Episode 7: Stumbling in the Dark

General Summary

30th of Harvesttide, 1283 Dyeri Cycle

The heroes continue to try to extract the crystals from the cavern floors and walls. After spending the better part of an hour chipping around the crystals, Andal and Morgoth's attempts fail as they hit the crystal itself. Silva is able to extract a cluster of five crystals. Spending even more time, Silva and Andal chip away at the largest crystal and are able to extract most of the large crystal, but a large crack has appeared on the side. Morgoth takes a better approach and gets a cluster of five crystals. They put the smalls one into the iron chest and the large one is roped to Morgoth's backpack.
Resting for an hour, they decide to continue seeking their way out of the caverns. Andal moves ahead of the rest and scouts the cavern passageway until he can no longer see. Imploring Morgoth forward, they sort of yo-yo until they reach a large cavern with a chasm on their right side. Looking around, a dark leathery creature drops down from the darkness above onto Andal as the darkness seems to swallow up Morgoth's torch. The creature covers his head and starts to squeeze. More leathery wing sounds are heard as another creature drops towards Morgoth, but misses.
Morgoth reacts quickly and slashes in the dark, slicing through something which then makes an odd screaming sound. He also hears a loud shattering sound as the large crystal attached to his backpack falls to the floor. Halton hears the struggle of Andal and reaches out and feels the leathery creature over his head. He pulls a dagger and slashes at it slicing across the creature's skin. Andal wrestles with the creature and is unable to dislodge it. Silva pulls out a dagger and slashes in front of her where she hears the struggle and it hits the creature but doesn't penetrate the hide. The creature on Andal continues to squeeze, but it loses its grip and falls to the ground. The other creature tries to drop on Morgoth, but Morgoth is able to fend it off.
Morgoth continues to slash out blindly with his sword connecting again, severing some tentacles and eliciting another strange scream. Halton moves around Andal and slashes at one of the creatures and misses. Andal slashes with his shortsword and connects causing more damage to the creature. Silva pulls out her gun and fires at the creature. With a loud bang that reverberates through the chamber, Silva's shot goes wide. The darkmantle attempts to reacquire his grip on Andal, but is unable to muster the height necessary to cover him. The other one attempts to escape, but with a blind slash Morgoth hits the creature and it tumbles into the chasm below. Morgoth swings at the movement near him and slashes through the other creature which expires with a gurgling scream.
Continuing through the chamber, they reach the opening on the other side. The cavern tunnel heads down into the darkness until they reach a cavern with a couple of exits and is strangely echoey. The stalactites and stalagmites are shimmery in the light. They look over the stalagmites and find they are covered in an oily substance. Taking out a flask, Silva attempts to scrape some of the oil into it. After a little bit, Silva feels like she is a little bit drunk.
Taking the tunnel to their left, the caves lead upward again. The chambers they pass through are relatively dry, but show features of running water in the past. Further, they see some shiny flecks of gold on the walls. They examine the walls and discover it looks gold. They get a little excited but decide to leave it be for the time being. Eventually, this particular tunnel slowly narrows to a small cleft in the rock. Morgoth spends some time and figures out this must have been carved by an underground river at one point.
Having reached the end of that cavern, they head back to the echoey room and take the other tunnel. The caverns slowly descend again. As they move forward, they start to hear the chittering and squeaking of something ahead. They also start to see the tell-tale signs of bats. Heading into another large cavern with a chasm to their right. Crawling all over the ceiling are hundreds of bats. They slowly move around the edge of the chasm trying not to disturb the bats. Reaching the tunnel on the other side without incident, they continue on into the next chamber.
Entering the next large chamber full of bat guano, some extremely large centipedes scurry forth from the bat scat and attack. Andal fires his bow at one of the centipedes and hits it square on pinning it to the ground. The body slowly stops wriggling. Halton moves forward to one of the centipedes and slashes with his scimitar almost cutting it in half. Morgoth stabs the other one and it is cut in half. Morgoth stomps on both halves for good measure. Silva fires her pistol at the last one and misses as some guano flies up in the air. The lone centipede bites Halton leaving behind a nasty-looking bite on his leg. Andal shoots his bow again pinning the centipede to the floor where it moves no more.
This room has two cavern exits and they decide to follow the cavern that heads down. The cavern heads down pretty steeply over the course of around 60 or so feet and they enter a series of chambers that look like they may have been a long-term camp. They find carbon marks around the cave as if a fire had been used. They find some small straw piles matted with mud and scat which look like they might have been used as beds. They find some piles of refuse near various stalagmites. Morgoth figures out this camp hasn't been in use for at least a few months. Andal finds a pile of matted furs in a side chamber which vaguely reminds him of the goblin sitting in furs at the first ruined garrison. This leads them to believe this might have been a goblin encampment.
Heading deeper into these chambers, they come upon what was probably a latrine for the camp inhabitants. The tunnel continues to go downward and eventually reaches a chasm where there was once a bridge. On the other side, there is a faint purple glow. Our heroes decided against trying to cross and instead head back to the cavern where they fought the centipedes and head down the other tunnel.
The cavern formations give way to lots of fallen rock as they notice a light from ahead. Picking their way through the rocks, they see a chamber with some lynx kittens and their mother. The lynx growls at the party but doesn't move towards them. Andal and Silva head toward the cave entrance. Halton also heads out of the cave, but warns Morgoth against trying to disturb the animal. Morgoth tries to calm the lynx mother, but the cat hisses at him and the growling goes up a notch. He then moves towards the cave entrance. The lynx follows them and continues to growl and hiss as they exit the cavern and reach the outside once more.
Halton recognizes where they have exited. He mentions climbing down from the cliff they were on and they can get back to the place where they originally entered the ruins. The group climbs down the side and heads over around where the garrison was. Looking up they can see the entire side of the mountain has come been brought down to cover it once more. They find an out-of-the-way place to camp. Silva continues to improve her map of the area and includes the cave entrance. Morgoth scouts around the area and finds the spot where Darvan and his crew climbed down from the cliff above. He is able to determine they had definitely left.
The group takes watches during the night. During Silva's watch, she hears something but can't find its location. After a moment Halton, who clearly wasn't asleep, points her to two glowing eyes, clearly the lynx is watching them. The eyes move around the perimeter of the camp. After about 15 minutes Halton shouts scat and the creatures heads out into the night.

