Journey to the Shallows of Toril
Played on November 3, 2012
Eleint 19, 1479, Year of the Ageless One (three days before the Autumn Equinox)
“We’ve been traveling for hours Tink,” Kursk said. “Are you sure we’re going the right way?”
“According to my calculations, we have been traveling in a north by northwest direction,” Tink said as she looked down at a small round device she held in the palm of her hand. The compass—one of the many tools she valued—was a gift given to her as a young child by her uncle. She was always fond of wandering off, so for a present he gave her a compass he had purchased while visiting Waterdeep. Now, as she turned to it for guidance in the shallows of the Underdark, she quietly thanked her uncle for the precious gift. “There has been an insignificant fluctuation to the degree of our ascent or descent in the Shallows so far.”
“Plain Common please,” Kursk said.
“She said we’re not getting any deeper like you think we are.” Quinn translated.
“Either way, I hope we reach our destination soon,” Skamus, the tiefling weapon master, said as he pointed his enchanted halberd at Tink’s lighted headpiece. “I worry that we may run out of light down here. And I don’t care to find myself stumbling around in the dark.”
“Or food for that matter,” Quinn, the half-elven wizard from Silverymoon, said. He clutched his stomach and winced in pain. “I’m afraid the mushrooms we found this morning did not agree with me.”
“Did you run out of rations?” Kursk asked stopping to walk alongside Quinn.
“No,” Quinn responded. “It’s simply that I am not fond of the bland taste of trail rations.”
“Eh,” Kursk said. He reached into his adventurer’s pack, took out a piece of dried meat, and took a bite. “You get used to it after a while.”
“I doubt I ever will.” Quinn said giving half-orc a look of disgust.
For hours the four walked in silence. Besides the occasional insect scurrying underfoot, there seemed to very little life in the area known as the Shallows or by some as the Upperdark. They traveled through narrow tunnels and explored several bat-infested cave complexes they happened upon.
On occasion, Tink had the group stop so she closely examine cave fungal growths like mold and toadstools similar to the ones Quinn ate earlier. In some areas, they came upon green lichens that coated cave columns or covered entire walls in crusted shrouds. Wherever they stopped, Tink would take out her journal and writing implements. She would then draw and record, in detail, her observations while Kursk, Skamus, and Quinn stood watch nearby.
After the group had traveled for what felt like an entire day, they crawled through a very narrow tunnel and emerged in a small cavern. A single column of rock dominated the cavern’s center, it’s height reaching to a stalactite-filled ceiling nearly thirty feet above. They also noticed a wide ledge halfway up. A passage, large enough for a man to fit through, disappeared from view just beyond the ledge. Besides the narrow tunnel they crawled through, a wide tunnel at the other side of the cavern afforded the only exit or entrance.
“What do you make of it, Tink?” Quinn asked looking up at the ledge above.
“I am not certain,” Tink replied. “But it may provide us with a safe place to rest.”
“I’m for that,” Kursk said as he leaned against a nearby wall. “I feel like we’ve been walking for hours.”
“We have,” Tink said matter-of-factly. “Nine hours and forty-five minutes to be precise.”
“But we didn’t even travel that far from the farmhouse. Shouldn’t we be under Bear’s Head by now?”
Tink took her staff to the ground and began drawing lines on the dirt floor. “People tend to think of the Underdark as being made of tunnels that travel in straight paths. Unfortunately, that’s far from the truth. Just as we did today, we had to travel for miles just to get to this point. In some areas we passed through, we had to climb our way up or down, depending on the area’s geological formation.”
“So how far did we get?”
“Based on my calculations, we traveled less than six miles in all. Five point six to be precise.”
“That’s discouraging.”
“Perhaps. But I believe that we are closer to Bear’s Head now. We should reach our destination within the next few miles.”
“While you two continue to wonder how far we’ve gone, I’ll climb up to that ledge and see if that’s a tunnel or a smaller cave up there.” Skamus offered pointing to the ledge above.
“Sounds like a good idea,” Quinn said.
The three watched as Skamus carefully climbed his way to the ledge above. Handholds and solid footholds made the climb easier than they anticipated. Within moments, Skamus was on the ledge. After pulling himself up the ledge, he took out his weapon and sunrod. He then carefully made his way into the opening before him.
A long minute passed before Skamus reappeared back out on the ledge.
“C’mon up,” Skamus told the others below him. “There’s a tunnel that goes in for several feet. It opens into a small cave. By the looks of it, it may have served as a den or a lair of some kind but it’s empty now.”
In time, the entire group made their way up to the cave and settled themselves in for the night. Bedrolls were laid out, although no one dared start a campfire inside a cave in the Underdark. Tink suggested that instead, they place a sunrod on the cave floor and surround it with rocks found nearby. The rocks would help cover the otherwise incredibly bright light a sunrod gave off.
For food, they settled on dry rations brought from Bear’s Head. They also shared and finished off the remaining sourdough bread Kira baked especially for Tink.
“It is amazing how good bread can taste when—” Tink began to say.
“Shh,” Skamus interrupted. He quickly threw his bedroll on top of the sunrod plunging the cave in complete darkness. For several breaths the group sat in silence and did not move.
Then they heard sounds come from somewhere outside the cave’s entrance.
All four looked and saw a dim bluish glow bathe the cavern outside.
Carefully and as quietly as possible, they got down on the cave floor and crawled their way to the edge of the ledge. Below, they saw two dark-skinned dwarves and three small humanoids looking around. Each of the small humanoids carried a short wooden pole. Glowing rocks inside nets tied to the tip of each pole gave off light bright enough to illuminate a portion of the cavern. Fortunately for the four adventurers, the dim light did not reach the ledge they were on.
For a few minutes, they watched in disbelief as the dwarves and humanoids below placed their gear on the cave floor. The two dwarves then sat by themselves a short distance from the three humanoids who were busy fighting over a piece of raw meat. The poles with the glowing rocks were forced into cracks found along the walls and served as makeshift torches.
The four adventurers all looked at one another.
By the looks of it, it was clear that the dwarves and humanoids had just made camp.
Skamus motioned for the others to quietly make their way back inside the cave. Once inside, they carefully felt around for their weapons then gathered together. Kursk uncovered enough of the sunrod to elluminate only a few feet of the cave.
“What are those things?” Quinn whispered. “I’ve never seen the likes of them before.”
“I haven’t either,” Skamus said. “But I think the dwarves are known as Duergars. The other three are Goblins, I think. I’ve heard some talk from Jarred back in Bear’s Head about how he and the others ran into duergars in Berdusk. His description of them seems similar to the ones out there.”
“So what do we do?” Kursk asked.
“Good question,” Tink said.
Plot type
Chapter
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