When everyone has rested, Yuk Yuk and Spiderbait tell everyone to stock up on supplies, as this is as good as it gets. There are barrelstalk mushrooms that can be tapped for fresh water, and a dozen varieties of edible fungus such as bluecaps, ripplebark and trillimac. Fire lichen can be made into a spicy paste to make food taste better and is fermented into a fiery liquor by the duergar and only grows where there is geothermal heat. Several heat plumes from steam vents are visible in the cavern, and this is where the fire lichen is found growing.
Yuk Yuk leads the way across the immense cavern beneath the pale glowing mushrooms that go one for half an hour before the darkness once again covers everything. Occasionally sending Spiderbait out to check something out or cover tracks. A rumbling in the ground makes him stop. Tammuz holds up a fist and everyone stops and listens. Felt at first but soon the sound of it is everywhere a rumbling, grinding sound that comes at the soles of your feet.
“Worm,” Tammuz says. “Purple worm, Buppido thinks,” the derro adds. “Best to not move,” the drow, Sarith says quietly, “or talk.” The group stands in silence. With a crash of rock and rubble, the purple worm emerges from the earth off to the southeast, and it is headed north, on a path that will intersect the group. They wait, five minutes, ten, and at least the creature burrows back below the ground and disappears from sight. Another five minutes and the rumbling fades back to the endless, oppressive silence of the Underdark.
Crab quizzes the goblins, and the other Underdark locals, about the various kinds of fungus they pass. Spiderbait proves to be quite the expert, and happily points out different mushrooms that are good or bad. Crab takes some of all of them she can. Others follow suit, gathering mushrooms to add to the larder taken from the drow torturer.
The group moves on. Mushroom clusters thin out, and then are gone, leaving only bare rock. Crab checks the spider shoes, which seem to be holding up well. There are two exits and Yuk Yuk chooses the upward sloping worm tunnel, and the group enters, their sacks filled with food, and waterskins filled.
Crab is talking about the mushrooms, mentioning that the barrelstalks are almost as big as trees. “What is a treeze,” Tammuz asks? “You don’t know what a tree is,” Baern asks, clearly taken aback? “Where are you from,” he asks when Tammuz shakes his head. “I am from the distant future of this world. All life is underground. On the surface is heat, and dust,” and after a pause, “and death.” There is a moment of silence while this information bounces around the inside of several skulls. Crab tries to explain what a tree is, and not being able to get the idea across, grows a small bonsai tree in her hand. “This is one type of tree, but others can grow hundreds of feet tall.” Tammuz cocks his head and tries to grasp this concept, and seems to get it. Maybe.
The twelve foot diameter worm tunnel curves and then levels out. “Something up ahead,” Tammuz says stopping a few hours later. He moves closer and sees a ladder leading up to a three foot hole in the tunnel ceiling. “Wait here,” Tammuz whispers and carefully crosses to the ladder, senses straining. The ladder is old, clearly been there for years, but not decades. It seems sound and holds his weight as he cautiously tries it. Climbing up, he stops just below the hole, then carefully pokes his head through. The hole leads to an another worm tunnel, that crosses at an oblique angle. Nothing has been by recently, but it seems maintained.
Climbing back down, he proceeds up the original tunnel. The worm tunnel comes to an end in rougher terrain. A clacking sound comes from ahead and to the right. It gets louder and louder, something large getting closer. A huge beaked creature with arms ending in huge hooks tears by from a side passage, disappearing into a similar crack in the opposite wall. A second follows on the heels of the first. A new sound joins the mix, a hooting, barking noise.
Four large, hyena faced figures, armored, and armed with spears and crossbows, emerge from the right hand passage and dart after the retreating hook horrors. Gnolls. As soon as their barking calls fade a little, the group moves quietly passed the openings and move down the passage. Reaching a U shaped bend, the sounds of the gnolls gets louder. One of them, lifting its head and sniffing, smells something, the group of escapees most likely, but is unable to convince the other three to abandon the hook horror hunt for some unknown scent only he is picking up.
Yuk Yuk directs the company through the maze of passages to a large tunnel running north – south. He points to the right, and Tammuz moves into this larger tunnel, not as smooth a the worm tunnels, sort of tear drop shaped. “They say a mad, dying god made these tunnels,” Yuk Yuk offers, “made all the Underdark as it crawled down lower and lower. Could still be crawling, heh heh!”
The ceiling, forty feet above, slowly becomes covered with spider webs of all sizes. Spiders, some as large as Obie’s hand crawl over head in the darkness. The further down the tunnel the company moves, the thicker the webs overhead, slowly spreading downward until they are twenty feet from the tunnel floor. “Are the spiders watching us,” Obie asks, beginning to hunch over a little to avoid low hanging strands of webbing? Sure enough, every spider, large and small, are all facing the group, watching them. Their bodies turning to keep them in view as the group walks by. “This is creepy as fu-u-u-uck,” Vorkath says, “I don’t like it.” This is the general consensus from everyone, and they retreat back the way they came until Yuk Yuk finds a side tunnel he likes.
