Tthe caravan master gathers everyone together, and facing the third team, speaks softly, “You handled the drow well, I give you that,” Redford says in the aftermath of the drow ambush. “Your communication sucks.” He holds up his hands and smiles, “Every caravan has this conversation after the first bit of trouble.” While the eight dead drow are stripped, beheaded and the parts dispersed, Redford continues talking, “The first thing to do when you see something is alert me. The walking crew takes defensive positions around the beasts, and the resting crew is wakened.” He gestures around to the faerzress crystals, “Don’t sling spells in the presence of these things. Bad things can happen. Unexpected outcomes always happen.” He tosses a drow head into a crack in the floor on the north side of the passage.
“Your tactics worked, and eight dead drow is seriously good work.” Pausing, his eyes narrow, “I have to ask, are they after you?” Baern shrugs, “I have no idea if they were after the cargo, or for slaves. I don’t recognize any of them.” Nobody sees any familiar signs or sigils.
“Alert me or the senior person not sleeping when you detect something. Let the caravan prepare and then we execute a plan centered on protecting the beasts and cargo. They are the priority.” The lizards each get a dark drow cloaks tied around their necks, and spread over as much of the packs as possible.
“The walking crew should bring the lizards as close to each other as possible, form a perimeter, but do not stop. Keep moving. Traps are generally creatures lying in wait, and you stopping is the signal to attack. Trip wires, pits and such are a problem, but very rare. Worm rumbles come, you stop, no talking. Conlanparkmin will keep the creatures still.”
“So, while I am glad you solved the problem quickly and efficiently, remember this is a caravan and the cargo is the priority. Before you act, inform.” His face breaks into a grin, “so the rest of us can recover your gear when you’re dead.” The caravan moves out once more, the second and third teams switch out, one taking point, the other surrounding the pack lizards. The eight drow cloaks are tied around the necks, “Might do a bit of good, and can’t hurt,” Redford explains, “If it keeps one poisoned bolt out of a lizard’s head, it is worth it.”
Over the next hour, the faerzress crystals taper off until at last they are left behind. An hour after that Tammuz begins to see webs, that look very old. “Are they flammable,” Baern asks, and cutting off a bit, tests it. The webbing, which Crab says is unnatural in some way she cannot define, turns out to be extremely flammable. “Might come in handy, Crab says stuffing webbing into a flask. “We have some sacks,” Baern offers. She fills, three bags with strange webbing, and seeing this, the second crew gathers six more at Redford’s orders. Camp is made a few hours later in the most web free area Conlinparkmin can find. The company is not bothered during the rest period.
The following day, the caravan sets out, the webs slowly growing thicker, and as the cavern opens wider, fresh webs can be seen to the left (west). “Stealth time,” Redford says quietly, “we will swing a little ways east (right) away from the new webbing. “I saw something move overhead,” Tammuz whispers pointing vaguely up and left. “Who is your fastest,” Redford asks? The group looks around, then Crab says, “I can change into something fast,” she says. “Can that something start a fire?” Crab nods and pulls out some old webbing. “Use some oil too,” Baern offers, it will burn longer. Redford adds, “Find a spot where the fire won’t spread. I won’t want to outrun flaming webs.” Nodding Crab takes out a flask of oil, puts it into a sack of webbing, and changing into a giant centipede, grabs the sack in her pinchers, and moves quietly back the way they came.
Crab-ipede pours a line of oil down the path, every few feet placing a small pile of flammable webbing to one side of the other. She waits until she is sure five minutes have passed, then lights the oil trail making a spark with her pincers. The trail of oil burns dimply, the flame moving down to the first pile of webbing. FLASH! It erupts and both Crab-ipede and the caravan set out at the same time. As she scuttles forward, trying to catch up, a cloud of poison gas floats down from the ceiling. She does not see where it came from, but hurries through it, holding her breath and makes it through the cloud without becoming poisoned.
A huge ravine cuts across the cavern from wall to wall. There seems to be a wide rope bridge, but two figures stand, one on either side at this end. Tammuz moves closer, then reports back, “I can’t tell what they are, but they have arms and are holding glaives or something.” Redford nods with his chin, and Tammuz slinks back out into the darkness to investigate closer. The two things, he sees no faces, no eyes, a bump where a head should be. When he reaches a distance of thirty feet from the one on the left, it turns and ‘faces’ him. Tammuz stops, waits, and then inches closer. When he gets within thirty feet of the other one, it too turns and faces him, but neither make any move. Tammuz slowly closes to within striking distance of the glaives and when he inches forward, the weapon is drawn back to strike. The chronomancer retreats.
