Session 4: The Cave Report
General Summary
The adventurers make their way back to the camp after buying some supplies in Greenest and using their new horse and cart to travel faster.
Before setting out, Renwick of Three Rivers took some time to meditate alone in a nearby copse, swearing his Paladin Oath to the Ancients of nature.
Halfway through, they encounter an Owlbear feasting on a recent kill, but decide to leave it be and continue on.
Abandoned Camp
The Heroes find the camp to be mostly abandoned, only a party of four hunters left behind. The hunters didn't seem to care much for the Heroes, or the Cultists, but
Zedrick Brightforge had them promise to bring their food to the nearby town of Greenest in order to atone for their crimes in aiding the Cultists.
Most of the tents were gone, or burned down, and nothing but trash remained amidsts the debris.
The cave seemed unguarded too... So they approached.
A Cave of Danger
As soon as the party stepped inside, two
Dragonclaws pounced upon them but the heroes quickly dispatched them without alerting the rest of the cave. Carefully, they proceeded until they reached two paths: one leading down some stairs to an area full of mushrooms, and another down a tunnel.
Myrna Stoutheart made use of
Nimira Reef 's quarterstaff, combined with a mirror, to spy if there was any danger ahead. She spotted a room full of cultists either sleeping or relaxing and chatting, as well a mostly empty room. After much discussion, whether to prevent the cultists from ambushing them or creating a cave-in, they decided to tread onwards the other way.
However... A false step lead to the stairs turning into a sleek ramp and causing the party to tumble down straight into the middle of the fungi. And four of these fungi were not like the others.
The sense of death and decay, as well as skulls of past victims, surrounded these violet violent fungi. Tentacles sprouted, lashing at the heroes with rotting slime!
Eventually, the heroes started to get the upper hand but it was a costly encounter... Luckily, they had the healing potions the Governor of Greenest rewarded them.
In the next room, they find the ceiling is covered in black. A myriad of bats, but also some strange red-pink-ish creatures amidst them. While the party tried to be stealthy, the sound of their armour as well a the crunching of dried bat bones under boots alerted the swarm. Panic. There was a cacophany of screeching flying rodents, and that also alerted the
stirges hidden amongst them. Wild flailing and fireballs managed to stave off some of the stirges that latched on to various body parts to try to suck blood from our adventurers. It seemed it was harder to hit the fast creatures than it was to actually kill them, but eventually the blood-sucking mosquito-bat hybrids are no more, and the party manages to escape the room-...
More Traps
...Only for Nimira to fall into a spike trap. Luckily, she cast a spell on pure reflex to slow down her fall and managed to avoid damage that way. The rest of the party was set upon by
kobolds led by a
winged kobold. The area seemed like a dimly lit animal pen, or training area. Below, a few
guard drakes were kept penned in, unable to reach up to where the adventurers were fighting. Nimira was helped out of the pit, and the kobolds fought fiercely. However, they were weakened after their leader was killed, and one was pushed down into the guard drake pit. The angry, hungry beasts feasted upon the kobold, and the remaining two kobolds attempted to escape to the other room. As they disappear into the corridor, there's a rumble and a series of rocks collapsed from the ceilling upon one of the kobolds, the other may or may not have escaped...
A Brief Respite
Drained of spells, the heroes take the opportunity to take a risky short rest before figuring out how to proceed...
