Zdena is proud that Jayness has proven steady enough to have been put forward as one of the people in charge of camp security, and makes sure to let him know that before leaving again.
When they reach the cave entrance, she eyes it dubiously, especially after Ryll points out the screaming mushrooms.
So, two questions. First, we camp out here or push on hour or two? Second, want me to scout ahead first, or all go in? I think camp now and scout, but push on together is not stupid plan.
As the brave adventurers settle themselves into pressing into the Trog's camp, Zdena sees the clouds over head shifting, and a slight breeze carries on it the scent of the ocean. You are sensing a spring Monsoon, best as you can make out, you have no less than 48 hours before this unseasonal storm breaks over the forest. Traditionally, these happen maybe once a decade, and are bad .
Zdena gazes at the sky and wrinkles her nose. After a moment, she adds, Very bad storm soon. Maybe not safe to *leave* cave if take too long. Hope they can shelter okay at cabin.
Quietly creeping forward without light, the party enters the tunnels squeezing by each other, and with hands on shoulders to the ones who can see in the dark. Everyone quickly consumes their Antitoxins before creeping into the darkness, draws weapons carefully, and heads forward. Moving as quietly as possible the party advances, when suddenly Pharus, weighed down by his newly acquired armor bumps into Kinig, who stubs her toe and lets out a quiet (ish) oath under her breath. Suddenly, Zdena in the lead stops, and several reptilian hisses can be heard ahead in the darkness....
A cylindrical mass of roots hangs from the exact center of this room. The roots have been braided together to form a cradle holding a giant violet crystal as big as a human head. Sparkling veins of crystal line the walls.
Four troglodytes stand guard in this chamber, three of them raise an inflated bladder to throw it at you… While the fourth makes to break deeper into the caves
Entering the chamber you must make a fortitude save DC 13 or be sickened for 10 rounds….
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Zdena makes a face at the smell, but the Antitoxin does its job.
A distinct odor, but I don't know what the big deal was.
Sighere, do you have an animal messenger to send warning of this storm back to camp?
Damn that stinks, and they've seen us. Get ready with a light
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For a moment Ryll looks like she's about to be sick, but after a few shallow breaths seems to master her queasy stomach.
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I could, but that would be a pretty potent spell to use before heading in
whew, that's bad, but I've smelled worse
Sighere tosses a light spell into the room and now everyone can see:
A cylindrical mass of roots hangs from the exact center of this room. The roots have been braided together to form a cradle holding a giant violet crystal as big as a human head. Sparkling veins of crystal line the walls.
Four troglodytes stand guard in this chamber, three of them raise an inflated bladder to throw it at you… While the fourth makes to break deeper into the caves
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Ryll moves forward along the wall, and raises her crossbow to shoot a frost bolt at the Red Troglodyte.
Confirm Crit:
Ryll's frosty crossbow takes the reddish troglodyte high in the chest, ice wrapping around its reptilian torso as it gasps for breath and drops to the ground, unconscious. The greenish trog moves ahead, holding a bladder high, throwing it at Zdena, but the half-orc sways out of the way easily from the clumsy attack. The bladder bursts and a noxious cloud emerges from it, although with the wild throw it doesn't directly impact anyone. Pharus wordlessly cries out, charging ahead to attack the trog and lands a mighty blow from his primitive sword with a massive overhand chop.
Back me up!
Premek hops off Ryll's shoulder and darts into the room, right out in the open, and invokes a blast of brilliant colors at blue and yellow. (DC 15 Will)
Zdena straightens up and glares at the trog.
You missed.
She takes two quick steps forward and makes a short, brutal thrust at its belly.
Malgrim moves deeper into the room to back Premek up. Reaching the shadowless cat they incant a spell and slam their hand down on their drum. Gathering the silent beat in their hand they thrust it at the Trogs before them and it explodes into shards of piercing sound.
Premek darts into the room, followed quickly by Malgrim. The Troglodyte with the green markings swipes a claw out at Malgrim, but misses them wildly. Zdena follows that up momentarily with a low thrust, dispatching the foe in the front of the room.
Premek's color spray washes over the remaining two Trogs, followed immediately by Malgrim's crystallized sound. Between the two sets of magical effects the Trogs are rendered unconscious, although Taidal puts an arrow into one for good measure.
Pharus stalks forward, terbutje raised high overhead, before bringing it down on one trog, followed immediately by the other Trog, ending what potential resistance was in this 'foyer'. Looking around the room, Kinig remarks, there are several samples of quartz which could be successfully mined from the walls here, it would take maybe an hour of hard work; but definitely value here. Seeing the large amethyst, Kinig lets out a low whistle, That thing is worth more than my shop in Phaendar... somewhat in awe of the value of such a large specimen.
Treasure:
4 clubs
8 javelins
3 stench gas bladders
Large, slightly flawed amethyst
Two passages lead down from this room, one to the east and one to the south, which do you choose?
Quartz huh. Ok not taking the hour to mine it now, but maybe on the way out. Kining would you help me get the amethyst out? That shouldn't take long.
Once the large crystal and the Trogs weapons are stored in Malgrim's haversack they look around the room at the two tunnels.
I can't see any difference between them... That one maybe?
Malgrim moves toward the eastern passage
Ryll retrieves her frost bolt from the Trog's corpse, then looks over the Amethyst.
Not sure what your shop was worth, Kinig, but I'd say 650 gold in a fair market for that beauty. Wonder what they were using it for?
She makes her way over to the two passages, frowning. Can't see much a of a difference m'self, Storyteller. Anyone else?
Ryll rummages through her pouch, pulling out pen, parchment, and a piece of chalk. She glances around and makes a few notes and crude drawings on a bit of parchment.