A couple of hours later, the goblin leads them into a side tunnel, worm made, and they proceed in a curving arc to the right. Before exhaustion can set it, camp is made in the tunnel. Watches are set, on either side of a people puddle of bodies. The tunnel is quiet during the rest period, and nothing disturbs them.
Setting out the following ‘day’ Tammuz sees something and stops the group. A drow head on a spike in the middle of the tunnel. Moving closer, they examine the area carefully. The neck is still sticky, and there are some foot prints, but no one is quite sure what made them. They are people sized, but no one can say for sure if they are bare foot or shod, or what race might have made them. “Somebody doesn’t like drow,” Jimjar says looking at Sarith. “Most don’t like drow,” the drow replies, “we are not the beloved of the Underdark.” No one has much to say, and they press on.
Making camp in the tunnel again, things are quiet until Baern’s watch. A dripping sound, then the sound of running water, that gradually grows louder and louder. Walking over to investigate, he sees a stream of clear water the size of his pinky hitting the sloping tunnel where a new stream is forming. When he gets closer he sniffs, “Ugh, foul,” his nose wrinkles at the corrupted scent of the water. Over the course of the rest period, the stream becomes a fire hose of water down the tunnel. “Make it hard for things to follow,” Obie says cheerfully. The tunnel widens, becoming a ravine where a familiar, soft pink glow can be faintly seen.
“Faerzrezz crystals,” Crab asks Sarith? The drow nods. The pink glow brightens and the rift opens in a huge crystal cavern, with tall pinkish-purple faerzress crystals some ten feet thick and seventy feet high jutting out at strange angles. Much of the floor is flooded with a curiously bright blue water, ankle deep. Patches of land emerge, and unusual lichen and moss grows near the water. “Eating it would be a mistake,” Sarith advises. Moving from land to land, getting out the strange water as quickly as possible, the find a fallen crystal has made a bridge the company must pass beneath through a large patch of water.
A pseudo-pod swings down as Baern passes beneath. It looks like the crystal itself, but from below you can see there is something clinging to the huge crystal. A crystal ooze misses Baern, and then the creature slowly drips down onto the floor. The thing is slow, and the company passes by before it can attack again. On the other end of the cavern are two exits, and Yuk Yuk cannot seem to make up his mind, and finally asks someone to flip a coin. Heads to the right, and it comes up tails. The group follows the tunnel to the left.
The company moves on, stopping to check for pursuit from time to time. A few hours into the trip, the tunnel stops as a gorge, ten feet at the thinnest part cuts across the tunnel, disappearing into darkness to the right and left. “We have rope, don’t we,” Baern asks? Tammuz nods, and Yuk Yuk takes one end, and ties it around his waist. “Give me a minute,” he says, and then climbs like a spider up the wall, across the ceiling, and down the other side. Her finds a stalactite to tie the rope off, and secures it. The group carefuly crosses, with Vorkath grabbing Sarith as he slips, and the dwarf, Eldeth grabs Prince Derendil when he does likewise. The rope is retrieved, and the company presses on.
The tunnel opens into a large cavern. In the center, the ground slopes downward into a bowl shaped depression. Almost as soon as Yuk Yuk hits the bottom, he begins to cough and choke. “BACK!! He coughs and waves, turning around and moving quickly. “Poisonous gases can fill depressions,” Yuk Yuk coughs in explanation. The company curves around to the right arouns. A third of the way around, the sound of something huge chomping bones can be heard. The company backs up, and moves around the poison gas filled bowl, and continues on, moving away from the sounds.
The cavern goes on an on, rough, sharp rock, and no more fungus. Just the endless dark gray stone, darkness and silence. The best camp they can find is a stalactite ring camp. The jutting rocks might keep out a larger creature. Maybe.
Camp is made later in the cavern which seems to go on forever. His sensitive hearing warns him as a something large drops from the ceiling, gliding down towards the watcher. Tammuz, ducks down, turning and and casting at the incoming cloaker. The spells hits it full on, and poison courses through the creature. Vorkath takes a swing, and cuts into it as it turns to flee, wobbling out of sight into the darkness. All is quiet once more.
An hour after setting out, a stream of fast, clear water cuts across the path, small enough to step over. Everyone stops to fill skins. Yuk Yuk leads the crew into a worm tunnel, and most of the day is spent in the thirteen foot wide tube a worm carved long ago. The sound comes first, a low frequency hum first, adn then the tunnel opens in to a tall cavern filled with flat humming crystals. It is impossible to talk in the cavern, and the group pushes past until cavern becomes long, fifty foot high crack that goes on for miles.
After a short search, a smiling Yuk Yuk gathers the group and leads them to the perfect camping spot, a cave with a winding tunnel entrance, and a crack in the ceiling that is drawing air upwards. “Heh heh, we can even have a fire,” Yuk Yuk says excitedly. For the first time since capture, the company enjoys a cooked meal. Ripplebark really is better roasted, and the paste made from fire lichen is a nice spicy condiment.
A long day’s travel ends with a hot meal around a warm fire.