Mountains of Freedom



The Mountains of Freedom are a range located on the northern shoreline of Serpent Isle's Isle of Beyond.

Description
At the time of the Avatar's travels on Serpent Isle, the Mountains of Freedom were a complex magical dungeon designed to imprison condemned Moonshadian criminals. Prior to being outfitted to contain prisoners, the mountains had been the site of a mine. Around the time that the original veins of ore it had been established to extract were near depletion, it was discovered that the magical mineral known as stoneheart could be found within its depths. Given the dangerous nature of this substance, which could be used to manufacture the deadly reagent blood spawn, the mines were closed.

Later, however, the MageLord Filbercio saw within the abandoned complex of tunnels an opportunity to lay low his enemies and solidify his power. He ordered that the former mines be furnished with a multitude of magical traps and enchantments and established it as a prison for those found to transgress against Moonshade's strictures. The dungeon's name "Freedom" spoke to its ostensible function as a trial by ordeal, as any who could win their way through its depths and return to the surface world would win pardon for their transgressions. Until the Avatar's arrival on Serpent Isle, however, none were able to accomplish this, and many mages observed that the prison oft served as means of disposing of those who ran afoul of Filbercio on a personal level, as very little crime of a particularly egregious nature occurred in Moonshadian society.

The Avatar found themselves condemned to the Mountains of Freedom following their discovery within the bedchambers of the ice sorceress Frigidazzi, who being Filbercio's paramour, was subject to his jealous possessiveness. Within the dungeon, the hero found an ally in the thief Stefano and the two of them made their way through both the traps and pitfalls installed by Moonshade's rulers and through the strange domains of Teldrono and Lorthondo, two magicians who had come to Freedom voluntarily in search of stoneheart. To defeat the latter of these two magicians, it became necessary for the Avatar to release the daemon Arcadion from the pact which bound it to the hero's black sword, and following Lorthondo's rather spectacular demise, the two prisoners became the first to escape from the Mountains of Freedom and win their liberty.

Inhabitants

 * Moonshadian automatons serving as guards and provisioners
 * Stefano: a Moonshadian thief who joins forces with the Avatar
 * Teldrono: a magician who came to Freedom in search of stoneheart
 * Lorthondo: another magician, with a more extensive domain than Teldrono, who also willingly entered the dungeon to perform dark magical experiments
 * Buggs: a supposedly ferocious magical rabbit
 * Sabrina: one of the many strange individuals in Lorthondo's domain; fatally seeks out the company of a nightmare
 * an unnamed ranger grieving over his slain beloved
 * an old man charged by Lorthondo with overseeing his holdings

Solution

 * For a solution to this dungeon, see the applicable portion of the Dungeon Solution for Ultima VII/2.