Benedict sees the huge statue. "The Five-Eyed Matron. We are here."
Ignoring Rovalda for the moment, he pays Kisegar 7,500 gold and takes back the +2 Dwarven Waraxe she had been carrying.
"You have completed your end of the agreement, and here is your pay. You are free to go now. Think carefully what you do next."
He waits to see what Kisegar does before responding to Rovalda.
He could not have kept her in servitude after she had completed her task, but now that she is free she might side with Rovalda in attacking the party... but as Kisegar has seen how powerful the party is in a straight-up fight, Benedict doubts she is that stupid.
William looks on at the group getting ready for trouble if it happens.
Aerel likewise posts up, watching for threats. He does not have any weapons readied.
Kisegar looks disappointed that Benedict reclaims the waraxe, but doesn't say anything. She steps off to the side to stay out of the way of Rovalda, whose patience had clearly reached its limit after being ignored. She glares imperiously at Benedict.
"Droskar's faithful do not appreciate waiting. I have need of your services. I offer gold, if you will do this task for me. Several trox slaves escaped my caravan and fled into those tunnels beyond the lake. Retrieve them for me."
Aerel has a rather stoic expression as he answers,
William tilts his head to the side and says in Minatan "I'm all for not helping the slavers but maybe we should go see if we can help the slaves. No knowing what they ran into. It seems down here everyone is a slaver and unless they are helping the hobs we need to get on with our business."
Aerel nods in agreement to the remarks by Willam and Grum.
Benedict replies noncommittally in Undercommon.
"How many trox slaves? And what will you pay us?"
He tries to hide the fact that he plans to at least betray and possibly kill the slaver.
Rovalda frowns as the party discusses privately in an unfamiliar language. She makes a couple hand gestures to her guards and they come around the huge glossy beetle that is carrying much of their supplies.
"Three trox slaves escaped into those tunnels. I will pay 1,000 gold coins for their return." She then looks past Benedict to the number of dwarven refugees they had previously rescued. "Or, to make things simple, I will pay the same sum to purchase those wretches from you."
Benedict hesitates.
This is a very small offer - is it a test to see how he will react? Would it even be credible if he pretended to accept?
He doesn't know enough about Duergar customs to respond with any confidence.
"I told her no. Let's go."
He begins to lead the group towards the tunnels.
Once we reach the Five-Eyed Matron, cutting west through the secondary tunnels becomes considerably more hazardous, but a small and quiet group should reach Kraggodan’s Furnace in only three days’ travel once we leave the Long Walk.
We know that there are side tunnels near the Five-Eyed Matron, but have no more specific details, so I suppose we should conclude that these are the tunnels we want.
Aerel strides next to Benedict. ”Anything to watch for? Or just standard sneak and peek?”
William keeps an eye on the group they encountered in case they try to start anything as we move off.
Rovalda looks upset at the terse refusal of her offer. She is discouraged from taking further action by Kisegar who recounts some of the Darklands threats the party has handily dealt with.
"You want to go this way, across the lake," the duergar scout tells Benedict, then leads the way along the shores of the still black waters. Once they reach the far side, a yawning crack in the rock promises the beginnings of a wild and unworked cave system. "There you are," Kisegar says, pointing it out. "I'm going to wait out Rovalda here. I'd rather she think I'm traveling further with you lot instead of tempt her into replacing her lost slaves with me," she explains while setting up her camping equipment.
”Or you could just travel with us of your own free will.”
Aerel pauses, wondering why he even said, but having done so, feels he should wait for a response.
"No, I don't think so. You can hide out here until Rovalda passes, but I do not think you should accompany us."
Aerel shrugs and slips forward, doing his best ghost impression.
"No thanks," Kisegar says, and is satisfied that Benedict isn't interested in having her follow along with them.
Aerel leads the way in exploring the wild caverns beyond the fissure. Having been used to the immense halls of the duergar-constructed Long Walk, the Heroes of Phaendar have to reacclimate themselves to cramped and claustrophobic tunnels and tight passageways.
For hours that turn into days of laborious and lightless travel, the heroes have to contend with narrow ledges, switchbacks, sheer climbs, and sudden dropoffs, while evading dank pools of mysterious liquids and slimy tracks left by unfathomable creatures.