31st of Harvesttide, 1283 Dyeri Cycle

The group wakes to clearing skies. While Halton makes some breakfast, Silva infuses her items. Halton tells them they will easily make Raventhorp before nightfall, but that he will leave them before Raventhorp so he can check on some of his own things. They head out and follow the path they had taken before. As they reach the outer farms of Raventhorp, Halton bids his farewells, letting them know if they need anything to get ahold of him through Brunner at the Wagon Inn. Morgoth gives him 20gp and a hearty handshake, and Halton heads off towards the north.
They discuss their options for going back to Tanylvar and decide to spend the night in Raventhorp. Entering the Wagon Inn, Brunner greets them warmly. He gives them the same rooms. They put their stuff in their rooms and then head to the common room for a drink. Brunner calls for Marla to bring out some cheeses, the "good" ones not the ones with the stuff on them. Marla comes out and brings them cheese. She is middle-aged (similar to Brunner). She has a scarf over her grey-streaked dark hair and is voluptuous and is carrying cheeses. She sets the platter on their table and then heads back into the kitchen. Andal noticed as she set down the platter that she had a tattoo of interlocking chain links on her wrists. Andal realizes this is the debtor tattoo, but it is hard to tell if it is a completed debt or not given the amount of the tattoo that was seen.
Andal asks around about people who've come through and Brunner mentions a guy with six other hoodlums who had come through this morning. He mentions they complained about the accommodations before heading on. They also overhear a farmer telling another about some of his goats getting attacked and eaten by some wild animal while others were completely missing. His companion mentions missing some chickens. Otherwise, the normal chatter is about harvesting and complaints about the baron's harvest tithes. When they speak of this, they look over at a guy who is clearly the farming overseer. Andal approaches the two farmers and asks about the area their farms are in. After a little bit of distrust, they eventually mention they are on the western, southwestern side of town. He realizes that direction is close to where they first went, but maybe there is another ruin to the south. Andal starts to think maybe this is the work of goblins.
They spend the rest of the night at the Wagon Inn.

32nd of Harvesttide, 1283 Dyeri Cycle

In the morning, Silva adds a repeating shot to her pistol and makes a homunculus that looks like a clockwork bird. They head back down and Brunner thanks them for their stay and they continue on to Tanylvar. The roads are somewhat busy with farmers going back and forth to market but find no trouble.
Getting into Tanylvar, they want to go see jewelers but remember that an alchemist is going to pay more for the crystals. Heading to Dios' potions, they discover it is closed and so instead head to Castor's. (GM's NOTE: I was off by a day with my calendar calculation and so thought all stores were closed during the session. This was not the case, so just having it to Dios was closed).
Reaching Castor's they notice it is being watched by a couple of suspicious people who are lounging next to a building playing some kind of game. They continue on into Castor's and enter his workshop. They find Castor working with that saber from the previous place. He has pulled the pommel apart and is examining it with some kind of magnifying glasses. He looks up at them and starts peppering them with questions. They give him a bolter, the goggles, 10 cold spheres, 6 multicolor spheres, 6 electric spheres, and 5 ink-black spheres. Morgoth asks about how much the dwarven money might be worth and Castor suggests they seek out a moneylender or a silversmith. Castor pays them another 50gp each and buys one of the hyacintho crystal clusters for 500gp. He then offers to keep them on retainer for 25gp per week.
While this transaction is going on, the door opens and a man with dark hair and a bushy beard walks in with a kind of friar look and says, "is this the place where they are searching for dwarven ruins?"

Rewards Granted

2 hyacintho crystal clusters (5 crystals per cluster)
1 large hyacintho crystal cluster broken into multiple pieces
1 small flask of strange oil-like liquid
Castor gives each of them 50gp.
Castor buys a set of the crystals for 500gp
They are put on retainer to Castor for 25gp per week

Character(s) interacted with

Brunner - innkeeper of the Wagon Inn
Marla - cook at the Wagon Inn

Notes

Morgoth uses 3 torches
They pay Halton 20gp
They each pay 1sp for a room at the Wagon Inn.
Silva applies repeating shot to her pistol and creates a homunculus.
Morgoth gives Castor a bolter, 10 cold spheres, 6 multicolor, 6 electric
Andal gives up the goggles and the 5 ink-black spheres
Clockwork creature is called Fitzler