"I don't mind, but I'm not exactly quiet."
"Better safe than silent," Zomeraand replies. "I, for one, would not fare well in close combat with anything violent or aggressive. However, if you are willing to provide a line of protection, I will be happy to strike down as many foes as I can encompass with my magic."
Zomeraand takes a moment to cast a spell of protection upon himself before they venture down the tunnel.
The long tunnel leading from this room winds for some distance through the bedrock below Sandpoint. Built decades ago by smugglers, the tunnel remains stable and serviceable as it winds lazily northeast. Some 70' from the start it has a side tunnel branching west, that was obviously bricked over at one time but is now open.
”The brickwork here has been recently broken. It seems unlikely that this is a coincidence. Shall we explore this branch of the tunnel?” Zomeraand asks the others.
"That seems sound." Delin admits, "Lest we end up surrounded when we go deeper." Looking to Anton since he was leading the way, she shrugged.
M'ara looks between the broken brick wall to the west and the main tunnel to the North East, suggesting, "I agree, this is probably where the goblins entered..."
She then takes the time to mutters a few arcane syllables, a number of ghostly bird appear around her, fluttering about until the settle upon every part of her body...
Anton nods back to Delin and walks through the hole.
Delin watches M'ara cats her spell and quickly follows suite with a smile. Looking at the tunnel ahead she checks her crossbow is still secure. Rather than draw it though, she pulls her dagger out and steps into line behind Anton.
The dark tunnel goes on and on. You would say it has several decades of existence, and the absence of cobwebs makes you uneasy, as it has been used recently. You imagine you are under the town of Sandpoint and imagine your new friends living their peaceful lives some tens of feet over you, unaware of this place.
As the tunnel continues slowly turning northwards you see an opening on the right side.
You see each other and make hand gestures to decide how to investigate the opening, but before you reach a decision a horrible humanoid creature appears from the entrance.
It looks evil, emaciated and aggressive. A horrible maw fill of teeth opens as it screams at you.
IMAGE
Zomeraand draws his dagger, infuses it with power, and sends it flying at the beast.
"Hup hup!" Anton gets to work on the beastie.
M'ara extends a claw-like hand towards the thing, uttering a gutteral ,"Cha!"
Anton Ionescu's machete cuts an arm right of the creature, that seems not to mind about it.
The Magician Zomeraand's dagger flies past it, missing it.
M'ara's hex just barely fails to affect the creature!
Delin aims to daze the creature if she can, hand shooting up in alarm as she shouts a word in elvish to command it's attention.
The Sinspawn lurches against Anton Ionescu, trying to bite him with his oversized mouth!
Anton Ionescu manages to push the creature away while smelling his fetid breath.
Though the creature doesn't penetrate his armor, he does throw Anton's rhythm off as he swings ineptly.
Zomeraand unleashes his flying dagger at the creature.
M'ara frowns as her hex fails to sway the creatures fortunes, but gets to work, firing her crossbow...
Delin frowns at the situation the group was in, but follows suite after M'ara. She takes a painfully long time aiming as Anton was directly engaged with this horrible thing. Worrying first about hitting the man, and then really seeing the horrific creature she shrinks back. But hearing M'ara's crossbow release Delin stands up to her full height, closes her other eye, and pulls the trigger on her own crossbow.
Anton Ionescu ducks expertly before a sagger and two crossbow bolts pierce the creature in three different places. The creature screams and thrashes around before falling down, dead, but with the claws and fangs still twitching and moving because of unending wrath.
The cave where the creature was (B1) is barren and empty. The creature obviously did not live there. probably it was a kind of guard.
There is another side tunnel a couple of feet ahead.
Zomeraand retrieves his dagger, then pauses to study the creature, going through his best recollections of his various areas of expertise to figure out just what exactly they killed.
"Excellent work, ladies. Sorry for my eff-ups!"
It is disconcerting.
Even if humanoid in form, the creature seems to be some kind of magic construct, or a strange form of summon.
It is not extraplanar, but its not natural in origin.
It deserves a better study, in another place and time.
M'ara smiles, "You gave us the time to act, Anton..."
She looks over Zomeraand's shoulder as he reflects on the creature's nature, "Any idea what it is, Zomeraand?" she asks.
”Definitely not natural, and doesn’t seem to be something from the known Outer Planes,” Zomeraand replies. ”Maybe something magically created or altered by transmutation magic?” he adds, speculatively.
”If we get the opportunity, I’d like to bring it back up with us to study....not now, of course.”
"I've just been fortunate with my shots." Delin remarks as she first reloads her crossbow before peeking past the others at the horrid thing they had slain. The frightening design of it made the toothy goblins they had fought paled in comparison.
"I hope there aren't more of those." she added.
It seems like a magical construct. But you have never heard of anything like it.
Zomeraand resists the temptation to pull out his journal and start sketching the thing.
"Best we keep moving, then," he says. "Clearly there's something down here our patricidal maniac didn't want anyone to see and live to speak of."
Anton peeks out into the next tunnel!
Both the "main" tunnel and the side one continue until the light gives way to the darkness. But on the side tunnel it seems like it reaches a room. A well made room.
"That room seems quite intentional," Zomeraand says. "Perhaps we should investigate?"
Shivi makes a small sound, not particularly enjoying the undergound exploration , and M'ara shushes him gently, "Very intentional, we should not leave any of the side passages unexamined..."
Delin notes the discomfort of M'ara's bird, but oddly smiles. Her own familiar was a barely felt weight on her collar. For all she could feel Ibbit was likely sleeping. She fingers the knot loose on a strand of beads hanging from her garments, then retied it after slipping one free. She replaced her light cantrip, palming the light source in case it would need to be thrown.
The original purpose of this chamber is unclear, but large mounds of rubble lie strewn on its floor. The wall to the west has been torn down to reveal a tunnel leading to the west.
An investigation of the rubble reveals that most of it seems to have consisted of broken urns and other pottery containers that once held food stores, long since crumbled to dust. The pottery seems really ancient.
And probably Thassilonian.
Zomeraand takes a moment to look over the pottery, and see if he can glean any additional information from it.
"Hmm, this pottery is very old...I wonder what this place was, long ago..." M'ara muses, as she advances to check out the door.
The only thing you can discern is that the pottery is almost unbelievable old.
It should be Thassilonian in origin!
M'ara doesn't hear anythihg from the other side of the door.
Gleaning nothing further about the pottery, Zomeraand looks around the room for anything they might have missed.
Nothing else...
Zomeraand looks to the group. "The hallway, or the door?" he asks.
"The door?" Delin suggests, "They might be coming in through the torn down wall, but the door is pre-existing structure. It might prove the safer option."
"Yes, the door , I think..." M'ara says, looking to make sure the others are ready, grabs the door and either pulls or pushes, depending on which way the hinges go...
Zomeraand raises his hands as M'ara tries the door, ready to cast at the first sign of danger.
A small passage, obviously of a different construction, much more older and well made, extends 15' north before turning west.
M'ara looks down the new passageway revealed, "Well, that was certainly exciting...Let us continue" she says, holding the door open for Anton...
The corridor turns north again before hitting the tunnel you were originally in, and branches again.
"Keeping to our plan of not passing unexplored corridors, it would stand to reason that this is the direction we should head next," Zomeraand says, gesturing toward the right-hand corridor.