Connects to: 07.08, 29.14.26 and 29.14.30.
If you follow the winding merlinburrows down through the Grey Mountains you might stumble across a vast network of caves, each filled with miniature settlements. These are the remains of the maze of Hearthwright, a woman who thought she could better rule the City than the Lord of Pain (29.14.26).
To prove her wrong, Alberon trapped her for all eternity in a maze of caves populated by jermalaines—finger-tall cave sprites who are almost as uncooperative and lazy as humans. She tried hundreds of times to design the perfect city, populated by jermalaines, always moving on when her projects failed.
Explorers may be tempted to crush the knee-high buildings or try to enslave or communicate with the jermalaine citizens. Every jermalaine mayor will recognise what valuable war machines human-sized intruders make against rival jermalaine cities.
The jermalaines also harvest mushrooms that shrink those who eat them to jermalaine size while the person is within the city where the shrooms were prepared. They also have magnification magic that allows them to enlarge the cave’s fauna to terrific sizes: worms as long as trees, ferrets as big as horses, and all manner of giant bugs.
Connections
- Other merlinburrows can be found farther south (07.08).
- Some of the jermalaines have been enslaved at the clockwords of Albus Flidge (29.14.30).
Hooks
- Is Hearthwright still around?
- What’s a merlinburrow?
- How does the shrinking and magnification magic work outside of the jermalaine cities?
- To what use could an enterprising explorer put the jermalaines?
