Episode 10: The Mine

General Summary

34th of Harvesttide, 1283 Dyeri Cycle

Following Callam to the mine entrance, the adventurers reach the entrance as a couple of miners come out coughing. Callam asks one of them what is going on and they tell him the connecting tunnel they were trying to create collapsed. Callam seems upset and tells them to help out anyone there. Artemis looks around for a place to hide and sees there are about fifteen people within the walls and there is a warehouse, an office, and an area where they load and unload carts. Callam sees the group and suggests they talk in his office.
They head to the main office of the mine. As they cross the yard, they notice a bunch of empty carts, the lack of miners, and the lack of teamsters and overseers. They reach the office and Callam gestures for them to enter. They file into the small office and Callam enters last. He sits down at the lone desk in the room and posits that it is quite interesting that Andal would show up after the mine is having problems. Andal mentions they have been making excursions out this direction looking into reports of cattle being slaughtered and that since he was out there he would check in with him. Callam asks about what exactly he is looking for, goblins maybe? Andal continues with the story. Andal then asks about the problems.
Callam looks them over before telling them what is going on. He tells them four days ago there was an explosion which collapsed a portion of the main tunnel. He is sure it was done on purpose and feels it might be a rival mining company. Regardless of who did it, they need to get into the mine as there are miners trapped in it. He pulls out a map and gestures at it as he tells them they have been making some emergency tunnels from two older side tunnels. One of which it seems just collapsed. He tells them he thinks they are a couple of hours away from getting through but will have to slow down given the other tunnel collapsed. On top of all of that, they haven't heard anything from the miners that are trapped inside for the past two days. Callam asks if the adventurers might be able to help out.
Artemis suggests that he could mix up some chemicals to try to blast out a portion of the tunnel, or he could mix up some industrial-strength acid. Callam also wants them to find evidence of sabotage. Silva recalls making small holes and blasting those with gunpowder while Artemis suggests dissolving a hole to get some more air in. Callam heads out and gets some men to escort them through the mine. While Callam is out, the group discusses how they can profit from this situation. Artemis starts looking over the place when Callam returns.
Callam hands them the map of the mine and the guards (Ignio and Henryk) take them to the mine entrance. As they head over, Artemis pulls out a jar of salve and applies it to his clothing, stiffening it. They head down the main tunnel of the mine which is thirty feet wide with a track down the middle. Silva and Artemis look over the beams holding up the tunnel and realize it would take a bit of force to cause a collapse. They pass a junction with two other tunnels. One tunnel is quite dusty and they can hear talking from it. The other tunnel is relatively clear and they can hear the sounds of mining. Looking straight ahead they can just make out the debris from a collapse.
They continue straight and after about fifty feet they reach the collapsed portion of the tunnel. There are clear signs of people having moved some of the debris (probably from their initial attempt at getting through that Callam mentioned). Artemis finds some evidence of scorch marks on some of the debris indicating an explosion or fire of some sort. Artemis and Silva talk about it and figure that it would take a decent amount of black powder to cause the collapse they are seeing implying it would have take at least three or more people to make it happen. If it was magic, it would have required a lot of magical power to do this.
The guards ask if they can help. Andal asks them if any shipment of blasting materials came in recently. They mention at this point it is purely mining equipment being used at this point and not explosives. The other guard mentions they have just been hiring more miners to extract from the tunnels "down below." Artemis asks about the down below and Ignio starts to talk about it, but the other guy stops him. After a bit of persuasion, the guards talk about a second level sixty feet below accessed via an elevator. Artemis looks around the tunnel for potential places he could blast through but finds nothing in this area.
As they head to where the current mining is going on, Andal asks about the new hires. Ignio mentions a certain amount of people lost over time and so they normally hire to replace them, but recently they have been hiring an extra amount to excavate a rich vein in the lower level. Ignio mentions some concern about the speed of the mining and safety issues, but otherwise, he hasn't seen anything out of the ordinary. They reach where the second tunnel is being carved out and see two men, two dwarves, and a halfling are mining a small tunnel. They are mining in such a way that the halfling carves out a small tunnel first which is enlarged by the dwarves and then further enlarged by the humans.
