2023-06-24 Clear the Path to Subterranea
Player Characters
- Furifuru
- Auri
- Essa
- Igneous
- Hyacinth
Summary
The party began in Quinder Hollow. They traveled into the southern entrance to Subterranea, following the dark tunnel deep into the earth. The tunnel was familiar to Hyacinth, who had just exited it recently.
Along the way, the party found a dead dwarf merchant.
While camping for the night, Hyacinth heard the flapping of wings and alerted the party. A flock of bats flew by. Igneous spotted a moving stalactite on the ceiling. Furifuru poked it with mage hand. In response, the stalactite and several others revealed themselves as darkmantles and floated down to attack the party.
The next day, the PCs found a barricade of six stone giants. One of them, named Oskra spoke in common, and told the party they could not pass. The party asked why, and she told of how the "earthsblood" must not reach the surface. The stone giants dreamed of great destruction wreaked across Archestria if it reached the overland. They firmly believed these dreams were prophetic.
The party pointed out that earthsblood may have already reached the surface in other places in the world. The giants were disturbed at the notion.
The giant told about a large group of smallfolk who mined earthsblood not far from there, who never returned and were likely cursed or dead. The PCs convinced her to show them the place where the smallfolk disappeared.
The party followed Oskra and two other stone giants to an out-of-the-way section of caverns. They hiked in, and the giants bid them good luck and waited at the entrance.
The PCs found an empty camp with basic mining equipment and cart tracks. One path continued deeper.
They followed the deeper path. They entered a room that smelled strange due to a gas leak. When Igneous's lantern flame entered the room, it exploded.
Continuing on, the party found a room full of different fungi. Hyacinth was able to identify many of them, as she had lived most of her life in Subterranea.
Essa detected something above with detect thoughts. The party encountered a roper attached to the ceiling, which pulled some of them up to the roof to be bitten. The party killed it along with a few darkmantles.
After a short rest, they walked into a much larger mining camp. Three onyx-eyed zombies meandered about, attacking the party as they approached. After destroying the strong-than-normal zombies, they searched the camp, finding a journal and a key. The camp had one very large machine-operated door and a small locked side door, both leading into the next room. They key opened the side door.
The next room was very large, and contained the main mining area. Around 50 onyx-eyed zombies wandered around the main lower section of the room, and were blocked in by the large door. The side door led to a climbable ledge 10 feet above the main ground. On the far side of the ledge was a large chained mechanism with a missing panel and a rusted lever. The chains were connected to supports upholding the roof of the far end of the room, and the large main door. Among the zombies on the lower level was a metal panel, a watering hole, and some carts with barrels and vials.
Furifuru's hawk familiar scouted the room. A zombie spotted it, and glared it to death.
Essa played her viol and Igneous played his drums from the camp side of the big door. This lured many of the zombies to that area of the room.
Furifuru used the distraction to sneak across the upper ledge of the room. Some zombies heard him and began to chase him, and he fled back to the camp, closing the side door.
The party waited an hour before trying the plan again.
One last zombie was still standing on the upper ledge. Furifuru tricked the zombie into dropping to the lower area using thaumaturgy. He then snuck across the upper ledge again.
Furi pulled the lever, which broke. The metal chains creaked and moved, and the main entry door opened, releasing the zombies. The PCs in the camp fled to the side door, closing themselves into the mine room while the horde passed by and rushed out of the cavern. Igneous sent Silver, his horse, to flee back to the giants with a lantern.
Once the horde left, the party picked off a few stragglers. They collected 30 doses of archestrylene from the carts as well as a cloak of protection.
They lifted the metal panel from the ground and attached it to the big device in the back of the room. Pulling the lever caused a large portion of the room to collapse, which would have crushed the zombies.
They followed the zombie horde to the entrance of the cavern, where they found the three stone giants dead along with a handful of zombies.
Continuing to the main tunnel blockade, they found the remaining giants also slaughtered. Footprints of the zombie horde led deeper into Subterranea. Igneous found Silver hiding nearby.
The next day, the tunnel widened into an enormous atrium. The party saw the green and blue glow of the city of Umethrynn as well as Szindrar Bridge leading to its front gate.
The zombie squad's tracks veered west at the bridge, not approaching the city. Somewhere in the underdark, the horde still wanders...
The party warned the authorities of Umethrynn about the zombies. Essa also warned local scholars about the dangers of consuming archestrylene.
The PCs returned to Quinder Hollow to collect the 800gp reward for unblocking the tunnel.
Documents found
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