupils were discovered. The miners that toiled in the mines had gone to the mines early that morning and did not return to their homes and families that night. King Ak'Anon ordered a small patrol of guards to investigate the whereabouts of the miners and they to did not return from the mines. What did emerge that night, shortly after the patrol had entered the mines, were creatures of death, shadow, and flame.

The animated corpses of the miners, along with creatures summoned from other worlds stalked the tunnels of Ak'Anon slaying and destroying all in their path and swelling their numbers with the animated corpses of the freshly dead. By the time King Ak'Anon could organize the Gemcutters, Eldrich Collective, and Deep Muses to defeat the monstrosities the devastation had reached proportions never before afflicted upon the city of Ak'Anon. A powerful charm was cast by the most powerful of the Eldrich Collective that temporarily nullified the use of magic within Ak'Anon while the Gem Cutters and Deep Muses fought their way through the tunnels of Ak'Anon towards the mines.

When the forces of King Ak'Anon reached the mines they found them devastated far worse than the rest of the city. The mechanical mining apparatuses utilized by the miners had been destroyed and the clockwork miners and ore haulers had been reprogrammed to slaughter. To the chagrin of the good gnomes of Ak'Anon, Meldrath and his minions had already fled the city, their tainted seed of corruption already planted.