On a large, flat-topped boulder to the left of the caravan’s path, a crazy svirfneblin in rags is barking, laughing and stringing words together in a weird salad, “Stone and bone, flap flap flap my gorgo. Big mess, faerzress, lizard on a stick, no no no no NO!! NOOOOOOO!!!!” He chuckles which builds into a cackling howl of laughter. The fellow has a small walking stick he waves emphatically around, and seems to be smoking something in a long, ornate tube. “I hate the crazies,” Redford says, “Give him a wide berth,” and Tammuz leads the caravan around to the right away from the fellow, who takes no notice at all of the caravan. In a few minutes, the laughing echoes fade, and the caravan moves quietly through the darkness.
First and second shifts switch every few hours on no set schedule, just whenever Redford feels somebody is being inattentive, with the sharpest eyed ones scouting ahead and behind. A few hours later, Tammuz stops, cocks his head there is something on the breeze, a sound, a breath, something, and with it comes the bright copper smell of blood. He stops the caravan and tells Redford. “Go check it out, quietly,” he replies. Tammuz nods and Crab says, “Let me change into a spider and I can check it out.” Redford and Tammuz nod. Crab becomes a huge, dark, cave spider and crawls up the wall, onto the ceiling and moves ahead as quietly as she can manage.
Crab the spider slinks stealthily along the ceiling, senses stretched. Soon she hears a sound, wind, or breath, something strange a rushing wind that might have words in it. They are impossible to make out. The blood smell grows stronger and the spider stops. A glint of red catches her many eyes. A cloud of red mist with a huge mouth with gaping fangs is crisscrossing the room. She watches in horror as it seems to flow around a stalactite, the rock going through the misty red cloud. Crab slinks back the way she came, and changes back to her usual form. “Red cloud of mist, people sized, with huge six inch fangs in a cloudy mouth, breathing weird, making wind sounds that almost seem like words. Flying back and forth.”
Redford shakes his head, “Never heard of such a thing,” he says and talks to the others. No one has. “Darkness spells,” Edalyx and Baern both nod, “Split into two groups, one of you in each. Half the beasts in each, everybody ties off to a partner and to the nearest beast. When the darkness is cast, Tammuz takes point, his face on the edge of the darkness, and he leads us on a safe path. Stay quiet, stay stealthy.” The two groups are forced, tied together and the darkness spell is cast. The groups sneak past very quietly, with only a few stumbled, none of which are noticed by the flying blood cloud. The smell of blood spooks the lizards, but Conlinparkmin and Crab calm them in hushed tones.
The darkness spells are kept up for the full ten minutes. When they fade, the ropes are undone and stowed away, and normal travel in the underdark resumes. Towards the day’s travel end, the passage narrows to twelve feet wide, and the lizards have to go single file for about six hundred yards. The rough, rocky cavern past this has nothing but crappy camping spots. Conlinparkmin chooses the least crappy and the team beds down.
“UP!!! GET UP!!! UP!!! The first shift scout, the warrior Ectarj runs in, no attempt at stealth, but he cups his hand, sending the sound ahead of him. “Fucking BEHOLDER! UP NOW!!!” Redford jumps up and begins smacking and kicking people awake. It is the seventh hour of sleep, and most are deep asleep. Once awake, they are quiet and go about their business quickly and efficiently. “It is not fast,” Ectarj says and described the floating, leathery globe with a bunch of eyestalks coming out of it. A huge central eye above a larger mouth, “we have maybe ten minutes.” he says when the company is ready to travel. “Darkness spells,” he points to Edalyx and Baern, “Tie off, people. Quick and quiet.” Soon the two groups, tied together by a long rope move out as twin circles of darkness.”Take us as far to the right as you can, Tammuz. Find a safe path for the beasts.”
Darkness spells drop, and Tammuz moves to the front, sticking his hooded face out of the darkness to find the best path. He and the rear scout are the only ones who get a good look at the thing. Tammuz thinks it looks undead, the flesh rotting off it, several eye stalks are cut off and look decaying. The huge central eye is milky white, “It radiates a field out front of the think that blocks all magic,” he tells folks later. Suddenly rays of sickly green force that can’t really be seen graze through the darkness striking several people, a few on each team. Continuing to move quietly the try and get past. A wave of fear rolls past, and a half a dozen succumb to the fear, but thankfully, it passes as soon as it is felt, since none of them can see the thing, and all of them hope they are moving away from it.
The darkness fades and there is no sign of the zombie beholder, only the ever present darkness of the underdark. Close to midway of the day’s travel, a lone figure is spotted by Tammuz. The odd walking drow, is crossing ahead of the caravan, from right to left, heading northwest. The figure seems to be carrying something.
The lone drow, walking stiffly, in a straight line with no grace at all is carrying something, a dog maybe? Tammuz gets a closer look. A brain with legs is held in the drow’s stiff arms. The pair pause and turn to face Tammuz, staring precisely in his direction. “It’s facing me and it stopped,” he callls back softly. Everyone waits in silence a long minutes then turns back to its orginal path, and disappears into the darkness. “Intellect devourer,” Edalyx says, “They can take you over, invade your mind, it is pretty awful.”
“Let’s take a break since our rest was disturbed,” Reford calls out. The beats are housed in a small cave and the group spreads out on the ledge and enjoys an hour rest break, except for the first shift, who have to keep watch.
The darkness gradually lifts as glowing crystals in the rock bathe the cavern in a soft, glue-white light. You can see the cavern is perhaps a mile across. There are all sort of fungus growing here and there, and a small river meanders through from south to north. “Enjoy the light, and keep your eyes peeled. All these mushrooms bring things that feed on them, and the things that feed on those things.” The cavern is more than a mile long and Conlinparkmin finds a nice sheltered shelf to use for camp. The alchemy jug is used, as usual, to add another few ounces of acid to a quart bottle.