The long journey does slowly, inexorably, climb upwards. It's not a straight shot up, however. By the second day, the tunnels begin to get hotter. The smell of sulfur intermittently appears, along with ancient lava tubes and gas vents that indicate the heroes have entered a volcanic network. Haela speaks up with hope in her voice, because the Dwarven stronghold of Kraggodan used the magma chambers of an ancient volcano deep underground to provide heat and power to their industries.
Aerel's scouting takes him into a long and narrow ancient lava tube, that opens into an unusual chamber. Highly reflective crystals protrude from the cavernous walls of this spacious chamber. The interiors of some of the crystal formations glow with a white light that illuminates the entire area. Connecting tunnels in the stone continue to the north and to the south, while a smaller passage slopes down to the northeast.
Benedict begins the day with his silly ritual of obedience to Chaldira Zuzaristan. This annoys Haela, but it blesses Benedict.
While he is waiting for Aerel to report back, he takes a look for any tracks - he isn't sure what a Trox is, but they might have gone this way.
|
Grum happily walked along, stopping while Benedict conducted his ritual. While the choice of deity certainly wouldn’t be his first one, his respected his captain enough to keep such opinions to himself. During that downtime he looked around, trying to figure out the safest path. He wasn’t one who turned his nose up at danger, but there was neither glory, nor fun, in environmental hazards.
”You know.” He said, striking up conversation. ”I was really hoping that Duergar would betray us. Looting her corpse would have been very profitable.”
Aerel pauses at the crossroads, alert for traps and looking for indications where the escaped slaves might have gone.
There have been recent tracks of bipedal creatures occasionally on the same path, though frequently the hard stony ground would give no sign of passage. But the heroes do believe that they are on the same path as the trox slaves.
At the crossroads Aerel sees no obvious creatures or traps in the cavern.
Among the crystal formations, you detect two oozes called carnivorous crystals that you would have missed had you not known about these creatures because they otherwise look like crystalline deposits.
As William looks around he sees something disturbing and calls out "Be careful there are two oozes known as carnivorous crystals over there." He then points them out.
"Aerel, fall back! Let's try to handle them at range if we can."
Haela lacks the requisite skill, but she may activate Tactician for Shake it Off depending on what information Benedict can share.
William recalls that these oozes are resistant to physical damage and fire, and completely immune to electricity or cold. They are, however, vulnerable to sonic damage and they're brittle so they have a special vulnerability to bludgeoning damage.
Aerel will, based on the resistance to non-bludgeoning report, fall back and use his Clustered Shots feat to hammer one of the oozes to hopefully get past the DR.
. +1 longbow +17/+17/+12/+7 with PBS, RS, DA (1d8+12/x3/30' range)
Benedict and Haela move up to take a defensive position, still a good distance away from the oozes. Both use Total Defense, for AC 36 (Benedict) and AC 31 (Haela). Haela also uses a swift action to enter Dwarven Hatred Style.
"Vulnerable to bludgeoning? I like the sound of that. I'll be ready to intercept them when they come."
Amkarang grabs his meteor hammer and keeps it whirling at the ready to strike from a distance to hit them when they get close.
A subsonic hum echoes through the chamber and into the outside hallway, affecting everyone's equilibrium and making it hard to act!
William shakes his head and tries to shake the noise off that he can feel in his bones more than hear.
Benedict holds it together.
Stunned, Haela drops her axe.
On his turn, Aerel retreats to the position shown on the map and holds his fire waiting for someone to identify the offensive crystals from the inanimate ones.
Unsure what else to do at this point, William pulls out a thunderstone and throws it trying to get both creates in it's range.
"Just shoot them, William!"
All but Haela (and maybe Amkarang; he still has to save) throw off the sonorous hum and get ready to do battle with the carnivorous crystals.
"Grum! Where are you going??"
Benedict is clearly frustrated, but advances to keep pace with Grum.
”What am I supposed to be shooting at? All I see are crystals and rocks?”
"That purplish one with the curling tendrils! Thirty feet ahead of me against the right wall!"
Hearing Benedict's directions William fires at the ooze Benedict pointed out so Aerel knows what to fire at.
A barrage of arrows fly past the heroes and the choke point, bouncing off the array of crystals or burying into the crystallized substance when the oozes start moving in response to the humanoids nearby.
One surges and destroys the elemental nearest it, while the other dashes forward to attack Grum when he moves up.