A huge hairy legs comes over the lip of the ravine, then another, and a huge spider with a goblin in a saddle on its back climbs onto the ledge. “If you wish to cross the bridge,” the goblin says in undercommon, “you can go a long way that way,” he points left, “or a longer way that way,” he points right, “or you can pay to use my fine bridge.” Redford steps up, “Your bridge, is it?” The goblin nods, “Yes, the two guardians,” he gestures and they stand up and cross glaives blocking the entrance, “do my bidding. You can pay, or you can find another way.” He shrugs, “Or you can test the guardians.” Redford nods, “Alright, what’s your toll, then?” The goblin looks at the svirfneblin and smiles, “Eight beasts, that’d be eighty, and another twenty will cover the foot traffic. A hundred in total.” Redford digs into a pouch and pulls out a ruby worth perhaps eighty gold. “That ought to cover it,” Redford says tossing it to the goblin. The green face breaks into a grin. He waves and the two creatures go back to their original positions. “They won’t bother you,” the goblin chuckles.
Conlinparkmin leads the lizards across in between a set of guards on foot. The bridge, made of spider silk and zurkhwood, seems well maintained. The first team crosses the bridge and sets up a defensive stance and then the beasts are led across in single file with the rest of the guards surrounding them. The guardians stand still, and once the caravan crosses, the goblin waves and rides the spider back down into the ravine.
The flames dim, and she turns back to see something putting out the fire. She is not sure what it was, but something seemed to spray down from the ceiling, choking the flames. Returning to the caravan, the centipede talks to Conlinparkmin, “The centipede will scout ahead.” Redford nods, and Crab scuttles away on her many legs. She moves ahead twenty minutes, happy that the strange webbing ends ten minutes in. The way opens again into a larger chamber, and across it, small lights can be seen moving.
They lights and pattern is familiar to Crab. Giant fire beetles. She moves up closer and decides the eastern side of the cavern would be the best way to avoid them. She scuttles back and changes into her usual form. “Giant fire beetles in the next cavern. This webbing ends when we leave this one.” Moving forward, they reach the fire beetle cavern, and arc around to the east. It is time to camp, but no suitable spot can be found close by. It takes another hour before Conlinparkmin finds a perfect camping spot. Fresh water trickles into a small pool where nothing seems to live. There is a high ledge that fits the entire group. Water skins and barrels are filled. A meal is had, and almost as soon as people start falling asleep the alarm is sounded and everyone wakes up to a shout,
“GAS SPORES! THEY EXPLODE, DON’T HIT THEM!!!”
A double dozen or more large floating globes move slowly towards the camp. One explodes into a twenty foot globe of spores that drift down. “Holy shit,” Obie says seeing four of the first team are already down. “WIND,” Conlinparkmin says to Crab and Edalyx. The three begin casting wind spells, blowing the gas spores away. The gas spores move very slowly and seem unable to counter the wind, and they are blown backwards. Buppido walks to the lizards, grabs a drow hand crossbow, and begins firing darts at the furthest away, but only manages to explode one. The caravan settles back down, Redford looks at the four downed guards, Ectarj, Serious, Shit Take and Strikluk.”The spores poison the victim, but it also infects them with a disease,” he says frowning. “We can cure the poison, but I cannot cure the disease. If we don’t they’ll be dead by the end of today.”
Everyone searches their equipment, and tries to think of something that might work. “Ah,” Tammuz says remembering the market and buying a jar of ointment. “This is supposed to remove any poison or disease. I have five doses.” The four are revived and all thank Tammuz when told. “I owe you, we owe you,” Ectarj promises. The first shift starts their watch over again. The gas spores return six hours later, they float very slowly. Conlinparkmin blows them away again with wind gusts.
Not long after setting out the following day, Tammuz hears the sounds of clanking bones, large bones from the sound, coming from up ahead moving closer. He slips back to the caravan and tells Redford. “Slow and quiet,” Tammuz directs them to the left to slink around the approaching sound. Soon a huge minotaur skeleton lumbers into view. It bears a large axe and seems almost twice as tall as Obie. The creature moves past them noisily, never seeing the stealthy caravan hiding there. Once the sound of bones has faded, the caravan moves out again into the darkness.