Another night’s sleep is interrupted. In the eighth hour watchers report seeing a drider. “A what,” asks Baern? Edalyx answers, “A centaur, but the body is a spider and the torso a drow. Their goddess, Llolth takes powerful drow that disappoint her and turns them into the things.” The scout shudders, “I don’t know if she saw us or not. A female, and the spider part is a black widow from the look of it.” Redford rouses everyone, “We’re moving out. Keep it quiet, something out there with too many legs.”
Two blobs of darkness cover the two halves of the caravan. Tammuz leads the way, his face on the edge of Baern’s spell. They move quietly through the darkness and around the area where the drider was seen. Dropping back to listen, Tammuz hears the sounds of spider legs following. “Not good,” Redford says when informed, “Rear guard keep a close watch behind.” The drider fades in and out of sight and hearing over the next few hours. Then from ahead, he hears low gutteral voices. He recognizes the sound, Quaggoth.
Tammuz disappears into the darkness as he sneaks forward. There are a series of large boulders, twenty feet or more high, and on six of them, a pair of quaggoth with tridents and nets are waiting in ambush. Returning quietly to the caravan, he sketches out what he saw. “As long as nothing else joins them, team three ought to be able to handle it.” Despite this, he sends Conlinparkmin and Edalyx up to the front, behind the company. The first team leaves their hammocks and joins the second team on guard around the caravan. Tammuz leads the company forward, quietly, and points out the boulders where the quaggoth hide.
Spells and crossbow bolts fly; a shaft of moonlight surrounds a boulder, Edalyx sends a flaming sphere at the opposite one, Baern causes ice to fly from one boulder to the next, and the myconid druid causes vines to grow on one, entangling the two quaggoth. The quaggoth plan seems doomed having lost surprise, and none of their weapons can reach the attackers, who move the moonbeam and flaming spear, while crossbow bolts pepper the quaggoth. One by one they fall, poisoned or burnt, until none are left. The corpses are dragged down and stripped; 12 belts, 2 large pouches (food & bandages), 11gp, 12 pots of drow poison 4 doses, 12 tridents, 6 nets, and each has a waterskin.
The caravan comes up, the goods are stored and they move out into the darkness. “I still hear spider toes following,” Tammuz tells Redford. Conlinparkmin breaks down while searching for a camping spot. He expells a cloud of spores and gets a little loopy. Crab takes over and finds a shelf with running water that is drinkable rushing past in a small stream. Waterskins and barrels are filled and camp is made.
“The fuck,” comes a shout as slime tentacles emerge from the stream and try to pull sleepers into the water. “UP!! SLIME! AWAY FROM THE WATER,” Redford calls out as he has to wake the sleepers in the third hour of the watch. It takes an hour to move camp away from water, and settle back in for the night. There are no further in incidents and everyone manages a night’s rest.
Two hours after breaking camp the next day, a gorge blocks the trail, the shortest gap is a dozen feet wide. Redford doesn’t like the idea of lizards jumping it, and turns the caravan towards the left wall. Everyone ties to a partner, and the other end to a lizard. Climbing on their backs, the lizards clamber across the western wall past the gorge. Both Tammuz and Crab fall off but the rope saves them. They are quickly pulled back aboard.
Baern sighs as he spots ruins high up. The caravan master shakes his head, and they are passed by without a word. The passage begins to widen. Two hours later a familiar pinkish-purple glow indicates faerzress crystals ahead. “Careful with your spells,” Redford warns, indicating the faerzress crystals. The cavern widens even more and absolutely huge faerzress crystal dominate the chamber, some more than thirty feet high. The rear guard reports still hearing occasional spider feet following.
Less than an hour into the huge faerzress cavern, three driders attack with longbows. Two crawl across the ceiling, while the third approaches on the ground. Six poisoned arrows fly out, but only two hit, and no one is poisoned, they also explode with a blast of force that can knock a person to the ground. The driders scuttle fifty feet away after firing to stay about two hundred feet from the head of the caravan. They scuttle in to within longbow range, fire and retreat. Bolts from heavy crossbows mostly fall short, although when they driders rush forward for their second attack, Buppido who moved closer and hid, is waiting. He pops up and fires, hitting the left drider on the ceiling. Its muscles lock up as the paralyzing venom takes hold. Buppido disappears into the shadows, at least, he thinks he does.
Crab decides to become the giant centipede again, but unfortunately, the surge of magic causes a faerzress reaction and her skin breaks out in pustules. The form, expand and explode in a spray of acid reaching five feet. The centipede is weird too, legs are wrong, the color is weird, but Crab scuttles forward to attack, but sadly, her new form is not as fast as the driders’. The company drops back to shoot or cast spells, and manage to injure the other two driders with crossbow bolts forcing them to flight. The centipede drops the paralyzed drider from the ceiling and it is quickly dispatched and stripped.
Paralyzed drider: +1 longbow quiver of 22 arrows, 6 are force arrows 2d8 dc12 con save knocked prone d6 force, gold jewelry 1400gp, curved sword, dagger, 3 pots of poison sleep x 5, purple worm venom x 3 12d6 poison damage, 2,000gp value, third poison is not identified.
Rejoining the caravan, Redford dsays, “There’s a lake coming up late tomorrow or the day after. Not as big as the Darklake, but don’t drink from it, don’t put your finger into it, just stay away from it,” he warns.