Artemis starts looking for a place to create a hole to get them through the fastest. He crawls into the hole and assesses the situation before setting up to make some acid in a larger section of the tunnel. He asks Silva if she has some way of pressurizing the acid. While they talk about that and set up the equipment, they hear some people enter the main tunnel and continue to the collapsed spot and the beginnings of what they can only believe are the miners trying to clear the collapse again. Silva thinks about it for a bit and realizes the bolter might be able to be loaded with the acid pellets and with a little bit of engineering she might be able to fire the acid Artemis is making with the bolter. She pulls out a bolter and starts modifying it for the plan. She gets an acid pellet and loads it into the bolter.
Artemis asks Sealgair to watch the tunnels while they get this working just to make sure they aren't trying to collapse the tunnel behind them. She heads down the tunnel and takes a look while Artemis makes the acid. Sealgair reaches the end of the tunnel and looks down the main tunnel seeing several people are trying to remove the debris in the main tunnel. As she watches a minecart with timber goes by towards the area where they are removing debris. Artemis completes his acid and takes it over to Silva. She takes the tube from him and they head to the end of the tunnel where the dwarves are digging. Artemis asks the dwarves where to put the acid in the tunnel, but they have no real clue on how to use the acid. They point to a crack further back in the tunnel as the only possible weak point. Silva puts the tube in the bolter and goes to the end of the tunnel telling the halfling who is excavating to leave the tunnel. The halfling seems confused by the guard tells him to take a break and get some water.
Silva fires the bolter. She feels the bolter shudder in her hand and a large globule of acids comes out of the end as the barrel seems to explode, splintering it. The acid globule streaks down the tunnel with greenish energy surrounding it. The globule hits the end of the tunnel and explodes. Silva watches as part of the tunnel seems to vaporize and then a minute later more of it dissolves revealing a dark hole in the tunnel. Silva crawls forward and looks through the foot-wide hole. Beyond that hole looks dark to Silva's darkvision implying they have punched through to the other side of the wall. Silva lets them all know about the breach and the halfling gets to work widening the hole so they can get through.
Artemis puts some phosphorescent oil on a rock and they throw it into the next chamber. This allows them to see wooden timber and the elevator in the center of the chamber. He shouts out "everyone all right in there" which echoes in the chamber, but there is no response. It takes the halfling about thirty minutes to widen the hole. They hear him gasp and then shout, "get in here, quick, quick, quick." Morgoth crawls through the tunnel into the chamber about thirty feet high and fifty feet across. There is wooden scaffolding with an elevator inside it. He also sees the halfling has run over to a body which is one of maybe a dozen bodies. He seems to be checking for a pulse. Artemis crawls through next. He notices the bodies are posed as if they fell while they were running.
The rest follow in behind while Artemis checks the nearest body. The miner is clearly dead and the lower half of his left leg is missing. Where his calf connected to the knee it is dissolved and a bloody mess. Morgoth notices a similar thing on another corpse, but in this case, half of his face looks like it has been melted by acid. Over the course of the next thirty minutes, they figure out that about twenty of the miners came up from the elevator and they all seem to have part of their body dissolved as if by acid, but not of any sort that Artemis has encountered. Artemis asks the dwarves to keep widening the hole as they continue to investigate the mine.
Artemis asks the miners if they know of any strange creatures, but they haven't been below and don't know of any off-hand. Morgoth looks around for tracks. Most of the tracks are from the running miners. However, he discovers an odd track that looks like forearms crawling along the floor, but only forearms, no feet or hands. Andal suggests looking around the mine to see if there is anyone alive. As they start to look through the mine, the pattern of the bodies seems to imply they were running from the elevator in all directions with most of the bodies within about twenty feet of the elevator. Their investigation paints a picture of whatever killed them started at the elevator, then attacked those running down the western mine tunnel, followed by those running down the southern mine tunnel, and then finished with those that were attempting to dig through the collapsed main tunnel. Nothing about this seems to make any sense to Artemis. Although something about tickles at Andal's memory, but he is not sure what it could be as it isn't a slime, a snake, or a beast of some sort, but maybe it is an aberrant monster of some sort which would imply it is not of this world.
Artemis asks the halfling how the elevator works. The halfling, Gordon, gives a quick discussion on how the elevator is counter-balanced by some rocks. The rocks are at the end of the rope which dangles down a shaft to the bottom level. Artemis seems confused by how the elevator was up here and whether whatever killed the miners is still up here with them. Gordon agrees and tells them good luck as he disappears back into the tunnel.
They head down the southern tunnel after Artemis puts the phosphorescent oil on his club. The tunnel is about fifteen feet wide with a railway. About thirty feet down the tunnel, they find the bodies of three miners. Reaching the end of the railway, they find a minecart with mined ore still in it implying that whatever happened, happened quickly and without warning. The tunnel opens up into a small chamber about thirty feet in diameter with many small shafts branching off from it in different directions. They find dropped equipment and some piles of ore in the chamber.