The ‘morning’ passes, and in the early afternoon, a low rumble begins, builds, and then rocks begin falling. Three members of the second team are hit by stones, but not badly injured, while the others dodge the falling rock and wait out the quake. Shields are raised, and rocks batted away from the pack lizards. After too many long seconds, the rumbling dies away and the rock fall ceases. In the strained quiet the caravan moves out again.
Tammuz spots some ruins to the east, “We are not explorers,” Redford says when informed, “There could be treasure, or we could lose a guard, or more. Not worth it, sorry.” The ruins are passed by and Baern begins making a verbal map mostly landmark descriptions. Conlinparkmin finds another wonderful campsite tucked out of sight in a side passage that dead ends. The rest period passes uneventfully.
Coming into a large cavern, the floor has collapsed or risen up in several place making huge steps that will need to be climbed. Tammuz picks his way up the first step, and sees opaque, light-pink crystals. “Rhodochrosite,” he says after a moment. Tammuz has familiarity with many underdark gemstones. “They’re worth something,” and Redford nods, “That’s fine, but we are not stopping to mine.” Several people break off chunks of crystal while the first person to bring out a hammer gets a harsh “DON’T” from the caravan master. The plateau is crossed in a few minutes, and the group climbs down the opposite side. The way the company ties a rope between pairs is duplicated and when the couple of people slip and fall, it is not far and no one is injured.
Hearing noises, Tammuz waves the party to stillness, and then climbs stealthily up the last few feet and peeks over the edge. A huge, ugly looking creature with a bloated, oval-shaped body around 8 feet wide that stood on three shuffling elephantine legs and has a thick, rock-like hide. They had a pair of long tentacles that were bedecked in rough thorny growths and ended in leaf-shaped pads bearing rows of more sharp spikes. A third tentacle sprouted from the top of the body, forming a vine-like stalk standing some 2 feet high, and ended in a pair of eyes and an olfactory organ. The body of the creature contained a massive fang-filled mouth, shaped like a crude gash through its center. The creature, “An Otyugh,” Tammuz says, is fighting six hook horrors. The hooked creatures surround the huge monster and dash in, long hooks tearing at the thick hide. Despite the many wounds, the huge otyugh does not seem at all slowed. “Slow, that way, let’s stealth around them,” Redford says.
Tammuz leads the group west, around the edge of the step, and the group crosses out of sight of the battle. The sounds are terrible and Conlinparkmin has to sooth the pack beasts. The last step is smaller and easier to navigate, and the broken chamber is left behind. A short time later, Tammuz stops the caravan again. “Looks like a marker or a head on a spike,” he tells the caravan master.
The skull, of a demon or something terrible, sits on a zurkhwood post about eight feet off the ground. The skull is easily twice the size of the largest head in the group, Obie. “There is magic, necromancy and transmutation,” Crab says after using a spell. “Nobody touch it. Let’s take a wide path around it.
A low rumble starts slow and begins building, “WORM! FREEZE!” Redford sends the command out in a stage whisper and the message is passed. Everyone freezes in place. The low rumbling builds slowly until small pebbles are bouncing around and the cavern is filled with sound. The darkness is filled with noise as the sound of huge rocks smashing and crashing echo as the worm emerges from the floor some where up ahead of the group. Tammuz listens, “Moving away from us,” he says quietly pointing.
When the sound of its passage has faded, the caravan moves out, and ten minutes later finds the worm hole in the floor. The worm seems to be on the same path as the caravan, and skirting the hole, they move along its trail until it veers off left and disappears into the wall. The cavern narrows, then widens, and once more, Conlinparkmin proves his worth. “Mushrooms,” he grins, and turns to the east. An opening leads to a dimly lit fungus cavern. A quick moving stream flows across from northeast to southwest, and there is the buzz of small insects. A raised rock shelf proves large enough for the beasts. Water barrels and food stores are restocked. The two druids, Conlinparkmin and Crab takes gathering teams out to collect fungi safe to eat. The beasts are tended to, a meal is prepared and the watches are set. A peaceful night passes without incident.
Just a few hours after setting out the following day Redford stops the caravan as the barking laughter of a crazy person followed by incoherent rambling speech echoes in the cavern, and strange looking little fellow comes into view cursing and wailing at something. The fellow, dressed in rags, appears to have roots growing out of his beard and hair. He’s uses a small walking stick while he talks, occasionally using it to to threaten the air around him.