Deligöz

Deligöz is an old dwarf warrior of Gazad in the Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles") campaign. Looking for well-travelled people who might help them, Kemp Corvus, Sarah and Ephorus heard of three: the young warrior Gürçekiç, who said he had lately seen strange things; the very old Deligöz, who had fought on Victory Day, at the Dwarf Gate and in the Empire; and Hermes of the diamond spear.¹

The companions left notes for all three. The next morning someone pounded on the door of their rented room underground: a very broad dwarf with red hair, beard and moustache, studded clothing and one false or wandering eye, who wanted to know who was looking for him and why.²³

A debt to the Corvus family

Deligöz said he had had dealings with Kemp's elder brother. After money had been paid to his mercenary band on the surface, he had been called home in haste to defend the homeland against the drow and could not finish the work. He did not deny the debt, and asked them to tell the family that he would pay it.⁴

The sealed mines

He had never heard the name of The Puppeteer. He told the companions that the main source of black amethyst was the mines of the Demirkapı; the Demirsakal family worked some mines of iron and ruby, and the others had been sealed about twenty years before, in an operation in which he took part.⁵

The duergar fought them then. Though they usually fled from the dwarves, that time they gave their lives as if more afraid of someone else. He had thought at the time that a drow or human mage might be driving them, but no one believed him. In his view no new amethyst had come out of those mines in twenty years.⁶

He also recalled that when they wrote the runes sealing the mines, the writing seemed to flow and change, and he heard whistling from inside; he had put it down to his muddled head at the time. The companions linked his memory to a traveller who had stabbed himself while whistling.⁷

Bound to stay for the war against the drow, he could not guide them himself. He said that Hermes knew the region, offered to describe the way to the sealed shafts, and warned them of the natural invisibility of the duergar there.⁸

Memories

Deligöz told them that he had once had troubles of the mind, had talked at length with his pony and now took medicine. He remembered a mage he had fought some 140 years before, whose spell struck the mind like a knife without leaving a wound and left the eyes burned black with blood, much like the body the companions described.⁹

He had heard that Gürçekiç had dealings with the chain-bearers, and said he had seen a team of them come to Gazad and vanish like smoke as they passed in the distance; a chain-bearer had saved his own life on Victory Day. Gürçekiç, it was later said, had left with the chain-bearers. Deligöz also said he had entered White City by its north gate with the northerners in the civil war, and that he had once killed a young red dragon with two others; then he repeated that he would pay his debt, and left.¹⁰¹¹¹²

He survived the battle against the drow beneath the mountains.¹³