Andal looks around the chamber and notices a minecart that is flipped over with its wheels up in the air. He tips it a bit, but while it moves, he can't seem to flip it back over. Morgoth helps him out while Artemis trains a crossbow at it just in case. They lean it up and something small skitters out from underneath it and starts running down the tunnel. Artemis realizes it is a halfling girl and reaches out and catches her as she runs past. She seems to be relieved to see people. It's very clear she seems a bit dehydrated, thin, and tired. Sealgair asks why she is hiding there and the girl says, "you didn't see the creature?" in a timid voice. Andal responds with nope we just got in here. She becomes a bit hysterical and keeps telling them they have to get out of there. The group escorts her back to the newly made entrance.
They crawl through the hole and back into the other tunnels. They head outside the mine and Ignio hustles off to let people know about a survivor. Andal mentions to the dwarves they should keep an eye out as there might still be something in there. Everyone heads out of the mine and the group takes the halfling girl to the mining office where Ignio is speaking with Callam. He points at them as they approach. He looks at the girl with a puzzled expression for a moment before saying "you are one of those five people I hired several days ago aren't you?" He then asks her to tell them what she saw.
The halfling girl, Arabel, tells them four days ago there was an explosion and the main tunnel collapsed. For the next two days, she and the rest of the miners just waited it out in the mines while the tunnel was being cleared. However, two days ago a strange light was seen from the elevator shaft. A strange creature with glowing eyes came out of the mining shaft and started hunting down the miners, attacking them, and dissolving portions of their bodies. It had multiple eyes and multiple mouths and was amorphous in shape. It slithered around and drug itself around. It had tentacles. It seems what she is describing just doesn't make sense or could be real. She ran down the tunnel and covered herself with the mine cart where she has been for the last couple of days. Artemis comforts her, sort of, and ponders this new information. It doesn't sound like any creature they know, but mostly because it sounds like multiple creatures rolled into one. Sealgair thinks based on the mouths and the eyes that is an aberration from the depths of the demon planes, but the acid doesn't make sense. The glowing just compounds the strangeness.
Andal and Silva are not convinced by the story. Something about it is off. Andal asks about anything else happening, but she says she was stuck underneath the cart for two days. Artemis asks how she got under it and she mentions maybe adrenaline helped her get it up. Artemis asks her how it got through the elevator and she says she doesn't really know, but it could change its shape by making itself thin and tall. Callam has been watching this discussion the whole time and asks where are the people she was hired with as one of them was her brother. She looks down and mentions he died and she isn't sure where the other ones went. Artemis asks if he died to the creature and she says yes and Silva is pretty sure she is lying about that. Asked again about her brother dying she clearly saw him die.
Eventually, she starts crying and spills that she was part of a group sabotaging the mine to drive up iron prices to get more money and that her brother was crushed by the cave-in. Sealgair asks who hired her. Arabel mentions the tall guy. Callam mentions the name Tedri and she nods. Artemis asks about Tedri and Callam mentions hiring five people, two halflings and three humans. The only reason he remembered them was that Tedri had an interesting scar down the side of his face and he walked with a slight limp so it was odd he wanted to be a miner given the limp. They kept up with the quota so there was no reason to suspect anything.
Silva asks about what the other guys were really after and Arabel mentions those three people went down the elevator and were not seen since. Asked about the creature again, she insists it came up two days ago. She starts to cry some more. Silva suggests they head down to the lower level and look for those other people. Artemis suggests taking Arabel and she declines to come with them. Callam says they will throw her in the lockup since she is the only lead they currently have. Callam also believes Tedri is probably from the Iron Hammer mining company. Arabel insists she doesn't know anything else and that Tedri approached them at the mining camp outside Tanylvar and they agreed to do it because they needed the money. She mentions they wouldn't let them run away after setting the explosives. Her brother died because he broke loose and tried to get through the main tunnel and it exploded while he was running through. Artemis tells her the humans did this to make sure there were no witnesses. Callam motions to Ignio and he takes the halfling out of the office and to another building across the way.
Callam mentions they are not equipped to handle strange creatures up here. Artemis asks if there has ever been any trouble and Callam says this is the first, but they had broken into a large chasm about two weeks ago and maybe it is something from there. He also suggests maybe Tedri and his compatriots released it. Callam offers them 100gp to resolve this issue. The group decides to help out and asks about the layout of the lower mine. Callam pulls out a hand-drawn map of the lower mines and shows it to them. He points out the chasm which is crudely drawn in the map. He also doesn't know much about the chasm other than there is water flowing below, but that is all. He is also not sure where those three would have gone in the mines.