Best to keep track of where we're going, and make a few discrete marks so we don't get completely lost in this rabbit's warren.
We want to keep moving fast before they realize we're here. That one's good.
Premek moves towards the eastern passage with Malgrim.
At this point can we just leave the light on?
Pretty stinky rabbits, Zdena notes.
Where we even gonna sell all these shiny rocks we keep finding? Pretty, but can't eat 'em.
Zdena takes her point position by Malgrim at the eastern passage, peering ahead into the dark tunnel.
I can create a new light whenever, this one will last about 30 minutes. It's easy enough to pocket it if we need dark.
Consensus reached, Pharus takes out the ioun Torch to illuminate the center of the party, shedding quality light for everyone. Malgrim and Zdena lead the way into the eastern chamber...
A dark, rippling pool covers much of this sloping cavern. Water drips from stalactites above and tumbles from fissures in the rock wall. An underwater garden of colorful algae and white fish fills the pool.
Barely visible at the bottom of the pool are the bodies of three troglodytes, and a halfling dressed in robes.
Malgrim peers down into the waters
Seems odd that the troglodytes would leave their dead down there. On the other hand if troglodytes can breath underwater this would be an excellent trap for a standard group of adventurers.
Or it could be bodies of a different tribe of troglodytes, and we just can't tell the difference
If they are dead, we should keep moving while we have the advantage of surprise. We can investigate in depth later. So just make sure they're really dead.
Good call
Malgrim casts Deathwatch and looks at the bodies in the water.
Sighere notices a small sparkle in the water, about ten feet down, something golden in make-up. At the same time, he and Ryll spot two man-sized crustaceans dropping from the ceiling to the north, their large claws held before them as they menace the party...
Bold may act!
Ryll's eyes widen. Well. Those are certainly horrifying. With that, she slots a frost bolt into her crossbow and takes a shot at the blue-tinged crustacean.
Ryll's crossbow bolt slams home into the blue-shelled creature causing significant damage to the carapace. The Reddish one fires a line of webbing at Zdena, but with Sighere's spiritual blessing in place, she evades it entirely. Ryll, however, isn't as lucky, and finds herself ensnared by the sticky filaments, and being dragged toward the creature!
Pharus surges forward, his instincts causing him to react quickly, as he closes on the reddish creature and delivers a nasty downward chop into its carapace...
Premek uses Kinig as cover to hide, then darts over behind Zdena.
Then he sprays acid at blue.
Zdena scowls at Pharus's back; why'd he have to step right into her line of attack?
But seeing the other cave fisher snare Ryll, she circles around to the left to try to stop it.
Seeing Ryll snared by the crab-like monster Malgrim thrusts out a hand and incants briefly.
Striding forward Malgrim draws their rapier thrusting it into the red tinged monster as the they stand shoulder to shoulder with Pharus.
Premek darts between members of the assault team, spraying acid at the creature, and rendering its carapace and form non-functional all at once. Zdena loops around the combat, setting Malgrim up for a more advantageous strike while cracking the shell of the reddish one like a perfectly-cooked crab. Ryll is still entangles in the sticky mess, but with no foes surrounding the party or any immediate threats, the collective group is able to free her from the messy predicament. Looking at the cave fishers, you are able to assume that the dead kobolds in the water, and perhaps the other humanoid(s) there are a result of the predations of the crustacean-like creatures. Lirosa also points out what Sighere saw, There is something gold down there, I don't know if it is worth swimming down to it now? she asks the party.
My vote is the path directly to the south. Based on the tunnels we've seen so far, that keeps us to one side. The other would put us in a place where potentially things could come at us from multiple directions (depending how the caves interconnect).
Come back for loot later...
People first, loot later Ryll rasps, as she attempts to retrieve her frost bolt from the gooey mess. Though to be fair, we may end up leaving here at a run.
Zdena nods. South, then.
Agreed, we're here to save people. Treasure can wait.
Malgrim joins the party ready to move south.
The stench of death and old blood overwhelms the smell of troglodyte in this chamber. The floor slopes down to the north wall where a narrow underground stream flows past. The sound of running water echoes off the low ceiling, and a burning torch near the stream sends rippling light patterns dancing off the wall. Racks against the walls hold the carcasses of forest creatures, some still draining their life’s blood on the ground, others mere skins left to dry. The only exit from this room is to the south again following the curve of the cavern wall.
Premek, Zdena, and Ryll can all see a submerged giant monitor lizard in the water. While it doesn't seem immediately hostile, venturing too close to its ambush spot may aggravate it into attacking...
Quickly examining the remains, none of the carcasses are humanoid in origin, all being either large lizards, deer, rabbits, or wild oxen.
This room contains numerous butchered animals, worth about 10 PP in total.
Stay to the right, people in the back keep an eye on the lizard, and continue through? Or do we want to bait the monitor lizard out and deal with it so we don't have it behind us?
I don't think we have any way to attack it effectively while it's underwater.
Re: Sighere's idea. Hmm. There's a decent chance we could convince it to fight for us. The spell won't do that alone, but we're good with animals...
Zdena wrinkles her nose at the smell. Sure, it's food, but... ew.
Monitor lizard is poison. And pretty fast and angry, for lizard. Don't want it behind me, and don't want to be out of antitoxin when tries to bite me.
She considers Premek's suggestion. Don't really want it first in room if room has captured villagers. And it probably *likes* the trogs, looks like they're feeding it. Think we gotta bait it out.
Premek shrugs. Killing it is just as easy. He moves up a bit, trying to find an inconspicuous spot to hide himself behind in case the lizard emerges.
Poisonous, i'd rather not risk it biting the wrong person then. Better to deal with it now.
Malgrim moves into the room and gets their short bow ready.
Everyone set?