The group heads back into the mines and crawls through the makeshift tunnel back to the elevator chamber. Getting on the elevator, they are lowered to the next level. The elevator is lowered about seventy feet before reaching the bottom level. They discuss for a bit which way to go for a while before deciding to head down the south mining tunnel. Morgoth follows the mining track followed by the rest of the group. They pass a minecart full of ore as well the tell-tale signs of digging along the tunnel. The buttressing is a little less precise as if they were trying to create the tunnel quickly. Andal continues to scan for that strange trail with no luck.
They reach a shaft that leads to the west where some timber can be seen as well as mining equipment and piles of rock and ore. This very typical of a mine, but some of the equipment was clearly just dropped in place. A little further on the track ends, but the tunnel continues south passing some more timbers which are used to shore up the tunnel before noticing a strange-looking creature with eyes and mouths and tentacles that starts slithering towards them away from what looks to be the bodies of three humans.
Artemis continues forward until he can see the creature. He pulls out a special bolt and fires it with his crossbow. The bolt turns into flame as it streaks towards the target. It strikes the creature, but only a glancing blow. He quickly applies some oil to his club and it seems to harden up a bit as he backs away a bit. Silva pulls out her pistol and fires it at the creature as she approaches it. A deafening roar echoes through the shafts causing some dirt to fall from the ceiling as the bullet sinks deeply into the creature but doesn't seem to come out the other side and a strange blackish ichor spurts out and the floor sizzles where it strikes. Sealgair drags an arrow across her palm and then fires it at the creature. The arrow bites into it and dissolves in the black ichor. Morgoth seems to be frightened of the creature and doesn't want to get any closer to it. He shakes mightily as he aims with his bow and the arrow skitters off down the tunnel. The creature slides forward on its tendrils, reaching Morgoth two tendrils streak out trying to hit him, but they miss wildly as some of the timbers throw it off balance. Andal gets a good glimpse of the creature and it frightens him. He shakes as he loads his bolter with fire pellets.
Artemis finally gets a really good look at the creature and takes a step back before steeling his resolve. He drops his crossbow and pulls out his shield as he screams in rage. He swings with his club and hits the creature slamming part of it to the ground and briefly splits it apart. The ichor from the creature splashes on him causing part of his leg to sizzle. Silva fires with her pistol and the bullet misses as the creature bobs and weaves between the different attackers. Her clockwork bird attacks the creature and zaps it. Sealgair hesitates as she gets a good view of the creature and she loses some of her resolve. She curses at the creature which steadies her slightly as she pulls out an arrow and drags it across her other palm. She fires the arrow which hits the creature and disappears in its form. Sealgair moves back as Morgoth continues to shake from fear. His slash with his long sword misses the creature which attacks both Morgoth and Artemis which both miss as they both slam against Morgoth's shield. Andal steels his resolve and fires the bolter at the creature. A gout of flame erupts from the barrel and strikes the creature a glancing blow.
Artemis continues to move around the creature and attacks it from behind with his club. The club slams the creature and more ichor splashes onto his leg causing it to sizzle. Silva fires her pistol another time and the bullet again goes wide as the roar echoes through the tunnels. Her clockwork creature attempts to zap the creature, but it dodges to the side. Sealgair knocks an arrow and fires at the creature and it hits the creature passing through the center of the creature. The eyes and mouths all glow with an orangish color and the entire creature collapses into a pool of acid with a single small scintillating sphere in the center which slowly dissolves away.
Andal says, what the hell is this thing. Artemis takes some of the acid from the pool and puts it into a tube. Artemis asks Sealgair how she did that with an arrow. They head over to the bodies on the floor and find two men and a woman. The woman has a partially dissolved arm and one of the men's face is partially dissolved. The last man is the man with the scar and he looks relatively untouched. As Andal goes to check the man with the scar, the man kicks out with his foot at Andal and jumps up...

Character(s) interacted with

Callam - Andal's brother and manager of the Silver Ore Consortium iron mine
Ignio - mine guard
Gordon - halfling miner
Arabel - halfling miner, saboteur
Tedri - conspirator with Arabel
Chaos Beast - strange multi-eye, multi-mouth, amorphous creature made up of acid

Notes

They use an acid pellet in the bolter to shoot out the super-strong acid.
The bolter they used to do this has a destroyed barrel and several cracked crystals inside it.
Silva feels she can tinker with the weapon to make a fireball version of the bolter.
Silva fires three bullets.
Sealgair fires three arrows (lost to acid)